John Badby
John Badby († 1410 ), an early martyr of the Lollards , was a tailor or blacksmith of the western Midlands . He was condemned by the Worcester Diocesan Court for refusing to recognize transubstantiation .
Badby stubbornly insisted that Christ did not distribute his body at the sacrament with his disciples and that "if every host blessed at the altar is the body of the Lord, there are 20,000 gods in England" . Another court in St. Pauls , London , presided over by Archbishop Thomas Arundel , sentenced him to burn at the stake in Smithfield, the tournament area outside the city walls. Allegedly, the Prince of Wales , who later became King Henry V , attended the execution and offered the convict both his life and a pension in case the latter recanted his claims. However, Walsingham writes: “The abandoned heretic refused the prince's offer and preferred cremation to the life-saving sacrament. It so happened that the malevolent fellow burned to ashes and perished miserably in his sin ” .
Web links
- Badby, John (d.1410). In: Encyclopædia Britannica, 1911. Online by Wikisource
- Peter McNiven, Badby, John (d.1410) , Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 , as viewed November 20, 2011
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Badby, John |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | English martyr |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 14th Century |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1410 |