Source.—Statutes of the Realm, 2 Henry IV., c. xv.

Item, Whereas it is shewed to our Sovereign Lord the King on behalf of the Prelates and Clergy of his realm of England in this present Parliament, That although the Catholic Faith builded upon Christ and by his Apostles and the Holy Church sufficiently determined, declared and approved, hath hitherto by good and holy and most Noble Progenitors of our Sovereign Lord the King... [been] most devoutly observed, and the Church of England most laudably endowed and in her Rights and Liberties sustained.... Yet divers false and perverse People of a certain New Sect of the Faith ... do perversely preach and teach these days, openly and privily, divers new Doctrines, and wicked, heretical and erroneous Opinions contrary to the same faith.... They make unlawful Conventicles and Confederacies, they hold and exercise Schools, they make and write Books, they do wickedly instruct and inform People, and, as much as they may, incite and stir them to Sedition and Insurrection, and maketh great Strife and Division among the people, and other Enormities horrible to be heard daily do perpetrate and commit, in subversion of the said Catholic Faith and Doctrine of the Holy Church.

Then follow clauses forbidding the Lollards to preach without license, or to hold Schools for teaching the new doctrines, and a clause punishing by fine and imprisonment all offenders who abjure their heresy; finally:—

If any Person within the said Realm and Dominions, upon the said wicked Preachings, Doctrines, Opinions, Schools and heretical and erroneous Information ... be before the Diocesan, and do refuse duly to abjure, or by the Diocesan of the same place or his commission, after the abjuration made by the same person, fall into relapse so that according to the Holy Canons he ought to be left to the secular Court, whereupon credence shall be given to the Diocesan of the same place, or to his Commissionaries in this behalf; then the Sheriff of the County of the same place, and Mayor and Sheriffs or Sheriff, or Mayor and Bailiffs of the City, Town and Borough of the same County shall be personally present in preferring of such sentences; and they, the same persons and every one of them, after such a sentence promulgate, shall receive them, and before the People in an high place do them to be burnt; that such punishment may strike in fear to the minds of others, whereby no such wicked doctrines and heretical and erroneous opinions ... against the Catholic Faith, Christian Law and Determination of Holy Church, which God forbid, be sustained or in any wise suffered.