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Burning Wyclif

Sometimes you have to raise the body up to burn it down. So it was with Wyclif, who rested forty-two years under chancel stone condemned by the Papacy, protected by the Crown. Finally, a bishop came with a few men, spades, shovels, a horse and cart. By then, not much was left of Wyclif — hair and skin gone, his bones slipped out of place inside the simple alb they’d buried him in. The bishop gathered what he could. Beside the River Swift, he lit a pile of wood and tossed the bones on one at a time, cursing the heretic from limb to limb. Afterwards, they shoveled ash into the water and no one even thought the word martyr.

  • Format
  • hardcover
  • Pages
  • 96
  • Language
  • english
  • ISBN
  • 9780896725768
  • Genres
  • poetry
  • Release date
  • 2006