{{Short description|Where Lollards were burned at the stake for heresy, Norwich, England}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Coordinates|52.63180|1.30961|display=title}} thumb|A plaque at Lollards Pit '''Lollards Pit''' ({{Ordnance Survey coordinates|TG 2406 0892}}),<ref>{{Cite web |title=Former execution site, Lollards Pit |url=https://www.heritage.norfolk.gov.uk/record-details?MNF26322 |access-date=24 December 2025 |website=Norfolk Heritage Explorer}}</ref> located just outside the old boundary of the English city of Norwich, England,<ref name=":1">{{Citation |last=Mcclendon |first=Muriel C. |title=Women, Religious Dissent, and Urban Authority in Early Reformation Norwich |date=2008 |work=Violence, Politics, and Gender in Early Modern England |pages=125–146 |editor-last=Ward |editor-first=Joseph P. |url=http://link.springer.com/10.1057/9780230617018_6 |access-date=2025-12-22 |place=New York |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan US |language=en |doi=10.1057/9780230617018_6 |isbn=978-1-349-37623-0|url-access=subscription }}</ref> was the place where Lollards, and later a number of Marian martyrs, were burned at the stake for heresy. The condemned would be led across Bishop Bridge—and thus outside of the nearby old city boundary—to be executed.<ref name="62: Lollards Pit" /><ref name=":1" />
== Executions == Ian Lolworth was said to be the first to be executed at the site.<ref name="62: Lollards Pit">{{cite news |title=62: Lollards Pit, Norwich |url=https://www.edp24.co.uk/norfolk-life-2-1786/norfolk-history/62-lollards-pit-norwich-1-214172/ |work=Eastern Daily Press |issue=April 14, 2010 |publisher=Archant Community Media |date=2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170913021245/https://www.edp24.co.uk/norfolk-life-2-1786/norfolk-history/62-lollards-pit-norwich-1-214172/ |archive-date=13 September 2017 |language=en}}</ref> As a result of a heresy trial that took place during Thomas Bilney's last preaching tour in Norfolk, Bilney was burned at Lollards Pit on 19 August 1531.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Donnelly |first=Colin M. |date=2023-01-02 |title=“Wherfore Amend Your Lyves Yff Yowe Wyll be Savyd”: The Soteriology of Thomas Bilney |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13574175.2023.2187934 |journal=Reformation |language=en |volume=28 |issue=1 |pages=63–79 |doi=10.1080/13574175.2023.2187934 |issn=1357-4175}}</ref> [[File:Above,_the_martyrs_Cicely_Ormes_and_Margaret_Thurston_are_bu_Wellcome_V0041629.jpg|thumb|upright|An engraving in Foxe's Book of Martyrs depicting Cicely Ormes's execution at Lollards Pit (bottom)]] The only two Norwich residents to be victims of the Marian persecution – Elizabeth Cooper and Cicely Ormes – were burned at Lollards Pit.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Houlbrooke |first=Ralph |title=Medieval Norwich |last2=McClendon |first2=Muriel C |date=2004 |publisher=Hambledon and London |isbn=978-1-85285-449-2 |editor-last=Rawcliffe |editor-first=Carole |location=London |pages=265 |chapter=The Reformation |editor-last2=Wilson |editor-first2=R. G.}}</ref> In July 1557, two Protestants who had been accused of heresy were burned at the stake at Lollards Pit. These were Simon Miller of King's Lynn, who had arrived in Norwich and asked "where he might go to have the communion," indicating a desire to attend a Protestant service, and Cooper, a resident of Norwich who had publicly rescinded her recantation of Protestantism in St Andrew's Church.<ref name=":1" /> At this execution Ormes declared her support for Cooper and Miller, shouting that "she would pledge them of the same cup they drank on."<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=McClendon |first=Muriel C. |date=2020-03-01 |title=Women, the Courts, and Urban Government in Early Reformation Norwich |url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1353/emw.2020.0034 |journal=Early Modern Women|language=en |volume=14 |issue=2 |pages=79–100 |doi=10.1353/emw.2020.0034 |issn=1933-0065|url-access=subscription }}</ref> This led to her arrest at Lollards Pit by former city official and Catholic religious conservative John Corbet from Sprowston,<ref name=":1" /> and Ormes' eventual execution in front of about 200 people in late September 1558.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":0" />
==References== {{reflist}}
Category:Execution sites in England Category:History of Norwich Category:Lollardy