Joan Boughton
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Joan Boughton (c. 1410s – 28 April 1494) was an English Lollard and martyr.
Boughton was a widow of 80 years or more (fourscore years of age or more) who held views associated with the pre-Luther English church reformer John Wycliffe. She was described as "an old cankered heretic, weak-minded for age."[1] She was said to be the mother of a woman named married to Sir John Young, also suspected of following Wycliffe. Boughton would not recant her beliefs and was burnt at the stake as a heretic at Smithfield, London on 28 April 1494.[2][3] Boughton was supposedly "in such reverence for her virtues, that, during the night after her martyrdom, her ashes were collected" so that they could be preserved and kept as a relic.[4]
In English historian and martyrologist John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments, Boughton is the first recorded female Christian martyr.[5] She also is thought to be the oldest person ever executed in London.[6]
In popular culture
In Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall trilogy of historical novels, Thomas Cromwell witnesses her execution as a boy. Cromwell helps the Lollards who gather remains of Boughton after the execution crowd has departed.[7][8]
References
- ↑ "1494: Joan Boughton, "old cankered heretic"". Executed Today. 28 April 2019. Retrieved 9 April 2025.
- ↑ Thrupp, Sylvia L. (1989). The Merchant Class of Medieval London, 1300-1500. University of Michigan Press. p. 182. ISBN 978-0-472-06072-6.
- ↑ Thomson, John A. F.; Small, Graeme (14 April 2023). Piety and Politics in Britain, 14th–15th Centuries: The Essays of John A.F. Thomson. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-000-94915-5.
- ↑ Timperley, Charles Henry (1839). A Dictionary of Printers and Printing: With the Progress of Literature; Ancient and Modern. H. Johnson. p. 7.
- ↑ Haisell, Simon (7 March 2024). "The memory burns the body". Footnotes and Tangents. Retrieved 9 April 2025.
- ↑ Brown, Matt (9 March 2023). "London's Public Executions: How Many Were Killed? Where? And For What Crimes?". Londonist. Retrieved 9 April 2025.
- ↑ Mantel, Hilary (2020). The Mirror and the Light. London: 4th Estate. pp. 556–60. ISBN 978-0-00-748099-9.
- ↑ Burrow, Colin (7 March 2020). "Charm with Menaces". London Review of Books. Vol. 42, no. 6. ISSN 0260-9592. Retrieved 10 April 2025.
Sources
- "Boughton, Joan" . Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.