1511 - Lollards burned for heresy

In this year Archbishop William Warham burned 5 Lollards for heresy. 

Lollards, or the Lollard movement, can be viewed as a precursor to the ideas of the Reformation. The name ‘Lollard’, taken from the Latin for ‘to mumble’ was attributed to them as a way to poke fun at the way they fervently read scripture. 

The movement was initially led by John Wycliffe, who was responsible for producing one of the first translations of the bible into English (or Middle English at the time he was writing) and was dismissed from the University of Oxford in the late fourteenth centuries for his beliefs. 

The Lollards had similar arguments to what would arise from the Reformation. For example, they didn’t believe in transubstantiation, the belief that during a mass the bread and wine is turned into the literal body and blood of Christ via a miracle performed by the priest. Lollards, and later, Protestestants, believed that this act was merely symbolic. They also took issue with indulgences - being able to buy ‘vouchers’ for a reduced sentence in purgatory -  which was something Martin Luther would also argue against. 

Lollardy was less problematic during the reign of Henry VII, but from around 1510 more cases seem to have had to be dealt with by the bishops. In 1510 in particular, Archbishop WIlliam Warham, rounded up a group of 41 Lollards from Kent. The majority of these abjured, but the five who maintained their beliefs were burned for heresy. 

While it's often assumed that burning for heresy would be to cleanse the soul, in fact this was to ensure that no items from the body could be taken to use as religious relics.