6 October
'If God spare my life, 'ere many years pass, I will cause a boy that driveth the plough shall know more of the Scriptures than thou dost.' So spoke William Tyndale, who was burned at the stake for heresy on this day in 1536, to a priest whose ignorance of the bible was typical of many clerics of the time.
The early 16th-century church establishment, which opposed all translations of the bible, hated him for it. Tyndale’s bibles were pronounced heretical in England, and Cuthbert Tunstall, the Bishop of London, had piles of them heaped up and burnt outside St Paul’s cathedral.
In 1536 Tyndale himself was burnt at the stake. But the ploughboy could now read the bible in his own language – and the power of the priesthood would never be the same again.
Red Pepper in print
Get the latest issue of the magazine
Feminist futures: Red Pepper’s feminist special issue: ● Our bodies, our choice ● Is the future xenofeminist? ● Women and the new unions ● Feminists on the anti-fascist frontline ● Plus: Left politics and the generational divide ● Decolonising museums ● Book reviews ● and much more
And you choose how much to pay for your subscription...
Workers unite online
They're logging on to combat lagging labour laws, costly court proceedings, and outsourcing management, writes Gaia Caramazza
Review – Finding a Voice: Asian women in Britain
Finding a Voice: Asian women in Britain, by Amrit Wilson, reviewed by Maya Goodfellow
The political whiteness of #MeToo
We need to confront how the movement is shaped by the power of whiteness, write Alison Phipps
Brexit’s drug problem
For all the talk of free-trade, why is ‘Global Britain’ still behind on drug law reform? By Kojo Koram
