Experience proved to the prelates that few sheriffs would arrest on the mere warrant of an ecclesiastical officer, and that no royal court would issue the writ "for the burning of a heretic" on a bishop's requisition.

But powerless as the efforts of the Church were for purposes of repression, they were effective in rousing the temper of the Lollards into a bitter fanaticism.

The heretics delighted in outraging the religious sense of their day.

One Lollard gentleman took home the sacramental wafer and lunched on it with wine and oysters.

Another flung some images of the saints into his cellar.