H'retico Comburendo, De

H'retico comburendo, De, an ancient common law writ against a heretic, who having been convicted of heresy by the bishop, abjured it, and afterwards fell into the same again, or some other, and was thereupon delivered over to the secular power in order that he might be burnt to death.-See Fitz. N.B. 269; Lely's Church of England Position, 179; 2 Hen. 4, c. 15; 1 & 2 P. & M. c. 6; 31 Hen. 8, c. 14. By 1 Eliz. c. 1, s. 6, all statutes relating to heresy were repealed, though somehow two men were burnt in her reign and two under James I. by 29 Car. 2, c. 9, s. 1, the writ de h'retico comburendo was abolished, but with a saving for the jurisdiction of Protestant archbishops or bishops or any other judges of any ecclesiastical courts to punish, according to his Majesty's ecclesiastical laws, 'atheism, blasphemy, heresy, or schism and other damnable doctrines and opinions by excommunication, deprivation, degradation, and other ecclesiastical censures not extending to death'in such sort and no other as they might have done before the Act; see 53 Geo. 3, c. 127, s. 3. Consult Odgers on Libel