I always wonder if the Church has done some historical revisionism on stories like these. I'm a pretty opinionated person on certain subjects, particularly m beliefs, e.g. I think it is 100% up to a woman whether she has an abortion before a fetus is viable.

That being said, if I were arreseted by relgious authorities and given the choice between dying for my belief and recanting - I'd recant. 100% lie. Get out, move outside the jurisdiction of the assholes who wanted to kill me, then go back to telling the truth.

I have to think that in a huge number of cases, the accused was given no choice and murdered by the Church, then afterwards the story was written that the accused refused to recant.

That just seems more believable to me than dozens or hundreds of people dying for belief in science or in my case, women's rights.