Foxe's Book of Martyrs - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Book of Martyrs, by John Foxe

John Foxe

John Foxe was an English historian and martyrologist, the author of what is popularly known as Foxe's Book of Martyrs, , an account of Christian martyrs throughout Western history but emphasizing the sufferings of English Protestants and proto-Protestants from the fourteenth century through the...

, more accurately Acts and Monuments, is an account from a Protestant point of view of Christian church history and martyrology

Martyrology

A martyrology is a catalogue or list of martyrs , arranged in the calendar order of their anniversaries or feasts. Local martyrologies record exclusively the custom of a particular Church. Local lists were enriched by names borrowed from neighbouring churches...

. It covers selectively the period from the 1st through the early 16th century, emphasising the sufferings of English Protestants

Protestantism

Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...

and proto-Protestants from the 14th century through the reign of Mary I

Mary I of England

Mary I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from July 1553 until her death.She was the only surviving child born of the ill-fated marriage of Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. Her younger half-brother, Edward VI, succeeded Henry in 1547...

.

First published in 1563 by the Protestant John Day

John Day (printer)

John Day was an English Protestant printer. He specialised in printing and distributing Protestant literature and pamphlets, and produced many small-format religious books, such as ABCs, sermons, and translations of psalms...

, the book was lavishly produced and illustrated with many woodcut

Woodcut

Woodcut—occasionally known as xylography—is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges...

s and was the largest publishing project undertaken in Britain up to that time. It is commonly known as Foxe's Book of Martyrs, a misnomer

Misnomer

A misnomer is a term which suggests an interpretation that is known to be untrue. Such incorrect terms sometimes derive their names because of the form, action, or origin of the subject becoming named popularly or widely referenced—long before their true natures were known.- Sources of misnomers...

; one fuller title of the work is Actes and Monuments of these Latter and Perillous Days, Touching Matters of the Church.

Widely owned and read by English Puritans, the book helped mould British popular opinion about the nature of Catholicism for several centuries. William Haller has argued that the Acts and Monuments is a complex book, both a reconceptualisation of the history of England and a portrait of the English church as an elect people whose history of suffering and dedication to the pure faith echo the history of Israel in the Old Testament.

A work of the English Reformation

Published early in the reign of Queen

Queen regnant

A queen regnant is a female monarch who reigns in her own right, in contrast to a queen consort, who is the wife of a reigning king. An empress regnant is a female monarch who reigns in her own right over an empire....

Elizabeth I and only five years after the death of the Roman Catholic Queen Mary I

Mary I of England

, Foxe's Book of Martyrs was an affirmation of the Protestant Reformation

Protestant Reformation

The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...

in England during a period of religious conflict between Catholics and Protestants. Foxe's account of church history asserted a historical justification intended to establish the Church of England

Church of England

The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...

as a continuation of the true Christian church rather than a modern innovation, and it contributed significantly to a nationalistic repudiation of the Roman Catholic Church.

The sequence of the work, initially in five books, covered first early Christian martyrs

Christian martyrs

A Christian martyr is one who is killed for following Christianity, through stoning, crucifixion, burning at the stake or other forms of torture and capital punishment. The word "martyr" comes from the Greek word μάρτυς, mártys, which means "witness."...

, a brief history of the medieval church, including the Inquisition

Inquisition

The Inquisition, Inquisitio Haereticae Pravitatis , was the "fight against heretics" by several institutions within the justice-system of the Roman Catholic Church. It started in the 12th century, with the introduction of torture in the persecution of heresy...

s, and a history of the Wycliffite or Lollard movement. It then dealt with the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI, during which the dispute with Rome had led to separation of the English Church from papal authority and the issuance of the Book of Common Prayer
Book of Common Prayer
The Book of Common Prayer is the short title of a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion, as well as by the Continuing Anglican, "Anglican realignment" and other Anglican churches. The original book, published in 1549 , in the reign of Edward VI, was a product of the English...

. The final book treated the reign of Queen Mary

Mary I of England

and the Marian Persecutions

Marian Persecutions

The Marian Persecutions were carried out against religious reformers, Protestants, and other dissenters for their heretical beliefs during the reign of Mary I of England. The excesses of this period were mythologized in the historical record of Foxe's Book of Martyrs...

Editions

Foxe began his work in 1552, during the reign of Edward VI. Over the next thirty years, it developed from small beginnings (in Latin) to a substantial compilation, in English, filling large folio volumes.

Latin versions

In 1554, in exile, he published in Latin at Strasburg

Strasburg

-Places:*Strasbourg, a city in Alsace *Straßburg, Austria, in Carinthia*Strasburg, Germany, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania*the former name of Brodnica, became Polish after World War I*Strassburg, the German name for Aiud, Alba...

a foreshadowing of his major work, emphasising the persecution of the English Lollards during the 15th century; and he began to collect materials to continue his story to his own day. Foxe published the version in Latin at Basel

Basel

Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...

in August 1559, lacking sources, with the segment dealing with the Marian martyrs as "no more than a fragment." Of course, it was difficult to write contemporary English history while living (as he later said) "in the far parts of Germany, where few friends, no conference, [and] small information could be had." He made a reputation through his Latin works. Both these versions were intended as the first volume of a two-volume work, the second volume to have a broader, European scope. Foxe did not publish these works; but a second volume to the Basel version was written by Henry Pantaleon (1563).

First edition

In March 1563, Foxe published the first English edition of The Actes and Monuments
The Acts and Monuments
Acts and Monuments by John Foxe is a celebrated work of English church history and martyrology, first published in 1563 by John Day. The book was lavishly produced and illustrated with many woodcuts and was the largest publishing project undertaken in Britain up to that time...

from the press of John Day

John Day (printer)

. It was a "gigantic folio volume" of about 1800 pages, about three times the length of the 1559 Latin book. As is typical for the period, the full title was a paragraph long and is abbreviated by scholars as Acts and Monuments. Publication of the book made Foxe famous; the book sold for more than ten shillings, three weeks' pay for a skilled craftsman, but with no royalty to the author.

Second edition

The second edition appeared in 1570, much expanded. New material was available, including personal testimonies,, and publications such as the 1564 edition of Jean Crespin

Jean Crespin

Jean Crespin was a French Protestant lawyer who became a significant printer and martyrologist in Geneva.-Life:He was born at Arras and studied law at Leuven. In 1540 he was in Paris, where he worked with his friend François Baudouin under the leading jurist and advocate Charles Du Moulin, and...

's Geneva martyrology. John Field assisted with research for this edition.

Acts and Monuments was immediately attacked by Catholics, including Thomas Harding

Thomas Harding (1516-1572)

Thomas Harding was an English Roman Catholic priest and controversialist.-Life:...

, Thomas Stapleton

Thomas Stapleton

Thomas Stapleton was an English Catholic controversialist.-Life:He was the son of William Stapleton, one of the Stapletons of Carlton, Yorkshire. He was educated at the Free School, Canterbury, at Winchester College, and at New College, Oxford, where he became a Fellow, 18 January 1553...

, and Nicholas Harpsfield

Nicholas Harpsfield

Nicholas Harpsfield was an English historian, Catholic apologist and priest.-Early life and exile:Harpsfield was educated at Winchester College and studied canon and civil law in New College, Oxford, receiving a BCL in 1543...

. In the next generation, Robert Parsons

Robert Parsons (priest)

Robert Persons , later known as Robert Parsons, was an English Jesuit priest.-Early life:...

, an English Jesuit, also struck at Foxe in A Treatise of Three Conversions of England (1603–04). Harding, in the spirit of the age, called Acts and Monuments ' "that huge dunghill of your stinking martyrs," full of a thousand lies'. In the second edition, where the charges of his critics had been reasonably accurate, Foxe removed the offending passages. Where he could rebut the charges, "he mounted a vigorous counter-attack, seeking to crush his opponent under piles of documents." Even with deletions, the second edition was nearly double the size of the first, "two gigantic folio volumes, with 2300 very large pages" of double-columned text.

The edition was well received by the English church, and the upper house of the convocation of Canterbury meeting in 1571, ordered that a copy of the Bishop's Bible and "that full history entitled Monuments of Martyrs" be installed in every cathedral church and that church officials place copies in their houses for the use of servants and visitors. The decision repaid the financial risks taken by Day.

Third and fourth editions

Foxe published a third edition in 1576, but it was virtually a reprint of the second, although printed on inferior paper and in smaller type. The fourth edition, published in 1583, the last in Foxe's lifetime, had larger type and better paper and consisted of "two volumes of about two thousand folio pages in double columns." Nearly four times the length of the Bible, the fourth edition was "the most physically imposing, complicated, and technically demanding English book of its era. It seems safe to say that it is the largest and most complicated book to appear during the first two or three centuries of English printing history." At this point Foxe began to compose his interpretation of the Apocalypse

Apocalypse

An Apocalypse is a disclosure of something hidden from the majority of mankind in an era dominated by falsehood and misconception, i.e. the veil to be lifted. The Apocalypse of John is the Book of Revelation, the last book of the New Testament...

; he wrote more in Eicasmi (1587), left unfinished at his death.

The 1583 title page included the poignant request that the author "desireth thee, good reader, to help him with thy prayer."

Abridgements

The earliest abridgment was prepared by Timothy Bright

Timothy Bright

Timothy Bright, M.D. was an English physician and clergyman, the inventor of modern shorthand.-Early life:Bright was born in or about 1551, probably in the neighbourhood of Sheffield. He matriculated as a sizar at Trinity College, Cambridge, 'impubes, æt. 11,' on 21 May 1561, and graduated B.A. in...

and issued, with a dedication to Sir Francis Walsingham, in 1589. The Mirror of Martyrs by Clement Cotton was published in 1613. Another, by the Rev. Thomas Mason

Thomas Mason (clergyman)

-Life:On his own account, he was the grandson of Sir John Mason. Mason was admitted at Magdalen College, Oxford, on 29 November 1594, matriculated on 7 January 1595. He may not have graduated; there is possible confusion with another Thomas Mason at Magdalen of the period.From 1614 to 1619 Mason...

of Odiham

Odiham

Odiham is a historic village and large civil parish in the Hart district of Hampshire, England. It is twinned with Sourdeval in the Manche Department of France. The current population is 4,406. The parish contains an acreage of 7,354 acres with 50 acres of land covered with water. The nearest...

, appeared, under the title of Christ's Victorie over Sathans Tyrannie, in 1615. Slighter epitomes followed later, such as Edward Leigh

Edward Leigh (writer)

Edward Leigh was a versatile English lay writer, known particularly for his works on religious topics, and a politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1645 to 1648. He fought for the Parliamentary army in the English Civil War...

's Memorable Collections (1651).

Influence

After Foxe's death, the Acts and Monuments continued to be published and appreciatively read. John Burrow refers to it as, after the Bible, "the greatest single influence on English Protestant thinking of the late Tudor and early Stuart period."

By the end of the 17th century, however, the work tended to be abbreviated to include only "the most sensational episodes of torture and death" thus giving to Foxe's work "a lurid quality which was certainly far from the author's intention." Because Foxe was used to attack Catholicism and a rising tide of high-church Anglicanism, the book's credibility was effectively challenged in the early 19th century by a number of authors, most importantly Samuel Roffey Maitland

Samuel Roffey Maitland

Samuel Roffey Maitland was an English historian and miscellaneous writer on religious topics. He was in Anglican orders, and worked also as a librarian, barrister and editor.-Early life:...

. Dominic Trenow O.P. commented on Foxe's lost credibility across denominations, citing Maitland and Richard Frederick Littledale

Richard Frederick Littledale

-Life:The fourth son of John Littledale, an auctioneer, he was born in Dublin on 14 September 1833. On 15 October 1850 he entered Trinity College, Dublin, as a foundation scholar, graduated B.A. as a first class in classics, and in 1855 obtained the senior Berkeley gold medal and the first divinity...

, as well as Robert Parsons and John Milner. In the words of this Victorian Catholic priest, after Maitland's critique and others of the time, Foxe's historical influence had been diminished so that "no one with any literary pretensions...ventured to quote Foxe as an authority."

The publication of J. F. Mozley's biography of Foxe in 1940 reflected a change in perspective that reevaluated Foxe's work and "initiated a rehabilitation of Foxe as a historian which has continued to this day." A new critical edition of the Actes and Monuments appeared in 1992.

Foxe as historian

Foxe often treated his material casually, and any reader "must be prepared to meet plenty of small errors and inconsistencies." The material contained in the work is generally accurate, although selectively presented. Sometimes he copied documents verbatim; sometimes he adapted them to his own use. While both he and his contemporary readers were more credulous than most moderns, Foxe presented "lifelike and vivid pictures of the manners and feelings of the day, full of details that could never have been invented by a forger."

His sources

Foxe based his accounts of martyrs before the early modern period on previous writers, including Eusebius, Bede

Bede

Bede , also referred to as Saint Bede or the Venerable Bede , was a monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth, today part of Sunderland, England, and of its companion monastery, Saint Paul's, in modern Jarrow , both in the Kingdom of Northumbria...

, Matthew Paris

Matthew Paris

Matthew Paris was a Benedictine monk, English chronicler, artist in illuminated manuscripts and cartographer, based at St Albans Abbey in Hertfordshire...

, and many others. He compiled an English martyrology from the period of the Lollards through the persecution of Mary I. Here Foxe had primary sources to draw on: episcopal registers, reports of trials, and the testimony of eyewitnesses. In the work of collection Foxe had Henry Bull as collaborator. The account of the Marian years is based on Robert Crowley

Robert Crowley (printer)

Robert Crowley also Robertus Croleus, Roberto Croleo, Robart Crowleye, Robarte Crole, and Crule , was a stationer, poet, polemicist and Protestant clergyman who was among the Marian exiles at Frankfurt...

's 1559 extension of a 1549 chronicle history by Thomas Cooper

Thomas Cooper (bishop)

Thomas Cooper was an English bishop, lexicographer, and writer.-Life:He was born in Oxford, where he was educated at Magdalen College...

, itself an extension of a work begun by Thomas Lanquet

Thomas Lanquet

Thomas Lanquet was an English chronicler.He studied at Oxford, and devoted himself to historical research. He died in London in 1545 while engaged on a general history; it was a translation of the Chronicle of Johann Carion...

. Cooper (who became a Church of England Bishop

Bishop

A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...

) strongly objected to Crowley's version of his history and soon issued two new "correct" editions.

Handling of sources

The book's credibility was challenged in the early 19th century by a number of authors, most importantly Samuel Roffey Maitland. Subsequently Foxe was considered a poor historian, in mainstream reference works. The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica accused Foxe of "wilful falsification of evidence"; two years later in the Catholic Encyclopedia
Catholic Encyclopedia
The Catholic Encyclopedia, also referred to as the Old Catholic Encyclopedia and the Original Catholic Encyclopedia, is an English-language encyclopedia published in the United States. The first volume appeared in March 1907 and the last three volumes appeared in 1912, followed by a master index...

, Francis Fortescue Urquhart

Francis Fortescue Urquhart

Francis Fortescue Urquhart was an English academic, the first Roman Catholic to act as a tutorial fellow in the University of Oxford since the 16th century.-Life:...

wrote of the value of the documentary content and eyewitness reports, but claimed that Foxe "sometimes dishonestly mutilates his documents and is quite untrustworthy in his treatment of evidence".

In contrast, J. F. Mozley maintained that Foxe preserves a high standard of honesty, arguing that Foxe's method of using his sources "proclaims the honest man, the sincere seeker after truth." The 2009 Encyclopædia Britannica notes that Foxe's work is "factually detailed and preserves much firsthand material on the English Reformation unobtainable elsewhere."

Objectivity and advocacy

Foxe's book is in no sense an impartial account of the period. He did not hold to later notions of neutrality or objectivity, but made unambiguous side glosses on his text, such as "Mark the apish pageants of these popelings" and "This answer smelleth of forging and crafty packing." David Loades

David Loades

David Michael Loades, FSA is a British historian and an expert on the Tudor era. He is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Wales, where he taught from 1980 until 1996, and was Honorary Research Professor at the University of Sheffield from 1996 until 2008. In the 1960s an1970s he...

has suggested that Foxe's history of the political situation, at least, is 'remarkably objective'. He makes no attempt to make martyrs out of Wyatt

Thomas Wyatt the younger

Sir Thomas Wyatt the younger was a rebel leader during the reign of Queen Mary I of England; his rising is traditionally called "Wyatt's rebellion".-Birth and career:...

and his followers, or anyone else who was executed for treason, except George Eagles, who he describes as falsely accused."

Sidney Lee

Sidney Lee

Sir Sidney Lee was an English biographer and critic.He was born Solomon Lazarus Lee at 12 Keppel Street, Bloomsbury, London and educated at the City of London School and at Balliol College, Oxford, where he graduated in modern history in 1882. In the next year he became assistant-editor of the...

writing in the Dictionary of National Biography
Dictionary of National Biography
The Dictionary of National Biography is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published from 1885...

called him "a passionate advocate, ready to accept any primâ facie evidence". Lee also listed some specific errors and pieces of plagiarism. In developing the same metaphor, Thomas S. Freeman argues that Foxe "may be most profitably seen in the same light as a barrister pleading a case for a client he knows to be innocent and whom he is determined to save. Like the hypothetical barrister, Foxe had to deal with the evidence of what actually happened, evidence that he was rarely in a position to forge. But he would not present facts damaging to his client, and he had the skills that enabled him to arrange the evidence so as to make it conform to what he wanted it to say. Like the barrister, Foxe presents crucial evidence and tells one side of a story which must be heard. But he should never be read uncritically, and his partisan objectives should always be kept in mind."

Religious perspectives

For the English Church, Foxe's book remains a fundamental witness to the sufferings of faithful Christians at the hands of the anti-Protestant

Anti-Protestantism

Anti-Protestantism is an institutional, ideological or emotional bias, hatred or distrust and against some or all forms and divisions of Protestantism and its followers.- History :...

Roman Catholic authorities and to the miracle of their endurance unto death, sustained and comforted by the faith to which they bore living witness as martyrs. Foxe emphasizes the right of English people

English people

The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...

to hear or read the Holy Scripture in their own language and receive its message directly rather than as mediated through a priesthood. The valour of the martyrs in the face of persecution became a component of English identity.

Roman Catholics consider Foxe a significant source of English anti-Catholicism

Anti-Catholicism

Anti-Catholicism is a generic term for discrimination, hostility or prejudice directed against Catholicism, and especially against the Catholic Church, its clergy or its adherents...

, charging among other objections to the work, that the treatment of martyrdoms under Mary ignores contemporary mingling of political and religious motives — for instance, ignoring the possibility that some victims may have intrigued to remove Mary from the throne.

External links

Rekindling the Reformation By: Walter J. Veith
BBC audio file (45 mins) In Our Time
In Our Time
In Our Time may refer to:* In Our Time , a collection of short stories by Ernest Hemingway* In Our Time , a collection of illustrations by Tom Wolfe* In Our Time , a BBC discussion programme hosted by Melvyn Bragg...

on Foxe's Book of Martyrs
Complete e-book at Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Very much abridged, and with additional material added, by William Byron Forbush.
John Foxe. Acts and Monuments. The Variorum Edition. (hriOnline, Sheffield 2004). Complete, with original spelling and punctuation.
Catholic Encyclopedia entry
Text of the Book of martyrs (19th Century reprint of 1563 edition with spelling modernised and new illustrations; unabridged but still incomplete)
Chapter selections of Foxe's Book of Martyrs
Foxe's Book of Martyrs – Project Gutenberg – Original Text
"Critical apparatus and additional material" of the Foxe's Book of Martyrs Variorum Edition includes a score of interpretative essays about Foxe and the Book of Martyrs.
Book of Martyrs by John Foxe (online book)

Attribution

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

A work of the English Reformation

Editions

Latin versions

First edition

Second edition

Third and fourth editions

Abridgements

Influence

Foxe as historian

His sources

Handling of sources

Objectivity and advocacy

Religious perspectives

See also

Further reading

External links