Foxe's Book of Martyrs
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The Book of Martyrs by John Foxe is an apocalyptically oriented English Protestant account of the persecutions of Protestants, mainly in England, many of whom had died for their beliefs within the decade immediately preceding its first publication. It was first published by John Day in 1563. Lavishly produced and illustrated with many woodcuts, when issued it was the largest publishing project ever undertaken in Britain. Commonly known as "Foxe's Book of Martyrs", the work's full title is "Actes and Monuments of these Latter and Perillous Days, touching Matters of the Church". There were many subsequent editions, also by Day, who worked closely with Foxe.
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[edit] A Work of the Reformation
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Martyrs |
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Published early in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I of England, only five years after the death of the Roman Catholic Queen Mary, the work is an affirmation of the Protestant Reformation in England, immediately after a brutal period of religious oppression. In this time many common people of Christian faith had been put to death by burning at the stake, as public acts of judicial execution by the State in towns and market-places all over England, under the absolute authority of the Roman Catholic Church which Mary had readmitted into England.
Foxe's account of Mary's reign and the martyrdoms that took place during it contributed very significantly to the formation (literally, the Re-formation) of English national identity rooted in the (non-papal) Universal Catholic Church. By compiling his record, Foxe helped to demonstrate the historical justification for the foundation of the Church of England as a contemporary embodiment of the true and faithful church, rather than as a newly established Christian denomination.
[edit] Outline structure
The work was therefore set in a historic perspective. The First Part covered early Christian martyrs, a brief history of the medieval church, including the Inquisitions, and a history of the Wycliffite or Lollard movement. (In the English Reformation, Foxe and others could with hindsight perceive Wycliffe as a forerunner (or indeed "the morning star") of the Reformation, pointing the way towards the foundation and establishment of the Church of England.)
The Second Part dealt with the turbulent reign of Henry VIII, and with that of Edward VI, in which the dispute with Rome had led to the separation of the English Church from papal authority, the foundation of the Church of England, and the issuing of the English Book of Common Prayer.
The Third Part was then concerned with the reign of Queen Mary and with the Marian Persecutions. Possibly the church history of the earlier portion of the book, with its grotesque stories of popes and monks, contributed to anti-Roman Catholic thought in England: this, however, had already been firmly implanted by the actual experience and public example of the burnings, authorised by the notorious Roman Catholic Bishop of London, Edmund Bonner, and carried out by his agents following inquisitions of the victims often led by the Bishop himself.
Foxe's account of the Marian years is based on Robert Crowley's 1559 extension of a 1549 chronicle history by Thomas Cooper, itself an extension of a work begun by Thomas Lanquet. (Cooper (who became a Church of England Bishop) strongly objected to Crowley's version of his history, and soon issued two new "correct" editions. Cooper, Crowley and Foxe had all been students and fellows together at Magdalen College in Oxford University. Foxe and Crowley both resigned from the college, apparently under pressure: Foxe then wrote to the college president objecting that all three had been persecuted by masters in the college, for holding evangelical beliefs.)
[edit] Two perspectives
For the English Church the book remains a fundamental witness to the sufferings of an immense number of faithful Christian people at the hands of the 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 Christian martyrs. Part of Foxe's message is that they did this for the sake of the Holy Scriptures, for the right of faithful English people to hear or read and understand them in their own language, and so to receive their message in their own hearts rather than as mediated through the priesthood. Their Christian valour in the face of what was done to them is a historical component of English identity.
Foxe's record of it is, however, described by some Roman Catholics as the primary propaganda piece for English anti-Roman Catholicism. In this perspective, some historians dispute the accuracy of Foxe's claims regarding martyrdoms under Mary, centering primarily on the reasons for the executions. Of the 273 people Foxe claimed were martyred by Mary, nearly 200 were listed by name and occupation only; this compares with the 277 people burnt as heretics stated in The Catholic Encyclopedia. Some of the victims may have been intent on removing Mary from the throne.[1]
[edit] Development in later editions
Foxe continued to collect material and to expand the work throughout his life, producing three revised editions. After the completion of the second edition (1570), the Convocation ordered that every cathedral church should own a copy.
Foxe's work was enormous (the second edition filling two heavy folio volumes with a total of 2300 pages – estimated to be twice as long as Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire) and its production by the printer John Day (who worked closely with Foxe) was the largest publishing project undertaken in England up to that time.
In later years abridged editions, often also containing accounts of later persecutions, were produced.
The passionate intensity of the style and the vivid and picturesque dialogues made it very popular among all Protestant readers from the time of its first appearance, and it remained so among Puritan and Evangelical Anglican congregations until the nineteenth century.
[edit] References
- ^ Hughes, Reformation in England (5th ed.), II, pp. 255-274, 288-293; Loades, Reign of Mary Tudor, pp. 273-288.
[edit] See also
- Martyrology
- Martyrs Mirror (1660), by Thieleman J. van Braght
[edit] External links
- Complete e-book at Christian Classics Ethereal Library
- John Foxe. Acts and Monuments. The Variorum Edition. (hriOnline, Sheffield 2004).
- Foxe Digital Project (Ohio State University) Images of selected woodcuts and sections of text on the Book of Martyrs.
- Catholic Encyclopedia entry
- Text of the Book of martyrs (unabridged, but not yet complete)
- chapter selections of Foxs Book of Martyrs
