John Foxe’s popular Actes and Monuments, more commonly called The Book of Martyrs, helped convince English Protestants of their importance in the struggle between Protestantism and Catholicism.
The Book of Martyrs, although focusing on English Protestant martyrs during the reign of Mary Tudor, sought to show a connection between the simplicity of the early church and the reformed practices of 16th-century Protestants. According to Foxe, the Church of Rome had fallen to the Antichrist, but God had also raised up reformers to fight against the corruption of the church.
The Book of Martyrs was among the most important English Reformation works. In its effect on the religious ideas of English Protestants, it ranks behind only the English Bible and the Book of Common Prayer It went through nine editions between 1563 and 1684, with later editions generally becoming longer and more complete. Foxe emphasized the role of the English church in the “Latter and Perilous Days” in which he believed he was living, but he also recognized the contributions of European reformers to the purifying of the church.
Foxe’s work is the best-known of the books of martyrs, but it was part of a larger tradition. Both Protestant and Catholic authors wrote and compiled histories of their martyrs. These works, written in vernacular languages, emphasized the evil done by members of opposing churches and helped shape popular conceptions of religion.
Further reading: Patrick Collinson, “Foxe, John,” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation, vol. 2, ed. Hans J. Hillerbrand (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 122-123; Jean-Franqois Gilmont, “Books of Martyrs,” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation, vol. 1, ed. Hans
J. Hillerbrand (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 195-200; D. M. Loades, The Oxford Martyrs (London: B. T. Batsford, 1970); V. Norskov Olsen, John Foxe and the Elizabethan Church (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973); Helen C. White, Tudor Books of Saints and Martyrs (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1963).
—Martha K. Robinson
World History
