John Foxe
John Foxe was a notable English historian and Protestant reformer born in 1516 in Boston, Lincolnshire. Educated at Oxford, he became increasingly involved in the religious conflicts of his time, particularly during the reign of Henry VIII. His steadfast Protestant beliefs led him to flee to the Continent in 1555, where he worked with the printer Johann Herbst, producing significant works that defended the Reformation and called for religious tolerance. Foxe's most famous work, "Actes and Monuments"—commonly known as "Foxe's Book of Martyrs"—was published in 1563. This extensive volume documents the sufferings of early Christian martyrs and critiques the persecutions under Queen Mary, reflecting a strong anti-Catholic sentiment. The book not only gained immense popularity during Foxe's life, going through multiple editions, but also became a central text in the Protestant tradition in England. Despite his later ordination and role as a canon, Foxe's legacy primarily endures through his impactful writings on religious persecution and Christian martyrdom. He passed away in 1587, leaving a complex and influential legacy in the history of English Protestantism.
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John Foxe
Martyrologist
- Born: 1516
- Birthplace: Boston, Lincolnshire, England
- Died: April 8, 1587
Biography
John Foxe was born in 1516 at Boston in Lincolnshire. He completed his education at Oxford University’s Brasenose College, and subsequently became a fellow of Magdalen College, but he resigned in 1545 after his increasing zeal for the Reform movement deeply embroiled him in the religious controversies afflicting the latter part of Henry VIII’s reign. He became a tutor, first in the house of Sir Thomas Lucy at Charlecote and then to the children of the duchess of Richmond at Reigate in Surrey. In 1555—the second year of Queen Mary’s reign, when his Protestantism delivered him into mortal danger—he fled from England to the Continent.
Foxe was employed from 1555 to 1559 in Basle by the printer Johann Herbst, who preferred to be known as Oporinus and had once been an assistant to Theophrastus von Hohenheim (also known as Paracelsus). Foxe had already published the first part of a fervent justification of the Reformation—Commentarii rerum in ecclesia gestarum, in the form of a history of the Christian Church—in Strasbourg, but it was Oporinus who issued his Christ Jesus Triumphant, an appeal for religious tolerance couched as an apocalyptic mystery play, in 1556. Oporinus then published a much-expanded version of the Commentarii rerum in ecclesia gestarum in 1559. Foxe was soon able to return to England, since Elizabeth I had come to the throne in 1558 and made England safe once again for Protestants. Foxe was taken in by the Duke of Norfolk, who had been his pupil at Reigate, and was ordained as a priest in the Church of England in 1560.
In 1563 Foxe became a canon at Salisbury, although he objected to the ceremonial form of the liturgy, which retained too many Catholic embellishments for his liking, and discomfited some of his colleagues by pleading (unsuccessfully) for mercy for Anabaptist heretics. In the same year, the printer John Day, a fervent propagandist with whom Foxe retained a close relationship during his latter years, issued an English version of Commentarii rerum in ecclesia gestarum as Actes and Monuments of the Christian Church, which became popularly known as Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. An enormous work, the book dwells at length on the sufferings of early Christian martyrs—including lengthy fictitious dialogues in which they engage with their persecutors—in order to highlight the plight of the martyrs burned by Queen Mary. The book seethes with rage against the persecutions launched by contemporary Romanists, and often sacrifices historical accuracy to moral indignation.
It went through four editions in Foxe’s lifetime and many more when the Anglican convocation ordered in 1571 that it should be placed in the hall of every episcopal palace in Britain. It thus became the central document of English antipopery. In 1570 Foxe preached at famous sermon “On Christ Crucified” at Paul’s Cross. He continued to publish new works, most notably Reformatio legum in 1571, but his enduring fame rests entirely on Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. He died in 1587 and was buried at St. Giles, Cripplegate, in the same grave as the physicianWilliam Bullein.