Foxe, John, 1516-1587 (Personal Name)

His Book of Martyrs.

InU/Wing STC files (variant: Mr. Fox)

The third part of a treatise, intituled: Of three conuersions of England, anno D[omi]ni 1604: t.p. (Iohn Fox)

Oxford dictionary of national biography, 24 August 2017 (Foxe, John (1516/17-1587), martyrologist; one of the most prominent members of the Elizabethan church; a significant figure in the development of practical divinity and spiritual healing in England; born at Boston, Lincolnshire; lived in Coningsby while growing up; entered Brasenose College about 1534; bachelor's degree 17 July 1537; elected a full fellow of Magdalen College in July 1539; became a committed evangelical, part of a network of Oxford evangelicals; resigned his fellowship in 1545; in autumn 1544, wrote his first surviving literary work, Titus et Gesippus, a Latin comedy based on one of Boccaccio's tales; moved to London (Stepney) in the summer or autumn of 1547; translation of a sermon of Martin Luther published 1547; other translations of religious works for the evangelical printer Hugh Singleton; wrote controversial religious tracts; tutor to the children of the Earl of Surrey -- the future Thomas, fourth Duke of Norfolk, Jane, Countess of Westmorland, Henry, Earl of Northampton, and Charles Howard, the commander of the English fleet against the Spanish Armada; friendship with John Bale, who loaned Foxe valuable manuscripts and certainly encouraged, very probably guided, Foxe in the composition of his first martyrology; profound influence on Foxe's martyrologies; ordained deacon by Nicholas Ridley on 24 June 1550; during reign of Mary [I], in exile in Strasbourg (where Commentarii rerum in ecclesia gestarum was printed, 1554), Frankfurt (autumn 1554-Aug/Sept 1555), Basel (by 22 September 1555-1559), at the centre of networks of Protestant scholarship; works included Christus triumphans, an allegorical drama in Latin verse of the history of the church (1556); a major preoccupation: the history of the church as an ongoing fulfilment of prophecies contained in Revelation; first martyrology (1554); second Latin martyrology, Rerum in ecclesia gestarum ... commentarii (1559); returned to England October 1559; staying at the duke of Norfolk's mansion in Aldgate, London (when Norfolk was executed 2 June 1572, Foxe was with him on the scaffold); on 25 January 1560, was ordained priest; Acts and monuments, immediately and universally referred to as Foxe's "Book of martyrs" (first edition 1563): the bulk of the work covers church history from Wyclif until the accession of Elizabeth, but an introductory section provides an overview of church history, particularly papal history, from the year 1000; Acts and monuments made Foxe England's first literary celebrity; Foxe's partner in a number of projects after John Bale's death was Henry Bull; preached Sermon of Christ crucified on Good Friday 1570 (6 editions during his lifetime, translated into Latin in 1571); edition of Cranmer's law code, Reformatio legum ecclesiasticarum; works showing his abiding interest in the twin arts of rhetoric and logic; edited a collection of the works of William Tyndale, John Frith, and Robert Barnes (1573); various translations of and introductions to Luther's sermons; Eicasmi, seu, Meditationes in sacram Apocalypsim (1587), his last great project, a massive Latin commentary on Revelation with the assistance of his son Samuel Foxe, published posthumously; died, at his house in Grub Street in the parish of St Giles Cripplegate, while the work was in progress, on 18 April 1587; buried in St Giles Cripplegate on 20 April 1587, with memorial recording that had died aged 70)

The Oxford encyclopedia of the Reformation, 1996, viewed online 30 August 2017 (Foxe, John (1517-1587), English Protestant church historian; he is invariably described as "the martyrologist" (a title he disowned), and his greatest published work, Actes and monuments, was popularly called The Book of martyrs)

Wooden, Warren W. John Foxe, 1983: title page (John Foxe) page 1 (born in Boston, Lincolnshire, in 1517) page 2 (M.A. degree from Magdalen College 1545) page 16 (died April 18, 1587; buried in St. Giles, Cripplegate, the parish church where he had often preached)