Interest in John Foxe and his hugely influential text Acts and Monuments is particularly vibrant at present. This volume, the third to arise from a series of international colloquia on Foxe, collects essays by established and up-and-coming scholars. It broadly embraces five major areas of early modern studies: Roman Catholicism, women and gender, visual culture, the history of the book and historiography. Patrick Collinson provides an entire overview of the field of Foxe studies and further essays place Foxe and his work within the context of their times.

    Contents: Preface; The world of John Foxe: an introduction, John N. King; John Foxe and national consciousness, Patrick Collinson; Historiography: The end of history: Thomas Norton’s ’v periodes’ and the pattern of English Protestant historiography, Anthony Martin; John Foxe and the Anglo-Saxons, Benedict Scott Robinson; A Tudor Deborah? The coronation of Elizabeth I, Parliament, and the problem of female rule, Dale Hoak; History of the book: Elizabeth I, Savior of books: John Bale’s preface to the Scriptorum illustrium maioris Brytanniae...catalogus (1559), J. Christopher Warner; The booke, the leafe, yea and the very sentence: 16th-century literature in text and context, Cynthia Wittman Zollinger; Little Foxes, David Scott Kastan; Visual Culture: Illustrating the book: a Protestant dilemma, Andrew Pettegree; Truth and history in Foxe’s Acts and Monuments, Thomas Betteridge; Transfiguring theology: William Perkins and Calvinist aesthetics, Lori Anne Ferrell; Roman Catholicism: Richard Verstegan’s Book of Martyrs, Christopher Highley; ’Libels and payntinges’: Elizabethan Catholics and the international campaign of visual propaganda, Richard Williams; Campion dead bites with his friends’ teeth: representations of an early modern Catholic martyr, Scott R. Pilarz; Women and gender: Doctors, silly poor women and rebel whores: the gendering of conscience in Foxe’s Acts and Monuments, Marsha S. Robinson; Editing Anne Askew’s Examinations: John Bale, John Foxe and early modern textual practices, Sarah E. Wall; Polemical potency: the witness of word and woodcut, Deborah Burks; Afterword: John Foxe in the 21st century, David Loades; Index.

    Biography

    Christopher Highley, John N. King

    '... an excellent statement of the status quaestionis and a mine of information not only in the text but in the copious notes which include many references to books, articles and upublished theses.' Recusant History '... both passionate and thought-provoking... subtle and refreshing... extremely useful...' Ecclesiastical History '... insightful, informative... essential reading for anyone working on early modern martyrdom, Reformation culture and/or print history.' Dutch Review of Church History '... a valuable addition to the corpus of literature on Foxe and his age.' Sixteenth Century Journal '... consistently strong and insightful throughout, as its authors utlize emerging understandings of Foxe to explore new paths of research, or to reconsider traditional interpretations of well-known subjects...' Renaissance Quarterly '... a valuable addition to Ashgate's growing catalogue of volumes devoted to collected essays on Reformation topics.' Literature & History 'This collection of innovative essays and powerful images is essential reading for literacy and historical scholars.' Early Modern Literary Studies