FOXE'S BOOK OF MARTYRS V1 From the Death of Jesus Christ to Frederic Barbarossa

THE ACTS AND MONUMENTS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

by  

JOHN FOXE

Commonly known as 

FOXE'S BOOK OF MARTYRS

Volume 1 

From the Death of Jesus Christ to Frederic Barbarossa

Published by the Ex-classics Project, 2009 

http://www.exclassics.com 

Public Domain

The emperor Commodus casting a dart at the wild beasts

- "had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; of whom the world was not worthy." - HEB. xi 36-38.

- "their blood is shed 

in confirmation of the noblest claim 

Our claim to feed upon immortal truth, 

To walk with God, to be divinely free, 

To soar, and to anticipate the skies." - COWPER.

CONTENTS

Introduction to the Ex-Classics Edition 5 

Bibliographic Note 8 

Editor's Introduction. 9 

THE FIRST BOOK THE ACTS AND MONUMENTS, CONTAINING THE THREE HUNDRED YEARS NEXT AFTER CHRIST, WITH THE TEN PERSECUTIONS OF THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. 29 

1. Foreword 30 

2. The Early Persecution of the Apostles 36 

3. The First Persecution under Nero 42 

4. The Second Persecution under Domitian 46 

7. The Fifth Persecution under Severus 92 

8. The Sixth Persecution under Maximinus 105 

9. The Seventh Persecution under Decius 108 

10. The Eighth Persecution under Valerian 129 

11. The Tenth Persecution under Dioclesian 150 

12. The Persecution under Licinius 175 

13. Persecutions in Persia 198 

15. Persecution under Julian the Apostate 204 

16. Constantine the Great 206 

THE SECOND BOOK CONTAINING THE NEXT THREE HUNDRED YEARS FOLLOWING WITH SUCH THINGS SPECIALLY TOUCHED AS HAVE HAPPENED IN ENGLAND FROM THE TIME OF KING LUCIUS TO GREGORIUS, AND SO AFTER TO THE TIME OF KING EGBERT. 217 

17. The Church in Britain before the Coming of the Saxons 218 

18. The Entering and Reigning of the Saxons in the Realm of England. 224 

19. The Coming of Austin 226 

20. The Conversion of the Saxons 236 

21. From the Conversion of the Saxons to the Coming of the Danes 248 

THE THIRD BOOK. FROM THE REIGN OF KING EGBERTUS UNTO THE TIME OF WILLIAM CONQUEROR. 269 

22. The Coming of the Danes 270 

23. Alfred the Great 280 

23. King Edward the Elder 290 

24. King Ethelstan 293 

25. King Edmund 298 

26. King Edgar 303 

27. King Edward the Martyr 315 

28. King Egelred or Ethelred, "The Unready" 319 

29. Kings Edmund Ironside, Canute and Hardeknout 324 

30. King Edward the Confessor 330 

31. King Harold 336 

THE FOURTH BOOK, CONTAINING ANOTHER THREE HUNDRED YEARS, FROM WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR TO THE TIME OF JOHN WICKLIFFE, WHEREIN IS DESCRIBED THE PROUD AND MISORDERED REIGN OF ANTICHRIST BEGINNING TO STIR IN THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 338 

32. William the Conqueror 339 

33. Hildebrand (Pope Gregory the Seventh) 347 

34. Summary of the Reign and Character of William I. 364 

35. William Rufus 367 

36. Henry I. 381 

37. King Stephen 403 

38. Henry II 408 

39. Quarrel between the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and the Papacy 409

Introduction to the Ex-Classics Edition

The Times 

There was never a worse place or time to be religious than Europe in the 16th Century. These were cruel times. There was the death penalty for all but the most petty offences, and hangings were a popular spectator sport. Indeed, hanging was a lenient punishment: flaying, impaling, breaking on the wheel, and being hung upside down and sawn through from groin to scalp were alternatives. Lesser crimes such as begging were punished with flogging, branding or mutilation. Torture was widespread and trials, if held at all, often a travesty of justice. Warfare, too, was conducted with the utmost brutality; massacre, rape and pillage of the civilian population were standard practice, and the slaughter of enemy prisoners was common, sometimes even including those who had been promised their lives if they surrendered. 

Religious hatred made things even worse. Reading Foxe, or other authors of the time, whether Protestant or Catholic, it is striking how absolutely certain everyone was that not only were they right, but that their opponents were the agents of Satan. Foxe knew that the Pope was the Antichrist predicted by the Bible in the same way as he knew that water was wet or that the sun went round the earth. From this certainty sprang the intolerance from which persecution arises. It was argued, that if a murderer, who only slew the body, deserved death; how much more deserving of death was a heretic, whose evil falsehoods could destroy the victim's soul. This being so, it was clear that any means could and should be used to stamp out these devil's spawn. Both sides believed that there was only one true religion and all deviation from it was hellish; they only differed about which religion it was. Catholics persecuted Protestants and vice versa; each side persecuted its own heretics with equal vigour. In Eastern Europe, the Orthodox faith was both perpetrator and victim. In England, the official religion changed four times in less than thirty years, and each change was accompanied by persecution of those who would not change with it. The division of Europe into Catholic and Protestant powers, often at war with one another, meant that in some countries (especially England) preaching the wrong religion was regarded as supporting the enemy and punished as treason.