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Family matters and Foxe's Acts and Monuments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

D. Andrew Penny
D. Andrew Penny
Affiliation:
The King's University College
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Abstract

This essay maintains that John Foxe has been under-utilized as a source of early modern English social history. Accordingly, the mid-Tudor portions of the Acts and monuments of Foxe are examined with reference to such topics as the size of early modern families, the roles of spouses within marriage, the status of romantic love and marriage, and the treatment of children. In addition to these familiar categories, however, the essay also asks whether the protestant community of the Marian era was forming a coherent vision of the family as part of its strategy of survival, and whether the catholic authorities were aware of this and attempted to thwart its development. The possibility of a connection between the protestant emphasis on rediscovering the heart of the Christian gospel and a renewed emphasis on the biblical vision of family is raised, together with a discussion of the English reformers' concern that families not serve as hindrances in the advancement of the kingdom of God at that critical juncture in the life of the nation.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 39 , Issue 3 , September 1996 , pp. 599 - 618
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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References

1 I am profoundly grateful for the many valuable suggestions and insights passed on to me by Sir Geoffrey Elton during the course of this investigation. I would also like to acknowledge my indebtedness to the speakers (particularly Professor Chad Gaffield) and proceedings of the Lieutenant-Governor's Conference on the Family for introducing me to many concepts, issues and terminology which were instrumental in sparking my interest in family history and which proved to be of assistance in writing this paper. It was held in Edmonton, Alberta, 19–21 February 1990. Some of the material dealt with in this essay was presented in ‘Family matters during the Marian persecutions’, a paper given at the Sixteenth Century Studies Conference, 26 October 1990, in St Louis, Missouri.

2 Two outstanding examples which discuss the subject of Foxe and religious toleration come to mind. The first is by Olsen, V. Norskov in John Foxe and the Elizabethan church (Berkeley, 1973)Google Scholar, where chapter VI is devoted to ‘The church and toleration’. The second is a stimulating article by Sir Geoffrey Elton, given originally as his Presidential Address to the Ecclesiastical History Society, where contrast is made between the stance of Foxe and that of Thomas More. See ‘Persecution and toleration in the English Reformation’ in Persecution and toleration, Studies in Church History, No. 21, ed. Sheils, W. (Oxford, 1984), pp. 163–87Google Scholar. Regarding Foxe's role in developing an enduring interpretation of English history, see the pioneering study by William, Haller, Foxe's Book of martyrs and the elect nation (London, 1963).Google Scholar

3 I am conducting a separate study on the status and roles of women as seen in the pages of Foxe, tentatively entitled: ‘John Foxe and the sufferings of godly women during the Marian troubles’. Over twenty years ago, Roland Bainton remarked that ‘John Foxe tells us more about the women of the Reformation in England than does any other source’. See his Women of the Reformation in France and England (Minneapolis, 1973), p. 211Google Scholar. His twelfth chapter was entitled, ‘John Foxe and the women martyrs’, pp. 211–29.Google Scholar

4 For example, see Patrick, Collinson's essay, ‘The protestant family’, in The birthpangs of protestant England: religious and cultural change in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (New York, 1988), pp. 60–93Google Scholar, with notes on pp. 164–9. This discussion was originally presented as part of ‘The Third Anstey Memorial Lectures in the University of Kent at Canterbury’, 12–15 May 1986.

5 Christopher, Hill, Intellectual origins of the English revolution (London, 1972; orig. pub. 1965), pp. 178–80.Google Scholar

6 Mozley, J. F., John Foxe and his book (London, 1940; reprinted 1970)Google Scholar. See chapter IX, ‘Foxe's book: the Guernsey martyrs’, pp. 223–35.Google Scholar

7 Thomson, J. A. F., ‘John Foxe and some sources for Lollard history: notes for a critical appraisal’, in Studies in Church History, ed. Cuming, G. J. (London, 1965), II, 257.Google Scholar

8 Olsen quotes Gordon Rupp in Six makers of English religion, 1500–1700: ‘”J. F. Mozley may be said to have begun the needful ‘rebunking’ (to coin a needed word) of John Foxe and his book.”’ Olsen obviously sees himself contributing to the same process. See p. 50 in Olsen, and p. 54 in Rupp (London, originally published in 1957).

9 My thanks to Professor David Loades for making the point in conversation that critiques of Foxe tend to be piecemeal.

10 Samuel Roffey Maitland made numerous contributions to the nineteenth-century discussion on Foxe and his book. See for example Six letters on Fox's Acts and monuments (London, 1837)Google Scholar, and Notes on the contributions of the Rev. George Townsend, M.A. 's martyrology (London, 1841–1842)Google Scholar. James Gairdner's turn-of-the-century use and opinions of Foxe can be gleaned from Lollardy and the Reformation in England (London, 1908–1913), 4 vols.Google Scholar

11 John, Foxe, The acts and monuments of John Foxe (London, [1877]), ed. Josiah, Pratt, VI, 612.Google Scholar

12 Foxe, VI, 592.

13 Ibid. p. 597.

14 Ibid. p. 683.

15 Ibid. p. 693.

16 Ibid. p. 680.

17 Ibid. VII, 248–9.

18 Ibid. VI, 624–5.

19 Ibid. VIII, 463; see Peter, Laslett's estimates in The world we have lost, 2nd edn (London, 1971), pp. 93–4.Google Scholar

20 Foxe, VI, 625.

21 Ibid. p. 599.

22 Ibid. VII, 173–4.

23 Ibid. VII, 32.

24 Ibid. p. 44.

25 Ibid. VII, 136.

26 Ibid. VII, 387–9.

27 Ibid. VI, 624–5.

28 Ibid. p. 722.

29 Ibid.

30 Ibid. pp. 724–5. See the marginal caption at this point: ‘Working of nature between the father and the son’.

31 Ibid. pp. 722–3.

32 Ibid. pp. 727–8; VIII, 740.

33 Ibid. pp. 722–3.

34 Ibid. p. 674.

35 Ibid. VII, 277.

36 Ibid. pp. 262–4.

37 Ibid. p. 699.

38 See Alan, MacFarlane, Marriage and love in England: modes of reproduction 1300–1840 (Oxford, 1986), pp. 165–7.Google Scholar

39 Foxe, VIII, 196–7.

40 Ibid. pp. 198–9.

41 Ibid. pp. 473–4.

42 Ibid. p. 474.

43 Ibid. pp. 474–9.

44 See below p. 612.

45 Foxe, VIII, 510.

46 Ibid. pp. 510–11.

47 Ibid. p. 511. Foxe postulates that the dish and stone may have been placed alongside Fetty to indicate ‘that he should look for little other sustenance’.

48 Collinson, pp. 89–90.

49 Foxe, VIII, 554–5.

50 Ibid. pp. 510–13.

51 See for example the article by Gina, Alexander, ‘Bonner and the Marian persecutions’, History, LX (1975), 374–91Google Scholar, which attempts (unsuccessfully I think) to repackage Bonner as Marian Catholicism with a human face.

52 Foxe, VII, 525–6.

53 Ibid. pp. 526–7.

54 Ibid. VII, 431.

55 Ibid. pp. 116–18.

56 Ibid. p. 39.

57 Ibid. VIII, 173–4.

58 Ibid. VII, 29.

59 See Collinson, p. 82.

60 Foxe, VIII, 565.

61 Ibid. VII, 8–9.

62 Ibid. p. 15. Some of the other points raised against Ferrar included: negligence in handling an apparent paternity case involving one of his own servants; tolerating an ‘adulterous’ relationship, once again among his own household staff; protecting a known bigamist from discipline and even purchasing ‘a piece of land of him’; and, setting a poor example in having one of his own children ‘baptized on the work-day’ (VII, 5–7).

63 Ibid. VIII, 612–13.

64 Ibid. pp. 640–1.

65 Ibid. VI, 693–4.

66 I cannot claim credit for the origin of this insightful contrast; if I remember correctly, it was used (in a different socio-historical context) during a stimulating programme carried by the BBC World Service.

67 See Sommerville, C. John, The rise and fall of childhood, Sage Library of Social Research, 140 (Beverly Hills, 1982), 77.Google Scholar

68 For the ground-breaking study on family history (and childhood in particular), see Philippe, Aries, Centuries of childhood: a social history of family life', trans. Robert, Baldick (New York, 1962).Google Scholar

69 Foxe, VI, 739–40.