SOURCE: Knott, John R. “The Holy Community” and “Bunyan and the Language of Martyrdom.” In Discourses of Martyrdom in English Literature, 1563-1694, pp. 84-116; 179-215. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

In the following essays, Knott claims that writings about early Protestant martyrs reveal a community with a common identity wherein the martyrs bond was strengthened by the suffering they shared for their faith; he then examines the impact of Protestant martyrology on the writings of John Bunyan.

The Holy Community

The days are come, in the which we cannot but declare what we be.

John Bradford, Writings

If Foxe's rendering of the Marian persecution offers numerous scenes of solitary heroism, it also reveals the emergence of a community bound by common experience and a collective sense of preserving the heritage of the primitive church. The many letters of individual martyrs that Foxe reprinted in the Acts and Monuments...