SOURCE: Bartlett, I. Ross. “John Foxe as Hagiographer: The Question Revisited.” Sixteenth Century Journal, 26, no. 4 (winter 1995): 771-89.

In the following essay, Bartlett examines the motivations and purposes behind Foxe's writing of Acts and Monuments.

By using modified forms of the analysis categories developed by hagiographic scholars we can demonstrate that John Foxe shares the twofold purpose of all authors in the genre, especially within the portions of Acts and Monuments that address the reign of Mary Tudor. First, he bore witness to the truth as he understood it; second, he sought to do some eternal spiritual good for the reader. Until we fully appreciate these aims we will not understand the breadth of Foxe's purpose in this sprawling work. I argue that when he chose to use the hagiographic forms employed from the earliest days of the church, Foxe made a conscious selection of material and style to...