Women and Woodcuts

The illustrations in John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments, also known as The Book of Martyrs, provide us with some of the most striking images of the English Protestant tradition. From the first English edition (c.1563), the woodcut blocks that adorned and enriched the text were immediately recognized as one of the book’s most distinctive features.  In this essay, I provide a preliminary examination of the woodcut images, with a focus on the woodcuts depicting women, in the two volumes that constitute the sixth edition of Foxe's Acts and Monuments, circa 1610 (STC 11227).

In this edition, there are 168 woodcut images.* Within this, women appear in approximately 30 images and 138 images are devoted primarily to men (one or two women may be found in the occasional audience). Notably, images of women increase in the second volume: 27 of the 30 images are found and their incidence increases substantially after page 1,713. Imagery devoted to men also increases: in the first volume, they appear in 38 woodcut images and in 100 woodcuts in the second volume (several of these images are larger or, they occupy a larger portion of the page than those depicting the stories of women). Based upon the number of images themselves, rather than the precise number of male or female figures within each image, women comprise nearly 18 percent of the visual imagery in the sixth edition. In a subsequent and larger study, given both the emphasis on images and their composition, at least three questions could be pursued further: Why is there this increase in imagery toward the end of the second volume? How do images of women in this edition relate to those in earlier editions? Lastly,  how might such images have been understood by different audiences? 

For this current project, with the visual presence - or absence - of women in the sixth edition of John Foxe's Acts and Monuments, I ask: What role might such visual  images of women have played within this cultural and religious milieu? In order to begin to decipher possible meaning within this Protestant martyrology, I will examine what I perceive as three inter-related categories of images of women: Woman as Ruler (Queen Elizabeth I), Woman as Martyr, and Woman as Witness and Martyr.  Given how they are represented in both text and image, I hypothesize that women represent the spaces of cultural and religious tension.

*Note: this does not include printer's marks, embellished or drop capital letters, or other design elements.

The Dimensions of the Images 

In this precursory study, images that I have labelled as “small” typically measure one column width and those that are deemed “large” tend to be two column widths. The smaller images, including those of Margery Polley and Cicely Ormes, for example, measure 10.5 cm high by 7 cm wide (there is approximately 0.5 cm of white space around the entire image or, it is set apart from the red margin lines). The larger images, such as “A lamentable spectacle of three women,” measure 13 cm high by 18.5 cm wide. These images can be seen below, in the “Woman as Martyr” section. The title page is constituted by the woodcut image: it measures 29. 5 cm high x 19 cm wide. There are other exceptions to the dimensions of the woodcut images throughout the two volumes. For example, the woodcut image of “The Martyrdome of Alexander Gouch, and Driuers wife” (see below) measures 13. 5 cm high x 9 cm wide (there is no white space surrounding the image; the ink goes to and beyond the red margin lines, at various points). In addition, the “marker” woodcut images, or those that fold out, are considerably larger. For example, “The description of Windsor Castle” (inserted between pp. 1112 and 1113, vol. 2) measures nearly 28 cm high x 38 cm wide. 

For the inventory (or list) of woodcut images, click here.

An Introduction to the Woodcut Images in 

Acts and Monuments 

"If the book was a publishing sensation, the woodcut illustrations were undoubtedly one of its most successful features.” - Andrew Pettegree (2002)

The woodcut images were capable of confirming the meaning of the written word and served to emphasize the role of the reader in making meaning. The woodcut is part of what Margaret Aston and Elizabeth Ingram  indicate is the “authenticating process: [the] picture verifies adjacent text; there is a ‘go and see for yourself’ challenge to doubters.” (Aston and Ingram, 1997, p. 71)

When John Foxe and the printer John Day commissioned the illustrations for the book, they were swimming against the cultural current insofar as there was a discernible movement against the illustration of religious books. In addition, they had to contend with the underdeveloped state of the English woodcut tradition. In fact, it is notable that Foxe’s book is the only one of the major Reformed martyrologies to be illustrated. Andrew Pettegree credits the fortuitous convergence of two factors in providing use with some of English Protestantism’s greatest images: the English printing industry had attained maturity and done so before the iconophobia of continental Calvinism had made its influence felt.  (Pettegree, 2002, p. 134)

What influenced the images?

During the 1530s, England developed connections with the Netherlandish book world that would prove to be important in the artistic development of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. John Day, the later printer of Foxe, employed Dutch workmen in his print shop. Foxe and Day collaborated in the Elizabethan period and the illustrations commissioned for the book reveal every sign of a Flemish style that incorporated the Holbein tradition. According to Pettegree, “Hans Holbein’s designs proved the most tangible visual link between the first generation of the Protestant woodcut and John Foxe.” (Pettegree, 2002, pp. 139-41) 

There were 57 illustrations in the 1563 edition (some of them repetitions of the same woodcut); in the 1570 edition the number of illustrations increased to 149, an impressive number of illustrations for an early modern printed book. (Ruth Samson Luborksy, 1999, pp. 68-84) Foxe’s sixth edition of the Acts and Monuments is contained within 1,952 pages across two volumes (1,952 pages plus an index), and the images of suffering and execution enhance the power of this monumental work. In the words of Deborah Burks, “The work owes its polemical force to the combined witness of word and woodcut.” (Burks, 2002, p. 263) According to Burks, the work was a combined effort between Foxe and Day, with Foxe directing the research and compiling the text, and Day who commissioned the illustrations and coordinated the printing. In addition to serving as powerful religious propaganda, the many woodcuts employed by Foxe and Day function as utilitarian place indicators. (King, 2006, p. 185)

Following the death of John Day’s son Richard (c.1606), publication rights for the Book of Martyrs and ownership of its woodblocks were transferred into the hands of the Company of Stationers, for whom Humphrey Lownes likely printed the sixth edition in 1610. This syndicate had one major advantage over John Day in the printing process: they did not face the challenge of an unstable text, in which material was constantly being changed or added. (King, 2006, p. 138) 

“The artist uses these figures as surrogates within the illustration for the sympathetic viewer beyond the frame.” - Burks (2002, p. 266)

Margaret Aston and Elizabeth Ingram argue that the title page of the Acts and Monuments (ca. 1563) makes a good starting point for considering the illustrations as a whole, contending that “this crowded but well-composed page is programmatic for the sequences of images that follow.” (1997, p. 74.) The authors indicate that the title page remained constant through all the early editions and that which is found in the sixth edition of 1610 contains the same imagery. Here, a dichotomous stage is set: Foxe’s contrasted Churches – “The Image of the Persecuted Church” and “The Image of the Persecuting Church” – is true to an iconographic tradition that had become well established by 1563, since its Lutheran genesis. Images of the two Churches, persecuted and persecuting, are shown below the seated Saviour. While the authors indicate that this traditional picture of Christ in judgement was still present in the title-page of the Acts and Monuments of 1641, no mention of the 1610 edition is made.  

According to Aston and Ingram, the hugely expanded Acts and Monuments of 1570 increased the pictorial emphasis on the persecuting Church. The woodcut image in our edition of 1610 is identical to the image in the Acts and Monuments of 1583, the edition examined by the authors in their essay. Aston and Ingram indicate that the Foxe illustrator was paying attention to Albrecht Dürer’s details in The Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand (woodcut, about 1496). Even though the images in Foxe’s work appeared years later, woodcuts were the most cost efficient and convenient medium for the circulation of various kinds of images. (Aston and Ingram, 1997, p. 104) For Dürer's Martyrdom  visit https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/work/43496/. 

Once both Elizabeth (d. 1603) and Foxe (d. 1587) were dead, the role of this grand text began to change: “James managed to retain the support of most of the godly, and the 1610 edition saw little more than an updating of the martyr stories, mainly from France.” (David Loades, 2002, p. 283) 

The Iconography of the Acts and Monuments

As we will see in several images, the Acts and Monuments draws on and manipulates established iconography within the Christian and Continental traditions. Aston and Ingram stipulate how it is known that Protestant image-makers would quite readily take traditional iconography and apply it to their own ends. For example, the story of the female martyr Mrs. Joyce Lewis essentially appropriates the passion of Christ, with a few temporal changes. The reader is told how she lifts up her hands towards heaven while she is burning -- this gesture is reminiscent of Jesus who lifted his voice to God and said, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." (Nieman, p. 301, quotes Luke 24.46 The Holy Bible, King James Version)

This same referencing may be taking place through various woodcut images of both male and female martyrs, including those below. In looking at the images of male martyrs being burned, it is conceivable that they are meant to invoke images of Christ's suffering in traditional Christian art. It is interesting to note that in the woodcut images depicting the burning of both John Hooper and William Gardiner, women play the role of witness and, as they do in other compositions, they appear to register a limited set of emotions that could easily be perceived as resigned, impartial or sombre. Also of particular interest is the way in which image makers used the same woodcut image in the rendering of different narratives. For example, see the duplicate image which is applied to the stories of Margery Polley and Cicely Ormes in the section on female martyrs below.

Woman as Ruler & A Book Fit for a Queen 

“Few developments in sixteenth-century European history can match the unforeseen, astonishing birth in England of a cult inspired by the accidents of Queen Elizabeth’s femininity, remarkable personality, political longevity, and … the calculated maintenance of her much discussed virginity.” – Dale Hoak (2002)

The symbolic dimension of this composition implies that images hold power. This compelling woodcut image which is placed in the opening pages of the first volume appears to contribute to and substantiate both visual and textual imagery (and to events) that shaped the heroic myth of an Elizabethan "golden age" of imperialistic triumph. This woodcut image and the painted portrait below provide testimony to  the argument there was an established or readable iconography of the queen -- one which combined and condensed the most estimable traits, be they masculine or feminine. Both the woodcut and portrait image were produced close to the time of her death (ca. 1600-1610). In each image, the queen’s facial appearance is in keeping with the anachronistic “mask of youth” characteristic of her last years. (King, 1990, p. 43)

In a footnote, John King (2006) argues that Foxe’s idealized account of Elizabeth molded rather than reflected her queenly image.  Notably, she is magnificent compared to -- and even dwarfs -- her male audience that occupies the traditional place of the dedication portrait: the recognizable figures of John Foxe and John Day stand closest to the queen. The third man appears to represent their patron at the royal court, William Cecil, Lord Burghley (1520-1598).

In this woodcut, the only visual image dedicated to the queen in the two volumes, the design appears to cast Elizabeth in the role of a latter-day Emperor Constantine I. (King, 2006, p. 186) In addition, for progressive Protestants, Elizabeth's virginity became a symbol of national independence and this coincided with an increased emphasis on classical mythology in royalist panegyrics. (King, 2006, p. 58)

In his preface, Foxe views Elizabeth as a New Constantine presiding over an ideal Christian empire. The ornamental "C" of the emperor's name portrays the ultimate victory of the Crown. Elizabeth, as the Woman of the True Faith, is rendered as a formidable figure, seated on her throne and holds the Sword of Justice. Here, the representation of authority in the realm of religion and politics (affirmed by Henry VIII) and the ability to appeal for reward and advancement, which are the channels to power in a courtly society, are amalgamated in the woodcut. The iconography of the capital "C" here praises royal authority over church and state by enmeshing the sword's traditional meaning of justice with the image of the divine Word as the "Sword of the Spirit." (King, 1985, pp. 59 - 61) In addition to being seen in Solomonic terms, panegyrics praise Elizabeth as a "Second Deborah" at the beginning of her long reign (1558-1603).  Deborah, as the sole female Judge and the restorer of Israel, provides a positive precedent absent in British history for direct government by a woman. (King, 1985, p. 43)

As John King demonstrates, Elizabethan iconography incorporates a complex structure of symbols associated with the Virgin Mary, medieval queens, and many British kings. The image of Elizabeth as the restorer of true religion possessed extraordinary force and political appeal during an age in which secular and ecclesiastical power were fused. 

The sixth edition of Foxe's Acts and Monuments (c. 1610) was commissioned during the reign of James I, the first Stuart King of England (r. 1603-1625)

Jacobean politics provided the catalyst for the anachronistic revival of the cult of Elizabeth as a model ruler whose perpetual virginity symbolized political integrity, a militantly interventionist policy against Spain, and Protestant ideology . Because these values were increasingly found lacking at the court of England’s Scottish king, Protestant militants praised the late queen in order to attack Jacobean pacifism. (King, 2006, p. 67) 

Writers aligned Elizabeth I and the Virgin Mary from the first year of the reign, in fact from the moment of Elizabeth’s coronation, just as they had earlier praised Queen Mary I as a type of the Virgin. Dale Hoak (2002) posits that the first writer to associate Elizabeth I and the Virgin Mary was John Aylmer (1521-1594) in his An Harborowe for faithfull and trewe subiectes (1559). Notably, at Foxe’s request, Aylmer assisted him with the Latin precursor of the Acts and Monuments published by John Day. (Hoak,  pp. 73-75)

Hoak argues that John Aylmer’s tract is much more than a defense of womanly rule in England: “It is also a paean to Parliament and the distinctive nature of the English constitution, to Parliament’s unique function in the governance of England.” Notably, she indicates that while this aspect of An Harborowe has received some scholarly attention, it has never been attached to Aylmer’s new iconography of Protestant queenship. (Hoak, p. 76) 

“Adhering to True, or pure, Religion, an imperial queen would beget good government.” -- Dale Hoak (2002, p. 82)

Perhaps the presence of Foxe, Day, and Cecil in this evocative image of the queen functions as a visual reminder of an acknowledged truth -- An English queen did not rule alone; like any male sovereign, Elizabeth must rely on Parliament: “England will triumph not simply because God will guide an untested young woman, but because the seasoned and wise men of Parliament will give her the sort of advice and counsel she needs.” (Hoak, p. 77) 

Woman as Martyr

The depictions of both martyrs and persecutors grew enormously in the 1570 edition, which, as mentioned earlier, had nearly three times as many woodcuts as that of 1563. As Ruth Samson Luborsky (1999) has pointed out, the martyr images were of two kinds: there were the smaller images, representing one, two or more martyrs (mostly men and sometimes women) at the stake, and the larger woodcuts, tailored to historical events described in the text and occupying the width of both columns of text. In addition to these categories of martyr images and those of the tyrannical papacy, there is also a third category: a handful of the largest illustrations act as illustrative markers or secondary title pages. According to Aston and Ingram, these markers were designed to emphasize key aspects or elements of the work, “drawing pictorial attention to critical moments in the redemption of the English Church. We call these ‘marker’ woodcuts.” (Aston and Ingram, 1997, p. 80)  This handful of woodcut images provided visual emphasis for starting or turning points in the story.

In the case of certain texts and images (including that of the woman whose infant falls from her body into the flames, see below), few details of the dreadful experience of martyrdom are spared. This emphasis in the illustrations gives the Book of Martyrs an emotional impact. However, many images render events as not very gruesome, with facial expressions perhaps registering a sense of calm, peacefulness, and even happiness. There is a curious intermingling of pain, pleasure, and piety. Many executions in the work take place within crowded scenes – those who gather are not only armed men, but laymen and women (and occasionally children) whose presence perhaps testifies to sympathetic horror at the display of suffering and cruelty, and to the honour to be found in a "good death":

“The text makes clear that these gestures are also meant to be expressions of prayerful praise and joy at the constancy of the martyr and his or her ‘good’ death. Faithful bystanders, who could see the ‘cheerful countenance’ or hear the ‘comfortable words’, understood the ‘tokens’ that signified a good death.” - Aston and Ingram (1997, p. 87) 

As Meghan Nieman (2005) illustrates, two imperatives appear to be at work in the Acts and Monuments: one is the responsibility of self-surveillance or the necessity of interiority; the other is the need for the testimony of one's faith, or, an externalizing of belief. (Nieman, p. 295) While Neiman argues that Protestant activism afforded women a kind of socio-political liberation, I suggest that through John Foxe’s imagery of women (both via text and woodcut), the figure/body of “Woman” represents the spaces of ambiguity and the cultural and religious tensions particular to the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries in England. In this environment, as the responsibility of one’s soul became more of a personal matter, salvation depended on self-surveillance. Within this, the importance of the written word, and its accompanying visual imagery, gained importance. (Nieman, p. 296)

Notably, unlike the female saints of Jacob de Voragine’s The Golden Legend, Foxe’s heroes do not tend to be from the upper class. Save for a few female martyrs, including the famous Anne Askew, Foxe’s women are firmly set in the working and middle classes. In Nieman’s words, “They were homegrown heroes … These people are strong. These people are courageous … They are just regular people.” (Nieman, p. 297) The major difference between Foxe’s heroes and those of the worldly Scipio, Alexander, and the warlike Julie, is that while the latter group takes pleasure in killing or torturing others, the martyrs in Foxe’s narrative delight in being killed or tortured. In his preface, Foxe urges his readers to use these martyrs both as a template and to see them as a reflection of themselves. Moreover, Foxe argues that clean living is the result of clean reading – essentially, by the end of the Acts and Monuments, the reader will be godly. (Nieman, p. 299)

How are we to understand such a manifesto, especially as it pertains to women? As Nieman acknowledges, surely the idea of a generation of women following in the footsteps of women like Elizabeth Young or Anne Askew was a radical one. Did such female heroes make people feel slightly anxious? Carole Levin (1982) contends that Foxe was an enthusiastic supporter of the womanly virtues of humility, sweetness, modesty, and piety. Yet, how is the reader to understand examples of women who leave their husbands and children to follow their own “consciences,” who talk back, and say no to the male establishment?

Sara J. Eaton (1987) argures that "Perceived as either queenly virgins or dissipated whores, they (women) inspired virtuous male behaviour. From the male writer's viewpoint, women were perfectable." (p. 165) Further, "The praised woman is like a man: and as a 'star,' she leads readers to a contemplation of virtues desired in men." (p. 181) Likewise, she also leads readers to consider the corruption of ideals in men's lives. 

 

Foxe’s account of Anne Askew caused her to become one of the most famous martyrs of the sixteenth century. (Levin, 1981, p. 200) Askew had come to London to seek a divorce from her husband. Perhaps because she had family and friends in influential places who could plead on her behalf, the religious officers and the bishop appear to spend substantial time trying to persuade her to recant. Like Elizabeth Young, Askew’s most powerful weapon appears to be her mind, her way with words. She is brave and clever in her responses to her examiners, and she knows when to remain silent and how to justify her silence by quoting the words of Solomon. 

It is curious that there is a dissonance between text and image in the narrative of Anne Askew’s experience: while the final section is devoted to her torture and murder, the woodcut image depicts very few if any of the gruesome details. In fact, things appear quite to be quite orderly (the word "order" also takes its place in the image's title) – it is challenging to discern where Askew is in this image . And yet there are some visual clues which hint at elements of chaos, especially around the edges of the gathering. As the story goes, when Askew refuses to cry while being racked, the Lord Chancellor and another man rack her with their own hands. By the end, Askew is so mutilated that she has to be carried to the stake on a chair. When offered one last chance to recant, she refuses and so is burned along with three others. It is significant that Askew’s constancy is documented as a source of inspiration for others, including the three men sentenced to die with her. 

It is compelling that such women were celebrated by the Protestant establishment and Foxe. They are held up as examples for readers to aspire to, when surely a following of their ways would have meant women leaving their families for God – something that would have deconstructed early modern society. In addition, these stories reveal strong women verbally outsmarting men; they remain calm while the men lose control. Did such representations reinforce or subvert gender roles? And how did Foxe and Day, and the reader and/or viewer, understand these pious yet potentially dangerous women? While Nieman references the research on female martyrdom in the early modern period  (Carole Levin, Janel M. Mueller, Elain Scarry, Diane Willen, and Susannah Brietz Monta, and others), she also reveals how such questions merit further scholarship:  "Foxe's book destabilizes gender roles enough that a question mark remains around what might have stuck with - especially women - readers or listeners after the cover was closed." (Nieman, p. 304)

It is likely that Foxe is ambiguous about the "true" capabilities of women. He appears to ascribe female strength to divine intervention, so that the figures function as agents as God.  In addition, the intermediary aid that allows the women to outwit their interrogators takes the form of a "manly" spirit sent from God. Even in this brief introduction to the depictions of women as martyrs in the woodcut images, we are able to discern how the female figure in the Acts and Monuments, be she queen, martyr, and/or witness, becomes a manipulable instrument for religious and social messaging. 

 

"The undraped bodies of these victims and unclothed counterparts in some of the larger woodcuts emphasize both the humanity and physical suffering of the martyrs." - John N. King (2006, p. 193)

The woodcut image above appears to illustrate th burning of Alice Driver and Alexander Gouch. In his study of illustrations in printed books in early modern England, James A. Knapp (2003) includes a corresponding image in his compendium of illustrations. It is interesting to note that in this example from the Acts and Monuments of 1563, there is wording in the woodcut's banderole and it identifies different martyrs and corresponds to a section of text entitled, "The cruell burnyng of a man and a woman at Norwych." These banderoles or apertures could also contain supplications attributed to martyrs at the point of death. 

Woman as Witness, as Martyr

Meghan Nieman demonstrates how a greater sense of interiority inspired pious reflection (what Foxe concentrates on in the “Utility” preface). Yet, as Foxe makes clear in this work, it is not always appropriate to remain obedient and silent – in the examples he employs, many women are forced to turn the interior resistance outward in an act of martyria, the Greek root of which means “to witness”.

“Foxe’s female monuments are enclosed within a text scripted by men … and … they are subject to both disclaimer and direct attack.” As Robinson argues convincingly in her essay about the gendering of conscience in Foxe’s Acts and Monuments, even though the history of the “true” church coincides with the emergence of a new female power, “the representations of females speaking their consciences are mediated by the male voices of the narrator, Foxe.” - Marsha S. Robinson (2002, pp. 235-236.)

Iconographic models of the Protestant Woman of Faith portrayed her as both hearer and reader of scripture. The image of the female reader not only spoke to the influence of humanist scholars like Erasmus and Vives, who praised the role of scripture reading in the training of virtuous females; it was an icon exemplifying the importance of the inclusive Protestant doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. However, “an intransigent misogyny based on classical sources, the church fathers and the Bible perpetuated arguments which denied spiritual equality to the female and implicitly rendered her conscience less reliable than a man’s conscience.” (Robinson, p. 237)

As Robinson  highlights, many female martyrs like Anne Askew internalize the apostle Paul’s assertion that there is neither male nor female in Christ (Galatians 3:28). Like Robinson, I argue that by transcending gender roles, such women are conscious of and exploit the contradiction and ambiguity inherent in the patriarchal ideology of Protestant reformers. (Robinson cites Patricia Crawford, Women and Religion in England, 1500-1720, 1993) 

When Foxe praises the commanding demeanor and scriptural command of Alice Driver, a 30-year-old woman from Suffolk arrested for sacramentarian heresy in 1558, she becomes yet another embodiment of the reformers’ vision of change which Foxe celebrates. She is evidence of the world turned upside down. In Robinson’s words, “Foxe seizes upon gender expectations to dramatize the topos of Protestant enlightenment versus Catholic ignorance which informs his text … In Alice’s case both popular and female enlightenment are offered as evidence of the power of the Spirit and the Word in dispelling ignorance and engendering Reformation.” (Robinson, p. 239) 

Ambivalent in his portrait of the skillful female, Foxe often underscores female limitations to advance his mandate. For example, it works for there to be a “sillie poore women” in that such a construction of women as vulnerable or incapable ultimately foils the merciless cruelty of the papists. Inevitably, such women could evoke the persecuted church. Moreover, as Robinson demonstrates possible, female weakness attests to Protestant child-like reliance on God (this would be sent against the Catholic dependence on human power). As Robinson says, “Foxe at once legitimizes female conscience by gendering it male.” (p. 240) Such representations of viragoes were not unique to Foxe’s Acts and Monuments – courageous females were praised for their virility throughout the Renaissance. (Robinson cites the scholarship of Jerry C. Nash, 1997, who states that in the Renaissance, “no higher praise” could be given to “heroines” than to represent them as manly women or viragoes.)

The representations of extraordinary women like Elizabeth I as viragoes recognized female capacity as male, thereby reinforcing a misogynistic naturalization of general fallibility as female. (On this, Robinson, p. 242, builds on the scholarship of Helen Hackett, 1995) It is important to remember that such accounts of female conscience are mediated by Foxe. While Foxe may momentarily applaud acts of ingenuity which attest to the ungendering of identity, this reminds us that in Acts and Monuments when women are victorious over papal ignorance, such paradoxical behaviour is more often appealed to in order to support a Protestant history of the “true” (i.e. Protestant) church invested in the defeat of Anti-christ. Because many of the women Foxe depicts refuse to go home, they suffer for their commitment to the “truth.” 

Despite a definitive female conscience, Foxe’s female confessors probably served as models for godly readers, many of whom had to negotiate the ambiguities of Protestant prescriptions. Perhaps some female readers were able to experience social and spiritual benefits, thus affording a woman a certain measure of personal autonomy. It is possible, then, that well-informed female consciences commanded respect, and legitimized a private influence or agency that extended beyond the domestic realm. 

Returning to the image of Queen Elizabeth above, it is worth mentioning at this juncture that long before the cult of the wise royal virgin developed in celebration of the queen, Tudor Protestants had been praising learned women for their practice of the scriptures in the cause of church reform. Moreover, it was this program of religious education that was central to making England a Protestant country following Henry VIII's break with Rome. (King, 1985)

Finis

In this portrayal of Christian Justice, the Bible counterbalances the heap of ceremonial objects and decretals that symbolize papal “vanities.” Not even the attendant demon is capable of tipping the balance against the “weight” and “substance” of the scriptures. The barefoot figures of Jesus and the apostles standing opposed to the extravagance of the clerics of the Church of Rome follow the model of German Lutheran propaganda. It is near certain that Day commissioned this visual allegory which also appears in the third edition of the Book of Martyrs (1576), p. 771. (King, 2006, p. 181)

Perhaps this female figure with her attributes is meant to reference and provide a fitting bookend for the  woodcut image of Elizabeth I. The representation of Justice with scales and sword derived from antiquity and, since the time of the Romans, the judgement of right and wrong has been personified in this way. However, in Foxe's woodcut, Justice is blindfold and therefore, an opening for ambiguity is made. Aston and Ingram demonstrate how this adaptation seems to be a relatively late form, making its appearance during the Renaissance period, while drawing upon a long tradition of Continental iconography. Like Aston and Ingram, I too look forward to the day when we know more about the imagery and the image-makers themselves -- those who designed and made the blocks, where they came from, and with whom they interacted. 

For now, at the very least, there is room for the questions that ask how the readers would have interpreted such persuasive images, and what this might tell us about the making of meaning and the culture of reading, image production, and identity in England, in the time of Foxe's Acts and Monuments, circa 1610. Based on the marriage of text and image in this sixth edition, it appears that "Woman" - as ruler, martyr, and/or witness -  in practice or as allegory, was destined to capitulate in some way to the mechanisms of church and state.

Works Cited:

Aston, Margaret and Elizabeth Ingram. “The Iconography of the Acts and Monuments.” In John Foxe and the English Reformation, edited by David Loades. SCOLAR PRESS, 1997, pp. 66 – 142. 

Burks, Deborah. “Polemical Potency: The Witness of Word and Woodcut.” In John Foxe and his World, edited by Christopher Highley and John N. King. Ashgate, 2002, pp. 263 - 276. 

Eaton, Sara J. "Presentations of Women in the English Popular Press." Ambiguous Realities: Women in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, edited by Carole Levin and Jeanie Watson, Wayne Street University Press, 1987, pp. 165-183.

Felch, Susan. “Shaping the Reader in the Acts and Monuments.” John Fox and the English Reformation, edited by David Loades, SCOLAR PRESS, 1997, pp. 52-65. 

Hoak, Dale. “A Tudor Deborah? The Coronation of Elizabeth I, Parliament, and the Problem of Female Rule.” In In John Foxe and his World, edited by Christopher Highley and John N. King. Ashgate, 2002, pp. 73-88.

King, John N. "The Godly Woman in Iconography." Renaissance Quarterly, vol. 38, no. 1 (Spring, 1985), pp. 41-84. DOI: 10.2307/2861331

King, John N. “Elizabeth I: Representations of the Virgin Queen.” Renaissance Quarterly, vol. 43, no. 1 (Spring, 1990), pp. 30-74. DOI: 10.2307/2861792

King, John N. Foxe’s “Book of Martyrs” and Early Modern Print Culture. Cambridge: 2006.

King, John N. “Reading the woodcuts in John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs.” Tudor Books and Readers: Materiality and the Construction of Meaning, edited by John N. King, Cambridge University Press, 2010, pp. 191-210.

Knapp, James A. Illustrating the Past in Early Modern England: The Representation of History in Printed Books. Ashgate, 2003.

Levin, Carole. “Women in The Book of Martyrs as Models of Behaviour in Tudor England.” International Journal of Women’s Studies 4.2 (1981), pp. 196-207.

Loades, David. “Afterword: John Foxe in the Twenty-First Century.” In John Foxe and his World, edited by Christopher Highley and John N. King. Ashgate, 2002, pp. TO COME.

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Nieman, Meghan. “Foxe’s Female Martyrs and the Utility of Interiority.” The Dalhousie Review, vol. 85, no. 2, 2005, pp. 295-305, http://hdl.handle.net/10222/61567.

Pettegree, Andrew. “Illustrating the Book: A Protestant Dilemma.” In John Foxe and his World, edited by Christopher Highley and John N. King. Ashgate, 2002, pp. 133 – 144.

Robinson, Marsha S. “Doctors, Silly Poor Women, and Rebel Whores: The Gendering of Conscience in Foxe’s Acts and Monuments.” In John Foxe and his World, edited by Christopher Highley and John N. King. Ashgate, 2002, pp. 235-248.

Section author: Jaiya Anka