The Actes and Monuments, popularly known as Foxe's Book of Martyrs, is a work of Protestant history and martyrology by Protestant English historian John Foxe, first published in 1563 by John Day.
Frontispiece to the 1563 edition of The Book of Martyrs
Engraved Title page from Fox's Book of Martyrs, pub by Thomas Kelly in 1814 (folio)
William Tyndale, just before being strangled and burned at the stake, cries out, "Lord, open the King of England's eyes", in woodcut from an early edition of Foxe's Book of Martyrs.
In Christianity, a martyr is a person who was killed for their testimony for Jesus or faith in Jesus. In years of the early church, stories depict this often occurring through death by sawing, stoning, crucifixion, burning at the stake, or other forms of torture and capital punishment. The word martyr comes from the Koine word μάρτυς, mártys, which means "witness" or "testimony".
The Massacre of the Innocents (detail) by Lucas Cranach the Elder (c. 1515), National Museum in Warsaw.
The Martyrdom of San Acacio (Acacius, Agathus, Agathius). From Triptych. Museo del Prado
The martyrs Maximus and Theodotus of Adrianopolis, c. 985