Creating the Image of a Martyr: John Porter, Bible Reader
Part of the English Protestant historical memory portrays Bishops Gardiner and Bonner as so frightened of commoners' exposure to scripture that they jailed those who read the Bible publicly. This memory stems from John Foxe's martyrdom of John Porter, who was arrested for Bible reading and...
| Authors: | ; |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2002
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| In: |
The sixteenth century journal
Year: 2002, Volume: 33, Issue: 3, Pages: 725-734 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Parallel Edition: | Non-electronic
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| Summary: | Part of the English Protestant historical memory portrays Bishops Gardiner and Bonner as so frightened of commoners' exposure to scripture that they jailed those who read the Bible publicly. This memory stems from John Foxe's martyrdom of John Porter, who was arrested for Bible reading and died of mistreatment in prison. Foxe's image of Porter reappears in the artist George Harvey's "The First Reading of the Bible in the Crypt of Old St. Paul's, 1540" (pre-1846) and again in Eugene and Margaret Bahn's History of Oral Interpretation (1970), which calls Porter an example of the "unbroken partnership between oral literature and religion which began long before the advent of Christianity and has continued today." Other evidence suggests that Foxe's narrative was carefully crafted, evolving in subsequent editions of Actes and Monuments. The earliest Porter narrative, written by his cousin William Palmer, portrays a John Porter whose arrest was not for Bible reading, but for denying the Henrician interpretation of the Eucharist. |
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| ISSN: | 2326-0726 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: The sixteenth century journal
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.2307/4144021 |