John Foxe's Latin writings : their intellectual and social context, with special reference tot he period of his exile, 1554-1559

This thesis sets out to examine the importance of Latin in the literary output of John Foxe by
means of an analysis of a representatives ample of the many different genres in which he
wrote. The thesis rests on the examination of four propositions about Foxe's career as a Latin
writer: first that his natural language of thought was Latin and that he was an accomplished
Latinist; secondly, that he developed a significant intellectual network with the great scholars
of the day; thirdly that his Latin, both spoken and written, is the key to unlocking the
distinctiveness of his experience during his exile; and finally that on his return to England
Foxe continued to use his Latin as a protagonist in the Elizabethan regime. It demonstrates
not only that he was an extremely skilled Latinist, but also that he was very much in demand
at different stages of his life as an exponent of those skills. In particular, this thesis shows
beyond all doubt that the widespread view over the centuries, prevalent even among many of
his contemporaries that John Foxe was simply the church historian who wrote the Acts and
Monuments (`Book of Martyrs'), is completely wrong. Foxe was a true humanist and a son of
the Renaissance in the tradition of Erasmus and his disciples, a neglected Latin writer, whose
final untranslated work on the Apocalypse, at the least, merits a detailed study.