Presented by: Jasmine Lim, Tryne Ong, Vanessa Yeo and

Nur Syahirah

Women’s Place: Gender, Obedience and Authority in the Sixteenth

Century

Orlaith O’Sullivan

Presentation Flow ○ Key Points of O’Sullivan’s essay

○ Our response & argument

○ Foxe’s female martyrs’ feminist awareness

○ Our approach to the text

○ Examination of Foxe’s authorial voice in the text

○ Implications

○ Our Final Thoughts

○ Discussion Questions

Key points of O’Sullivan’s Essay

“The trials set forth in Foxe’s Acts and Monuments demonstrate that the prosecution of women as heretics was not fundamentally conceived as the

Church versus an insubordinate layperson, but as male versus female.” (258)

“The experiences with both the clerical and the secular authorities demonstrate an antimisogynist, if not feminist awareness” (233)

Our Response● Yes, it was not simply a battle between the Church and an insubordinate

layperson but as male versus female.

● Yes, the female martyrs displayed a feminist awareness.

However..

● O’Sullivan, in her essay, neglects the fact she accesses these accounts of martyrs through Foxe (see footnotes). Her direct engagement with only the accounts of the martyrs is therefore problematic.

Our Argument In the Book of Martyrs by John Foxe, women are celebrated for their subversion of male theological authority. A closer examination of Foxe’s authorial voice in his text however

reveals to us that his female martyrs’ subversive efforts as women against men are in fact trivialized and capitalized

upon to further propagate the Protestant faith. Foxe’s text therefore diminishes the feminist awareness of

his female martyrs and perpetuates existing patriarchal ideology.

Historical Context (Education)The Act for the Advancement of True Religion (1543)

“Girls from a poor home received no education as we would recognise it. They

learned skills for life from their mothers. Girls from the homes of the rich received

some form of education but it was in things like managing a household, needlework

and meal preparation. It was generally believed that teaching girls to read and write

was a waste of time.”

“Most importantly, women were not encouraged to participate in public conversation, church leadership or theological work. Women's participation in

religious life and their spiritual development were to be channeled mainly through their homes and domestic vocations.” (Stjerna 5)

“Regardless of the humanists' passion for cultivating the individual, women were not envisioned as participants in activities that were about naming reality,

interpreting human experience, naming God and speculating on ways of knowing God, and teaching others about the principles of life in the face of God and other

beings. In other words, theology, just as public ministry, remained a male prerogative — in theory.” (Stjerna 10)

Historical Context (Public presence)

Anne Askew:

“I told him that I was but a woman, and knew not the course of schools.” (Foxe 24)

“Here Anne utilizes the exclusion of women from higher education to avoid a statement of her heretical beliefs. She shifts the focus of the argument, using the priest's own weapons against him. Women, who were not logical enough to engage in disputation, had of course no reason to attend a university. This further reinforced their exclusion from active ministering, because only the educated could preach.” (O’Sullivan 239)

Foxe’s Female Martyrs’ Feminist Awareness

Anne Askew:

“And I answered, “God hath given me the gift of knowledge, but not of utterance: and Solomon saith, That a woman of few words is the gift of God.” (Foxe 28)

“Anne's staunch resistance to the authorities cannot be proven: she is answering the questions posed, but not in a cooperative manner.” (O’Sullivan 240)

Foxe’s Female Martyrs’ Feminist Awareness

Anne Askew:

"That I, being a woman, should interpret the Scriptures, especially in the presence of 'so many wise learned men’.” (Foxe 28)

“The response is ingenious: Anne uses the Church's interpretation of 1 - Tim. 2 - which she has already admitted that she comprehends as well as they - to subvert the Church's authority.” (O’Sullivan 240)

Foxe’s Female Martyrs’ Feminist Awareness

Agnes Prest:

“You must bear with me, a poor woman” (Foxe 248)

“No, I have but one husband, which is here already in this city and in prison with me, from whom I will never depart.” (Foxe 249)

“The Bishop tries to appeal to her role as a wife and to her wifely duty to obey, because if he can extract from Prest an admission of obedience to her husband, then her obedience to the Church is implicit. Prest deconstructs the hierarchies, rejecting the familial one altogether and casting aside that of the idolatrous Catholic Church in favour of Christ's true church, to which she pledges her obedience above all else.” (O’Sullivan 250)

Foxe’s Female Martyrs’ Feminist Awareness

Foxe’s female martyrs therefore challenged both the exclusive and sexist system of theology in 16th century England by speaking publicly

about their opinions on religion, when the socio-historical context outlawed them from doing so.

Foxe’s inclusion of their stories credits them for these transgressions, but are his depictions impartial enough? Does Foxe have a motive

behind his representation?

History as his-story

“...no given set of causally recorded historical events can in itself constitute a story; the most it might offer to the historian are story

elements. The events are made into a story by the suppression or subordination of certain of them and the highlighting of others, by

characterisation, motific repetition, variation of tone and point of view, alternative descriptive strategies, and the like – in short, all of the

techniques that we would normally expect to find in the emplotment of a novel or a play.” (White 1715)

Martyrology: a framework

“an official list of martyrs” (Collins Dictionary)

“functions to place the act in a framework that gives it meaning and significance.” (Shepardson 85)

So how did Foxe’s “framework” implicate the accounts of his female martyrs?

● Not simply a matter of an “insubordinate layperson versus the Church” but a matter of “male versus female” as well (O’Sullivan 98)

● As exemplified earlier, Foxe’s female martyrs demonstrated a feminist awareness.

● His female martyrs’ subversion of their examiners as patriarchal men is however trivialized in his text

● Foxe’s transformation of Anne Askew as a patriarchal tool to promote Protestantism

● Foxe’s glossing over Prest’s Wife extensive spiritual knowledge.

How does Foxe trivialize his female martyrs subversive actions against men?

Foxe’s trivialization of his female martyrs’ subversive efforts against men (Anne Askew)● Foxe’s transformation of Askew into a patriarchal tool to

promote Protestantism:

○ “[Askew] slept in the lord, … leaving behind her a singular

example of Christian constancy for all men to follow.” (Foxe 34)

○ Foxe’s own patriarchal agenda: Askew can be a role model

for male Protestant readers, but preferably not the female

ones

Anne Askew

Where is Anne Askew?

“[it] maps the pattern of her corporal displacement within the text itself.” (Coles 516)

Foxe’s trivialization of his female martyrs’ subversive efforts against men (Prest’s Wife)● Prest’s Wife’s extensive spiritual knowledge is glossed over:

○ Foxe only praises Agnes Prest for her patience, kindness and constancy

to God, etc.

■ “most patient of her words and answers, sober in apparel, meat and

drink, and would never be idle: good to the poor … Thus was her

mortal life ended. For whose constancy God be everlastingly

praised. Amen.” (Foxe 253)

Why does Foxe trivialize his female martyrs’ subversive efforts against men?“The Invention and Benefit of Printing”, Foxe's Book of Martyrs: The Acts and Monuments of the Church, Volume 1

● “For although, through outward force and violent cruelty, tonges dare not speak, yet the hearts of men daily (no doubt) is instructed through the benefit of printing.” (Foxe 1032)

What does Foxe’s view of his Book of Martyrs as an instructional tool then tell us?● Foxe had intended for his Protestant readers to read his text.

● Society at that point in time was however strictly patriarchal.

● If Foxe drew attention to his female martyrs’ as a threat towards the gender

order, he would risk offending his male (and largely patriarchal) Protestant

readers and consequently lose their support.

● It was therefore necessary for Foxe to angle his female martyrs’

transgressive actions as a result of being a devout Protestant.

So why does it matter to us that Foxe trivializes his female martyrs’ subversive efforts against men?● As exemplified earlier, Anne Askew is transformed into a patriarchal tool to

promote Protestantism while Prest’s Wife’s extensive spiritual knowledge is glossed over.

● Foxe’s “framework” in his Book of Martyrs therefore misrepresents the full extent of his female martyrs’ transgression as a result of being a devout Protestant and a budding feminist who demonstrated awareness of her marginalized role as a female in their society.

Our Final Thoughts

● Although Foxe ultimately does his female martyrs a disservice by diverting attention away from their subversive efforts as women standing up against patriarchal men, it still remains commendable that he accords credit to his female martyrs’ constancy as a result of being a devout Protestant.

● What Foxe’s Book of Martyrs therefore serves to illuminate to us is the need to question the medium through which we access the past.

Discussion Questions

1) What purpose does the inclusion of Lady Elizabeth in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs serve?

2) Can history be portrayed objectively? If yes, how? If no, why?

BibliographyColes, Kimberly A. (2002). The Death of the Author (And the Appropriation of Her Text): The Case of Anne Askew's "Examinations" Modern Philology, vol. 99, no. 4, pp 515-539.

Hickerson, Megan L. “Gospelling Sister ‘Goinge up and Downe’: John Foxe and Disorderly Women” The Sixteenth Century Journal, vol. 35, no. 4, 2004, pp 1035 - 1051.

O’Sullivan, Orlaith. Gender, Obedience, and Authority in the Sixteenth Century. Reformation, vol. 3, 1998, pp 225 - 258.

Shepardson, Nikki. Burning Zeal: The Rhetoric of Martyrdom and the Protestant Community in Reformation France, 1520 - 1570. Lehigh University Press, 2007.

Stjerna, Kirsi. “Women and Theological Writing During the Reformation.” Journal of Lutheran Ethics, 3 Jan. 2016, https://www.elca.org/jle/articles/1145.