Print from wood engraving titled „The order and maner of burying in the fieldes such as died in prisons, and namely, William Wiseman“.

Artist and engraver unknown.

From the Foxe‘s Book of Martyrs.

The order and maner of burying in the Fields such as dyed in prison, and namely, of William Wiseman. The fate of the London clothworker, William Wiseman, who died in the bishop of London's prison, the so-called Lollards' Tower of St Paul's, was not unique. Another woodcut (1583, p. 1703), told the story of four prisoners who earlier in 1555 had similarly been 'cast into the fields' after dying in custody. As was here explained with caustic irony, the 'devout manner' customary in church law prevented suicides and heretics whose alienation placed them beyond God's mercy from being granted burial in consecrated ground. The scene shows the charitable action of a group of devout 'good Tobies', who put themselves at risk by giving decent burial to the outcast under cover of darkness. The reference is to the example of Tobit in the apocryphal book of Tobit (included in the Geneva Bible), who made a grave and buried a man who had been strangled and cast out in the market place. A sizable throng is depicted, including the archers mentioned as being out in the fields, one of whom looks heavenward, doffing his cap. This was a religious ceremony, with psalm-singing and women with praying hands, as Wiseman was gently laid to rest.

The Actes and Monuments, popularly known as Foxe's Book of Martyrs, is a work of Protestant history and martyrology by John Foxe, first published in English in 1563 by John Day. It includes a polemical account of the sufferings of Protestants under the Catholic Church, with particular emphasis on England and Scotland. The book was highly influential in those countries, and helped shape lasting popular notions of Catholicism there. The book went through four editions in Foxe's lifetime and a number of later editions and abridgements, including some that specifically reduced the text to a Book of Martyrs.

Approx. image size: 17, 4 x 12, 8/22, 2 x 18, 6 cm. Condition: good.