1563
Foxe is printed
Daye printed Foxe's Book of Martyrs, one of the defining works of English Protestant memory.
History
John Daye and Foxe's Book of Martyrs
The chancel at All Saints holds the memorial of a printer whose work helped shape the English Reformation.
The Printer
A national story remembered in a village chancel
John Daye was one of the most significant printers of Elizabethan England. His name is especially associated with Foxe's Book of Martyrs, first published in 1563, a vast Protestant history of persecution, witness and reform.
The book was not simply a private devotional work. In the years after its publication, it became part of the public religious life of England, placed in parish churches alongside the Bible and read by generations who were learning to understand the Reformation through print.
At Little Bradley, that national story comes to rest in a particular place. Daye's brass memorial remains in the chancel, among the church's collection of memorials, linking this quiet Suffolk building with the wider history of faith, politics and the printed word.
Parish Churches
Read in public
The book became part of parish life, helping print carry religious argument into ordinary church settings.
Little Bradley
Remembered here
His memorial at All Saints gives the church a direct connection to this larger Reformation story.