Documenta Anabaptistica Volume 8: The Forgotten Writings of the Mennonite Martyrs

This volume is a collection of prison writings by seven Dutch Mennonite martyrs executed between 1569 and 1592, first published in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, but until now almost entirely neglected even by specialists in the Radical Reformation. Included are some forty-nine letters, fifteen songs, a poem, a treatise, and six Tafereelen ( tableaux ), plus four letters written to the martyrs, several editorial prefaces and introductions, and several archival documents pertaining to the execution of the martyrs. An introduction contextualizes the writings and explains the reasons for their exclusion from the Mennonite martyrological tradition. This collection adds to the primary sources pertaining to Anabaptist martyrs, Dutch Mennonites, and the Radical Reformation, supplementing van Braght’s Martyrs’ Mirror.

Published as Kerkhistorische Bijdragen, Documenta Anabaptistica, vol. 8