ABSTRACT
In a woodcut that first appeared in the 1576 edition of Actes and Monuments, Divine Justice holds a balance weighing the Word of God 'agaynst the doctrines and vanities of mans traditions'. The dramatic imbalance of Justice's scale visually depicts the Protestant reassessment of authority; the weight of the eternal Word exposes the weightlessness of the decrees of men. Placed at the end of the first volume in the 1576 and 1583 editions, and at the very end of the 1596 and 1610 editions of Actes and Monuments, this image reaffirms the verdict of Foxe's history. Such a weighing of competing authorities is reenacted again and again in the heresy examinations, trials and disputations that Foxe transcribed from consistory court registers and from narratives written by the martyrs themselves. The dramatization or invocation of the examination or trial is a defining convention of Foxean dramas.
