ABSTRACT
Jean Crespin implicitly treated the Lutherans as being part of his own era, and used Luther as the dividing line between the 'old times' and the present age reform and of persecution. Within the martyrology, Crespin does not identify Lutheran martyrs as being in any way different from Reformed ones; there are none of the caveats that mark his description of Vaudois or Hussite beliefs. Henry Voez and Jean Esch were considered by many to be the first Lutheran martyrs, executed in Brussels in 1523. Heindrichs van Zutphen was another martyr who was included from the first, 1554 edition as part of the introduction Crespin presents to the Reformation era, which follows the sections on Jan Hus and Jerome of Prague, and was thus the first Lutheran martyr to be included in that edition. In addition to Crespin's inclusion of Luther as a pivotal figure in history, he took care to present Lutheran martyrs as holding entirely acceptable doctrine.
