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“Probably Foxe’s Book of Martyrs doesn’t count, right?”

I did earlier say “reputable” books or books by “reputable” historians.

The problem with Foxe’s work was that it was envisioned as propaganda from the beginning. The later editions are deliberately shaped as propaganda pieces. There’s a reason why the book was ordered by the Protestant government - which was persecuting Catholics in exactly the ways Foxe decried persecution in his work - to be purchase and kept on hand in every Protestant church in England. Think about that.

The 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica - which was written by a board heavy with historians - said Foxe’s book was filled with lies and distortions. Since then the Encyclopedia Britannica has dramatically tones down its criticism. The wikipedia page has some of the back-and-forth on this issue. No matter what David Loades - a reputable historian - says we are still stuck with Foxe’s unobjective scorn “Mark the apish pageants of these popelings” and “This answer smelleth of forging and crafty packing” when he came across something he didn’t like. In the end, Foxe’s work is a mixed bag to say the least and is filled with nutty things like this heading: “THE LAST THREE HUNDRED YEARS FROM THE LOOSING OUT OF SATAN.”

But there are other issues that someone suggesting Foxe’s book as a reputable source on the inquisition has to deal with:

It’s really not about the inquisition. Foxe was English, and although he covers many things that happened outside of England, he’s writing to influence powerful and influential people IN ENGLAND (hence, he originally wrote in Latin - ironically) and England never really had an inquisition certainly not the kind some people call a “papal inquisition” permitted by the pope and set up expressly with special authority to deal with heresy. That never happened in England.

Thus,

1) Foxe’s book is at best - AT BEST - a mixed bag as a work of history.

2) It was created as propaganda and shaped that way for decades.

3) It really isn’t about the inquisition. It’s an English work and most focused - during the era in which the inquisition existed - on England and England had no papal inquisition (i.e. a regional or national inquisition permitted by the pope expressly for dealing with heresy). Thus, to use Foxe’s book for learning about the inquisition would be like reading old Popular Mechanics issues looking for info on how the Soviets funded their technology. PM might have had an article on a new Soviet submarine but it wouldn’t focus on the funding of it. Instead it would focus on a popularizing of its technological aspects. If you want to learn about the inquisition, read about the inquisition.

4) Even when Foxe’s discusses a “martyr” executed after an inquisition trial (such as Tyndale:http://www.exclassics.com/foxe/foxe185.htm ) it is in no way a history of the inquisition in general or even really a history of Tyndale’s trial by the inquisition. It is a vignette with some historical sources which are of little or no value in understanding that inquisitorial board, its members, proceedings, documents, decisions, judgments, relationship with the Church, relationship with the state, etc.