'A Divine Discontent with Wrong': The People's Martyrology

This introduction excavates the meaning and use of ‘martyr’ in the thinking of British and Irish oppositionists in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It examines the theological roots of the term, the practices of the Church and the impact of the Reformation on later understandings of who and what a martyr was. Furthermore, it pursues a philological investigation into the use of the word ‘martyr’ and its related terms—‘saint’, ‘hero’, ‘Judas’ and ‘innocent’—in conventional, radical and oppositionist writings. The final section turns to the concept of a ‘civil religion’ before considering how a simple ‘death’ is transformed into a ‘martyrdom’. This, and the following contributions, make it clear that ‘the people’s martyrology’ is more than just a particularly apt phrase.