MARTYROLOGY

(Yunanca köken — orijinale bakınız.) The name given to that department of ecclesiastical history which relates to the acts and deaths of martyrs. It also signifies a calendar or register kept in religious houses, wherein were inserted the names and donations of their benefactors, and the days of their death. As specimens of this species of works, we may mention the Martyrology of Eusebius, which was so celebrated in the early church, but which is lost; and Fox's Book of Martyrs, the most valuable record of the sufferings of the English reformers. Many of the accounts in the early martyrologies are purely fabulous. See Ruinart's Acta Martyrum; Baronii, Martyrolopum Romanum; and Middle ton's Free Inquiry. Gallonms, Dc Sanctorum Martyrum Cruciatibus, 1.598, and subsequent editions, is a book which has had great popularity on the Continent. [s. 733]