Dorcas Martin (1537-1599) was an English bookseller and translator.[1][2] She translated a catechism for the use of mother and child that was included in Thomas Bentley's The Monument of Matrones[3]

She married Richard Martin sometime before 1562, and they had five sons and one daughter.[4][5] In 1573 she was the licensed bookseller for Thomas Cartwright's A replye to An answere made of M. doctor Whitgifte, a response to John Whitgift's denunciation of Presbyterianism.[6]

Dorcas and her husband were active in radical religious causes including the Admonition Controversy, part of an effort to encourage the queen to further reform Protestantism in England.[1]

Her epitaph reads, "Here lyeth Interred the body of Dame DORCAS Martin The late Wife of Sr Richard Martin, Knight twise Lord Mayor of the Cittie of London The Davghter of Iohn Ecclestone of ye Covntie of Lancastar gent who had Issve by the said Sr Rich Martin V sones, & one davght: and deceased Ovt of this mortall life ye first day of Septemb : 1599."[5]

Further reading

Micheline White, "A Biographical Sketch of Dorcas Martin: Elizabethan Translator, Stationer, and Godly Matron," Sixteenth Century Journal 30 (1999), 775-92.

References

  1. ^ a b McQuade, Paula, Betty Travitsky, and Anne Lake Prescott (2008). Early Modern Catechisms Written for Mothers, Schoolmistresses, and Children: Essential Works for the Study of Early Modern Englishwomen. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. ISBN 0-7546-5165-7., p. xxiv
  2. ^ Carolyn Coggins (2006). Descendants of John Martin of Laurens County, SC. Laurens District Chapter of the South Carolina Genealogical Society.
  3. ^ Betty Travitsky; Anne Lake Prescott (2000). Female & Male Voices in Early Modern England: An Anthology of Renaissance Writing. Columbia University Press. pp. 192–. ISBN 978-0-231-10040-3.
  4. ^ Rosalynn Voaden; Diane Wolfthal (2005). Framing the Family: Narrative and Representation in the Medieval and Early Modern Periods. Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. ISBN 978-0-86698-297-9.
  5. ^ a b Dorcas Martin's epitaph reads "Here lyeth Interred the body of Dame DORCAS Martin The late Wife of Sr Richard Martin, Knight twise Lord Mayor of the Cittie of London The Davghter of Iohn Ecclestone of ye Covntie of Lancastar gent who had Issve by the said Sr Rich Martin V sones, & one davght: and deceased Ovt of this mortall life ye first day of Septemb : 1599." Cansick, Frederick Teague (1875). A Collection of Curious and Interesting Epitaphs, Copied from the Monuments of Distinguished and Noted Characteres in the Ancient Church and Burial Grounds of Saint Pancras, Middlesex. J. R. Smith., p. 52
  6. ^ Felch, Susan M. (28 October 2003). "'Noble Gentlewomen famous for their learning': The Public Roles of Women in Elizabethan England" (PDF). Retrieved 30 December 2008.
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