This paper analyses the first Hungarian book on martyrdom and its catalogue of martyrs, which was written by a Calvinist preacher, Mihály Szöllősi in 1666, and published two years later. The book, Sion leánya... (Daughter of Zion) can be interpreted as an answer to a Catholic text by Mátyás Sámbár, that is, in the context of an extensive contemporary religious dispute. This study argues that Szöllősi’s book does not only use controversial language, but it also shifts the debate from its apologetic and polemic rhetoric towards the discourse of martyrdom. Szöllősi counts both the martyrs of the Bible and the history of medieval Christianity and Reformation. Thus, the present paper analyses Szöllősi’s Martyrium historicum in the Western European context of early modern literature on Protestant martyrs.

This paper analyses the first Hungarian book on martyrdom and its catalogue of martyrs, which was written by a Calvinist preacher, Mihály Szöllősi in 1666, and published two years later. The book, Sion leánya... (Daughter of Zion) can be interpreted as an answer to a Catholic text by Mátyás Sámbár, that is, in the context of an extensive contemporary religious dispute. This study argues that Szöllősi’s book does not only use controversial language, but it also shifts the debate from its apologetic and polemic rhetoric towards the discourse of martyrdom. Szöllősi counts both the martyrs of the Bible and the history of medieval Christianity and Reformation. Thus, the present paper analyses Szöllősi’s Martyrium historicum in the Western European context of early modern literature on Protestant martyrs.