Introduction to the Variorum Edition

History of the project

In 1992 Professor David Loades, then Professor of History at the University of Wales, Bangor, put a research proposal to the British Academy. His intention was to produce a new edition of John Foxe's Acts and Monuments of the English Martyrs. The intended product was a printed work in several volumes, based on the 1583 text, with an in-depth critical commentary, and textual variations from the first three editions (1563, 1570, 1576) duly noted and interpolated as necessary.

Several arguments supported this proposal. Firstly the imperfections of the great Cattley/Townsend edition of 1837-43 had long been recognised. It had been savagely attacked at the time of its publication by S. R. Maitland, and although many of Maitland's criticisms were subsequently shown to have been exaggerated or unjust, some of his mud had stuck. The edition had been produced with the express intention of defending Foxe' s truthfulness as an historian and founding father of the Church of England. As a result some of his errors and misstatements were elided or downplayed, and new translations of some of the Latin documents which he had used were silently intruded. Although it was a fairly accurate transcript of the 1583 edition, it was impossible for the reader to discover in any systematic way what the earlier texts had said - and the differences were sometimes substantial. The commentary, although learned in some respects, was biased, and in terms of reformation scholarship, over a hundred and fifty years out of date. Nevertheless Cattley/Townsend remained the standard text in use, either in its original form or its revised versions of 1870 and 1877, because few libraries possessed original editions and the black letter print was difficult for the uninitiated to read. Secondly, although microfilms of all the four original editions were available, and were adequate for general use, they too had their imperfections. No surviving original copy was perfect, and that included the ones which had been used for filming. Woodcut illustrations had frequently been removed, and pages were missing, particularly from the index and preliminaries. Moreover the processes of photography had caused marginalia to be cut of, or to disappear into the gutter, and bleedthrough had made some passages illegible. Thirdly a number of bowdlerised and abbreviated editions had been published in the twentieth century, particularly in the United States, and although there was little danger of these deceiving serious scholars, the proposal suggested that the time was ripe for the full text to reappear with a modern commentary.

The British Academy accepted these arguments, but judged that the project was too large and onerous for a single scholar to complete within a reasonable timespan (or at all), and agreed to pursue it as an official Academy Project. Professor Loades was appointed Director, and initially selected and chaired the Project committee which was to manage the work on behalf of the Academy. It was soon realised, however, that it was inappropriate for the Director to chair a committee to which he was responsible, and Professor Patrick Collinson (who was a Fellow of the Academy) was appointed chairman. The Project Committee in its turn was required to report to the Academy's own Research Committee (CARP). Dr. David Newcombe was appointed as the full time research assistant, and work commenced in September 1993. Most of the first year was spent in assessing the scale and complexity of the work, and in making a print-out of the 1583 edition from microfilm for working purposes, as the University Library at Bangor (where the project was initially based) possessed no edition earlier than 1641.

By the end of the first year it had become apparent that the original plan, although workable, was inadequate. The Committee decided to switch its objective from a print edition to CD-ROM, which in turn would make a variorum edition feasible, embracing all the four original texts. The committee also decided to build up an international team of specialists who would be qualified to oversee specific aspects of the work. Some interim targets were identified: a conference in support of the project, was proposed for 1995; and a facsimile edition of the 1583 text to be produced on CD-ROM. It had already been decided that the main edition would be in a transcribed typeface, although retaining the format and punctuation of the original. Mr. Julian Roberts (Bodleian Library, Oxford), Professor Claire Cross (University of York) and Professor John King (Ohio State University) joined the project committee. The conference was duly held at Magdalene College, Cambridge in July 1995, generously supported by the Trevelyan Trust. About forty scholars attended, from Canada, the United States and New Zealand as well as from the United Kingdom, and the proceedings were published in the St. Andrews Reformation History Series by Ashgate Press in 1997, under the title John Foxe and the English Reformation.

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In 1996 Professor Loades retired from his position at Bangor, and the project was relocated to the Humanities Research Institute of the University of Sheffield, a move made possible by the fact that the Hartlib Project was then finishing. By this time the work of identifying persons and sources in Foxe's texts was well advanced, but the commentary was embryonic and the transcription of text was still at an early stage. Professor Norman Blake, the Director of Humanities Research Institute joined the Project Committee. Shortly after the move, CARP expressed some concern that the progress of the project was too slow, because the complexity and difficulty of the task was becoming more apparent with every month of work. The Committee agreed to divide the project into two phases, and to concentrate on producing the material covered by Books 10-12 of the 1583 edition - that is the reign of Mary. At that point it was believed that that could be achieved by the year 2000, and that the whole project would be finished by 2003. Two part-time transcribers were appointed and the work accelerated in consequence. A grant from the Aurelius Trust, obtained through the British Academy, helped to obtain necessary computers, and the Institute then provided the servicing for them. Professor Colin Matthew resigned from the committee, and Dr. Margaret Aston and Professor J. B. Trapp joined it. With help from the Academy a second conference was held at Jesus College Oxford in July 1997, with a similar range and number of attenders as the first, and the proceedings were published by Ashgate in 1999 as John Foxe: An Historical Perspective.

In 1998 the financing of Humanities Research was restructured with the creation of the Arts and Humanities Research Board. The existing funding of the Project was guaranteed, and the committee was invited to make a supplementary bid. Professor Mark Greengrass joined the committee, representing the History Department of the University of Sheffield, to which the Project was attached. The supplementary bid was successful, and from September 1999 the budget of the project was doubled. This grant was for five years, on the assumption that the original timetable would be adhered to, and the project would be complete by 2004. The two transcribers were given full time contracts, and money was allocated for the payment of fees to specialist advisers. At the same time Dr. Newcombe's contract came to an end and he stepped down. Dr. Thomas Freeman was appointed in his place. Although still a British Academy Project, and reporting to the Academy Research Committee, the project was now additionally responsible to the AHRB. In 1999 also a third conference was held. This was hosted by Professor King at the Ohio State University, and attracted about 140 scholars, most of them from the United States. The proceedings of this conference were published by Ashgate in 2001 under the title John Foxe and his World.

By the time that the first Annual Report under the new regulations was submitted to AHRB in 2000, it had become apparent that the timetable which had been adopted in 1996, and included in the 1998 bid was unrealistic. If the edition was to be definitive, as was hoped, then the commentary, particularly on the textual variations, would have to be more exhaustive than had been hitherto intended. A revised timetable was proposed, whereby Phase One, covering the years 1553-58 would be completed by the end of the current funding period (2004), while Phase Two (the rest) would become the subject of a second bid, to be completed by 2008. It was proposed that the full transcripts of all four texts would also be completed by 2004. The report embodying these proposals was accepted. Professor Blake retired from his position as Director of the Sheffield Institute, and from the committee, and his place as Director was taken by Professor Greengrass. A fourth conference was held in July 2001 at Boston College in Lincolnshire (Boston being John Foxe's birthplace), and the proceedings were published by Ashgate in 2004 under the title John Foxe: At Home and Abroad. It was decided not to hold a conference in 2003, because of the pressure which would then be on the team to complete Phase One, but to defer the next conference to 2004. At Boston Professor Collinson stepped down from the Chairmanship of the Committee, although not from membership, and Professor Greengrass was appointed in his place.

The facsimile edition, which had been in gestation since 1996, was finally completed and published by Oxford University Press in 2001. This had been made possible by the fact that Professor Collinson was willing to lend his personal copy of the original edition, and to allow it to be unbound and flat-scanned. This work was undertaken using the British Library equipment at Boston Spa, and the missing pages were made good from the British Library's own copy, using a process of digital photography. This work was jointly edited by Dr. Newcombe and Dr. Michael Pidd, at that time the computer officer of the Sheffield Institute. This was (and remains) the only complete and perfect copy of the 1583 text in its original format.

Meanwhile the original idea of a print edition had been revived on the initiative of Professor King, and negotiations were opened with the Ohio State University Press in 2003. It was agreed that such an edition would be based on the 1570 text, and would be edited jointly by Professor King and Professor Loades. By 2001 the Project had also established a presence at the United States Sixteenth Century Studies Conference, thanks to the initiative of Dr. Freeman, and sessions were held in that and subsequent years under its sponsorship.

At the time of writing [July 2004], Phase One of the Project is complete. In 2002 the committee, with the approval of the British Academy, decided to transfer the publishing medium from CD-ROM to On Line. The Sheffield Institute is therefore the publisher, and holds the master copy in its main frame computer. After an interval of two years, Professor Greengrass resumed the position of Director of the Institute in 2003, and is thus primarily responsible for the edition in its present form. Phase One embraces the full variorum text, with commentary and introduction, for the years 1553-1558. The complete texts for Phase Two, covering the period before 1553, are transcribed and may be consulted. Phase Two is now in progress. The texts of the 1563 and 1583 editions have been proof read, while 1570 and 1576 remain to be done. The commentary for this part, together with additional introductory material, has yet to be undertaken.

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Works of John Foxe's Acts and Monuments included in this Variorum Edition

This Variorum Edition concentrates on the four English editions of Foxe’s martyrology published in London during his own lifetime: those of 1563 ; 1570 ; 1576 and 1583. (link to copies used in the preparation). There were, of course, many editions of the work published after his death in 1587 and, like any great and controversial book, the text acquired a dynamic and a history of its own. However, the objective of this edition is to recover Foxe’s sources and strategy as he sought to collect and present his picture of the protestant reformation as a transforming experience in the religious history of England and Europe, and its pre-history within the broadest historical and doctrinal context that he could conceive of. It is the dynamics of the text during the twenty years from 1563 to 1583 which this edition seeks to recover.

There are further Latin works which, whilst not included within the Variorum Edition, have a fundamental relationship to the analysis of Foxe’s text. They are Foxe’s earlier Latin martyrologies. Although not included as part of the Variorum Edition, they are referred to wherever relevant in the editorial commentaries as the Rerum and Commentarii respectively:

John Foxe, Rerum in Ecclesia gestarum ... (Basle: 1559)

John Foxe, Commentarii rerum in ecclesia gestarum […] (V. Rihelius: Argentorati [i.e. Strasbourg], 1554).

Both will be referred to as relevant in the course of the editorial commentary to the online edition.

The online edition provides facsimiles of the engravings and illustrated capital letters on the relevant pages of each edition. These images are of appropriate quality to an online publication. Readers who wish to consult facsimiles of a much higher quality and inclusive of the whole 1583 edition are urged to consult the following publication, also prepared by the John Foxe Project:

David G. Newcombe and Michael Pidd (eds), Facsimile of John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs (Version 1.0 on CD-ROM, The British Academy, 2001. Published for the Academy by Oxford University Press). See the Oxford University Press site for further details.

Copies used in the preparation of this Variorum Edition

For convenience, the following copies have been used in the transcription and editing of this edition. At least two copies of each edition have been used in the transcription and checking of the text. Minor variants as between one copy and another of the same edition are noted in the edition in dialogue boxes attached to the relevant variants. The copies in which the variants have been located are noted in square brackets in the form indicated below.

Magdalen College Library
[1563] - Arch B.i.4.13 [Magd - 1563]
[1570] - T.13.6; T.13.7 (bound in 2 vols) [Magd - 1570]

The Bodleian Library, Oxford
[1563] - Douce F.subt.2 [Bod - 1563]
[1570] - Mason F. 142; Mason F.143; Mason F.144 (bound in 3 vols) [Bod - 1570]
[1576] - Mason F.148 [Bod - 1576]
[1583] - F.3.1 and F.3.2 (bound in 2 vols) [Bod - 1583]

University of Sheffield [copy belonging to Professor Patrick Collinson]
[1583] - [shelfmark to be provided] [Shef - 1583]

Microfilm
[1563] - STC 11223 [C U]
[1570] - STC 11223 [Harv U]
[1576] - STC 11224 [Huntington]
[1583] - STC 11225

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How to access the texts

The Textual Access Map below shows how you can access the texts of The Book of Martyrs, and consult the various commentaries, glosses, essays etc. provided in this Variorum Edition.

Note that the three small icons on the map are those embedded in the Foxe texts to allow you to access the editorial commentary, the Cattley/Pratt commentary, and the summary of the marginal glosses.

We recommend that you print out a copy of this map to keep beside you as you navigate through the online edition.

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