John Foxe's The Acts and Monuments Online
John Foxe's The Acts and Monuments Online contains all four editions of Foxe's martyrology and ecclesiastical history which were published between 1563 and 1583.
Contents
Main URL
Description
John Foxe's The Acts and Monuments Online (TAMO) provides a searchable and comparative framework for studying all four editions of the Acts and Monuments produced under Foxe's guidance during the reign of Elizabe...
Strengths and weaknesses
Having been manually transcribed to a high standard, TAMO provides an extremely reliable digital edition of the text. Moreover, unlike the nineteenth-century published editions that scholars have traditionally relied upon, TAMO offers for comparison all four editions of Foxe's Acts and Monuments. There are varied differences between all four texts which can now be studied and understood more clearly. It is, however, impossible to reflect on every aspect of the breadth and detail of Foxe in this edition and in many ways it is only a starting point for further research. Although the accompanying critical apparatus is extensive the commentary on glosses and nineteenth-century references are only available for books 10–12 of each edition. There is also some variance in the depth of textual commentary in each section. The critical apparatus is the result of a collaborative approach to Foxe with various scholars contributing to the task. It therefore represents a varied view of Foxe which acts as both a strength and a weakness.
Technical Methods
The text was rekeyed manually. At least two copies of each edition were used in the transcription and checking of the text. Minor variants between one copy and another of the same edition are noted in dialogue boxes attached to the relevant variants. A list of the copies in which the variants have been located can be found on the site's About TAMO pages [http://www.johnfoxe.org/index.php?realm=info&type=about&gototype=modern&static=works]
About the project
The project to publish Foxe's Acts and Monuments lasted 20 years (1992–2011), beginning at the University of Bangor and ending at the University of Sheffield, and the evolving landscape of digital resources over these years forced periodic changes in the project's technical methods. It began with the idea for a new printed edition to replace the discredited nineteenth-century editions but soon moved towards publication on CD-ROM. Although a facsimile edition was published in 2001 of the 1583 edition, by that point the project team had moved towards online publication and in 2004 the first edition of the online Foxe project was made available to the public. This edition did not contain a complete searchable transcript of all four editions and had only partial critical apparatus to accompany the texts. In 2011 the final edition of TAMO was published containing the full texts with critical apparatus.
Contact
Source Types
- Books, pamphlets and printed ephemera
Access
- Free
Time Period
1563-1583
Publisher
The Digital Humanities Institute