Friday 13 July 2007

Brasenose College


Our last exhibition took place today at Brasenose College, which was the college of John Foxe (1517?-1587), the author of Acts and Monuments of These Latter and Perilous Days, also known as the Book of Martyrs. And so it was appropriate that the exhibition dealt almost exclusively with various editions of this title. It is important to look at the various editions because they changed so much over time. The first edition appeared in 1563, and during the next 130 years there were 9 editions. John King, one of the directors of our seminar, has written that the book served as a window on early modern English history, and that "this sensational book came to exert a greater influence upon the consciousness of Renaissance England than any other book aside from the English Bible and the Book of Common Prayer."