Reformation is published by The Tyndale Society each autumn. It is intended to print in each number one or two items with specific reference to Tyndale, about whom a vast amount of work is waiting to be done. The scope of Reformation, however, will be wider: it will include essays on history, theology, Bible studies, literature, language, translation theory and art, roughly between 1450 and 1600. These are fields in which scholars are finding that Tyndale is important. The dates 1450-1600 are not in any way rigid: for Bible studies and translation theory in particular, they are probably not helpful.

It is a matter of great satisfaction that the editor of Reformation is Professor Gerald Hammond, John Edward Taylor Professor of English in the University of Manchester. Professor Hammond is a much-valued critic and commentator on a number of areas of English and American literary life, a Hebraist, and an acknowledged authority on the Bible in English. He will bring to the journal great distinction. For this first number, however, as Professor Hammond is not free of demanding professional duties, I have undertaken the assembly and editing of papers.

I have also sought to build two panels of experts. One is the beginning of an advisory board, and we are very pleased to have the active interest of

• David Norton of Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand;
• Dr Guido Latré of the Catholic University of Leuven; and
• Professor Peter Auksi of the University of Western Ontario.

• for history, Dr Andrew Pettegree, Reformation Studies Institute, University of St Andrews;
• for language, Professor R. E. Asher, University of Edinburgh;
• for translation theory, Professor Lawrence Venuti, Temple University, Philadelphia;
• for art, Dr J. M. Massing, King's College, Cambridge;
• for theology, Dr David Bagchi, University of Hull;
• for literature, Professor John N. King, Ohio State University, assisted by:
  • Professor Janel Mueller, University of Chicago;
  • Professor David Kasten, Columbia University, NY;
  • Dr Andrew Hadfield, University of Wales at Aberystwyth;
  • Professor Paul Whitfield White, Purdue University.

                   The Editor
                   Reformation
                   The Tyndale Society
                   10B Littlegate Street
                   Oxford   OX1 1QT.

This first number contains four kinds of material. First come papers given in connection with the quincentenary of the birth of William Tyndale in the autumn of 1994. Among the high points of those celebrations was the service in London at St Paul's Cathedral, attended by a thousand people on 6 October, Tyndale's day in the Anglican calendar, and the date of his martyrdom. The address was given by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Runcie of Cuddesdon, and we are honoured to print it here. Then follow longer and shorter papers, as given, from the first Oxford International Tyndale Conference at Magdalen and Hertford Colleges (Tyndale's own two colleges) in September 1994: we appreciate the opportunity to print these. (Some papers have had to be held over until the second number.) Next come two major items which grew out of papers to that Conference: Dr Michael Weitzman's on translating the Hebrew Scriptures, and Professor David Norton's on ‘Words that did not reach the A.V.’ One book review follows: it is our intention to make the reviewing of scholarly books a significant feature of future numbers of Reformation. Finally come three extended pieces commissioned specially for this first number. W. R. Cooper gives new evidence in the crucial matter of the murder in 1514 of Richard Hunne — a scandal that embroiled many dignitaries in the run-up to the English Reformation, and arose from the first significant challenge to the corrupt Church practice of mortuaries. Bruce Marsden writes about the origins of the language of mathematics in sixteenth-century England, a story which features that friend of Erasmus and Bishop of London, Cuthbert Tunstall, who so signally failed to support William Tyndale. Finally, Robert Wilkinson reconstructs Tyndale's ‘last, lost’ books, those he wrote in Latin while in prison in Vilvorde. This he does by digging into the later Latin accounts of his Inquisitor, Jacobus Latomus. We are able to make available for the use of scholars both a translation of the Latin by Professor James A. Willis of the University of Western Australia, and, to conclude the volume, Latomus's Latin text in facsimile.

I must, finally, express my thanks to many people. To the officers of the Tyndale Society, first, who agreed to encourage the founding of Reformation. To Sir Christopher Zeeman, for valuable early advice. To Sue Thurgood, who was formerly my part-time secretary and did most useful work. To all the contributors, who allowed me to bully them by phone and by fax and still sent their papers on time. But above all I want to express here my profoundest thanks to our managing editor, Judith Flanders, who came in at the fifty-ninth minute of the eleventh hour and heroically copy-edited everything, sometimes several times, and drove this first number, express, to publication; without her there would be no volume.

David Daniell

Webmaster's note: Volume One has been published on this website, October 2005. See:
Reformation Volume One: Table of Contents