The Warden's Punishment Book of All Souls College, Oxford

Book excerpt: Edition, with full notes and apparatus, of a text which sheds much light on university affairs at the time. The Warden's Punishment Book is a record of punishments imposed on the Fellows of All Souls College, Oxford, for minor infringements of the statutes and of College discipline, from its inception in 1601 until 1851. It is a uniquedocument in terms of its scope and detail among the College records of Oxford and Cambridge and provides significant insights into the daily life and personal relationships of such an institution during the early modern period. This volume presents an edition of the text of the Punishment Book, with a substantial biographical register detailing the careers of those mentioned as punishers or punished. An introduction explains the significance and context of the Punishment Book within collegiate, university, and social history. Scott Mandelbrote is Fellow, Perne Librarian, and Director of Studies in History at Peterhouse, Cambridge, he was formerly Fellow and Sub-Warden of All Souls College, Oxford; John H.R. Davis is an Honorary Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, of which he was Warden between 1995 and 2008. He is an anthropologist and was Professor of Social Anthropology at the Universityof Oxford, and, before that, at the University of Kent at Canterbury.