Foedera, Litterae, & Acta Publica

Description

The Foedera is a 20-volume collection of treaties, alliances and agreements Great Britain made with foreign powers from May 1101 to the date of its publication. The first fifteen volumes were published by Thomas Rymer in 1713 shortly before his death, and contain documents dated before July 1586. Rymer had partially completed volumes 16 and 17, which his assistant Robert Sanderson finished and published. The final three volumes were solely compiled by Sanderson after Rymer’s death. The original documents collected in the Foedera were transcribed in Latin with summaries in English, though none of the modern sources seem to include those summaries. The Foedera went through a number of revisions and corrections in the following centuries which recollated the documents and muddled the original dates and details of the documents. Attempts to continue the Foedera have failed, and the abandoned effort includes only 7 volumes. Volumes 8 through 12 have been digitized and are available on British History Online.