Published: 1980

The impact of the Reformation on a Suffolk parish is made clear by the Churchwardens' accounts of Boxford, here transcribed and edited by Peter Northeast.  One of only two sets of churchwardens' accounts in Suffolk to survive complete throughout the period of the Reformation, those of Boxford illustrate very well the dramatic changes affecting church life and finance during the middle years of the sixteenth century.  They reveal, for instance, the purchase in 1541 of a bible, probably Coverdale's 'Great Bible', along with a chain to fasten it to the specially-made lectern.