Auctores Britannici Medii Aevi

Submitting a Proposal

Download the general ARP guidelines of the British Academy

There are three stages for submitting a proposal, but we hope that the first and the third are very simple.

1. Initial Proposal

Editors who are planning, beginning or in the middle of work on an edition that they would like to be published in ABMA are invited to contact the Project Director informally, and to tell him about the nature of the edition and the timetable. If the planned edition seems suitable for ABMA, then the details of it will be reported to the next MTEC meeting and, if approved, it will be added to the list of projected publications. The editor(s) will be encouraged to proceed to a Full Proposal as soon as the edition is sufficiently advanced – in some cases, the Project Director will advise them to do so immediately.

2. Full Proposal

Editors should submit the following information:

  • Work(s) being edited
  • Name(s) and position(s) of (and, optionally, further information on) editor(s)
  • Manuscripts used for edition
  • Will there be a translation?
  • Estimated length of the whole book and what proportion of that will be the introduction
  • Timetable for the project (this should be reasonably precise and reliable).

We also require at this stage a minimum of ten pages of the edition, with apparatus and, where applicable, with translation, and a discussion of the principles that have been using in making the edition. We welcome, however, the submission at this stage of longer samples or of whole editions.

The materials submitted will be carefully examined by members of the Medieval Texts Committee, and on the basis of their advice, the Committee will decide whether to accept the proposed edition for the series, subject to approval of the complete edition when it is received and the incorporation of any changes and corrections which may be required by MTEC. (It is MTEC’s practice for one or more members to go over carefully the complete editions that are submitted.)

3. Official Acceptance

Only the British Academy Publishing Committee (on the recommendation of MTEC) has the authority to accept an edition for publication in ABMA, and it requires that proposals are for editions that are finished, or nearly so. Once it has accepted a Full Proposal, MTEC will make the formal proposal to the Publishing Committee. This will enable the British Academy to issue a contract to the editor(s).