Certain sermons or homilies appointed to be read in churches in the time of Queen Elizabeth of famous memory: and now thought fit to be reprinted by authority from the Kings most Excellent Majesty

£850 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

Probably Wing C4091H but there are numerous editions and settings throughout the period. “Repeated and read again”: A much-used copy from a chapel in Cheshire with the hasp for a chain still attached to the upper board. “Also because, through lack of preachers, in many places of the King’s realms and dominions, the people continued in ignorance and blindness, all parsons, vicars, and curates, shall read in their churches every Sunday, one of the homilies which are and shall be set forth, for the same purpose, by the King’s authority, in such sort as they shall be appointed to do in the preface of the same” (Foxe). The Homilies , along with the Bible , the Book of Common Prayer and Foxe’s B ook of Martrys would have been “set forth” in almost any church in England in this period and the preface (now missing in this copy) states that the book should be read when there is no sermon and that “when the foresaid Book of Homilies is read over…the same be repeated and read again”. The words, instructions and sentiments of the Homilies would have been familiar to almost every person in the country. The present copy shows signs of repeated hard usage and the pages lacking at the beginning and end are testament to the fact that it must have been opened and consulted thousands of times. The makeshift manuscript title-page show how it remained a vital text to be preserved, the numerous inscriptions highlight the totemic quality of the book (much like a family Bible) and the remains of an

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