Ecclesiasticae historiae gentis Anglorum, Libri V.

£45,000 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica was first published at Strassburg, “not after 1475”; this edition reprints the revised Antwerp 1550 edition and is the seventh separate edition. CAREFULLY COLLATED WITH THE OLD ENGLISH TRANSLATION AND ANNOTATED THROUGHOUT BY THE SCHOLAR FRANCIS TATE USING A (NOW LOST) MANUSCRIPT FROM ROBERT BOWYER’S LIBRARY AND ANOTHER MANUSCRIPT (NOW IN THE BRITISH LIBRARY) FROM ROBERT COTTON’S. Inscriptions (1:) Inscribed on the first front flyleaf: ‘Liber Bedæ Saxonicus rep er itur in | Bibliotheca d omi ni Burghley, insc[ri … ?] | q ui fuit liber eccl es ie Ste Mariæ de | Suwica./ Mr Rob ertus Bo[wyer ?] | h ab et historia m eande m Saxo[nic… ?] | scripta m sed ma[ter?]ia est in p[rinci-]| pio fine quod in priore deest de[side-] | ratur in altero. / 1600 /’. (2:) Inscribed on the second front flyleaf (opposite the title) in Old English: ‘micel wund behofað micles laecedomes’ [‘A great wound requires great medicine’ - Bede]. (3:) Inscribed at the head of the title-page in Old English (rather in the manner of the legal historian William Lambarde): ‘cristes maerye preost’ [‘Christ, Mary, Priest’]. (4:) Inscribed neatly on title page: ‘Liber Fra[nci]is Tate ex dono | Rob[ertus] Coton de | Conington ar[miger].’ (5:) The three rear flyleaves contain three pages of references to Tacitus’s Annales and Life of Agricola and some index references, mostly to emperors and kings, in ink. The first inscription is an archetypal scholarly note, about two manuscript copies of

• Year: 1566

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