Ecclesiasticae historiae gentis Anglorum libri quinque diligenti studio à mendis, quibus hactenus scatebant, vindicati. Beda Venerabilis. Early printing up to 1600

Folio (187 x 273 mm). (6), 263, (13) pp. With printer's woodcut device on title-page. Contemporary blind-tooled full calf. Stored in a custom cloth case. The most important historical work from Anglo-Saxon England, here in a beautifully bound early printing, the first to contain the Continuation from 731 to 766, as well as Bede's epitaph. This edition of Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum) was the first to offer an improved and more complete text, superseding the earlier printings, the first of which was produced sometime between 1475 and 1480, from a single and incomplete manuscript, and of which there were two reprints in 1500 and 1506. - This edition by Gravius in 1550 offered a different and better text from a manuscript that also included the so-called Continuatio Bedae, consisting of an extension of the annals in V.23 from the years 731 to 766 (a vital source for the kingdom of Northumbria in particular in these years, for which we otherwise have very few sources), as well as Bede's epitaph ("Beda Dei famulus, monachorum nobile sydus, / Finibus e terrae, profuit ecclesiae [.]"). The first edition to be produced in England did not appear in print until nearly 100 years later, in 1643. The Gravius Bede thus marked a considerable milestone in access to an authoritative version of the Ecclesiastical History in early modern Europe. - In addition to scholarly improvements, Gravius was motivated in no small part by the religious and political turmoil of the Reformation, with a prologue in which the editor "comments acidly on the Cimmerian darkness spread over the text by his incompetent predecessors, and expresses the hope that this proof of the antiquity of Christianity in England will discomfit those who think they can reform it" (Colgrave/Mynors 1969, lxxi). Both Catholics and Protestants turned to Bede as an authority in sixteenth-century debates. - This volume is also notable for the beauty of the binding, which features four heads in profile, seemingly those of Martin Luther, Philipp Melanchthon, Desiderius Erasmus and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V - a fine detail which further anchors this piece in the era of its creation. The pages present us with a handsome example of Renaissance typography, including several beatifully cut initials, such as the one of Adam and Eve with the Tree of Knowledge at I.1. - The Venerable Bede was the most famous scholar of the early Middle Ages, who produced works of history, hagiography, biblical exegesis and poetry, as well as commentary on metrics, nature, and the reckoning of time, which gave him a justified reputation as by far the most learned man of his time. The Ecclesiastical History of the English People has been his most widely read work through the centuries, providing a magisterial description of the history of Britain from the Roman period up to 731, when he completed it a few years before his death. It is a particularly valuable source for the fall of Roman Britain and the Anglo-Saxon settlements, as well as the conversion of the English to Christianity at the hands of (often competing) Roman and Irish missionaries. It has remained at the heart of the study of Britain in the early Middle Ages through to our time. This sixteenth-century printing offers the text in a form that is not only beautiful, but which was to remain the most authoritative for years to come. - Contemporary binding refurbished in the early 19th century, hinges cracked, a few wormholes, front free endleaf browned, but the tooling is mostly well preserved. Overall a handsome volume, particularly given its age. Some mostly marginal foxing and minor browning in the first few quires and an occasional later sheet, a few marginal wormholes, mostly confined to the later quires (R to Y), and an occasional minor stain or small marginal tear. Overall in good condition with little sign of previous wear, most leaves clean and crisp. - Adams B 452. BM-STC Dutch