Notitia Monastica: Or, an Account of all the Abbies, Priories, and Houses of Friers, heretofore in England and Wales; and also of all the Colleges and Hospitals founded before A.D. MDXL
London: Printed by William Bowyer, 1744. Second Edition. Full Leather. Folio. Very Good. Item #34180
Pp. 2 p.l., xliv, [10], 722, [54] index. Copper-engraved frontis portrait by George Vertue, and 3 full-page plates of coats of arms, printer's device and small engraving on last page. Contemporary full calf, sides with double gilt-ruled border, spine with double gilt rules flanking raised bands. Moderate rubbing to surfaces and extremities of binding, short splits to front and rear joints, (inner) hinges split (but covers firmly attached); overall a nice clean, sound copy. First published in a small, octavo format in Oxford in 1695, the present Second Edition of Thomas Tanner's Notitia Monastica, edited by his brother John and published after the author's death, is a greatly expanded version of the original work. It appeared with further additions by James Naismith in 1787, and with each enlargement, the already valuable work was enhanced as a comprehensive account of the origin, progress, organisation, and eventual dissolution of the monastic establishments in Britain. Thomas Tanner, Bishop of Asaph, was a noted antiquary and manuscript collector and a great friend of Edmund Gibson (1669-1748), whom he assisted in the preparation of his edition of Camden's Britannia, 1695, and to whom the present work is dedicated . He also assisted John Ray in his researches, Samuel Knight in his lives of Colet and Erasmus, and helped in the publication of the English works of Henry Spelman. For many years he laboured in the preparation of an edition of the works of John Leland which were later published by Hearne. His first well-known work, the Notitia Monastica, was published with the encouragement of Dr. Finch, warden of All Soul's College, Oxford, and Samuel Pepys, who was lavish in his praise of Tanner's work. The success of his first work led to a series of ecclesiastical preferments which allowed Tanner to labour for the next forty years on his other great work, the Bibliotheca Britannico-Hibernica, an account of all the authors in the British Isles up to the seventeenth century, which remained unfinished at his death, and was eventually published under the guidance of David Wilkins in 1748.
Price (CAD): $700.00