[Rarebooks] fa: THE CHURCH-HISTORY OF BRITTANY (i.e. BRITAIN) - Serenus Cressy - 1668

[ArCh]

Listed now, auction ending MONDAY, March 15. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

https://tinyurl.com/ybwplpcm

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA


Serenus Cressy: The Church-History of Brittany [i.e., Britain] from the Beginning of Christianity to the Norman Conquest. Under: Roman Governours. Brittish Kings. The English-Saxon Heptarchy. The English-Saxon (and Danish) Monarchy. Containing I. The Lives of all our Saints assigned to the proper ages wherein they lived. II. The erections of Episcopall See's, and Succession of Bishops. III. The celebration of Synods, Nationall, Provinciall and Diocesan. IV. The Foundations of Monasteries, Nunneries and Churches. V. And a sufficient account of the Successions of our Kings, and of the Civill affaires of this Kingdom. From all which is evidently demonstrated: That the present Roman-Catholick Religion hath from the beginning, without interruption or change been professed in this our Island, &c. By R.F.S. Cressy of the Holy Order of S. Benedict. [Roeun: s.n.], Printed in the year 1668. FIRST EDITION. Large folio (43.5 cm; 17 1/8 in.) in early sheepskin, sensitively rebacked in calf, gilt-lettered spine; [22], 1002, [18] pp.; woodcut head- and tail-pieces and initials. Wing C6890A; ESTC R4335.

A massive folio and an unusually tall, wide-margined example, perhaps a "large paper" copy, as suggested by a previous bookseller's penciled note on the front paste-down. Binding with abrasions and worming to the boards, bumping to the extremities, cracking to the front joint, but both boards are secure; intermittent (mostly light) damp-staining to the first hundred leaves, less so to the rest, which are generally very clean and bright, with occasional scattered spots, firmly bound. Front free-endpaper with the small ownership signature of of W[illia]m Sandys, 1795.

Serenus Cressy (ca. 1605-1674) was an English convert to Catholicism and an assiduous church historian. According to the DNB, the work was largely derived from "the 'Annales Ecclesiæ Britannicæ' of the Jesuit Michael Alford ..., the first two vols. of Dugdale's 'Monasticon', the 'Decem Scriptores Hist. Anglicanæ', and Father Augustine Baker's manuscript collections."