Syon Abbey : The Library of the Bridgettine Nuns and Their Peregrinations after the Reformation.

De Hamel, C. ; Roxburghe Club.

Verlag: Printed for presentation to the Roxburghe Club, first edition, 1991, 1991

Limited edition of 200 copies of which 50 were for presentation. Blue quarter morocco and cloth, 4to, top edge gilt, 29 cm, 158 pp, 9 colour plates, ills, facs. This Roxburghe Club volume records two aspects of the history of Syon Abbey . The original abbey was founded by Henry V. Its monks and nuns, for it was a double foundation, followed the order of St Bridget, its Swedish founder. Syon Abbey was endowed with great wealth and was famous for the learning and piety of its occupants. Both wealth and learning were reflected in its books; the service books were sumptuous and the books in the library, one of the largest in England, were diverse, including texts rarely found elsewhere. Christopher de Hamel's essay records what is known of the original library, charts its dispersal and lists all the surviving books that exist today. At the Reformation, the Abbey was suppressed and the nuns fled carrying some of the library with them, gradually parting with books as they searched for a permanent home, which they finally found in Lisbon. There, almost a century later, they prepared an illustrated account of their tribulations. It was a Petition dedicated to the Infanta Maria of Spain, whose marriage to the future Charles I of England was then in negotiation, at the brief moment when an Anglo-Spanish royal match seemed almost certain, during the short-lived rapprochement between the Protestant Stuarts and the Catholic Spanish Hapsburgs in the reign of James I. . But the 'Spanish Match' came to nothing, Maria in the event marrying her cousin the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand III rather thanbecoming Princess of Wales, and the manuscript remained with the nuns for two more centuries. It was finally sold about 1810, beginning a journey which eventually brought it to Arundel Castle. The story of the nuns' peregrinations has been transcribed and translated, and the illustrations, fresh and full of life, have been reproduced in full colour. The whole book forms a memorial to one of the great religious foundations of Britain. Contents: Foreword by the Marquess of Salisbury; Introduction by John Martin Robinson; The Petition in the original Spanish; The Petition in translation; The Miniatures; The Medieval Manuscripts of Syon Abbey, and their dispersal, by Christopher de Hamel; Notes; Index of Manuscripts. Copy No. 188. Fine. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers ABE-59909

Bibliografische Details

Titel: Syon Abbey : The Library of the Bridgettine ...
Verlag: Printed for presentation to the Roxburghe Club, first edition, 1991
Erscheinungsdatum: 1991
Einband: Hardcover
Auflage: 1. Auflage