[JOHN OF TYNEMOUTH, based on]

£29,500.00
£29,500.00
[JOHN OF TYNEMOUTH, based on]

[JOHN OF TYNEMOUTH, based on]

WITH THE ORIGINAL WOODCUTS AND LIFE OF THOMAS À BECKET

[JOHN OF TYNEMOUTH, based on]. Nova legenda angliae.
£29,500.00
£29,500.00

London, Wynkyn de Worde, 2 February 1516.

FIRST EDITION. Folio. ff. [6], cccxxxiiii, [1]. Black letter, double column. Large, exquisite full-page woodcut of the Saints in Glory to first recto and verso and last recto, full-page woodcut English royal arms to A6 verso, de Worde s device to last verso [originally Caxton's, McKerrow 1b], decorated initials (one hand-coloured, apparently after the design in the Bodleian s copy of the Golden Legend ) and ornaments. First gathering a bit soiled, handful of C19 small repairs mainly to blank margins, one to title woodcuts and A2 with initial and a few words of 8 lines supplied in impeccable facsimile, A3-4 mounted and [?] supplied, tiny scattered worm holes to first few ll., very light water stain along upper or outer edge to initial and final gatherings, extending to text on a dozen ll. A very good, clean, well-margined copy in C19 diced russia, bordered in blind, spine blind-tooled and gilt-lettered, a.e.g., joints repaied. Bookplate of W.A. Foyle, Beeleigh Abbey, to front pastedown, small paper slip with model design for the initial S, written by or addressed to the great collector Dr Philip Bliss, the odd early ms note ( hye p(?) of sechpp(?) ) or underlining.

One of the most elegant specimens of W. de Worde s press (Lowndes). Fine, complete copy of the first edition of this 'collection of national saints , with 168 Saint s lives, including the life of Thomas à Beckett, often suppressed. It based on the Sanctilogium Angliae, Walliae, Scotiae, et Hiberniae attributed to the C14 chronicler John of Tynemouth, probably based at St Albans Abbey. Derived from the Sanctilogium of Guy de Saint-Denis, the latter survives in only one copy (BL Cotton MS Tiberius E.i). The material was rearranged alphabetically thus turning a devotional into a reference work - by the historian John Capgrave (1393 1464) an attribution now rejected with the elimination of some saints, e.g., St Ursula, included in John of Tynemouth s work and de Worde s revision. De Worde s is a second revision of the Sanctilogium , which involves the addition of a prologue and a number of saints Lives, including a new Life of Ursula (Cartwright, ed., p.154). The work includes saints who lived in late antiquity, down to Anglo-Saxon and medieval times, from the most famous St Alban, the Venerable Bede, St Brendan, St Ursula, St Thomas à Beckett, and St Columba, to lesser known (at least today) figures, including numerous women, such as St Keyna (a 5thC hermitess famous in the South West), Sts Kyneswida, Kyneburga and Tibba (7thC saints from the Mercian royal family), St Ondoceus (a 6thC bishop), and St Modwena (a 7thC nun and Irish noblewoman). Each contains the life, death, miracles, and information about their relics. An important, finely printed work in a handsome copy.

ESTC S107172; STC (2nd ed.), 4601; Plomer, Wynkyn de Worde, pp. 82-83; Lowndes V, 1333. J. Cartwright, ed., The Cult of St Ursula and the 11,000 Virgins (2016); P.J. Lucas, John Capgrave and the Nova legenda Anglie: A Survey , The Library, 1 (1970), pp.1-10.
L4362a

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