Venerable Bede
Historiae Ecclesiasticae Gentis Anglorum, Libri Quinque. Cambridge University Press, 1722. Folio, contemporary Cambridge-style calf, sometime rebacked retaining original spine, spine with morocco lettering-piece, blind-rolled board edges, marbled endpapers, red speckled edges; pp. [16 (half-title, verso blank, title, verso blank, Epistola (4), Praefatio (7), blank)], 823, [14 (Index (13), blank)]; eng. frontis. and 2 eng. plates by Michael van der Gucht, folding map; provenance: this copy was gifted to Ely Cathedral library by John Nichols MA of Trinity College Cambridge, 1730 (gift inscription half-title and title, library bookplate on upper pastedown, occasional mss marginalia), Ely Cathedral library was sold in 1972.
The Venerable Bede was the most important English historian of the Middle Ages. His History is perhaps the most important primary source on the Anglo-Saxon period, as well as a critical text in the development of an English national identity through literature. The earliest printed edition was produced in Germany in 1475, with various editions after that. The editor of this edition was John Smith, Prebendary of Durham Cathedral and Rector of Wearmouth - the site of Bede's monastery. It appears that, like many Anglican clergy of the time, his duties were not so onerous as to prevent the pursuit of academia, in this case a magisterial new edition of the text.
Prior to this edition, all printed versions of Bede had drawn on a specific family of manuscripts, known as the C-texts. This edition was able to use the Moore MS (one of the earliest extant versions), as well as two copies in the Cotton Library, which greatly improved the quality of the text. Earlier additions had accumulated many errors, which Smith intended to remove by comparison to the earlier versions. Early on in his work, he realised that the wide variety would swamp his version with variants. As such he employed a strict priority, slicing away later material to find a critical text within. The Smiths' passage on methodology contains a vital maxim for manuscript study - remove readings only found in later passages, restore those from the oldest. Smith also included King Alfred's Saxon paraphrase of the text (in a new type, cut specially for the work), a map of Saxon Britain, and printings of a series of Anglo-Saxon charters from Mercia, manuscripts of which no longer exist.
The elder Smith worked continually on the text but did not live to see its completion, handled by his son George. Between them they created a version of the text so rigorous that textual criticism of Bede barely altered until Plummer's 1896 edition. David Douglas (English Scholars) describes it as "perhaps the most perfect single book of the greatest age of Anglo-Saxon historical learning."