15th Mar, 2019 10:30 GMT/BST

Books, Maps & Ephemera

 
Lot 207
 

207

[Cosin, Richard] An Apologie for Sundrie Proceedings by Jurisdiction Ecclesiasticall, of late times

[Cosin, Richard]
An Apologie for Sundrie Proceedings by Jurisdiction Ecclesiasticall, of late times by some chalenged, and also diversly by them impugned. Imprinted at London by the Deputies of Christopher Barker, Printer to the Queenes most excellent Maiestie, 1593. Full ?contemporary calf; pp. [30], 130, [10], 140, [1 (2T4, present as called for, blank)], [4], 256. Second and enlarged edition.
Cosin was a brilliant scholar and politician, with a particular interest in canon law at a period when the very foundation of that law was shifting with the political winds. A prot�g� of Archbishop Whitgift, he served as Chancellor of Worcester diocese, censor of publications and MP for Downton, Wiltshire. As a church lawyer, he conducted a literary battle against Puritan common lawyer James Morice over the legality of the ex Officio oath. This oath was a mechanism of self-incrimination used in Star Chamber proceedings for religious trials. The accuser swore to tell the truth, leaving them open to breach of a religious oath (a mortal sin), contempt charges for silence, or self-incriminating revelations. It was later opposition to this practice which laid the groundwork for such legal defences as the 5th Amendment. The critical issue at stake was the nature of monarchy. Elizabeth empowered the use of the oath by letters patent. However, if the oath was against statute and common law, was she authorised to act? Could she act over and above the law? Cosin's arguments in favour of imperial and theocratic supremacy were in part based in medieval precedent, but more so in the new statist language of the renaissance. He argued that humanist princes, acting for the happy republic, were not wanted given the backdrop of sedition and instability threatening monarch and state alike - a backdrop horribly real to Protestant England at that time. Cosin's arguments enforced the English clergy's jurisdiction over the laity and formed an important step towards the absolutism of the Stuart church which encouraged the Civil War.

This new edition broke down Cosin's arguments into three critical parts and appended the writing of important divine Lancelot Andrews on oaths in order to further support the claims. Interestingly, despite his staunch support for the oath and the imperial hegemony, he expressed the belief that Magna Carta implied that the English monarchy was not Absolute but felt this had no application to ecclesiastical jurisdiction. (Cromartie, The Constitutionalist Revolution, 2006, pp. 131, 139).

Sold for £120
Estimated at £100 - £200


 

. Binding rubbed and scuffed with some loss, some pages loose at foot but attached, tear to C1 affecting text, tear with loss of lower portion of leaves to 2K2+3, some foxing, spotting etc internally but generally very good.

 


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Auction: Books, Maps & Ephemera, 15th Mar, 2019

Books, Maps & Ephemera

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