Monasticon Anglicanum: a history of the abbies and other monasteries, hospitals, frieries, and cathedral and collegiate churches, with their dependencies, in England and Wales; also of all such Scotch, Irish and French monasteries, as were in manner connected with religious houses in England / Originally pub. in Latin by Sir William Dugdale...[Now ed., enriched with a large accession of materials taken from leiger books, chartularies, rolls, and other documents preserved in the national archives, public libraries, and other repositories; the history of each religious foundation in English being prefixed to its respective series of Latin charters. By John Caley...Henry Ellis...and the Rev. Bulkeley Bandinel.
- Dugdale, William, 1605-1686.
- Date:
- 1846
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Monasticon Anglicanum: a history of the abbies and other monasteries, hospitals, frieries, and cathedral and collegiate churches, with their dependencies, in England and Wales; also of all such Scotch, Irish and French monasteries, as were in manner connected with religious houses in England / Originally pub. in Latin by Sir William Dugdale...[Now ed., enriched with a large accession of materials taken from leiger books, chartularies, rolls, and other documents preserved in the national archives, public libraries, and other repositories; the history of each religious foundation in English being prefixed to its respective series of Latin charters. By John Caley...Henry Ellis...and the Rev. Bulkeley Bandinel. Source: Wellcome Collection.
![Pi] The First Volume of the Monasticon was without a Dedication. The Second and Third were dedicated to King Charles the Second. A new and improved Edition of the First Volume was published in 1682 : “ Editio Secunda au'ctior et emendatior : cum altero, ac elucidiori Indice. Londini. Impensis Christopheri Wilkinson, Thomas Dring, et Caroli Harper, in vico vulgo vocato Fleet-street, 1682.” A few Copies of the Two first Volumes of the Monasticon appear to have been printed upon large paper: but no copies upon large paper of the Third Volume have, as yet, been discovered. From an entry in his Diary, early in 1658, Dugdale appears to have feared that a Translation of the Monasticon would have been published by “ Mr. King probably Gregory King, at that time his clerk. That such an one was prepared, as far as the First Volume was concerned, is evident, since Dugdale describes it as “ erroneously Englished in a multitude of places.” The Translation, however, or rather the Epitome which was subsequently printed, did not appear till 1692, six years after Sir William Dugdale’s death ; the dedication of which to “ William Bromley, Esq. one of the Knights of the Shire for the County of Warwick,” is signed J. W. It is ascribed to James Wright, a barrister of the Middle Temple, who, in 1684, published The History and Antiquities of the County of Rutland. As an Epitome it deserves no better character than that which Dugdale gave to King’s. In 1718, another Abridgement of the Monasticon appeared, generally believed to have been the work of Capt. John Stevens, whose Additional Volumes to Dugdale will be mentioned presently. This Epitome was executed in a better manner. In the Title-page, however, among the Libraries and other sources of information enumerated, “ Coll. Bened.” instead of Benet College Cambridge, is rendered “ the Benedictine College of Doway.” In 1722 and 1723 appeared “ The History of the ancient Abbeys, Monasteries, Hospitals, Cathedral and Collegiate Churches, being Two Additional Volumes to Sir William Dugdale’s Monasticon Anglicanum; by John Stevens, Gent.” These, beside an abundance of additional information in English, contained a very large assemblage of new Charters, together with the History of the Friaries, which had had no place assigned to them in the Volumes published by Dugdale. From this time to the year 1812, in the choicer Libraries of England, Dugdale’s original Work, the Epitome of 1718 as its abridged Translation, and Stevens’s Volumes, formed but one Set of Books ; usually acquired at an enormous price, but believed to contain all that was valuable as a Scries in English Monastic History. A new Edition of Dugdale therefore seemed wanting, which by comprising all that was valuable in Stevens’s Work, and embracing an accession of materials from Leiger Books, Rolls, and other documents brought to light since Dugdale’s time, might form a Complete History of all our Monastic Foundations : such an one as would not be likely at any time hereafter to be superseded. It was determined too that an Account of each Religious House, in English, should be prefixed to its respective series of Latin Charters : and the whole, by unsparing research, rendered equally useful to the General Reader, the Antiquary, and the Lawyer. The Work so projected has here arrived at its completion. A period of eighteen years intervened between the publication of the first and last Volumes of Dugdale’s edition. The new one, with all its additions, has been completed in one year less. It was first undertaken by the Rev. Bulkeley Bandinel, D.D. Keeper of the Bodleian Library at Oxford, who was the sole Editor of the first Three Portions, as far as p. 264 of the First Volume: but great as were the stores of the Bodleian, a residence distant from the metropolis ill suited the researches which were of necessity to be made among the Offices of Record, and before the Fourth Portion of the Work appeared, two other gentlemen were called in as coadjutors, John Caley, Esq. Keeper of the Records in the Augmentation Office, and afterwards of those in the Chapter-House at Westminster, and Henry Ellis, Esq. then Keeper of the Manuscripts in the British Museum. To these latter gentlemen the Reader is indebted for the carrying on of the New Monasticon to its close. V ith the exception of a few small Monasteries, descriptions of Monastic Seals, notices of Records, and some other occasional paragraphs, the English preliminary Accounts have been written, and the Work, since the Third Portion, entirely arranged by Mr. Ellis: Mr. Caley, in addition to the paragraphs already mentioned, communicating numerous copies of Records, Abstracts of the Ministers’ Accompts, and the Abridgements of the Valors of Pope Nicholas and Henry the Eighth ; assisting in the correction of the sheets ; and aiding in continual suggestions. Dr. Bandinel, since the publication of the Third Portion, has contributed occasionally only: but the Reader is indebted to him for the Abstracts of the Godstow and Eynsham Chartularies: and here it may be stated, once for all, that the Abstracts of Monastic Registers, which fill some of the Notes in these Volumes, will be found, in point of utility, to form one of their most important features. Hundreds of Religious Houses which Dugdale knew nothing of have been introduced into the present Work, together with those of the different Orders of Friars, and Accounts, as far as they could be obtained, of very numerous Destroyed Monasteries. Such Cathedrals also have been added of which Dugdale gives no description; but the Cathedral of St. Paul London it has been thought desirable to exclude ; its History and Charters, greatly enlarged, and richly embellished, had been separately published in a style of uniformity with the Monasticon, by one of the Editors of that V ork; so that to have reprinted them here, when nearly the whole of the same persons were subscribing for both Works, would have been materially enhancing the extent and cost of the Monasticon, without increasing its value to the Subscribers. Among the Embellishments which the New Edition of the Monasticon presents, the chief of the Prints by Hollar](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b30455832_0002_0016.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
