English Congregation of the Order of St. Benedict; Chronological Notes containing the Rise, Growth, and Present State
Stanbrook, Worcester: The Abbey of Our Lady of Consolation, 1881. Quarto (11 3/8 inches tall), brown pebbled cloth stamped in black, gilt spine and front board, yellow coated endpapers. Ex-library: Jesuit ink-stamps to blank flyleaf and call number to spine, spine ends frayed, slight bumping to upper corners, tanning to blank flyleaves. A near-fine copy. Item #1675
"THE ORDER OF SAINT BENEDICT, THOUGH EVERYWHERE IN GREAT REQUEST, YET, NEVER FLOURISHED IN ANY KINGDOM AS IT DID IN ENGLAND"
First Stanbrook Abbey Press edition of Dom Bennet Weldon's eighteenth-century history of the "English Mission" of the Benedictines. Printed at the Abbey of Our Lady of Consolation and designated as a "Subscriber's Copy," with two Jesuit library ink-stamps ("Collegium Roehampton S.J." and "Novices' Library S.J. English Province") to the endpaper. An excellent copy.
Originally founded in 1623, at Cambrai, Stanbrook Abbey was the only one of the seven Benedictine convents in exile to be established under the authority of the English Benedictine Congregation. "They had chosen the title of Our Lady of Comfort—in its more modern form, Our Lady of Consolation—and the monastery now at Stanbrook bears that dedication still." The convent and all its assets were taken by French Revolutionaries in October 1793. The nuns returned to England in May 1795, where they joined the monks of the English Benedictine Congregation at Woolton, Lancashire. In 1807, they moved to Abbots Salford, Warwickshire before they settled, finally, at Stanbrook Abbey, Worcestershire in 1838. This book was an early example of the printing program at Stanbrook Abbey instituted by Father Laurence Shepherd in 1876. "The purpose of the press was to supply the needs of the house and of the English Benedictine Congregation...the press was not an artistic hobby...it was to be an integral part of the nuns' life of dedication and prayer."
The "chief value" of this history lies in its description of the "reestablishment of the English Benedictines under the first of the Stuarts, and the chief events in connection with their body down to the death of James II." A lengthy original Preface derived from the earlier edition, describes "The Chronological Notes" as "an abridgement of the two folio volumes...finished in 1709." With the original epistolary Dedication from Weldon to Father Bernard Gregson (dated, "From the Convent of St. Edmund's at Paris. May 25. 1709"). With a title page printed in red-and-black and an engraved colophon, this Stanbrook edition is preceded by a new Dedication by the Editor, printed in an elegant black letter, to Bishop Ullathorne (dated, "St. Gergory's Priory, Downside, Bath. / Feast of St. Benedict mdccclxxxi"). Decorated throughout with engraved head and tailpieces, the text is supplemented with a multipart Appendix (numbered I-XV) and an Index in two parts. See Stanbrook Abbey Press: Ninety-Two Years of its History.
Price: $200.00