Special Collections
Book of the Month, January 2008
The History of St Pauls Cathedral in London from its Foundation until these Times
William Dugdale
London: T. Warren, 1658
[B.L.] fol. 1658 [History]
The antiquary and herald Sir William Dugdale (1605-1686) wrote prolifically. His three greatest works are the three-volume Monasticon Anglicanum (1655-73), The Antiquities of Warwickshire (1656) and The Baronage of England (1676-7). The History of St Pauls Cathedral, published 350 years ago, comes fourth on the list for importance. A folio volume of about 300 pages, it is a considerably slighter work than the major three. Dugdale wrote it quite quickly at the instigation of Lord Christopher Hatton, based on ‘ten porters’ burthens’ of unsorted, mouldering charters, rolls and other documents. In addition to providing the history of St Paul’s, Dugdale described the cathedral as it was in his time, for example noting the monuments and reproducing the texts on them, and listing the books and manuscripts in the cathedral library. The etcher Wenceslaus Hollar, who had already illustrated the first volume of Monasticon Anglicanum and The Antiquities of Warwickshire, provided fourteen leaves of plates.
Dugdale’s motivation, as expressed in his dedicatory letter, was to preserve the memory of St Paul’s in case it was despoiled in the turbulence of the Protectorate: “so great was your foresight of what we have since by wofull experience seen and felt, and specially in the Church, (through the Presbyterian contagion, which then began violently to breake out) that you often and earnestly incited me to a speedy view [sic] of what Monuments I could, especially in the principall Churches of this Realme; to the end, that by Inke and paper, the Shadows of them, with their Inscriptions might be preserved for posteritie, forasmuch as the things themselves were so neer unto ruine” (leaf A3v). He began with St Paul’s on the basis of its being “one of the most eminent Sturctures of that kinde in the Christian World”, representing its fabric and monuments “in the most exact and perfect way I could devise” (leaf A4r). The timing was fortunate, for while St Paul’s remained spared by Cromwell’s men, it was burned in the Great Fire of 1666. Thus Dugdale’s record, with Hollar’s precise engravings, is the best testimony we have to the old St Paul’s, and an extremely significant book.
Senate House Library is fortunate to hold two copies of the work. One of these is in the library of Beilby Porteus, Bishop of London (1731-1809). The copy featured here is from the collection of Lt. Col. Alfred Claude Bromhead (1876-1963), whose library consisted of 4,000-5,000 items published between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries concerning the history of London. It sports the bookplate of William Elyard Walmisley, who in 1849 became the first Clerk of Public Bills at the newly created Public Bill Office.
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