Edmund Gibson’s 1695 Britannia and Late-Seventeenth-Century British Antiquarian Scholarship

Abstract

Abstract Drawing on the evidence of correspondence and draft papers preserved primarily in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, this essay gives a detailed account of the genesis and editing of one of seventeenth-century British antiquarianism’s foremost works: the revised version of William Camden’s Britannia, published in 1695. It pays particular attention to Edmund Gibson’s role as editor of the project and demonstrates the diversity of kinds of antiquarian scholarship to be found within the book (showing that William Camden offered a wide-ranging model for antiquarian practice). The article then situates the Britannia within the context of the religio-political divisions provoked by the Glorious Revolution, showing how Edmund Gibson attempted to navigate those divisions. It concludes by assessing the 1695 Britannia’s place within the history of antiquarian scholarship.