The First two partes of the Actes, or unchast examples of the Englysh votaryes, gathered out of their owne legenades and chronycles / by Johan Bale, and dedycated to our most redoubted soveraigne kynge Edward the syxte.

ORIGIN OF THE MYTHMAKING OF THE ENGLISH REFORMATION.

16mo. Bound in 20th century full calf; spine with 4 raised bands; red leather label with gilt letters on spine. Imprinted at London by John Tisdale, dwelling in Knight riders Streate. Anno 1560. Second Complete Edition. Two parts in one volume. The definitive edition of Bale's work. 56 leaves (112 pages) longer than the 1551 edition. STC 1274.

Bale's Englysh votaryes established the received history of the English church and Reformation, including the notions that the English church was the purest of the early Christian churches, and that the entire history of England could be understood as s battle against the influence of the Roman Catholic Church. Bale's anti-Catholic chronicle, full of salacious accounts of medieval English clergy, had a decisive influence on John Foxe and his Book of Martyrs.

"… Bale establish[ed] the myth of the pristine pre-Augustinian English Church, the golden age before 597, which was to be influential in Elizabethan thought and a useful weapon against Puritan iconoclasm. But Bale's target in The Actes was still the Roman Church. His purpose was not to show that in this golden age surplices had existed, but rather that clerical celibacy had not. … Though the Marian experience and events of the Elizabethan and early Jacobean period (the Bull of 1570, the miraculous deliverance in 1588, and the Gunpowder Plot of 1604 being the most obvious) combined to heighten and reinforce English anti-Catholicism, its historical justification stemmed from Bale's earliest works [particularly the 'Actes of the Englysh Votaryes]." Fairfield. John Bale: Mythmaker of the English Reformation.

Provenance: William Whinynge (16th century ownership signature at the foot of the title); Edward Slater (ownership signature dated 1701 on the verso of the final leaf); William Lyall (Latinized 18th century ownership signature on the second front free endpaper); Christopher Gordon-Craig (20th century bookplate on the front endpaper); Dr. and Mrs. H.R. Knohl (bookplate on the front free endpaper).

Book tightly bound leaving a small gutter margin, however, this does not affect legibility and no letters are lost. The last few leaves are reinforced at the gutter margin; final leaf shows a chip at the lower outer corner, not affecting text. With a small, unobtrusive dampstain in the upper margin throughout. A fine, complete copy of the definitive edition of Bale's work.