First edition of one of the most important sources for the history of Britain in the 5th and 6th centuries, written by a near-contemporary, the 6th-century British monk Saint Gildas (ca. 450/500-ca. 570). This religious polemic condemns the acts of several of the most important figures of his time, and blames them for the state of the country. It also includes one of the earliest descriptions of Hadrian's Wall. The present copy is the rare first issue, with the misprint on the title page.
Gildas wrote the present work, titled De excidio et conquestu Britanniae (On the ruin and conquest of Britain), in the late 5th or early 6th century. It is a sermon in three parts. The first part contains a narrative of British history from the Roman conquest to Gildas time; it includes references to Ambrosius Aurelianus and the Britons victory against the Saxons at the Battle of Mount Badon. The second part is a condemnation of five kings for their various sins, including relatively well-documented ones such as Maelgwn Gwynedd. The third and final part is an attack upon the British clergy of the age.
The work circulated in manuscript form for multiple centuries, but first appeared in print in 1525, edited by the Italian humanist Polydore Vergil (ca. 1470-1555). The editor's dedicatory preface to Cuthbert Tunstall, Bishop of London, is dated London, 6 April 1525, from which it has often been erroneously assumed that the book was printed in London as well. However, in his article Dr. Rhodes has identified the real printing place, assigning the book to the most probable printer. Of the three variants of the title page distinguished by Rhodes this is the very scarce variant A with the misprint PRFTER (instead of PRAETER), making it the first issue.
A contemporary ownership annotation ("Claruit Anno D[o]m[in]i 580") at the foot of the title page, a blind-stamp of the Stadsbibliotheek Antwerpen in the lower corner of the title page and in the margins of several leaves, and the bookbinder's label of the Period Bookbinders in Bath mounted on the recto of the last free end leaf. The colour of the binding is slightly faded in some places, the work is lightly browned, a waters stain in the margins of some of the leaves, the lower corner of leaf B2 is torn off, without loss of text. Otherwise in good condition. Adams G-614; ESTC S105687; Nijhoff & Kronenberg 0562; Pollard & Redgrave 11892; STCV 12919077; USTC 403749; cf. Denis E. Rhodes, "The first edition of Gildas", in: the Library S6-I (4), 1979, pp. 355-60.