De sacrosanctae eucharistiae communion sub una specie. Disputatio theologica in alma Treverensi academia anno M.D.LXXXIII. Die.. mensis Octobris publice proposita. Praeside R.P. Ioanne Gibbono… Respondente doctissimo Petro Schanaeo, Emmelio… ad primam ss. theologiae lauream consequendam. Trier, E. Hatot, 1583.

GIBBONS John S.J.; SCHANAEUS Petrus (1583)

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Title within a border of fleurons, woodcut on verso of title.

4to (250 x 150mm). [24]ff. Unbound, patterned paper strip to spine (light browning).

Trier: E. Hatot, 

Rare first and only edition. John Gibbons (1544-89), an English Jesuit from Wells, was the author of the important Concertatio ecclesiae catholicae in Anglia, and presided over the theological disputation at the University of Trier that is recorded here, on the subject of communion under one kind (receiving the bread or the wine alone, rather than together).  The respondent here is Petrus Schanaeus, whose lengthy argument is divided into 123 sections in nine groups (plus a set of Latin elegiacs at the end). Originally from near Trier, little is known of Schanaeus; the present disputation was intended as a stage in his progress to a licence in theology and is an historical survey of the subject, replete with references and citations from a variety of biblical, patristic and later writers.  

The work is fulsomely dedicated to the archbishop and elector of Trier – as is Gibbons’ previous Concertatio - whose woodcut arms and motto (Religione et Sapientia) are on the verso of the title, together with some punning Latin elegiacs.  Johann von Schönenberg (1525-99) was confirmed in the see by Gregory XIII early in 1582 and, with his coadjutor Peter Binsfeld (author of works on witches) was responsible for a well-known series of witch trials in Trier. ‘Thanks to [Schönenberg’s] patronage the campaign of Trier was of importance quite unique in the history of witchcraft. In twenty-two villages 368 witches were burnt between 1587 and 1593, and two villages, in 1585, were left with only one female inhabitant apiece’ (Trevor-Roper, p. 150).  

VD16 G 1956; Allison & Rogers list 3 copies (one of them David Rogers’). De Backer/Sommervogel III 1403, no.2. Hugh Trevor-Roper, The Crisis of the Seventeenth Century: Religion, the Reformation and Social Change and other Essays (1967).

OCLC: (UK: Oxford (Wadham College); US: Huntington Library only. Library Hub adds Lambeth Palace).

Stock Code: 239703

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