Facts and Documents Illustrative of the History, Doctrine, and Rites, of the Ancient Albigenses & Waldenses. FIRST EDITION.

8vo: vi, [2], 546pp, bound in contemporary half calf on marbled boards rebacked in later calf with fragments of spine laid on. Boards a little scratched, corners rubbed, ex library stamp to flyleaf and bookplate to verso of title page otherwise very clean and fresh, pages crisp and unmarked, binding firm. Scarce work by the father of FW Maitland, from whom the latter inherited a vivid interest in English history and a thorough independence of judgment (The Cambridge History of English and American Literature). S R Maitland, sometime librarian at Lambeth and later editor of The British Magazine, here treats the sources of two esoteric sects persecuted by the Catholic Church alongside the Cathars during the Middle Ages. Peter Waldo (d. 1216), a prosperous merchant in Lyon, suddenly decided to divest himself of his riches in order to pursue a life of evangelical perfection, attracting a following from all ranks of society. However, the antiquity of the sect prior to Waldos appearance became a point of strong debate in recent centuries, as did the antiquity of Albigensianism, almost wholly suppressed by the fourteenth century. The investigation of these sources seems to have been hindered by several forgeries and questionable attributions; Maitland first offers a review of his colleague George Stanley Fabers contemporary work on the same theme, discussing for example Sir Samuel Morlands celebrated discovery of a document from 1120 attesting to the existence of the Waldenses long before Waldo. Language: English.…