Philip Perry's Sketch of the Ancient British History: A Critical Edition

This book provides a thorough edition of a so-far unpublished manuscript bearing the title 'Sketch' of the ancient British History, chiefly with regard to Church affairs, from the first Conversion of ye Britons to Xtianity, down to ye Conversion of the Saxons and preserved at St Alban's English College in Valladolid (Spain). Written by Philip Perry, who was rector of this Catholic seminary from 1768 till his death in 1774, the 'Sketch' provides a historical account stretching from the arrival of the Romans in Britain down to Saint Columba's Christianizing mission in the VIth century and possesses an intrinsic value insofar as it is genuinely (and historically) anchored in major historical and cultural phenomena: the history of the English Church and the huge influence of Bede's work, the religious history of Europe since the XVIth century, the perception of antiquity during the Enlightenment or the theological and historiographical debates of the XVIIIth century. Additionally, the edition includes an inventory of sources used by Philip Perry and extant at Saint Alban's as well as the author's own transcript of the Stannington military diploma (a.d. 124: a unique historical document discovered by Philip Perry himself around 1761.