Tracts--Bicknoll, Edmund.

Alan [Alesius], Alexander (1500-1565). [De authoritate verbi Dei liber] Of the auctoritie of the word of god [sic] agaynst the bisshop of london wherin are conteyned certen disputacyons had in the parlament howse... a bowt the nomber of the sacrame[n]ts, [etc.]. [Strassburg: W. Koepfel, c. 1537?], ff. 46 (A-E^{8 F6), dated in a contemporary hand on title-page A.D. 1537, Black Letter, [STC 292; IA 103.200]
R[ogers], J[ohn] (c. 1560-1580). The displaying of an horrible secte of grosse and wicked heretiques, naming themselues the Familie of loue. Newely set foorth by I.R. 1578. Whereunto is annexed a confession of artickles, made the 28. of May 1561. London: [H. Middleton] for G. Bishop, 1578, ff. [76], A-I8, K4 (K4 blank? here lacking), partly printed in Black Letter, title printed within a border of type fleurons, [STC 21181.5], slight damage at bottom edge of B8 with loss of  a few letters, clean tear in I8, repaired in margin}



3 works in one volume, 8vo (140 x 88mm.), binding: eighteenth-century calf, red edges, lacking lettering-piece, joints cracking

The work by Alesius opens with sentence referring to his Epistola contra decretum quoddam episcoporum in Scotia, quod prohibet legere NT libros lingua vernacula, "written about five years since" (it was in fact published in 1533 at Wittenberg). This work, which has a contemporary dating of 1537 in manuscript, is so dated in Index Aureliensis (103.200), and is not therefore dated 1544 as suggested by STC. A translation into Latin was published in September 1542 in Strassburg. It contains an extremely clear statement of the reformers attitude to Scripture.

Alesius or Alan was a Scot from Edinburgh, and was educated in Scotland. In the 1530s he was established at Wittemberg in the circle of Melanchthon, and his pamphlet on reading the NT in the vernacular may have been prompted by the smuggling of copies of Tyndale's translation into Scotland. In 1535 he was sent from Germany on a mission to Henry VIII, and at the end of this year he began lecturing on the Psalms at Cambridge, the first to do so, basing himself on the Hebrew text. He was a prolific author (see IA 103.197-227), most of his works being published in Germany in the 1550s.

Bicknoll's book is an examination of some of the scriptural passages dealing with swearing, together with some historical and contemporary connections. On the title-page is the signature of one William Walker, and there are a few marginal notes by him. The printed marginal notes mostly refer to scriptural citations, but there are some to other texts, including Foxe's Book of Martyrs, and occasionally there are headings referring to particular English/London examples of swearing by individuals. On f. 25 Walker has put a reference to Alexander Carpentarius Destructorium vitiorum: "In the auncient recordes of the Romanes it is remembred...". Bicknoll's little book went through seven editions (listed in STC).

The work by Rogers is an account of the lives and tenets of the familists, notably Hendrik Niclaes and David Joris, although hardly favourable in tone. It has a preface by Stephen Bateman or Batman (c. 1542-1584), who was of Netherlandish origins, and of the circle around Archbishop Parker, for whom he collected printed books and some manuscripts. He was also the author of several works, and an influential figure in sixteenth-century literature.