Author: Guillim, John
Title: A Display of Heraldry
Date: 1679
Price: GBP £ 8,000
Book Code: 335

 

JOHN GUILLIM,  JOHN LOGAN,  & [RICHARD BLOME].

A Display of Heraldry: Manifesting A More Easie Access to the Knowledge Thereof Than Hath Hitherto Been Published. with: John Logan [& Richard Blome].  Analogia Honorum: or, A Treatise of Honour and Nobility,... In Two Parts. London: S. Roycroft for R. Blome; Tho. Roycroft, 1679; 1677-78.

Two Volumes Bound in One. Folio Full Contemporary Red Morocco Gilt, Covers with Elaborate Gilt Arabesque Borders, Spines with Gilt Sprays within Diamond Lozenge Device in each Compartment, hinges repaired. All Plates, Heraldic Shields, Coats of Arms , Portraits, etc. in Fine Old Colour.

Beautifully Rare Coloured Copy of the Enlarged and Improved edition of Guillim's classic of heraldry, profusely illustrated with ornate and handsome woodcut initials, heraldic arms, emblems, and devices. Issued with the first edition of Logan's [Blome's] Treatise of Honour and Nobility (1677), with allegorical frontispiece, full-page royal arms, and 416 coats-of-arms on 104 copper-engraved plates. This edition is the first to combine two great works of heraldry in one volume: Guillim and Logan & Blome. John Guillim's Display of Heraldry, first published in 1610, is "a work still in general use, and the best of that kind that was ever published" (Lowndes, 956). It is illustrated with the arms, crests, supporters, and motto's of the royal family and the nobility, the arms of the sees of the English bishops, and several of the gentry, together with the emblems of the orders of knighthood in Europe. "Guillim has indeed systematised and illustrated the whole science of heraldry" (DNB). This edition of 1679 contains for the first time the Analogia Honorum, or, A Treatise of Honour and Nobility (1677), "The Treatise of Honour, according to Wood, was written by Richard Blome... Wood says [that Blome] 'practised for divers years progging tricks, in employing necessitous persons to write in several arts and to get contributions of noblemen to promote the work'" (DNB).

Most historians give a date of birth for John Guillim of 1565, in the county of Herefordshire. However, it is also recorded that he was the son of John Guillim of Westbury-on-Severn in Gloucestershire, and searches of the parish records available at the  Family Search site have discovered a John, born in about 1550 in the neighbouring village of Minsterworth, where he is said to have lived most of his life. This part of England is very close to the border with Wales and Guillim's ancestors were almost certainly Welsh.

He was educated at Oxford University (possibly Brasenose College),  However, he might well have been back in Minsterworth by 1575 when a John Guillim married a local girl, Frances Dennis, and raised a family of one boy, John (1578), and three girls, Margaret (1580), Frances (1582) and Priscilla (1584). The first record of his involvement with heraldry is the Earl Marshal's Warrant, dated 23 February 1604, permitting him to bear the tabard of the Portsmouth Pursuivant Extraordinary. Then, from Michaelmas 1613, he received a salary from the College of Arms as Rouge Croix Pursuivant. Guillim's death is recorded as having occurred on 7 May 1621, probably also at Minsterworth, although there is no record of his place of burial. The Display of Heraldry was written in 1610, and there were seven other editions of the book following Guillim's death, the last one (described as the "sixth") being in 1724. Some historians have suggested that the original author of the Display of Heraldry was a clergyman named John Barkham who was unwilling to have the work published in his own name (the subject matter seeming unfit for a clerical man !), but this claim is not widely supported today.

A very fine coloured copy of perhaps the most important seventeenth century work on heraldry.

Provenance: James Duke of Monmouth. with a fine large watercolour of his coat of arms designed as a bookplate,

Wing G2222; L2834. Lowndes, 956-57; 1384.