The Henry Bradshaw Society

While in the midst of my trip to England, I spend time in a very fine used theological bookshop on Fulham Road in London, Thornton's. It has an excellent selection of titles for the Catholic in particular.

While browsing about the titles there I ran into a series of books labelled "HBS" which included the most intriguing liturgical titles. For example, one of the most striking was a 3 volume set titled, The Hereford Breviary.

As I looked through these fine books (all the while wishing I could purchase them of course!) I noticed that HBS stood for the Henry Bradshaw Society which I was pleased to learn is still in operation today.

The Henry Bradshaw Society exists to produce copies of rarer liturgical works. You can visit their website wherein you'll find out some of the interesting titles they have produced.

Their website describes their raison d'etre as follows:

"The Henry Bradshaw Society was founded in 1890 to publish editions and facsimiles of rare liturgical texts... To date the Society has issued 115 volumes in its main series, the great majority being concerned with medieval subjects. Seven titles have been published in the last decade. It is one of the longest-established and most widely respected series in its field, and its ongoing collection provides a resource for the study of the medieval Church whose importance is internationally recognised. We also publish a series of occasional Subsidia volumes, which include extended monographs whose subjects fall within the area of our interests.

"The Society's main publications are issued free to members in return for their subscriptions, and members are also entitled to discounts on available back-numbers, reprints and Subsidia volumes. The present pages give further information about membership, and details of the personnel and constitution of the Society. There are also pages which list the books currently available together with news of forthcoming volumes, and comprehensive listings of all HBS publications since the Society's foundation and of the manuscripts edited in them. The links at the top of this and the other pages enable navigation of the site."

I am adding a link to this worthy society in our links here, and it looks like an organization well worth becoming a member of. (£20.50 per year).