Gibbon, Edward

(1735–94)

   Historian.

   Gibbon was born in Putney, near London, and was educated at the University of Oxford. For a short time he became a Roman Catholic, but by 1754 he had returned to Protestantism. Of private means, he dedicated himself to scholarship and he is chiefly remembered for his monumental Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. This learned study is in seven volumes and it prompted the somewhat philistine King George III to remark, ‘Scribble, scribble, scribble, Mr Gibbon!’ Gibbon argued that the fall of the Roman Empire was the result of the ‘triumph of religion and barbarism’. He was particularly scathing about the rapid acceptance of the Christian religion in the ancient world, which he believed was due to the intolerant zeal of the early Christians, their promise of a future life, the apparent miracles in the Church, the ethical standard of Church members and the internal discipline of the institution. His approach was consistently ironical, sceptical, humane and civilised. Decline and Fall remains a classic of English literature and historical scholarship.

   Edward Gibbon, Memoirs of my Life, edited by G.A. Bonnard (1966);

   H.L. Bond, The Literary Art of Edward Gibbon (1960);

   S.T. McCloy, Gibbon’s Antagonism to Christianity (1933);

   R. Porter, Edward Gibbon: Making History (1988).