Introduction
Thomas Gale (1635/1636? – 7 or 8 April 1702) was an English classical scholar, antiquarian and cleric.
Life
Gale was born at Scruton, Yorkshire. He was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, of which he became a fellow.
In 1666 he was appointed Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge, in 1672 high master of St Paul's School, in 1676 prebendary of St Paul's, in 1677 a fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1697 Dean of York. He died in York.
He was the father of two noted antiquarians, Roger Gale and Samuel Gale, and father-in-law of the Rev. Dr. William Stukeley. To his collection of manuscripts belonged Minuscule 66.
Works
He published a mythographical collection, Opuscula mythologica, ethica, et physica, and editions of several Greek and Latin authors, but his fame rests chiefly on his collection of old works bearing on early English history, entitled Historiae Anglicanae scriptores and Historiae Britannicae, Saxonicae, Anglo-Danicae scriptores XV. He was the author of the inscription on the London Monument, later removed, in which the Roman Catholics were accused of having originated the great fire. In a history of philosophy (1670), he coined the term Neoplatonism to denote late antique Platonism.
Books
- (ed.): Opuscula mythologica physica et ethica. Graece et latine. Seriem eorum sistit pagina praefationem proxime sequens (Amsterdam: H. Wetstein 1675, auch 1688)
- (ed.): Historiae poeticae Scriptores antiqui (Paris: Muguet-Scott 1675)
- (ed.): Iamblichi Liber de mysteriis Aegyptiorum (1678)
- (ed.): Ψαλτηριον. Psalterium. Juxta exemplar Alexandrinum editio nova, Græce & Latine (Oxford: Sheldon 1678)
- (ed.): Rerum Anglicarum Scriptorum Veterum Tom. ... (Oxford: Sheldon 1684)
- (ed.): Historiae Anglicanae Scriptores Quinque (Oxford: Sheldon, 1687) (Rerum Anglicarum scriptores veteres, 2)
- (ed.): Historiae Britannicae, Saxonicae, Anglo-Danicae Scriptores XV (Oxford: Sheldon, 1691) (Rerum Anglicarum scriptores veteres, 3)
- (ed.): Antonini Iter Britanniarum
- Gale, Thomæ [Thomas Gale]. Antonini Iter Britanniarum [Antoninus's Route of the Britains] Published posthumously & edited by R. Gale. M. Atkins (London), 1709. (Latin)