GIBSON, EDMUND (1669-1748), English divine and jurist, was born at Bampton in Westmorland. In 1686 he entered Queen's College, Oxford, where in 1692 he published a valuable edition of the Saxon Chronicle with a Latin translation, indices and notes. This was followed in 1693 by an annotated edition of the De institutione oratoria of Quintilian, and in 1695 by a translation (2 vols., fol.) of Camden's Britannia, "with additions and improvements," with the assistance of William Lloyd, John Smith and other English antiquaries. Gibson was appointed chaplain and librarian to the archbishop of Canterbury, when he began to catalogue the library, and in 1703 and 1710 respectively he became rector of Lambeth and archdeacon of Surrey. During the reigns of William and Anne the controversy over the rights and privileges of Convocation suggested to him the researches which resulted in the famous Codex iuris ecclesi astici Anglican (2 vols., 1713; 2nd enl. ed. This work is a learned and comprehensive discussion of the legal rights and duties of the English clergy, and the constitution, canons and articles of the English Church. In 1716 Gibson was presented to the see of Lincoln, whence he was in 172o translated to that of London, where for twenty-five years he exercised great in fluence, being regularly consulted by Sir Robert Walpole on ecclesiastical affairs. He broke with Walpole on the Quakers' Relief Bill of 1736. He died on Sept. 6, 1748.
Gibson's other works include : Vita Thomae Bodleii with the Historia Bibliothecae Bodleianae in the Catalogi librorum manu scriptorum (Oxford, 1697), and the Reliquiae Spelmannianae (Oxford, 1698).