SPELMAN, SIR HENRY (c. 1564-1641), English anti quary, was the eldest son of Henry Spelman, of Congham, Norfolk, and the grandson of Sir John Spelman (c. 1495-1544), judge of the king's bench. He was educated at Walsingham School, and Trinity college, Cambridge. With Sir Robert Cotton and William Camden, he belonged to the Society of Antiquaries, which de clined, and Spelman's efforts to revive it in 1614 were frustrated by James I. A judgment given against him by Bacon in a case over the crown lease of two abbeys led to his pamphlet De non temerandis ecclesiis (1613-16), which induced many lay owners of ecclesiastical spoils to make restitution, and Spelman himself acted accordingly. Spelman proposed to write a work on the foundations of English law, based on early charters and records; as a preliminary to this task he began to compile a glossary, the first volume of which, Archaeologus in modem glossarii, was published at his own expense in 1626. He continued to work at the subject until 1638. A second volume, Glossarium archaio logicum (1664), appeared after his death. His Codex legum veterum statutorum regni Angliae, quae ab ingressu Gulielmi usque ad annum nonum Henry III. edita suet was published by David Wilkins in his Leges anglo-saxonicae (i721). Spelman's most important work, Concilia, decreta, leges, constitutiones in re ecclesiarum orbis britannici (2 vols., 1636-64), is an attempt to place English church history on a basis of genuine documents.
Spelman entered parliament as member for Castle Rising in 1597, and took a prominent part in public business until his death (Oct. 1641). He was buried in Westminster Abbey.
Edmund Gibson, bishop of London, published in 1723 The English Works of Sir Henry Spelman, Kt., Published in his Lifetime; together with his Posthumous works relating to the Laws and Antiquities of England. The first section contained De non Temerandis Ecclesiis, already mentioned; The Larger Treatise concerning Tythes, first pub lished in 1646; De sepultura; and Villare anglicum, or a View, of the Towns of England; while the second included The Original Growth, Propagation and Condition of Feuds and Tenures by Knightservice in England, written in 1639; Two Discourses: i. Of the Ancient Govern ment of England, ii. Of Parliaments; The Original of the Four Terms of the Year, written in 1614 and first printed in 1684 ; Icenia: a Latin description of Norfolk, and some other treatises. This was a revised edition of an earlier collection (1698), and contained a life of the author, based chiefly on the autobiographical matter prefixed to the Glossary of 5626, and two additional papers, Of the Admiral Juris diction, and the Officers thereof, and Of Ancient Deeds and Charters. Wilkin's edition of his Concilia was edited by A. W. Haddan and W. Stubbs in 1869-73.