Edmund Gibson (1669-1748) was one of the foremost churchmen of his age, important both as an ecclesiastical statesman and as a bishop. He was elevated to the episcopate as Bishop of Lincoln in 1716, and translated in 1723 to the see of London, where he remained until his death. He was not only the author of numerous devotional and pastoral works, but also published two monumental volumes on ecclesiastical law, Synodus Anglicana (1702) and Codex Juris Ecclesiae Anglicanae (1713), and made a major contribution to antiquarian studies with his new English edition of William Camden's Britannia (1695). Further details are given in the Dictionary of National Biography.