[MR] Ancient Origins: Digitized Sherborne Missal

[Garth Groff and Sally Sanford]

Noble Friends, Especially Scribes,

Today Ancient Origins offers a feature on the Sherborne Missal. This book
is said to be the finest and most lavishly illuminated book surviving from
medieval England. Created about 1400 at the Benedictine Abbey of St. Mary
in Sherborne, the massive work has almost 700 pages, some 347 of which
feature hand-illuminations. The pages are filled with religious figures, of
course, but many are dressed in late 14th century clothing. Additionally,
the margins are filled with all sorts of interesting beasties. Besides the
occasional devil, many very realistic and identifiable birds can be seen.
The Ancient Origins story is found at
https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/sherborne-missal-0014188
.

If that piques your curiosity, you can actually see the whole book
page-by-page because the British Library is offering a digitized version.
Controls allow you to blow up the illuminations to a very large size, so
you can appreciate every detail:
http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100104060212.0x000001#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0&xywh=-2855%2C-354%2C10972%2C7064
. Whew! Don't you wish they offered a "Tiny URL"?

Anyway, Ancient Origins zoomed in on one page in particular, page 216,
showing the two monks most responsible for the book (scribe John Whas and
illuminator John Siferwas). By opening this page in the British Library
viewer we are treated to a whole host of other figures. For example, the
chief illustration on this page is Christ rising from his tomb surrounded
by several "Roman" soldiers. They don't appear Roman at all, but are
dressed in late 14th century English garments and armor.  Such images offer
remarkable details of period costume.

Naturally our old friend Wikipedia has a brief discussion of the Sherborne
Missal which gives some additional background. The link to the British
Library at the bottom of their page says it is to a sample of just 32
pages, but that is incorrect. The link now goes to an introductory page on
the Missal and with direct link to the whole book. The introductory page
also offers links to other important illuminated books in the British
Library collection. It would be easy to spend the whole day wallowing in
illuminations.

A small side item. I visited Sherborne briefly while touring England in
2000. A shop sign that particularly caught my eye was "Snobs of Sherborne".
What an interesting name for a shop! It was a place that offered a whole
bunch of personal services, making keys, selling small grooming items, dry
cleaning, and most particularly shoe repair. As it turns out, "snob" is an
old English word for a shoe-maker and was not an insult at all in historic
times. Always something to learn!

Yours Aye,


Lord Mungo Napier, Laird of Mallard Lodge  🦆