A 13th century bible, one of a handful of books which survived intact when the library of Canterbury Cathedral was broken up at the time of the Reformation, is back in the building after almost 500 years.
The Lyghfield bible – named for a monk at the cathedral who once owned it – is the only complete bible and the finest illuminated book known to have survived from the medieval collection. The cathedral won a grant of almost £96,000 from the National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF) and raised £4,000 more to buy it at a recent rare books sale in London.
The library of some 30,000 volumes was once one of the greatest treasures of the cathedral, but when the monastic community was broken up by Henry VIII in the 16th century the books were scattered. Within the library’s holdings today, only 30 books are known to survive from the original collection, but the reconstructed library and archives, which includes documents dating back to the ninth century, has been inscribed on the Unesco UK Memory of the World Register.
The cathedral plans to put the bible on display in a new exhibition area. The book is pocket-sized, which may have saved it when others were ripped apart for their precious bindings or beautiful illuminations. It was written on such fine and costly vellum that the little volume, probably made in Paris, holds 690 pages.
Cressida Williams, head of the cathedral archives, said: “It is of the utmost significance to us to have here in our collections a copy of the core Christian text which was owned by one of the last monks of the medieval monastic community. The bible bears witness to the upheavals of the Reformation, a time which defined what the cathedral is today, and will have a key role in telling visitors our story.”
Sir Peter Luff, chairman of the NHMF, said trustees had agreed it was imperative to save the book, which was sold by a private collector, for the nation. “Not only an incredibly rare book directly linked to one the most turbulent periods of British history, the Lyghfield bible is also exquisitely beautiful,” he said.