On this Easter Sunday, when many of our ancestors would have attended church, I have been exploring via the British Library’s online gallery a digital copy of the 15th century Sherborne Missal.
http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/sacredtexts/sherborne.html
Made for the Benedictine Abbey of St. Mary’s in Sherborne, Dorset, at the opening of the 15th century, it is a masterpiece of the International Gothic style.
It is staggering to see this beautiful piece of work and to think of the labour put in by the monks who illuminated it and by those who were the scribes who wrote the script and the musical notation for the mass. Unusually, for a medieval missal, the names of the main scribe and main illuminator are actually given in the volume as John Whas and John Siferwas. This book takes us back to a time, before the reformation, when the religion of the country was still Catholic Christianity and the service in the churches up and down the land would have been the Latin mass.
How can you see more of this book?
The British Library has created a digital version using their award-winning Turning the Pages™. You can also switch on an audio commentary that explains what is on the pages as you turn them. I found this fascinating.
Happy Easter to all my readers,
Nick
The Nosey Genealogist.
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