[Psalmes or prayers]
John Fisher (1469-1535) Bishop of Rochester
Category
Books
Date
1569
Materials
Paper, Leather
Place of origin
London
Order this imageCollection
Oxburgh Hall, Norfolk
NT 3059103
Summary
Full description
The volume contains the King's Psalms, The Queen's Prayers and the Litany. The intact title page for the Queen's Prayers shows that the volume was printed by Henry Wykes, London. Wykes had a license to print this book from 1566 and was the first person to print these three texts together in a single volume. The King's Psalms, originally written in Latin by Bishop John Fisher in the 1st half of the C16th, was reworked in English by Katherine Parr in 1544. The Queen's Prayers was Parr's reworking of a translation of Thomas a Kempis's 'Imitation of Christ'. The prayers for plague on leaves R1 and Rv are unique to this volume. Every other known volume of the King’s Prayers concludes a wartime prayer for the monarch and one for soldiers. An imperfection on the ornamental border of the pages is consistent with an imperfection present in editions of the volume in the British Library and the Huntington Library (Short Title Catalogue 3009.5) which have been tentatively dated to 1569. The presence of this volume in the household of a Catholic family after the Reformation is significant. In 1569 Henry Bedingfeld refused to sign a declaration of obedience to the Act of Uniformity. His ownership of a copy of the Elizabethan Litany within this bound volume at this time could have been interpreted by his critics as a willingness to accept certain rites from the book of Common Prayer, despite his views. The King's Psalms and the Queen's Prayers were essentially Catholic texts but had been produced by a queen consort and issued by the king, so the Catholic Bedingfelds at Oxburgh could use this text with the understanding that it was part of the Catholic tradition without raising suspicions. (Information from Micheline White, Associate Professor in the College of Humanities, Carleton University, Canada)
Bibliographic description
[382] p. ; 16mo. Imperfect: structure of book is heavily distorted; most of gathering A and B1 have been lost to pest damage; significant loss to outer margins of bookblock. Provenance: Discovered behind a wall-plate during archaeological investigations, August 2020. Binding: seventeenth-century brown tanned calfskin with lapped corners (fore-edge over head and tail) and pulled-over caps, gold-tooled arabesque decoration on boards and spine, spine divided into five panels.
Provenance
Discovered in August 2020 during the Raise the Roof project under a wall-plate on the south side of the room known as the Tank Attic, during dormer window repair works.
Makers and roles
John Fisher (1469-1535) Bishop of Rochester , compiler