The Lyme Caxton Missal is an

incunable In the history of printing, an incunable or incunabulum (plural incunables or incunabula, respectively), is a book, pamphlet, or broadside that was printed in the earliest stages of printing in Europe, up to the year 1500. Incunabula were pr ...

or early printed book containing the

liturgy Liturgy is the customary public ritual of worship performed by a religious group. ''Liturgy'' can also be used to refer specifically to public worship by Christians. As a religious phenomenon, liturgy represents a communal response to and partic ...

of the

Mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...

according to the

Sarum Rite The Use of Sarum (or Use of Salisbury, also known as the Sarum Rite) is the Latin liturgical rite developed at Salisbury Cathedral and used from the late eleventh century until the English Reformation. It is largely identical to the Roman rite, ...

, published in 1487 by

William Caxton William Caxton ( – ) was an English merchant, diplomat and writer. He is thought to be the first person to introduce a printing press into England, in 1476, and as a printer (publisher), printer to be the first English retailer of printed boo ...

. The copy at

Lyme Park Lyme Park is a large estate south of Disley, Cheshire, England, managed by the National Trust and consisting of a mansion house surrounded by formal gardens and a deer park in the Peak District National Park. The house is the largest in Chesh ...

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...

, England, is the only nearly complete surviving copy of its earliest known edition. It is held in the library of the house and is on display to visitors.

This

missal A missal is a liturgical book containing instructions and texts necessary for the celebration of Mass throughout the liturgical year. Versions differ across liturgical tradition, period, and purpose, with some missals intended to enable a pries ...

contains the liturgy for the Mass according to the Sarum Rite (or Sarum Use) and is known as a Sarum Missal. This was the most popular version of the Mass used in England before the

Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

. This copy of the missal is from the earliest known printed edition of a Sarum Missal. It is printed throughout in two colours, red and black, and is the first book to carry Caxton's printer's device. The missal is printed in ink on paper, with a leather binding, and it measures 34 by 24 cm. It was famous at the time it was printed because it was one of the first books printed in two colours. The missal contains 243 of its original 266 leaves and includes two full-page

woodcut Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas that ...

s coloured by hand; one depicts the

Crucifixion of Jesus The crucifixion and death of Jesus occurred in 1st-century Judea, most likely in AD 30 or AD 33. It is described in the four canonical gospels, referred to in the New Testament epistles, attested to by other ancient sources, and consid ...

and the other God the Father enthroned. It was re-bound in the 19th century, but some fragments of the original 15th century binding survive. Later markings have been added to the book by hand. These include a translation of the marriage service in English alongside the original

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

version,

obituaries An obituary ( obit for short) is an article about a recently deceased person. Newspapers often publish obituaries as news articles. Although obituaries tend to focus on positive aspects of the subject's life, this is not always the case. Ac ...

relating to the deaths of members of the Legh family, and prayers to St Thomas. In places the missal has been "censored" by hand, including the crossing out of the name of St Thomas Becket and of prayers for the

Pope The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...

History

The book was published by

in 1487 and printed for him in Paris by Guillaume Maynal. This is the first known instance of an English publisher contracting out work to a foreign printer. This copy of the missal has been in the northwest of England since at least 1508. Another copy of this edition is said to have been in the

shrine A shrine ( la, scrinium "case or chest for books or papers"; Old French: ''escrin'' "box or case") is a sacred or holy sacred space, space dedicated to a specific deity, ancestor worship, ancestor, hero, martyr, saint, Daemon (mythology), daem ...

Edward the Confessor Edward the Confessor ; la, Eduardus Confessor , ; ( 1003 – 5 January 1066) was one of the last Anglo-Saxon English kings. Usually considered the last king of the House of Wessex, he ruled from 1042 to 1066. Edward was the son of Æth ...

Westminster Abbey Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an historic, mainly Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the United ...

, but this has not survived. The book was in the possession of the Legh family, when in 1549, during the reign of

Edward VI Edward VI (12 October 1537 – 6 July 1553) was King of England and Ireland from 28 January 1547 until his death in 1553. He was crowned on 20 February 1547 at the age of nine. Edward was the son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour and the first E ...

, it was banned. It was "hidden away" in Lyme Park for many years, and rediscovered in 1874 by William Brenchley Rye, a scholar from the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

, when he was visiting the house. It was then displayed in a glass case "for scholars and family visitors to admire". When the Legh family left the house in 1946, it remained in their possession, and was held for safe-keeping in the

John Rylands Library The John Rylands Research Institute and Library is a late-Victorian neo-Gothic building on Deansgate in Manchester, England. It is part of the University of Manchester. The library, which opened to the public in 1900, was founded by Enriquet ...

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

. It is "one of only two Caxtons in the world which has remained in the ownership of a single family for 500 years". It is also the only near-complete copy of this edition of the missal to survive; there are fragments only of another copy that is held in

Durham University , mottoeng = Her foundations are upon the holy hills (Psalm 87:1) , established = (university status) , type = Public , academic_staff = 1,830 (2020) , administrative_staff = 2,640 (2018/19) , chancellor = Sir Thomas Allen , vice_chan ...

Present day

The missal was purchased in 2008 by the

National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...

at a cost of £465,000, with support from the

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, and other organisations. It is on display in the library of Lyme Park. Associated with it is an interactive digital display. With this the visitor can "turn the pages" of the book, using touch-screen technology, and also listen to passages from the book being sung.

References

External links

{{Portal, Cheshire
Lyme Missal information
at the National Trust Missals 15th-century illuminated manuscripts Incunabula

Contents

History

Present day

References

External links