The Sherborne Missal
A missal is a book that contains the texts and music to be used in the Catholic Mass (church service) throughout the year. This missal was made at the of Sherborne in Dorset (South-West England) between 1400 and 1407.
The Sherborne Missal is a masterpiece of English book painting – the only service book of such quality to have survived intact from the late middle ages. Before 1998 it was the most important English illuminated book in private hands. A massive volume, it weighs nearly 20 kilograms – almost as much as a seven-year-old child. The Missal contains a whole picture gallery within its 694 pages. The margins are lavishly decorated with kings, nobles, bishops, monks, saints, angels and, perhaps surprisingly, 48 images of birds of the British Isles each with its name in Middle English (the language of Chaucer). The rest of the text is in Latin.
Most medieval art is anonymous, but the Missal itself tells us a lot about its production. Its decoration bristles with heraldry and portraits of the patrons of the work, Robert Bruyning, abbot of Sherborne, and Richard Mitford, bishop of Salisbury, along with two monks: the Benedictine scribe, John Whas, and the Dominican artist, John Siferwas. The Sherborne Missal is a statement of political and religious patronage, as well as a work in praise of God, and is an important historical document as well as a stunning work of art.
The Sherborne Missal is believed to have been taken to mainland Europe in the 17th century. It reappeared in France in 1703 and was bought by the Duke of Northumberland in whose family it stayed until 1998. It was offered by the 12thDuke in lieu of inheritance tax (providing it was allocated to the British Library, where it had been on loan for the previous 15 years).