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Jewels for Gentlewomen: Religious Books as Artefacts in Late Medieval and Early Modern England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Alexandra Walsham
Alexandra Walsham*
Affiliation:
University of Exeter
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Extract

Historians tend to approach books primarily as vehicles for ideas, sources for the thought of the individuals and groups who wrote and read the words on the pages inside. They rarely pause to consider their significance as physical artefacts and items of material culture. This paper brings the format, appearance, and practical function of Bibles, prayer books, and other small devotional works to the very centre of our attention. It suggests that close scrutiny of the diminutive size and artistically crafted covers of some of the copies that survive yields fresh insights into the shape and texture of piety in late medieval and early modern England. The following investigation is heavily indebted to the findings of researchers in the specialized field of the history of bookbinding, a field once light-heartedly described as ‘a humble auxiliary discipline … not entirely useless and undoubtedly innocuous’. Yet, as we shall see, situated against the backdrop of developments in Tudor and Stuart embroidery and jewellery, domestic furnishing and female fashion, decorated bookbindings provide us with a unique and interesting reflection of the values and preoccupations of pre- and post-Reformation society.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 38: The Church and the Book , 2004 , pp. 123 - 142
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2004

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References

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48 E.g. the binding on a copy of Joseph Henshaw, Horae Successivae, or Spare-houres of Meditations (1632): Davenport, Embroidered Bookbindings, 90–1 and pl. 4.0.

49 Ibid., 42–3 and l. 10; Foot, Henry Davis Gift, 123.

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