A historian has uncovered a few secrets by looking at England's first printed Bible, published in 1535. He's discovered secrets hidden within this copy in the form of annotations within the biblical text.
"We know virtually nothing about this unique Bible-whose preface was written by Hendry himself-outside of the surviving copies," said Eyal Poleg, a historian from Queen Mary University of London. "At first, the Lambet copy first appeared completely 'clean.' But upon closer inspection I noticed that heavy paper had been pasted over blank parts of the book. The challenge was how to uncover the annotations without damaging the book."
In order to manage this feat, Poleg worked together with Graham Davis, a specialist in 3-D X-ray imaging. They used a light sheet slid beneath the pages to take two images in long exposure. One was with the light sheet and one was with the light sheet off.
So what did they find? The first image showed all of the annotations. However, these were scrambled with the printed text. The second picture showed only the printed text.
In order to get "rid" of the printed text, Davis created a piece of software to subtract the second image from the first. In the end, the researchers were left with a clear image of the annotations.
So what did these annotations say? They were copied from the famous "Great Bible" of Thomas Cromwell, which is seen as the epitome of the English reformation. While they were written between 1539 and 1549, they were later covered and disguised with thick paper in 1600. They have remained hidden since then until now.
"Until recently, it was widely assumed that the Reformation caused a complete break, a Rubicon moment when people stopped being Catholics and accepted Protestantism, rejected saints, and replaced Latin with English," Poleg said. "This Bible is a unique witness to a time when the conservative Latin and the reformist English were used together, showing that the Reformation was a slow, complex and gradual process."
That's not all the researchers found, either. They also discovered a hidden, handwritten transaction between two men: Mr. William Cheffyn of Calais and Mr. James Elys Cutpurse of London. The words state that James Elys promised to pay 20 shillings to Cheffyn, or would go to Marshalsea. He was later hanged in Tybourn in July 1552. This, in particular, allows the researchers to trace the history of the book.
"Beyond Mr. Cutpurse's illustrious occupation, the fact that we know when he died is significant," Poleg said. "It allows us to date and trace the journey of the book with remarkable accuracy-the transaction obviously couldn't have taken place after his death."
