Bringing the 13thC Sarum Master Bible back to Salisbury

Friends of the Nations’ Libraries is leading a campaign to raise £90,000 to buy a stunning 13th-century Bible, illuminated by the famed Sarum Master, and to donate it to Salisbury Cathedral Library – returning it home after nearly eight centuries.

This Bible is one of only six manuscripts definitively attributed to the Sarum Master:  the other five are all in public collections in the UK and elsewhere, so this is the last chance to acquire one!  Neither  Salisbury Cathedral Library or the City of Salisbury has an example of his work in their collections. 

The ‘Sarum Master’ was one of the greatest artists of his time, he was a manuscript illuminator working in the mid-13th century.   He led a large workshop at a time when no other cities apart from London and Oxford are known to have supported this scale of book production.

In the 13th-century, when the Sarum Master was active and the present cathedral was being built, Salisbury was a hive of artistic activity. This Bible is witness to a flourishing academic culture, which nearly made Salisbury a university city.   It’s even thought that some of the vault paintings at Salisbury Cathedral may be related to the work of the Sarum Master.

Christopher de Hamel, an expert on medieval manuscripts, has said: “The Sarum Master was one of the earliest manuscript artists in England of whom we have a recognisable oeuvre.  Salisbury and Oxford had the first professional book illuminators in England, ahead of London.  Salisbury had been founded as a new town in the 1220s, and there were artists working on the stained-glass and chapter-house carvings of the new cathedral.  Like Oxford and Northampton, it had schools which might easily have developed into a university, and it had access to court money through the royal palace at Clarendon, as Oxford did with Woodstock.  This was also the moment when Breviaries and Missals were coming into use.   Because Salisbury had a book trade (and Oxford did not have a cathedral), Salisbury manuscripts were available for purchase, which no other diocese could match, and thus the local Use of Sarum became standard for all of southern England and, at the Reformation, for the Book of Common Prayer.”

Geordie Greig, Chair of FNL, said:
“I am  determined that this campaign by Friends of the Nations’ Libraries to return a literary treasure to an ancient Cathedral library 700 years after it was written by one of the few known medieval artists will be successful.  To achieve this we are asking the public and donors to help us to save the Master of Sarum Salisbury bible, a treasure of infinite historical and bibliographical merit.”

The Very Reverend Nicholas Papadopulos,  Dean of Salisbury said:
“We are immensely grateful to the Friends of the Nations’ Libraries for their invaluable support with the campaign to bring the Sarum Bible back to Salisbury after nearly 800 years. The artistry of the Sarum Master speaks to a centuries long tradition of creativity at Salisbury.  We are delighted at the prospect of being able to share this treasure with visitors to the Cathedral Library in the future.”

Lisa Nandy, the Culture Secretary, said: “This campaign by Friends of the Nations’ Libraries to return a book handwritten by one of England’s most famous medieval artists to the place where it was made 700 years ago shows our country at its best."

You can support our campaign here