Gloucester Cathedral, St Peter’s Abbey before the dissolution in 1540, was founded in 1541. The ‘Deed of Endowment’, one of three documents created for the occasion features in this video complete with flattering portrait of King Henry VIII, a Garter Badge, badge of the Prince of Wales and the original green and white (the Tudor colours) silk cord which once held the great seal.

The oldest items in the archive are pages from Aelfric's The Lives of Saints which had been reused as decorative pages in a later book binding. They are around 1000 years old and look as fresh as the day they were written!

The most significant item to the Cathedral is its ‘Historia,’ created by monks at the Abbey in the 1390s and recording as much of the Abbey’s history as they were able to. Archivist Rebecca Phillips is fairly confident that they didn’t have written records from which to source information and so this is the first time the oral history of the abbey had been written down. It would then have been copied and distributed to daughter houses of the Abbey to share their story and engender a sense of belonging.

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We get to see these items up close in this video plus an exquisitely embroidered King James Bible, the first Chapter Book of the Cathedral containing the signature of William Laud, and an ironic reliquary. The reliquary is thought to contain a fragment of the stake on which Bishop Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester, was burned during Mary I’s reign. It’s a beautifully carved and decorated box, the irony being in that Hopper was opposed to the use of relics.

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Wishing you a fabulous day!

Philippa 💜

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Philippa founded award-winning Historic Tour Operator British History Tours in 2014. Find out about these luxury, fully-escorted, immersive historical experiences at BritishHistoryTours.com

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