Our speaker at our annual Christmas lunch was Emma Laws, Exeter Cathedral Librarian and freelance rare books and special collections curator. Emma took us on a journey through 975 years of history from the foundation of the Cathedral under Bishop Leofric in 1050 to the opening this year of the brand new Friends Cloister Gallery and Treasures Exhibition.
The Exhibition brings together, for the first time on public display, an impressive roll call of nationally and internationally significant artefacts: the oldest book of English literature in the world; the oldest part of the country’s oldest public record; the oldest surviving foundation charter of any secular English cathedral; the only surviving complete medieval wax votive figure in Europe – and, probably, the country’s oldest surviving wood carving of an elephant.
The Exhibition also features the Fortescue Hours – a lavish illuminated book of hours made for Sir John Fortescue (ca. 1394-1479), Chief Justice of England from 1442 to 1460 and author of an important book of English law, De laudibus legume Angliae. The manuscript is on loan from the Fortescue family, which settled in Devon over 900 years ago.
The Cathedral’s website includes information on visiting Exeter Cathedral and the Treasures Exhibition: https://www.exeter-cathedral.org.uk/plan-your-visit/treasures-exhibition/.
Subscribe to the Cathedral’s weekly newsletter, Cathedral Life, to find out more about the collections of the Library and Archives and forthcoming events: https://www.exeter-cathedral.org.uk/newsletter-signup/.
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