Missing pages of priceless missing Henry VIII–era manuscript finally found
The pages come from a copy of Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ that once belonged to John Gage, an enforcer in Henry VIII’s court and a key figure in the historical dissolution of the monasteries
Six missing pages from a rare 15th-century manuscript that belonged to a personal attendant of King Henry VIII have been discovered. The book in question, a copy of Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ, was owned by John Gage, a devout Catholic and key figure in Henry VIII's court. Gage kept the book after it was initially destroyed during the dissolution of monasteries.
The missing pages, which detail Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, were found in a collection of Gage family estate records. Researchers from the University of Cambridge and the University of Sussex compared the dimensions, annotations, and headers of the missing pages to those of the complete manuscript and found them to be identical.
While the significance of the discovery is clear, it remains uncertain if the missing pages will be reattached to the original manuscript.
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