This page is viewed 1825 times
Times Online A mysterious inscription hidden behind a monument in Salisbury Cathedral is baffling historians. 
The inscription, painted in black gothic letters, is thought to be one of the earliest written in English in any church in Britain, but it is so faded that it is unreadable. The cathedral has appealed for help from members of the public after attempts to reconstruct the inscription from the legible letters failed to make sense of it. The six surviving lines of text are believed to date from the mid-15th century, before the Bible was translated from Latin into English. Speculation on what it says has ranged from a Christmas carol to the medieval equivalent of "no talking during services". The letters were painted on a thin layer of limewash that was partially scraped off before the monument to Sir Henry Hyde, a Royalist martyr executed during the Civil War, was erected in the early 1660s. In places, all that is left is a dark stain on the stonework where the paint leached through. Tim Tatton-Brown, the cathedral's archaeologist, said: "The cathedral's conservators quite unexpectedly found some beautifully written English text behind the Henry Hyde Monument on the cathedral's south aisle wall when the monument was temporarily removed as part of the ongoing schedule of work. "I originally surmised that the text dated from the 16th century, bearing in mind that the monument was erected soon after 1660. However, our researches now suggest it was written a century earlier and therefore pre-dates the Reformation. "Study by specialist academics is leaning towards the text being written in the 15th century, a period when English was, for the very first time, being used just occasionally in preference to Latin." If the date is confirmed the inscription would be one of the earliest in English to have survived. John Crook, a fellow researcher who photographed the inscription and enhanced it on his computer, claimed that one line said "and we are c . . . " but the rest was indecipherable. He said: "The problem is that the lettering is very faint. I can only improve it so much by increasing the contrast of the image." He said that it was likely that other inscriptions were painted elsewhere in the cathedral that were subsequently lost or painted over, probably during the Reformation. He said: "It would be too much of a coincidence that the only one happened to be behind this monument. "If anyone thinks they can identify any further letters from the enhanced photographs, please contact us via the Salisbury Cathedral website and I can trace them in," he added. "The basic questions of what exactly the words are and why the text was written on the cathedral wall remain unanswered. It would be wonderful for us to solve the mystery." When Ruth Gledhill, The Times religion correspondent, posted the inscription on her blog last week, speculation ranged from it being a clue from the next Dan Brown book to "If you are the last one out, lock the windows, bolt the door, and leave the key with the verger". Unfortunately a convincing explanation has still not been found. The wording has been covered by the monument to Sir Henry Hyde, where conservators said that it would be better protected for future scholars to examine.
Related News:
|
