Extremely rare medieval scroll discovered at York’s Bar Convent
The best example of an Arma Christi ever discovered
An unassuming box in the archives at York’s Bar Convent has yielded the unique discovery of an illuminated medieval scroll known as an Arma Christi, featuring the prayer poem O Vernicle. The discovery is one of the best-preserved examples ever found, and is the only one that features response texts after each verse of the poem, demonstrating that they may have been used in a different way to previously believed.
Up until now, only ten copies were known to have survived, produced in the 14th and 15th centuries, each one handmade by a number of skilled craftsmen. Very few medieval devotional items survived the Reformation in the 1540s and the outlawing of Catholicism some decades later under Elizabeth I, and the Bar Convent Arma Christi is thought to be one of the last examples ever made, dating from around 1475.
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