I The Liturgy in Medieval England: A History av Richard W. Pfaff, som jeg nå leser, leste jeg nettopp – i kapittelet om Benedictine liturgy after 1215 – om the Sherborne Missal. Sherborne was ( a Benedictine abbey from 998 to 1539.)
Richard Pfaff skriver (s 236-237) om denne missalen: «Sherborne seems to have been an abbey of medium size (15-20 men) and income … In these circumstances it becomes all the more astonishing that, probably between 1396 and 1406, there should have been commissioned, and illustrated by a prominent artist, the missal that … «is the unrivalled masterpiece of English book production in the fifteenth century».»
Etter at alle kloster ble oppløst av kongen (Sherborne i 1539), vet man lite om missalen, men den var i Frankrike «from at least 1703 to 1797, then (by 1800) in the posession of the Duke of Northumberland, who kept it at Alnwick castle until 1983, when Trustees of the then Duke placed it on indefinite loan at the British Library; in 1998 the Library bought it.»
Bildet under viser korsfestelsen, og er den eneste helsides miniatyren i missalen.
