In my book titled, Certain most godly, fruitful, and comfortable letters of such true saintes and holy martyrs of God, as in the late bloodye persecution here within this realme, gaue their lyues for the defence of Christes holy gospel: written in the tyme of theyr affliction and cruell imprysonment, I have covered many topics ranging from who it was intended for as well as what was inside of it. Today, I plan on taking a deeper look at the decoration and use of my book from a physical standpoint.

 

For starters, it is important to note that my book is an average size which means it could be transported from place to place very easily. With that being said, due to the lack of wear and tear, it is unlikely that it was moved around very frequently. Also, considering the status of the past owners that I have mentioned in previous posts I think it is safe to assume I am right by saying it the great condition of the book is because it was left on display rather than used often. 

 

Something that peaked my interest when looking through the entirety of the book are the illustrations or lack thereof. In this religious text there is only one image present that can be seen in the very beginning of the book before the preface. I found this rather interesting because I expected a book of this style to be extremely decorated and covered with images of different martyrs and saints. The black and white picture shows a group of six men in robes that have a chain going around all of them, forcing them to stand in a circular fashion. Each man has his hand together or pointing up which makes them look as if they are praying. This image has become a mystery to me because I am unable to find out the meaning of it from the text around it and it looks as if it was left up for interpretation. Perhaps these are a group of martyrs who are praying in their final moments before being executed. 

 

There are some smaller signs of illustrations present that I would not consider full on images like the one I explained above. For example, the title page of the book has a very interesting decorative border around it. I believe the border made up of human bodies, faces and interesting designs is used solely for a decorative purpose rather than having a deeper meaning. The other form of illustration that comes up very frequently throughout the text is the first letter of a new chapter or paragraph. These first letters are significantly larger than the rest of the letters on the page and have decorative designs around them that serve to enhance the look of the page as a whole. I believe these are very prominent because that was the style during the time that it was written. This is something that we see far more frequently in dated texts than we do today. Along with this, I feel that these are added in due to the lack of illustrations throughout the book itself.

 

After looking through the entire book looking for different illustrations I am left with a few questions. Why does this religious text have almost no images at all? Why does the one image present have no information on it? Lastly, why is it so lightly decorated in general? Hopefully I can find some answers to these questions as I look deeper into the book.