Can you help Salisbury Cathedral identify this 15th century gothic text?
When the Cathedral made this call for help to identify some fragments of beautifully written gothic text discovered quite unexpectedly behind the Hyde Monument (erected 1660), little did it know what an amazing response it would receive.
Less than a week later, ideas of what the text is and what it says had flooded in from around the world, from eminent academics and medieval specialists as well as well-informed amateur sleuths.
Wide press, TV, radio and on-line coverage publicised our appeal for help and it is hoped that the Cathedral’s Consultant Archaeologist, Tim Tatton-Brown, and his colleague Dr John Crook will soon be able to identify exactly what the writing is and why it is there.
With the aid of a comprehensive detailed photographic record of the text and computer-enhancement of the letters by Dr John Crook, their research continues, and we will be update Cathedral News as we learn more.
The Conservators’ work on The Hyde Monument has been completed, the monument put back on the wall and the text once again hidden from view.
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