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1500Leonardo da Vinci
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1505Tower of London
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1509Henry VIII's Coronation
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1511Catherine of Aragon's pregnancy
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1516Utopia by Thomas More
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1518Songs written by Henry VIII
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1520The Field of Cloth and Gold
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1526First printed Bible in English
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1539Dissolution of the Monasteries
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1540Henry VIII's Great Bible
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1540Henry VIII's Psalter
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1543Minstrels at a feast
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1543Chopping Wood
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1543Vesalius's anatomy lessons
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1543Copernicus
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1547Edward VI's diary
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1549Henry VIII's assets
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1553Letter from Elizabeth I
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1556Circular zodiac chart
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1558Elizabeth I's Map
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1567The First National Lottery
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1570Elizabeth I in a golden chariot
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1575Handwritten recipe
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1577Elizabethan dress codes
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1582First English Dictionary
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1585Recipe for pancakes
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1587Mary Queen of Scots
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1588Elizabeth's Tilbury speech
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1592Doctor Faustus by Marlowe
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1595A cure for drunkenness
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Intro
This Bible with its coloured title page was very probably Henry VIII’s personal copy. From 1538, every parish in England was required by law to purchase a copy of an English Bible and place it in ‘some convenient place’ for all to see and read. To meet this demand, the Great Bible, so called because of its size, was put into production. Six editions followed, with more than 9,000 copies printed by 1541. The woodcut title page was therefore an unmissable opportunity to communicate a visual message about the new Royal Supremacy to every English parishioner. By tracking the repeating motif of the Verbum Dei (the Word of God), every English man or woman could witness the flow of authority from God to Henry, descending thence to the clergy and to the local parish congregation via Thomas Cranmer Archbishop of Canterbury, on the left, and to the nobility through Thomas Cromwell on the right.
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