The Broughton Missal purchased by Lambeth Palace Library
A grant of £15,000 from the National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF) along with grants from the Art Fund, the Friends of the National Libraries, the B.H. Breslauer Foundation and the Friends of Lambeth Palace Library, has helped to purchase the beautifully illuminated early 15th century manuscript. It will now be available for study and appreciation by the public and historians for the first time.
The Broughton Missal is a rare surviving manuscript of the text and music for Roman Catholic church services, according to the Use of York, with adaptations reflecting the practice and interpretations which developed at York Minster during the Middle Ages. Prior to the Reformation, most parish churches in northern England would have owned at least one York Use missal, but now only 12 examples are known to survive anywhere in the world and several of these are incomplete.
Prior to Dr. Booth’s discovery, the previous earliest use of the word was in them poem Flen flyys, written around 1475. It had a line that read “fvccant vvivys of heli”, a Latin/English mix meaning “…they fuck the wives of Ely”. Historians have come across earlier uses of the word in medieval England, but have doubted that it was being used as a sexual reference. For example, the name John le Fucker appears in 1278, but this likely could be just a different spelling for the word ‘fulcher’ which means soldier.
In his book, The F Word, Jesse Sheidlower explains “fuck is a word of Germanic origin. It is related to words in several other Germanic languages, such as Dutch, German, and Swedish, that have sexual meanings as well as meaning such as ‘to strike’ or ‘to move back and forth’.”
The Broughton Missal, an extremely rare medieval manuscript containing the text and music needed for church services, has been purchased for Lambeth Palace Library.
Medieval News
McKee family outside JORVIK with Viking re-enactor, Arnor (Max O’Keeffe) – Photo courtesy York Archaeological Trust
The Broughton Missal - photo courtesy National Heritage Memorial Fund