AMULET ROLL - A FIFTEENTH CENTURY 'SUNDAY LETTER'

Manuscript Amulet Roll, comprising the text of a Middle English prose work on lay Sunday observance,

Footnotes

'THAT YOU WASH NOT YOUR BEARDS, NOR [DO] EARTHLY WORKS AND THEREBY KEEP THE SUNDAY HOLY TO ME': AN EXTREMELY RARE AMULET ROLL NEWLY-DISCOVERED IN SUFFOLK.

This so-called Amulet Roll was discovered during renovations to the owner's house, tightly rolled and pushed into a hole in a beam plugged with lime render, and is a highly important find. It is, according to Professor A.S.G. Edwards, who has examined the roll, an unusual previously unrecorded manuscript. '...The combination of the rarity of its Middle English text and its distinctive roll form have no parallel among surviving prose works in this language...' he writes.

Our letter forms part of a group of texts known as Sunday Letters or Carta Dominica, which were apocryphal letters purportedly from Jesus emphasising the importance of keeping the Sabbath and warning of dire consequences for those who do not. The original text dates from as early as 600 CE and was widely copied, leading to many different versions along the same theme, and our text follows the traditional form – how one should keep Sunday, warnings of terrible punishments of not complying and the promise of protection. It therefore has a two-fold purpose, being an exposition on good conduct on a Sunday but also acting as a magical amulet to protect the wearer, forming a fascinating amalgamation of the spiritual and the supernatural. Such apotropaic scrolls were designed to be worn or carried by the owner in close proximity to the body – our text refers to it being "borne" – and the addition of a Latin prayer for a good death at the end of the text, often used as a prayer for personal protection, would add evidence to this theory. Whilst it was common practice to paste protective texts to the walls of buildings, that ours was found hidden within a beam is exceptional, implying that the owner was hoping to transfer some of the protective power of the amulet into the very fabric of the building itself.

The hand can be dated to the first half of the fifteenth century, a time when lay literacy was rising and plague, social unrest and war was rife, a time when people looked to textural amulets such as ours for protection and reassurance. Such items were ephemeral, '...relatively inexpensive, lightweight, portable, concealable, and even disposable...' (Don Kremer, Binding Words: Textual Amulets in the Middle Ages, 2006, p.1), which makes ours an extraordinary survival, particularly as it is on paper rather than parchment. Textual amulets were readily available to people of all strata of society at this time, and ours is written in the vernacular with the addition of a Latin prayer, suggesting it was an item commissioned by an educated, pious individual, and the clarity of the hand and fineness of the decoration would indicate it was written by a professional scribe.

Professor Edwards concludes: 'Although Sunday observance was a matter of widespread interest in medieval England (see Diana Wood, 'Discipline and Diversity in the Medieval English Sunday,' Studies in Church History 43, 2007, pp.202-11), separate works on the topic in Middle English are rare. Only two are listed in Robert R. Raymo, 'Works of Religious and Philosophical Instruction,' in A Manual of the Writings in Middle English 1050-1500, vol. 7, 1986, p.2517. One of these is in Durham University Library MS Cosin V.iv.2, fols 122v-124 which has a close textual relationship to the present roll. Although the text in the roll is shorter, there are numerous close verbal parallels to the Durham version which is printed in Veronica O'Mara, A Study and Edition of Selected Middle English Sermons, Leeds Texts and Monographs, new series 13, 1994, pp.138-40. In both versions the text is in the form of a heavenly letter from God to one Octavian offering instructions for lay conduct on Sunday.'

He continues, 'In addition, the survival of the text in a roll adds a further dimension to the cultural and historical interest of the manuscript. In the Middle Ages the roll form often served to give the work it contained a particular kind of authority derived in part from many legal documents being copied in this form. Such authority extended to other kinds of texts. For those in Middle English this authority was sometimes quasi-magical, as with alchemical rolls. Other types of rolls, such as birthing or prayer rolls, were smaller and often seemingly intended to be carried as amulets to ensure the spiritual and/or physical wellbeing of the possessor. The present roll asserts its own protective power at its close: 'in what place this is read the devil shall have no power when he hearith this reading.' On the wider contexts of such rolls see Rosanne Hebing, '"Almigti god this lettyr sent:" English Heavenly Letter Charms in Late Medieval Books and Rolls,' Studies in Philology, 114, 2017, pp.720-47 and Don Skemer, Binding Words: Textual Amulets in the Middle Ages, 2006.'

Provenance: Found by the owner during renovations of her house near Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. The house dates from the thirteenth century and is believed to have been the 'moot' or meeting hall of the Guild of Candle Makers.

Exhibited: 'Superstition: Strange Wonders & Curiosities', Moyses Hall Museum, Bury St Edmunds, 15 February to 6 April 2025.

A full transcription is available upon request. We are grateful to A.S.G. Edwards, professor of Medieval Manuscripts and author of Middle English Prose: A Critical Guide and co-editor of Index of Middle English Prose, for his transcription and interest.