Card of the Day: The Coronation Book of Henry I

This took some considerable effort. But, I’ve managed to get the correct information about this image for you. The forty-ninth card (one to go!) in the 1935 Churchman Cigarette Company’s Silver Jubilee series, shows an image of “The Coronation Book of Henry I.”
What exactly is this? Well, first of all, it’s just what it says it is inasmuch as it was the book upon which King Henry I laid his hand when he took his coronation oath on August 5, 1100. Henry I was an unusual King. He was educated and a book-reader. This made him slightly dangerous, actually. Well, dangerous to his brothers from whom he kind of sneakily seized the throne (after one of them was “accidentally” shot by an arrow). You see, Henry—being the baby of the family—was not meant to be King before his two older brothers. It was thought that Henry would become a bishop, so his family made sure he had a good education. But, it was that education that gave Henry the means to be sneaky.

Henry I
who, I'm sure looked exactly like this.
People in the Twelfth Century were,
as you know, flat and outlined in black.
No, I'm kidding.  But, look, he's holding his book!
And a building.  He was very strong.  And, huge!

But, back to the book. I was surprised that so little information could be found about this book. Seems to me that it’s a rather important bit of history, but, I could find nothing. Finally, I came across a history called, “The book, Its History and Development” which was written by Cyril Davenport in 1908. And, so, I quote directly from this tome…

Another very early English binding, covering a Latin Psalter of the early twelfth century with interlinear Saxon version, is now kept in the British Museum among the Stowe collection.


It is bound in oaken boards nearly an inch thick, the central portion of which is hollowed into a rectangular depression. On the lower board is a bronze figure of our Lord in the attitude of the Crucifixion. The figure has been gilded, but most of the gold has now worn off. The corners have small bosses set in triangular pieces of thin metal, which are impressed with a design of a flew-de-lys [sic] in outline within a circle. The boards are covered with brown leather, much worn and faded, probably deer skin, and the brass fastenings for a clasp still remain in situ.


The history of the book is as curious as the book itself;


It appears to be the original book on which our sovereigns took their coronation oath, and it seems to have been so used from the coronation of Henry I. to that of Henry VII.


Powell in his Repertory of Records mentions this as a fact, and it was repeated by Thos. Madox, historiographer, and also by Thos. Astle, Keeper of the Records in the Tower of London, to whom it belonged, and it is believed to have been written and bound for the coronation of Henry I.


From the library of Thomas Astle the little book passed into the possession of the Marquis of Buckingham, and was kept at Stowe in a beautiful Gothic room built for a library. In June, 1849, the Stowe library changed hands and became the property of Lord Ashburnham, and in 1883 it was acquired by the Trustees of the British Museum.


So the coronation book is now the property of the nation, and in company with the greater part of the Stowe library, but the Irish MSS., some of them in beautiful bindings, went to Ireland, where they are now safely kept in the library of the Royal Irish Academy.