John Knox’s Bible Discovered

Title page of “Knox” Old Testament (Sp Coll Euing Dr-b.5)

Staff at the University of Glasgow Archives and Special Collections have identified a previously unknown book once owned by Scottish religious reformer John Knox. The large folio Latin and Hebrew Old Testament published in 1546 in Basel, Switzerland, appears to bear the reformer’s signature dated 1561 on the reverse of the title page.

Printed books are inextricably linked with the Reformation: from published Scripture in the vernacular and polemical ‘pamphlet wars’ between clerics holding different confessional viewpoints to the large illustrated works memorialising those ‘martyred’ for their faith, printed books were central to those on both sides of the confessional divide. Large book collections were amassed during the sixteenth century packed with works – often annotated by their owners – tracing the controversies. Yet frustratingly for Reformation historians, all too often these libraries don’t survive intact having been broken up…