Oxburgh Hall, a moated Tudor mansion in Norfolk, England, was the site of roof renovations three years ago, according to the BBC. British nobleman Sir Edmund Bedingfeld built the manor house in 1482 and his descendants live there to this day. When historians were summoned in 2020, they didn’t expect to find much, but the renovations turned up more than 2,000 items, some dating to the 1400s. Two long-ago rats had used the stuff to build nests, work that preserved scraps of Tudor and Georgian silks, wools, leather, velvet, satin and embroidered fabrics. Most important, the critters repurposed 450-year-old fragments of handwritten music and parts of a book. Recently, a builder found the rest of the volume - a relatively intact 1568 copy of Catholic martyr John Fisher’s The Kynge’s Psalmes in a hole in the attic. Here’s why this matters.
© 2024 John Oliver
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