The Dutch Anabaptist and scholar Gualter Delenus (Dutch: Wouter Deelen) travelled to London in 1535, fleeing persecution after being implicated in an Anabaptist uprising in Amsterdam. He quickly came to the attention of Henry VIII and served as biblioscopus (librarian) to the court. In this post, he made a revision of Erasmus’s Latin edition of the New Testament, publishing it in 1540. Following Henry’s death in 1547, Delenus remained at court but in 1550 he was named by Edward VI as one of the first ministers of a new Dutch church in London. Delenus remained close to the court and as a New Year’s gift in January 1553, he presented Edward with this splendidly bound manuscript of the fourth chapter of the Book of Genesis.

There is a book in the British Library (Royal MS 7 D xx), which comes from the same bindery and is on the first three chapters of Genesis, suggesting it was presented by Delenus the previous year.

Binding information

Bound in brown calf, blind tooling of five fillet borders, with gold tooling of roll border frame with fleur-de-lis to corners, containing Edward VI's coat of arms flanked by initials E.R., surmounted by Tudor rose and crown, surrounded by multiple tools of cornucopia, roses, small six-petalled flowers, curlicues above and a daisy to top and bottom of crest. Spine divided into six compartments, with fleur-de-lis tooling to each. Evidence of ribbon ties. Text block gauffered all edges.