17th century lead horn book. 53mm x 32mm, 19.5g. Detailed on...

Hammer

£440

17th century lead horn book. 53mm x 32mm, 19.5g. Detailed on the front with the alphabet in four lines divided by bands of decoration. The reverse has the image of a crown over a sun type motif within a circle, below are the initials, G I.
Full-size horn books were teaching tablets that usually contained the alphabet or the Lord's Prayer and which became available during the 16th century. Although the term 'horn book' is commonly used for lead tablets, it is a slightly misleading name. True horn books were made out of wood onto which the printed paper would have been mounted, and then covered with a thin sheet of transparent horn for protection. The lead tablets are far smaller, and would probably have been either toys (Lewis 2012, 98-101) or cheaper versions of the full-size hornbooks.