Vox Piscis

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Vox Pisces, or The Book-Fish, contayning three treatises which were found in the belly of a cod-fish in Cambridge market, on Midsummer Eve last. is a book published in 1627 with a very unusual origin.

The original text of the work was found in the belly of a fish. On June 23, 1626, scholar and theologian Dr. Joseph Mede (or Mead) of Christ's College, Cambridge, was walking through Cambridge's market, when a fishwife found a small sextodecimo book wrapped in sailcloth inside the stomach of a codfish caught at King's Lynn.

These texts were attributed to protestant reformer John Frith, who was imprisoned in a fish-cellar in Oxford and later burned at the stake. The texts were published as a book the next year with a preface written by Thomas Goad.

It is not known how the original book got in the fish's stomach.

[edit] Contents

Preface
"Praeparatio Crucem or Of the Preparation to the Cross"
"A Lettre which was Written to the Faithfull Followers of Christes Gospell"
"A Mirror, or, Glasse to know thyselfe"

[edit] References

Alexandra Walsham, Vox Piscis : or The Book-Fish : providence and the uses of the reformation past in Caroline Cambridge. English Historical Review, 114:457 (1999), 574-606