# The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament and the New (the "Wicked Bible") > Robert Barker and Martin Lucas, His Majesty's Printers - 1631 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/robert-barker-and-martin-lucas/wicked-bible-1631-cambridge/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-09-03 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Robert Barker and Martin Lucas, His Majesty's Printers - **Date:** 1631 - **Medium:** Letterpress printing on paper, black-letter and roman type - **Dimensions:** Octavo (8vo); exact leaf and binding measurements for this copy not published in the sources consulted - **Object type:** Printed book - **Period:** English, seventeenth century - **Current location:** Bible Society's Library, Cambridge University Library, Cambridge - **Attribution:** accepted ## Summary In 1631 the King's Printers Robert Barker and his new partner Martin Lucas issued an octavo reprint of the King James Bible in which the compositor dropped a single word from the Seventh Commandment: Exodus 20:14 reads "Thou shalt commit adultery." About a year later the error reached Charles I by way of the Bishop of London, William Laud, and the printers were fined and their edition ordered called in and destroyed. This copy, shelfmark BSS.201.C31.6, belongs to the Bible Society's Library housed at Cambridge University Library. It is one of a growing number of known survivors of a print run usually put at around a thousand; a widely repeated modern claim that Barker lost his royal patent and that the fine directly ruined him does not hold up cleanly against the nearer sources, which show a more tangled and more interesting story.This record anchors every claim specifically to the Cambridge copy where the evidence allows it, and says plainly where it cannot: the volume's own path into the Bible Society's collection before its 1985 deposit at Cambridge is not documented in any source found for this record. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **1631** Printed by Robert Barker and Martin Lucas, His Majesty's Printers, London `[documented]` (origin) The edition's imprint and the general facts of its 1631 printing and 1632 Star Chamber/High Commission referral are well documented across multiple independent sources. This entry describes the edition's origin, not a specific ownership event for the Cambridge copy. - **1631-unknown** Unrecorded `[unknown]` (gap) No source located for this record documents an owner of this specific copy between its 1631 printing and its presence in the Bible Society's Library collection. Given the Bible Society was founded in 1804, this gap covers at minimum 173 years and very likely longer. - **unknown-1985** British and Foreign Bible Society (Bible Society), London `[unknown]` (collection formation) The Bible Society's Library and Archive, built up by the Society since its 1804 founding, is documented as a body. This specific volume's date and means of entry into that collection -- purchase, gift, or bequest -- is not documented in any source consulted. - **1985-present** Cambridge University Library (Bible Society's Library, on deposit) `[documented]` (deposit) When the Bible Society moved its operational headquarters to Swindon in 1985, its library and archive were judged unsuited to the new site and were deposited at Cambridge University Library under an agreement between the two bodies, where the collection remains as a named department. The volume was displayed at Cambridge University Library's 2011 exhibition marking the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible. ## Exhibitions - Great and Manifold Blessings: The Making of the King James Bible, Cambridge University Library, Cambridge, 2011 ## Literature - A. S. Herbert, Historical Catalogue of Printed Editions of the English Bible, 1525-1961 (London: British and Foreign Bible Society, 1968), entry 444. - Samuel Rawson Gardiner, ed., Reports of Cases in the Courts of Star Chamber and High Commission (Camden Society, 1886). - Peter Heylyn, Cyprianus Anglicus: Or, the History of the Life and Death of William Laud (London, 1668). ## Open questions - Who first noticed the missing "not" in Exodus 20:14, and on what date between the edition's 1631 publication and the referral to Charles I reported as occurring about a year later? No source located for this record names a discoverer or a precise date. - How and when did this specific volume, BSS.201.C31.6, enter the British and Foreign Bible Society's collection, and who owned it before that? The collection's 1985 deposit at Cambridge University Library is documented; this individual volume's path into the collection before that date is not. - Was the GBP 300 Star Chamber (or High Commission) fine against Barker and Lucas ever actually paid? The Dictionary of National Biography, citing Gardiner's Star Chamber reports, states the fine was repeatedly respited until 1640 and that payment is questionable; no source consulted resolves this definitively. - Does this copy represent a corrected press state for the Deuteronomy 5:24 "great-asse" error, or did that second error never affect the whole print run? This copy's own page has been photographed showing the correct reading, but no full bibliographic collation of surviving copies against press variants was located. - Is the sabotage theory (a rival printer deliberately altering type to strip Barker and Lucas of the Bible patent) more than a modern inference from the coincidence of two errors in one edition? No contemporary source alleges sabotage, and neither printer raised it in his own defence. - What is the true current census of surviving copies, and how many are in private versus institutional hands? Published figures range from nine (English Short Title Catalogue, cited in a 2015 sale) to twenty-five (current Wikipedia figure, eighteen institutional), and the number has moved substantially within living memory. ## Sources - [1] Wikipedia, 'Wicked Bible'. Tertiary source; flagged for replacement with Herbert's Historical Catalogue and the ESTC record. - [2] Wikipedia, 'Robert Barker (printer)'. Tertiary source; flagged for replacement with the Dictionary of National Biography and Gardiner's Star Chamber reports. - [3] Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, 'Barker, Robert (d. 1645)', via Wikisource. - [4] Datchet History Group, 'Robert Barker, Printer to Queen Elizabeth I'. - [5] Windsor Local History Group, 'Robert Barker and the 400th Anniversary of the King James Bible'. - [6] Houston Christian University, 'A Wicked Discovery' (Dunham Bible Museum), 13 February 2024. - [7] Museum of the Bible, Collections, 'The Wicked Bible' (artifact 6196). Describes a different physical copy than the one in this record; used here only for comparative auction/provenance context, clearly separated from the Cambridge copy. - [8] Sotheby's, Important Books and Manuscripts, 2018, Lot 181, 'Bible in English [The Wicked Bible]'. - [9] Bonhams, Fine Books, Atlases, Manuscripts and Photographs, 11 November 2015, Lot 5. - [10] Cambridge University Library, Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit, 'Fragment of the Month: February 2020' (by Gary Martin), citing the Wicked Bible, BSS.201.C31.6, as comparative material. - [11] Cambridge University Library, 'Bible Society's library' collections page, for the 1985 deposit history of the Bible Society's Library and Archive. - [12] A Deacon's Wife (blog), 'Wicked Bible to go on display', 10 February 2011, citing coverage of the Cambridge University Library exhibition 'Great and Manifold Blessings: The Making of the King James Bible'. - [13] Boing Boing, 'A 1631 Bible accidentally ordered readers to commit adultery', 9 July 2026, for the sabotage/inkblot claim, presented there as reported rather than proven. - [14] Amusing Planet, 'The Wicked Bible', 2022, for print-run figures and comparanda misprint editions (Unrighteous Bible, 'sin on more' 1716 edition, Vinegar Bible, and the 1763 'there is a God' edition). - [15] Wikipedia, 'British Bible monopolies campaigns', for background on opposition to the King's Printer Bible monopoly. - [16] Wikimedia Commons, File:University of Cambridge Wicked Bible Exodus 20.jpg, photographer Cambsgooseking, verified CC BY-SA 4.0 via the Commons API. - [17] Wikimedia Commons, File:University of Cambridge Wicked Bible Deuteronomy 5.jpg, photographer Cambsgooseking, verified CC BY-SA 4.0 via the Commons API. - [18] Wikimedia Commons, File:Wicked bible Ex 20.14 - Wicked Bible, Cambridge University Library BSS.201.C31.6.jpg, credited to Cambridge University Library, verified public domain via the Commons API. - [19] Wikimedia Commons, File:Wicked Bible Title Page.jpg, credited to thechimerist.com, verified public domain via the Commons API. - [20] Wikimedia Commons, File:Judas Bible2.jpg, verified CC BY-SA 3.0 via the Commons API, for the 1613 Judas Bible comparanda. - [21] Wikimedia Commons, File:Vinegar bible.jpg, photographer Victuallers, verified CC BY-SA 3.0 via the Commons API, for the 1717 Vinegar Bible comparanda. - [22] Aggregate of bookseller and auction-house physical descriptions (Sotheby's 2018 lot 181, Bonhams 2015 lot 5, and general antiquarian-trade listings) independently describing the edition as octavo with black-letter type; used only for edition-level format, not for this specific copy's individual measurements. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. 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