Hunterian Psalter
Encyclopedia
Illuminated manuscript
An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders and miniature illustrations...
of the 12th century. It was produced in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
some time around 1170, and is considered a striking example of Romanesque
Romanesque art
Romanesque art refers to the art of Western Europe from approximately 1000 AD to the rise of the Gothic style in the 13th century, or later, depending on region. The preceding period is increasingly known as the Pre-Romanesque...
book art. The work is part of the collection of the Glasgow University Library
Glasgow University Library
The University of Glasgow Library is one of the oldest and largest University libraries in Europe. It holds more than 2.5 million books and journals, as well as providing access to an extensive range of electronic resources including over 30,000 electronic journals.The current 12-storey building,...
, cataloged as Sp Coll MS Hunter U.3.2 (229), which acquired the book in 1807. It derives its colloquial name, the "Hunterian Psalter", from having been part of the collection of 18th century Scottish anatomist and book collector William Hunter
William Hunter (anatomist)
William Hunter FRS was a Scottish anatomist and physician. He was a leading teacher of anatomy, and the outstanding obstetrician of his day...
, who willed his collection to the University. It has also at times been known as the "York Psalter", owing to its supposed northern English origin in the city of York
York
York is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence...
.
Text
The original text of the Hunterian Psalter, all written in the same hand, consists of the 150 psalms from JeromeJerome
Saint Jerome was a Roman Christian priest, confessor, theologian and historian, and who became a Doctor of the Church. He was the son of Eusebius, of the city of Stridon, which was on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia...
's Versio Gallicana revision of the Vulgate
Vulgate
The Vulgate is a late 4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. It was largely the work of St. Jerome, who was commissioned by Pope Damasus I in 382 to make a revision of the old Latin translations...
Bible, Biblical canticle
Canticle
A canticle is a hymn taken from the Bible. The term is often expanded to include ancient non-biblical hymns such as the Te Deum and certain psalms used liturgically.-Roman Catholic Church:From the Old Testament, the Roman Breviary takes seven canticles for use at Lauds, as follows:*...
s and liturgical texts, and numerous illustrations, over more than two hundred pages of heavy vellum
Vellum
Vellum is mammal skin prepared for writing or printing on, to produce single pages, scrolls, codices or books. It is generally smooth and durable, although there are great variations depending on preparation, the quality of the skin and the type of animal used...
. One leaf is missing, probably removed for its illuminated initial.
The final thirteen folios contain later additions to the text, prayers likely from the late 13th century. These prayers were written for a female reader, but the singular feminine Latin endings
Latin declension
Latin is an inflected language, and as such has nouns, pronouns, and adjectives that must be declined in order to serve a grammatical function. A set of declined forms of the same word pattern is called a declension. There are five declensions, which are numbered and grouped by ending and...
were first overwritten with singular masculine endings, and then still later, plural masculine ones. There is also a formula for an amulet intended to cure epilepsy dating from the same century.
Illustrations
Historiated initial
A historiated initial is an enlarged letter at the beginning of a paragraph or other section of text, which contains a picture. Strictly speaking, an inhabited initial contains figures that are decorative only, without forming a subject, whereas in a historiated initial there is an identifiable...
"KL", an abbreviation for kalenda, i.e. the first day of the month. Then follow thirteen pages of prefactory full-page miniatures, two scenes to a page, with three pages of Old Testament
Old Testament
The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
scenes, six of scenes from the Life of Christ
Life of Christ
The Life of Christ as a narrative cycle in Christian art comprises a number of different subjects, which were often grouped in series or cycles of works in a variety of media, narrating the life of Jesus on earth, as distinguished from the many other subjects in art showing the eternal life of...
(further pages are perhaps missing), and, unusually for this date, three from the Life of the Virgin
Life of the Virgin
The Life of the Virgin, showing narrative scenes from the life of Mary, the mother of Jesus, is a common subject for pictorial cycles in Christian art, often complementing, or forming part of, a cycle on the Life of Christ. In both cases the number of scenes shown varies greatly with the space...
, including a Death of the Virgin
Death of the Virgin
The Death of the Virgin Mary is a common theme in Western Christian art, comparable to the Dormition in Eastern Orthodox art. It becomes less common as the doctrine of the Assumption gains support in the Roman Catholic Church from the late Middle Ages onwards...
, with a funeral procession, and an Assumption
Assumption of Mary
According to the belief of Christians of the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, and parts of the Anglican Communion and Continuing Anglicanism, the Assumption of Mary was the bodily taking up of the Virgin Mary into Heaven at the end of her life...
. These are the earliest English miniatures to have gold leaf backgrounds incised with patterns of lines and dots. After these pages there is an opening with full-page miniatures of David playing his harp and a "Beatus" initial for the start of Psalm 1 ("Beatus vir"). All the psalms have a large illuminated initial, often historiated, and each verse starts with an enlarged gold initial. The start of the ten traditional divisions of the text have especially large initials, as is usually the case.
Many of the illustrations and historiated initials seem to have been truncated at the top, perhaps the result of the book having been poorly re-bound at some time. Another theory is that the tops of the pages simply bear holes from where cloth curtains were once stitched. The book was re-bound again in 1983.
The manuscript's illustrations are notable for their several departures from scripture, for example in the panel depicting the sacrifice of Isaac
Isaac
Isaac as described in the Hebrew Bible, was the only son Abraham had with his wife Sarah, and was the father of Jacob and Esau. Isaac was one of the three patriarchs of the Israelites...
by Abraham
Abraham
Abraham , whose birth name was Abram, is the eponym of the Abrahamic religions, among which are Judaism, Christianity and Islam...
, Isaac's hands are depicted as unbound. It also contains the first known example of an illustration using an angel as a representation for God; in the Bible, God is described as speaking to Abraham directly.
Provenance
It is uncertain where or when, exactly, the manuscript was produced, or for whom. It has been suggested that it was produced for Roger de Mowbray (d. 1188), a prominent 12th century crusaderCrusades
The Crusades were a series of religious wars, blessed by the Pope and the Catholic Church with the main goal of restoring Christian access to the holy places in and near Jerusalem...
and religious benefactor known to have founded a number of Augustinian
Augustinians
The term Augustinians, named after Saint Augustine of Hippo , applies to two separate and unrelated types of Catholic religious orders:...
and Cistercian monasteries and nunneries. The book also contains three commemorations to Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo , also known as Augustine, St. Augustine, St. Austin, St. Augoustinos, Blessed Augustine, or St. Augustine the Blessed, was Bishop of Hippo Regius . He was a Latin-speaking philosopher and theologian who lived in the Roman Africa Province...
, which has led some scholars to conclude that the manuscript might have been created for a house of Augustinian Canons, or by someone with a connection to the Augustinian order
Augustinians
The term Augustinians, named after Saint Augustine of Hippo , applies to two separate and unrelated types of Catholic religious orders:...
.
The fact that there is no mention of the 29 December feast of Thomas Becket
Thomas Becket
Thomas Becket was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1162 until his murder in 1170. He is venerated as a saint and martyr by both the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion...
on the page for December is thought to indicate that the book was produced before Becket's canonization
Canonization
Canonization is the act by which a Christian church declares a deceased person to be a saint, upon which declaration the person is included in the canon, or list, of recognized saints. Originally, individuals were recognized as saints without any formal process...
in 1173. For most of its history, it was thought to have been the product of a scriptorium
Scriptorium
Scriptorium, literally "a place for writing", is commonly used to refer to a room in medieval European monasteries devoted to the copying of manuscripts by monastic scribes...
in the north of England, owing to its inclusion of a number of northern saints such as Oswald of Northumbria
Oswald of Northumbria
Oswald was King of Northumbria from 634 until his death, and is now venerated as a Christian saint.Oswald was the son of Æthelfrith of Bernicia and came to rule after spending a period in exile; after defeating the British ruler Cadwallon ap Cadfan, Oswald brought the two Northumbrian kingdoms of...
and John of Beverley
John of Beverley
John of Beverley was an English bishop active in the kingdom of Northumbria. He was the Bishop of Hexham and then the Bishop of York which was the most important religious designation in the area. He went on to found the town of Beverley by building the first structure there, a monastery...
(who very seldom occur outside northern manuscripts), although modern scholarly consensus puts its likely origin in the southwest of England.
There is no definite consensus about the number of artists who worked on the book. It has been suggested that a single master oversaw the work of several assistants, and it has also been put forth that it is the work of an artist working alone, copying and adapting templates from other illuminated manuscripts. It is thought to have been the work of skilled tradesmen, not monks.
External links
- The Hunterian Psalter at the Glasgow University Library