Psalter ('the Crowland Psalter'); England, East Anglia, 11th century, second or third quarter, with 11th- and 12th-century additions

Title

Psalter ('the Crowland Psalter'); England, East Anglia, 11th century, second or third quarter, with 11th- and 12th-century additions

Shelfmark

MS. Douce 296

Place of origin

English, probably East Anglia , perhaps Ely, Peterborough, or Crowland(?)

Date

11th century, second or third quarter, with 11th- and 12th-century additions

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

parchment; paper (fols. i–viii and 131–3)

Physical extent

141 leaves

Hands

Round English Caroline minuscule; brown ink; the titles and first lines of psalms are in capitals; quire II is by a different scribe.

Decoration

Full-page miniature on fol. 40r, prefacing psalm 51, depicting the Triumphant Christ with cruciform halo, wearing a diadem and holding a book and a cross-staff. He treads on a lion and dragon, and pierces the lion’s mouth with the staff.

The miniature is enclosed in a ‘Winchester’-style border: a double-bar gold frame, decorated with flowers and acanthus leaves.

Gold Beatus-initial (fol. 9r), almost full-page, decorated with interlace, animal mask, and acanthus leaves on a pink ground. The written space is enclosed in a square frame in gold (flaking) and green. The beginning of psalm 1 is written in gold (flaking).

Psalm 51 (fol. 40v) starts with a panelled historiated initial Q(uid) topped by an animal mask and containing in the bowl of the initial a figure of a young man in a short tunic and hat (sometimes identified as St Michael, though wingless). He is holding a shield and raising a sword against a winged dragon forming the tail of the Q. The outline of the initial is in gold and the opening lines of text are in gold, green, red and blue capitals.

Psalms 109 and 118 (fols. 82r and 86r) start with large gold initials, the latter with foliate scrolls, and the opening lines of the text are in gold capitals. Psalm 119 (fol. 92v) and the first canticle (fol. 106r) start with large coloured initials and the opening lines of text are in coloured capitals.

Decoration is doubtless lost owing to the loss of a leaf containing the beginning of psalm 101 (after fol. 72). The eleven missing verses would have occupied approximately one page (i.e. the verso of the missing leaf), so the recto probably had a fullpage miniature or initial. Another full-page miniature on a verso probably faced the beginning of psalm 109, as the thirteen missing verses of psalm 108 would have fitted on the recto of the missing leaf.

Alternating red and blue (except October, green) KL monograms in the calendar.

3- and 4-line plain gold initials at the beginnings of psalms until fol. 86r, and simple red, green and blue initials afterwards. Gold initials with arabesque designs on fols. 127v–130v (the Office of the Trinity).

1-line plain red, blue or green initials at the beginnings of verses.

psalm titles in red ink; the opening lines of psalms at textual divisions and of the first canticle are in gold, red, blue and green

Binding

Red morocco over pasteboard with gilt roll decoration round the outer edge of both covers, 18th century. Made by Richard ‘Davy’ Wier (or Weir) in Toulouse in the 1770s (?) for Count Justin MacCarthy Reagh (see Howe, 1950). Gilt floral, arabesque and Greek key designs on spine. Panels separated by decorative strips in imitation of five double cord positions. Gilt lettering on spine: ‘PSALMI | ET | LITANIÆ || MSS. IN | MEMBRANIS’. 20th-century paper label on spine inscribed ‘Arch. F. d. 12’; remains of another paper label just above it. Marbled endpapers. Edges of textblock decorated with scallop patterns of thick red lines. Sewn on four cords. Green silk bookmark.

Acquisition

Bequeathed to the Bodleian in 1834. Earlier shelfmark: ‘G. C. 5’ (upper pastedown).

Provenance

Crowland, Lincolnshire, Benedictine abbey of St Mary the Virgin, St Bartholomew, and St Guthlac : made for the abbey, evidence of the calendar and litany. The names of Alfheah, archbishop of Canterbury (19 April, martyred 1012) and Florentinus (relics in Peterborough from 1015) occur in the calendar and litany, and suggest a terminus post quem for the manuscript. Rushforth (2008, ‘Crowland Psalter’) argues that obits added in gold in the calendar are contemporary with the production of the psalter and, together with the cross in the Easter table, suggest that the manuscript was written in the 1060s. (Cf. MLGB3: liturgical evidence, often to be found in the kalendar).

An addition of the Office of the Trinity and Sts Egidius, Faith and Katherine to the calendar and litany in the late 11th or early 12th century. Possibly owned at that time by Gundrada de Warenne, who together with her husband, William de Warenne, founded the Cluniac Priory in Lewes in the late 1070s or early 1080s (Rushforth, 2008, ‘Crowland Psalter’).

Lewes, Sussex, Cluniac priory of St Pancras early in the 12th century: added obits in the calendar.

Count Justin MacCarthy Reagh: acquired by the 1770s (?); sale Leigh and Sotheby, 18 May 1789, probably lot 1554.

John Jackson (d. 1794), F.S.A., see ODNB (brief biography in the entry for Jackson, John, d. 1807, traveller): bought for £4. 8s. 0d; sale Leigh and Sotheby, 28 April 1794, lot 368.

Francis Douce, 1757–1834, see ODNB: bought at Jackson sale for £5. 10s. 0d. Bookplate on the upper pastedown.

Title

Psalter

Shelfmark

MS. Douce 296

Summary

A Psalter, with:

(fol. 105v) Canticles : 'Finiunt Psalmi Dauid ... Incipiunt Cantici ...'

(fol. 115) creeds

(fol. 117) litany

prayers

Preceded by a calendar, with memorial lines, etc. (fol. 1), and tables. At fol. 121v begin a long series of prayers, one to st. Benedict, which make it clear that the volume was written for the use of a Benedictine monk. It is hardly doubtful that the Abbey was that of Peterborough (stt. Eadburga, Kyneburga, Kyneswitha & Tibba are in the calendar & litany, stt. Peter and Guthlac are doubled in the litany, and stt. Florentinus and Osgitha occur: and also 'Sancta Toua' (of Thorney), and (both in calendar, at Jan. 8, and in litany) 'Sancta Pega' of Croyland and Peakirk. 'Passio sancti Ælfeahi archiepiscopi' (d. 1012: on Apr. 19) is in the original hand. A set of hour-services ('Cursus de Sancta Trinitate'), imperfect after part of Sext, is added in a rather later hand. See Waagen's Art Treasures (1854), iii. 90, Westwood's Anglo-Saxon Miniatures (1868), p. 122.

In the 12th cent. the MS. seems to have reached the Cluniac monastery of st. Pancras at Lewes ('Obiit Lanzo prior de sancto Pancratio', Apr. 1: 'Obiit Hugo Cluniacensis abbas', Apr. 28, etc., with Anselm's obit at Apr. 21).

Two letters from H. Petrie (Apr. 21 & 25, 1829), and notes by John Jackson, F.S.A., J. O. Westwood and E. S. Ffoulkes are at the beginning.

[The calendar contains obits of the family of Edward the Confessor, and I suggest that the MS. was written at or for Ely: see a note by me at the end of the present volume. E.W.B.N.].

Date

written perhaps in the second quarter of the 11th cent. in England

Language

Latin

Physical facet

On parchment, illuminated, with fine illuminated B and full-page miniature of Christ treading on a lion and dragon at fol. 40 after ps. 50 (51), cf. fol. 40v, capitals are in gold, red, green, and blue

Physical extent

133 Leaves