The Queen Mary Psalter (British Library, Royal MS 2 B.vii) is a fourteenth-century English psalter named after Mary I of England, who gained possession of it in 1553. [1] The psalter is noted for its beauty and the lavishness of its illustration, and has been called "one of the most extensively illustrated psalters ever produced in Western Europe" and "one of the choicest treasures of the magnificent collection of illuminated MSS. in the British Museum". [2] [3]
The psalter was perhaps produced c. 1310–1320 by one main scribe and, unusually for a work so heavily illuminated, a single artist, [4] who is now known as the "Queen Mary Master". It was probably made in London, and possibly for Isabella of France, queen of Edward II of England, [5] though there is no agreement on the matter. [4] For the next two hundred years, its history is not known. A note in a sixteenth-century hand indicates that it was owned by an Earl of Rutland, and though it does not identify the earl it appears likely that it was Henry Manners. A Protestant, he was imprisoned in May 1553, which may explain how the psalter landed in the possession of Queen Mary: a second note, in Latin, explains that the psalter was impounded by Baldwin Smith, a customs officer, and thus remained in England. [6] It remained in the possession of Queen Mary and her successors until 1757, when George II donated the Old Royal Library to the British Museum. [3]
Elements of the text are not known from other manuscripts and may have been specially composed. Some of the captions and illustrations betray the influence of the twelfth-century Historia scholastica .
At least twenty manuscripts from the fourteenth century have survived that reflect the "Queen Mary style". [4] The contents indicate that it was probably made for a woman. Comparisons to psalters that focus on women and were known to have been owned by women (such as the Isabella Psalter, the Munich Psalter, and the Imola Psalter) are drawn. Especially the Isabella Psalter is similar in content and style to the Queen Mary Psalter, strengthening the case for identifying the original patron or owner as Isabella of France. [7] Kathryn Smith argues that specifically the scenes depicting Joseph, if read in the proper historical context, suggest Isabella: "it [the Joseph cycle] functioned in two ways: as a commentary on royal policy and current events during the reign of Edward II, and as an "anti-model" of conjugal fidelity for his queen, Isabella of France." [8]
The Queen Mary Psalter is noted for its ornate, embroidered binding, executed on crimson velvet under Mary I; "on each side is a large conventional pomegranate-flower worked on fine linen in coloured silks and gold thread." [1] Queen Mary used the pomegranate as a memento for her mother, Catherine of Aragon, and the entire binding was probably done "by her own direction." [3] The remaining clasp plates are engraved with images pertaining to the House of Tudor. [1] [3]
The psalms (in Latin) are preceded by an Old Testament cycle containing 223 scenes, and are glossed in Anglo-Norman [4] by way of a caption placed above the image. [8] The psalms are accompanied by over 800 illustrations, which fall into three categories: initials, many containing imagery related to David; large illuminations depicting the Life of Christ; and marginal drawings at the bottom of every page. This last section contains six sequences, including a bestiary and the "lives of the martyred saints." According to Anne Rudloff Stanton, "the codex is an intricately designed and encyclopaedic masterpiece, presenting largely visual stories that span the courtly world as well as biblical history." Among the themes she identifies among the narratives, Stanton notes the "crucial nature of women's actions" and especially mothers protecting their children. [4] The selection of women is broad. Included are women from the Old Testament characters, including Eve, Sarah, and Bathsheba; Stanton notes that four scenes of childbirth occur in the preface alone. [9] Women from and associated with the New Testament include Mary and Saint Anne. A final group of images concerns saints, three of whom are female (Catherine of Alexandria, Mary Magdalene, and Margaret the Virgin); in the case of two of the three male saints, Thomas Becket and Saint Nicholas, special attention is paid to the saints' mothers. [10]
A bestiary is a compendium of beasts. Originating in the ancient world, bestiaries were made popular in the Middle Ages in illustrated volumes that described various animals and even rocks. The natural history and illustration of each beast was usually accompanied by a moral lesson. This reflected the belief that the world itself was the Word of God and that every living thing had its own special meaning. For example, the pelican, which was believed to tear open its breast to bring its young to life with its own blood, was a living representation of Jesus. Thus the bestiary is also a reference to the symbolic language of animals in Western Christian art and literature.
An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared document where the text is often supplemented with flourishes such as borders and miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Church for prayers, liturgical services and psalms, the practice continued into secular texts from the 13th century onward and typically include proclamations, enrolled bills, laws, charters, inventories and deeds.
A psalter is a volume containing the Book of Psalms, often with other devotional material bound in as well, such as a liturgical calendar and litany of the Saints. Until the emergence of the book of hours in the Late Middle Ages, psalters were the books most widely owned by wealthy lay persons. They were commonly used for learning to read. Many Psalters were richly illuminated, and they include some of the most spectacular surviving examples of medieval book art.
The book of hours is a Christian devotional book used to pray the canonical hours. The use of a book of hours was especially popular in the Middle Ages and as a result, they are the most common type of surviving medieval illuminated manuscript. Like every manuscript, each manuscript book of hours is unique in one way or another, but most contain a similar collection of texts, prayers and psalms, often with appropriate decorations, for Christian devotion. Illumination or decoration is minimal in many examples, often restricted to decorated capital letters at the start of psalms and other prayers, but books made for wealthy patrons may be extremely lavish, with full-page miniatures. These illustrations would combine picturesque scenes of country life with sacred images. Books of hours were usually written in Latin, although there are many entirely or partially written in vernacular European languages, especially Dutch. The English term primer is usually now reserved for those books written in English. Tens of thousands of books of hours have survived to the present day, in libraries and private collections throughout the world.
The Melisende Psalter is an illuminated manuscript commissioned around 1135 in the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, probably by King Fulk for his wife Queen Melisende. It is a notable example of Crusader art, which resulted from a merging of the artistic styles of Roman Catholic Europe, the Eastern Orthodox Byzantine Empire and the art of the Armenian illuminated manuscript.
Marie of Brabant was Queen of France from 1274 until 1285 as the second wife of King Philip III. Born in Leuven, Brabant, she was a daughter of Henry III, Duke of Brabant, and Adelaide of Burgundy.
The Luttrell Psalter is an illuminated psalter commissioned by Sir Geoffrey Luttrell (1276–1345), lord of the manor of Irnham in Lincolnshire, written and illustrated on parchment circa 1320–1340 in England by anonymous scribes and artists.
The Utrecht Psalter is a ninth-century illuminated psalter which is a key masterpiece of Carolingian art; it is probably the most valuable manuscript in the Netherlands. It is famous for its 166 lively pen illustrations, with one accompanying each psalm and the other texts in the manuscript. The precise purpose of these illustrations, and the extent of their dependence on earlier models, have been matters of art-historical controversy. The psalter spent the period between about 1000 to 1640 in England, where it had a profound influence on Anglo-Saxon art, giving rise to what is known as the "Utrecht style". It was copied at least three times in the Middle Ages. A complete facsimile edition of the psalter was made in 1875, and another in 1984 (Graz).
William de Brailes was an English Early Gothic manuscript illuminator, presumably born in Brailes, Warwickshire. He signed two manuscripts, and apparently worked in Oxford, where he is documented from 1238 to 1252, owning property in Catte Street near the University Church of St Mary the Virgin, roughly on the site now occupied by the chapel of All Souls College, where various members of the book-trade lived. He was married, to Celena, but evidently also held minor orders, as at least three self-portraits show him with a clerical tonsure. This was not unusual: by this date, and with the exception of the St. Albans monk Matthew Paris, the only other English illuminator of the period about whom we have significant personal information, most English illumination seems to have been done in commercial workshops run by laymen.
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British Library receives copies of all books produced in the United Kingdom and Ireland, including a significant proportion of overseas titles distributed in the UK. The Library is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
The Winchester Psalter is an English 12th-century illuminated manuscript psalter, also sometimes known as the Psalter of Henry of Blois, and formerly known as the St Swithun's Psalter. It was probably made for use in Winchester, most scholars agreeing that the most likely patron was the Henry of Blois, brother of Stephen, King of England, and Bishop of Winchester from 1129 until his death in 1171. Until recent decades it was "a little-studied masterpiece of English Romanesque painting", but it has been the subject of several recent studies.
The Isabella Breviary is a late 15th-century illuminated manuscript housed in the British Library, London. Queen Isabella I was given the manuscript shortly before 1497 by her ambassador Francisco de Rojas to commemorate the double marriage of her children and the children of Emperor Maximilian of Austria and Duchess Mary of Burgundy.
The Isabella Psalter, also called the Psalter of Queen Isabella or the Psalter of Isabella of England, is a 14th-century volume containing the Book of Psalms, named for Isabella of France, who is herself depicted in it; it was likely a gift upon her betrothal or marriage. The illuminated manuscript is also notable for its bestiary.
The Taymouth Hours is an illuminated Book of Hours produced in England in about 1325–35. It is named after Taymouth Castle where it was kept after being acquired by an Earl of Breadalbane in the seventeenth or eighteenth century. The manuscript's shelf mark originates from its previous owner, Henry Yates Thompson, who owned an extensive collection of illuminated medieval manuscripts which he sold or donated posthumously to the British Library. The Taymouth Hours is now held by the British Library Department of Manuscripts in the Yates Thompson collection.
The Royal manuscripts are one of the "closed collections" of the British Library, consisting of some 2,000 manuscripts collected by the sovereigns of England in the "Old Royal Library" and given to the British Museum by George II in 1757. They are still catalogued with call numbers using the prefix "Royal" in the style "Royal MS 2. B. V". As a collection, the Royal manuscripts date back to Edward IV, though many earlier manuscripts were added to the collection before it was donated. Though the collection was therefore formed entirely after the invention of printing, luxury illuminated manuscripts continued to be commissioned by royalty in England as elsewhere until well into the 16th century. The collection was expanded under Henry VIII by confiscations in the Dissolution of the Monasteries and after the falls of Henry's ministers Cardinal Wolsey and Thomas Cromwell. Many older manuscripts were presented to monarchs as gifts; perhaps the most important manuscript in the collection, the Codex Alexandrinus, was presented to Charles I in recognition of the diplomatic efforts of his father James I to help the Eastern Orthodox churches under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. The date and means of entry into the collection can only be guessed at in many if not most cases. Now the collection is closed in the sense that no new items have been added to it since it was donated to the nation.
The Rochester Bestiary is a richly illuminated manuscript copy of a medieval bestiary, a book describing the appearance and habits of a large number of familiar and exotic animals, both real and legendary. The animals' characteristics are frequently allegorised, with the addition of a Christian moral.
The Theodore Psalter is an illustrated manuscript and compilation of the Psalms and the canticles, or Odes from the Old Testament. "This Psalter has been held in the British Library since 1853 as Additional 19.352," wrote Princeton Art History professor Charles Barber in his first essay that is a companion to the Theodore Psalter E-Facsimile. Barber called the Psalter, "One of the richest illuminated manuscripts to survive from Byzantium."
Byzantine illuminated manuscripts were produced across the Byzantine Empire, some in monasteries but others in imperial or commercial workshops. Religious images or icons were made in Byzantine art in many different media: mosaics, paintings, small statues and illuminated manuscripts. Monasteries produced many of the illuminated manuscripts devoted to religious works using the illustrations to highlight specific parts of text, a saints' martyrdom for example, while others were used for devotional purposes similar to icons. These religious manuscripts were most commissioned by patrons and were used for private worship but also gifted to churches to be used in services.
Sir George Frederic Warner, FBA, FSA was an English archivist; he was Keeper of Manuscripts and Egerton Librarian at the British Museum from 1904 to 1911.
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