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Add MS 62925
- Record Id:
- 032-001963464
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-001963464
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000055.0x00019b
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Add MS 62925
- Title:
-
Psalter, Use of Sarum ('The Rutland Psalter')
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
ff. 1r-6v: Calendar, use of Sarum, with the feasts for each month in red, blue and gold, with small roundels of the labours of the month and the zodiac symbols.
ff. 7r-v: Volvelle compass, 15th century insertion.
ff. 8v-143r: Psalter, Use of Sarum.
ff. 143r-155v: Canticles and Athanasian Creed.
ff. 155v-159v: Litany and prayers to various saints.
ff. 160r-168r: Office of the Dead.
ff. 169r-190v: Added prayers and devotions.
Decoration:
The decoration in this volume is the work of four major artists and their assistants (see Morgan, ‘The Artists of the Rutland Psalter’, 1987). 7 full-page or partial-page miniatures in gold and colours (ff. 8v, 29r, 43r, 55r, 83v, 97v, 112v), 8 historiated initials (ff. 29v, 43v, 55v, 56r, 68v, 84r, 98r, 99v), and 1 major decorated initial (f. 113r). 24 calendar roundels of the signs of the zodiac and labours of the month (ff. 1r-6v). Diagram, volvelle compass (f. 7r). Minor initials, inhabited and decorated, and extensive bas-de-page figural scenes with men, grotesques, demons, animals, birds, dragons, and foliage; some scenes taken from bestiaries and the Marvels of the East. Partial borders, some with hybrids and grotesques, and line-fillers, some fully painted. Some decoration is unfinished (e.g. f. 28v, at the end of Psalm 25), and f. 68r, which is blank, was probably intended to contain a miniature preceding Psalm 68.
Miniatures and major initials:
f. 7r: Volvelle compass, 15th century insertion.
f. 8v: full-page historiated initial ‘B’(eatus) of King David harping, and the Judgement of Solomon, amidst men in combat astride lions and dragons, with roundels containing scenes from Creation and men in combat, at the beginning of Psalm 1, with a curtain above.
f. 29r: full-page miniature of the Anointing and Crowning of King David, with Christ above flanked by the Sun (marked as a Host) and Moon, before Psalm 26; pasted in on a separate piece of parchment.
f. 29v: historiated initial ‘D’(ominus) of Christ healing the blind man, at the beginning of Psalm 26.
f. 43r: full-page miniature of Balaam, riding an ass, meeting the Angel wielding a sword, before Psalm 38, with a curtain above.
f. 43v: historiated initial ‘D’(ixi) of King David pointing to his mouth, with a youth pointing upwards, at the beginning of Psalm 38.
f. 55r: full-page miniature of Saul threatening King David, before Psalm 51, with a curtain above.
f. 55v: historiated initial ‘Q’(uid) of Saul and Ahimelech as a king about to behead a priest kneeling before an altar (a misunderstanding of Doeg killing Ahimelech), at the beginning of Psalm 51.
f. 56r: historiated initial ‘D’(ixit) of King David and the Fool, with God above, at the beginning of Psalm 52.
f. 68v: historiated initial ‘S’(alvum) of Christ holding a host, above Jonah being thrown from a boat to the whale below, at the beginning of Psalm 68.
f. 83v: three-quarter page miniature of Jacob’s dream of the ladder, before Psalm 80, with a curtain above.
f. 84r: historiated initial ‘E’(xultate) of Jacob wrestling with the angel, at the beginning of Psalm 80.
f. 97v: half-page miniature of King David playing the organ, accompanied by youths with bellows and hurdy gurdy, before Psalm 97.
f. 98r: historiated initial ‘C’(antate) of King David harping, accompanied by musicians, at the beginning of Psalm 97.
f. 99v: historiated initial ‘D’(omine) of a king and queen kneeling before an altar, with Christ above with a sword in his mouth, at the beginning of Psalm 101.
f. 112v: full-page miniature of Christ in Majesty, surrounded by the four symbols of the Evangelists, before Psalm 109, with a curtain above.
f. 113r: illuminated initial ‘D’(ixit), at the beginning of Psalm 109.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Additional Manuscripts
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "032-001963464", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Add MS 62925: Psalter, Use of Sarum ('The Rutland Psalter')" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-001963464
- Is part of:
- not applicable
- Hierarchy:
- 032-001963464
- Container:
- not applicable
- Record Type (Level):
- Fonds
- Extent:
-
Parchment codex; 190 folios.
- Digitised Content:
- http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Add_MS_62925 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-

- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1255
- End Date:
- 1265
- Date Range:
- c 1260
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
- Restrictions to access apply please consult British Library staff
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript.
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment codex.
Dimensions: 285 x 205 mm (text space: 185 x 135 mm).
Foliation: ff. 190 (+ 3 foliated parchment flyleaves at the beginning and 2 fragmentary parchment flyleaves at the end; f. i is a paste-down on the inside front cover and f. v is a paste-down on the inside back cover; f. 191 is a fragmentary foliated leaf).
Collation: i6 (f. 7 is a 15th century insertion); ii-xxiii8; xxiv8-2 (lacking leaves 7 & 8).
Script: Gothic (textualis quadrata).
Binding: Pre-1600 (between 1515 and 1530) blind-stamped binding with an armorial panel, gold-tooled spine, and two clasps (some of the original metalwork has been replaced and is boxed with the manuscript).
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: England (London?).
The family of Edmund de Lacy, second Earl of Lincoln (b. c. 1230, d. 1258): his obit added to the calendar for 24 May (f. 3r).
Richard de Talbot, second Baron Talbot, of Irchingfield and Goodrich (b. c. 1306, d. 1356): his obit, 'Obitus dni Ric Talebot dni de Iirchenfeld et castri godr anno dni mccclvi', now erased, added to the calendar for 22 October (f. 5v).
'Umfrehay' with motto 'verray et secrete', inscribed between 1400 and 1499 (f. v and f. 168r, under erasure).
William Vaux (b. c. 1410, d. 1460), Sheriff of Northamptonshire (1436) and MP for Northamptonshire (1442): his obit in added to the calendar for 10 November (f. 6r).
Henry Gairstang (d. 1464): his obit added to the calendar for 12 September (f. 5r).
John Hawghe, Justice of the Common Pleas (d. 1488/9): his obit added to the calendar for 14 March (f. 2r).
John Clifton, Prior of Reading Abbey between 1486 and 1490: ex libris donation inscription, under erasure: ‘Iste liber est dono dompni Johannis Clifton prioris venerabilis monasterii de Radyng quem fieri alienaverit vel de eo fraudem fecerit anathema sit’ (f. iv verso).
The Clunaic Abbey of Reading, Reading, Berkshire: given to the Abbey by John Clifton, 1490.
Ethelbert Burdet, canon of Lincoln, 1565: his inscription, dated 2 October 1587 (f. ii recto).
Bossewell (?): 17th century inscription (f. v).
Waren (?): 17th century inscription (f. v).
John Henry Manners, fifth Duke of Rutland (b. 1778, d. 1857): manuscript catalogue of Belvoir Castle Library 1825, pressmark 'C. 6. 5' (f. i).
Purchased by the British Library from the trustees of the ninth Duke of Rutland's estate, through Christies, with the assistance of the National Art Collections Fund, the Friends of the National Libraries, the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the G. B. Shaw Fund, in December 1983.
- Administrative Context:
- England (London?).
- Information About Copies:
- Full digital coverage available for this manuscript; see Digitised Manuscripts: http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/.
- Publications:
-
E. M. Thompson, 'Notes on the Illuminated Manuscripts in the Exhibition of English Medieval Paintings.' Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London, 2nd Series, 16 (1895-1897), p. 220.
Society of Antiquaries of London, Catalogue of Exhibition of English Medieval Paintings and Illuminated Manuscripts: June 8th to June 20th, 1896 (London: Society of Antiquaries of London, 1896), p.8, no.10 [exhibition catalogue].
John W. Mackail, The Life of William Morris, (London: Longmans, 1901), vol. 2, p. 329.
A. Haseloff, 'La miniature dans les pays cisalpins depuis le commencement du XIIe jusqu'au milieu du XIVe siècle', in Histoire de l'Art, ed. by A. Michel, II, 1 (Paris, 1906), p. 349, fig. 272.
Sydney Carlyle Cockerell, Illustrated Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts (London: Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1908), no. 43, pl. 41.
J. A. Herbert, Illuminated Manuscripts (London: Methuen and Co., 1911), pp.188-90.
Eric George Millar, English Illuminated Manuscripts from the Xth to the XIIIth Century (Paris: Van Oest, 1926), pp. 53, 96, 121, pls. 78-80.
O. Elfrida Saunders, English Illumination (Florence: Pantheon, 1928; reprinted New York: Hacker Art Books, 1969), I, pp. 62, 65.
Victoria and Albert Museum, English Medieval Art: Exhibition Catalogue (London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1930), no. 156 [exhibition catalogue].
Eric George Millar, The Rutland Psalter: A Manuscript in the Library of Belvoir Castle, (Oxford: Roxburghe Club, 1937).
Hans Swarzenski, 'Unknown Bible Pictures by W. de Brailes', Journal of the Walters Art Gallery, I (1938), p.63.
Günther Haseloff, Die Psalterillustration im 13. Jahrhundert. Studien zur Buchmalerei in England, Frankreich und den Niederländen (Kiel, 1938), p. 61, table 16.
Stanley Morison and Bruce Rogers, Black-Letter Text (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 1942), p. 35.
Louis Réau, La Miniature (Melun: Librairie d’Argences, 1946), p. 119, pl. 44.
A. Hollaender, 'The Sarum Illuminator and his School', Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine, 50 (1943), p. 261.
Aron Andersson, English Influence in Norwegian and Swedish Figure Sculpture in Wood, 1220-1270 (Stockholm: Kungl. Vitterhets historie och antikvetets akademien, 1950), pp. 184, 265.
Horst Woldemar Janson, Apes and Ape Lore in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (London: Warburg Institute, 1952), pp.110, 146, 193, n.60, pl. XXa.
Margaret Josephine Rickert, Painting in Britain: the Middle Ages (London: Penguin Books, 1954), p. 105.
R. Freyhan, 'Joachism and the English Apocalypse', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 18 (1955), p. 235.
F. Nordstrom, 'Peterborough, Lincoln and the Science of Robert Grosseteste', Art Bulletin, 37 (1955), p. 252.
Lucy Freeman Sandler, ‘A Series of Marginal Illustrations in the Rutland Psalter’, Marsyas: Studies in the History of Art 8 (1959), pp. 70-74.
Jurgis Baltrušaitis, Réveils et Prodiges, le Gothique Fantastique (Paris : A. Colin, 1960), pp. 147, 150-52, 321, figs. 34, 36, 37, 38a, 38c, 11b.
M. Schapiro, 'An Illuminated English Psalter of the Early Thirteenth Century', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XXIII (1960), pp. 180, 184, pl. 24e.
R. Horlbeck, 'The Vault Paintings of Salisbury Cathedral', Archaeological Journal, CXVII (1962), p. 119.
F. McCulloch, 'The Funeral of Renart the Fox in a Walters Book of Hours', Journal of the Walters Art Gallery, 25/26 (1962/1963), p. 14, no. 17.
Erwin Panofsky, 'The Ideological Antecedents of the Rolls-Royce Radiator', Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 107 (1963), pp. 277-78, figs. 10, 11.
Neil R. Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain (London: Royal Historical Society, 1964), pp. 155, 295.
Derek Howard Turner, Early Gothic Illuminated Manuscripts in England (London: British Museum, 1965), p. 23.
William M. Hinkle, The Portal of the Saints of Reims Cathedral: A Study in Mediaeval Iconography (New York: College Art Association of America, 1965), p. 34, fig. 47.
Lilian M. C. Randall, Images in the Margins of Gothic Manuscripts (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966), p. 10, figs. 40, 101, 103, 202, 321, 362, 382, 416, 451, 454, 458, 502, 547, 663, 718, 731, 739.
Lilian M. C. Randall, 'Humour and Fantasy in the Margins of an English Book of Hours', Apollo, 84 (1966), pp. 487-88.
Peter H. Brieger, English Art 1216-1307, Oxford History of English Art 4, 2nd edn. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), pp.158, no.1, 178-79.
G. Henderson, 'Studies in English Manuscript Illumination, II', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 30 (1967), p. 118.
Werner Bachmann, The Origins of Bowing and the Development of Bowed Instruments in the Thirteenth Century (London: Oxford University Press, 1969), p. 109, fig. 86.
Howard Helsinger, ‘Images on the Beatus Page of Some Medieval Psalters,’ The Art Bulletin 53, no. 2 (June 1971), pp. 161-76 (p. 171).
Jean Perrot, The Organ from its Invention in the Hellenistic Period to the end of the Thirteenth Century (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), pp. 282-83, 285, pl. XXVII.2.
Johannes Zahlten, Creatio Mundi. Darstellungen der sechs Schöpfungstage und naturwissenschaftliches Weltbild im Mittelalter (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1979), pp. 64, 247.
John Block Friedman, The Monstrous Races in Medieval Art and Thought (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981), pp. 139-40, figs. 40a, 40b.
Lucy Freeman Sandler, 'Reflections on the Construction of Hybrids in English Gothic Marginal Illustration', in Art the Ape of Nature: Studies in Honor of H.W. Janson, ed. by Moshe Barasch and others (New York: H. N. Abrams, 1981), pp. 54-55, 65, no. 38, fig. 7.
Kerstin Rodin, Räven Predikar för Gässen: en studie av ett ordspråk I senmedeltida ikonografi (Uppsala: Upsalla universitet, 1983), pp. 47, 52, fig. 12.
Susann Palmer, ‘Origin of the Hurdy-Gurdy: A Few Comments’, The Galpin Society Journal 36 (March 1983), pp. 129-31.
Derek Howard Turner, 'The Rutland Psalter', National Art-Collections Fund Review (1984), pp. 94-97.
Nigel Morgan, 'The Artists of the Rutland Psalter', British Library Journal, 13, no. 2 (Autumn 1987), pp. 159-85.
Andrew G. Watson and Neil R. Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: Supplement to the Second Edition (London: Royal Historical Society, 1987), [Reading, formerly Belvoir, Duke of Rutland].
Nigel Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts (II) 1250-1285, Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 4 (London: Harvey Miller, 1988), no. 112.
Adelaide Bennett, 'A Book Designed for a Noblewoman’, in Medieval Book Production: Assessing the Evidence: Proceedings of the Second Conference of The Seminar in the History of the Book to 1500, Oxford, July 1988, ed. by Linda L. Brownrigg, (Los Altos Hills, California: Anderson-Lovelace, 1990), pp. 1163-181 (p. 1181).
Claire Donovan, The de Brailes Hours: Shaping the Book of Hours in Thirteenth-Century Oxford (London, British Library, 1991), p. 203. no. 24.
Michael Camille, Image on the Edge: The Margins of Medieval Art (London: Reaktion, 1992), pl. 6.
Janet Backhouse, The Illuminated Page: Ten Centuries of Manuscript Painting in the British Library (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), no. 64.
Alan Coates, English Medieval Books: The Reading Abbey Collections from Foundation to Dispersal (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999), p. 161 no. 94.
John Higgitt, The Murthly Hours: Devotion, Literacy and Luxury in Paris, England and the Gaelic West (London: British Library, 2000), pp. 81, 154.
Lucy Freeman Sandler, ‘The Images of Words in English Gothic Psalters’, in Studies in the Illustration of the Psalter, ed. by Brendan Cassidy and Rosemary Muir Wright (Stamford: Shaun Tyas, 2000), pp. 67-86 (p. 76, 77).
Alixe Bovey, Monsters and Grotesques in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2002) p. 51, fig. 43.
Debra Higgs Strickland, Saracens, Demons, & Jews: Making Monsters in Medieval Art (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), fig. 17, 55, 59.
Paul Binski, Becket’s Crown: Art and Imagination in Gothic England 1170-1300 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), pl. 211.
F. O. Büttner, ‘Der illuminierte Psalter im Westen’, in The Illuminated Psalter: Studies in the Content, Purpose and Placement of its Images, ed. by F. O. Büttner, (Belgium: Brepols, 2004), pp. 1-106 (pp. 17, 20).
Alison Stones, 'The Full-Page Miniatures of the Psalter-Hours New York, PML, ms M.729: Progamme and Patron', in The Illuminated Psalter: Studies in the Content, Purpose and Placement of its Images, ed. by F. O. Büttner, (Belgium: Brepols, 2004), pp. 281-307 (p. 297, no. 19).
The Cambridge Illuminations: Ten Centuries of Book Production in the Medieval West, ed. by Paul Binski and Stella Panayotova (London: Harvey Miller, 2005), p. 112.
Nigel Morgan, 'The Trinity Apocalypse: Style, Dating and Place of Production', in The Trinity Apocalypse (Trinity College Cambridge, MS R.16.2) (London: British Library, 2005), pp. 23-43 (pp. 26, 28, 30, figs 22-23).
Treasures of the British Library, ed. by Nicolas Barker and others (London: British Library, 2005), p. 261.
Laura Kendrick, ‘Making Sense of Marginalized Images in Manuscripts and Religious Architecture’, in A Companion to Medieval Art: Romanesque and Gothic in Northern Europe, ed. by Conrad Rudolph (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006), pp. 286-88, fig. 13-2.
Asa Simon Mittman, Maps and Monsters in Medieval England (New York: Routledge, 2006), fig. 5.5.
Deirdre Jackson, Marvellous to Behold: Miracles in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2007), pl. 26.
Scot McKendrick and Kathleen Doyle, Bible Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2007), p. 109, fig. 96.
Margaret Scott, Medieval Dress & Fashion (London: British Library, 2007), pl. 36.
Lucy Freeman Sandler, Studies in Manuscript Illumination, 1200-1400 (London: Pindar Press, 2008).
Nicholas Vincent, 'The Great Lost Library of England's Medieval Kings' in~1000 Years of Royal Books and Manuscripts~, ed. by Kathleen Doyle and Scot McKendrick (London: The British Library, 2013), pp. 73-112 (pp. 98, 111).
- Exhibitions:
- The Middle Ages, (online), 26 March 2015-
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Names:
- Burdet, Ethelbert, Canon of Lincoln
Clifton, John, Prior of Reading Abbey
Lacy, Edmund de, 2nd Earl of Lincoln
Manners, John Henry Montagu, 9th Duke of Rutland
Manners, John Henry, 5th Duke of Rutland
Talbot, Richard de, of Irchingfield and Goodrich Herefordshire - Related Material:
-
From the Additionals catalogue:
THE RUTLAND PSALTER: England (London or diocese of Salisbury?); circa 1250-1260 (with late 14th-15th cent. additions). Latin. See the facsimile edition by E. G. Millar, The Rutland Psalter, Roxburghe Club (1937) and N. J. Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts II (1988), pp. 78-82, and 'The Artists of the Rutland Psalter', British Library Journal, XIII (1987), pp. 159-185. Some of the stylistic affinities of the illumination point to a connection with works ascribed to London, such as Add. 28681, but liturgical elements such as the calendar indicate a possible connection with the diocese of Salisbury. Morgan has suggested that it may have been the work of a group of London artists working in the Salisbury diocese, or who had access to models from that area. The obit of Edmund de Lacy, 2nd Earl of Lincoln (d. 1258) has been added to the calendar (24 May), giving a probable terminus ante quem for the manuscript and indicating a de Lacy connection. It has been suggested that figures on ff. 23v and 54 might represent Edmund de Lacy's wife, Alesia, or mother, Margaret, and son, Henry. Depictions of a king and queen on f. 99v might also imply intended royal ownership. Obit of Richard de Talbot of Irchingfield and Goodrich, co. Heref., 22 Oct. 1356. 15th cent. ex libris inscription (erased), with elaborate initial, of the Benedictine Abbey of Reading (gift of Prior John Clifton), 'Iste liber est dono dompni Johannis Clifton prioris venerabilis monasterii de Radyng quem fieri alienaverit vel de eo fraudem fecerit anathema sit' (f. iv verso). 15th and 16th cent. obits, perhaps of benefactors or a fraternity connected with Reading Abbey. Ex libris inscription of Ethelbert Burdet, 1587 (f. ii), canon of Lincoln 1565. Owned by the Dukes of Rutland since at least 1825 (MS. catalogue of the Belvoir Library). Purchased, with the assistance of the National Art Collection Fund, the Friends of the National Libraries, the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the G. B. Shaw Fund, from the trustees of the 9th Duke of Rutland's will trust, through Christie's, Dec. 1983.
Vellum; ff. v+190. Sec. fol.: 'Kalends mars prima'. 285 x 205mm. Lifted vellum pastedowns at front and back and three further vellum flyleaves to front (ff. i-v). Gatherings (24) of 8, except i8 (lacks 1, probably blank), ii10 (lacks 10, blank), xxiv8 (lacks 7 and 8). Pricked and ruled (lead-point) for single columns of 20 lines in two sets of double bounding lines. Written space 185 x 133mm. Script is a Gothic textualis quadrata by several hands (but one main hand). Rubrication in gold. 15th cent. quire signatures. Ochre silk covers to miniatures. 16th cent. blind stamped binding with armorial panel, gold tooled spine and 2 clasps (some original metalwork replaced and originals boxed with MS) fastening on to damaged lower board. Sewn on 6 split cords.