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Add MS 60629
- Record Id:
- 032-001991575
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-001991575
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000036.0x000135
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100165151367.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Add MS 60629
- Title:
-
Psalter
- Scope & Content:
-
Illuminated Psalter with a Calendar, Canticles and Litanies for the use of nuns, as suggested by the petition (f. 169r) and a collect (f. 170r) for ‘nos famulas tuas’. The inclusion of a litany of St Clara, canonised in 1255, dates it to the second half of the 13th century.
Originally, decorated initials probably marked a ten-fold division of the Psalms: the first Psalm of Matins for each day of the week (1 [missing], 26 [f. 28r], 38 [f.43v], 52 [f. 58r], 68 [f. 70r] , 80 [f. 85r], 97 [f. 101r]), the first Psalm for Sunday Vespers (109 [f. 119r]) and the Psalms of the tripartite division (1 [missing], 51 [f. 57r] and 101 [f. 104r]), however the leaf with the openings of Psalm 1 has been removed.
ff. 1r-6v: Calendar.
ff. 7r-149r: Psalter, imperfect due to the loss of leaves; the following verses are entirely or partially lacking: Psalm 1:1; Psalm 22:4-6; Psalm 67:19-36, Psalms 70:20-72:13.
ff. 149r-166r: Canticles, the Lord's Prayer, two Creeds.
ff. 166v-170r: Litanies.
Decoration:
8 full-page framed miniatures in gold and colours: f. 27v: 'Noli me tangere'; f. 34r: Christ and angels crown two monastic saints; f. 43r: St Catherine and another female saint with a martyr’s palm, cup, and the Holy Spirit descending; f. 56v: Coronation of the Virgin, with censing angels; f. 84v: two military saints, with the heads of others; f. 87v: Jacob's Ladder, with a tree of life and musicians, animals, a man warming his feet, and a hunting scene; f. 103v: the Ascension; f. 118v: two bishop-saints.
12 calendar pages in gold and colours, with architectural frames each containing a sign of the Zodiac, an apostle and a labour of the month: ff. 1r-6v.
Historiated initials: f. 7v: the Christ Child; f.101: three monks; f. 149r: Isaiah; f. 149v, Ezekias; f. 150v: Anna; f. 151v: the crossing of the Red Sea; f. 153r: Habakkuk; f. 154v: Moses; f. 157v: the three youths in the fiery furnace with Christ and the hand of God; f. 158v: the Annunciation to Zachariah and Zachariah holding the infant John the Baptist; f. 159v: the Virgin and Child and St Anne; f. 160r: Simeon holding the Christ Child; f. 160v: Christ in Majesty; f. 163r: Sts Ambrose and Augustine; f. 164: St Anastasius; f. 166v.
Framed panel of roundels containing heads of the Apostles in the left margin: ff. 161v-162r.
Large framed initials in gold and colours with foliate and sometimes zoomorphic and anthropomorphic ornament: 28r, 43v, 57r, 58r, 70r, 85r, 104r, 119r, 166v.
2- to 4-line framed initials at the opening of every Psalm and Canticle, in gold sometimes extending into partial borders, grounds of green, red or blue with white penwork decoration.
Numerous text initials and occasional Psalm verses in gold, on green, red or blue grounds with white penwork decoration.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Additional Manuscripts
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "032-001991575", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Add MS 60629: Psalter" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-001991575
- Is part of:
- not applicable
- Hierarchy:
- 032-001991575
- Container:
- not applicable
- Record Type (Level):
- Fonds
- Extent:
-
1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100165151367.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1250
- End Date:
- 1299
- Date Range:
- 2nd half of the 13th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 230 x 155 mm (written space: 150 x 105 mm).
Foliation: ff. 170 (+ 2 unfoliated modern parchment flyleaves at the beginning and end).
Collation: Originally quaternios except for the last quire which is a quinion. 1 leaf removed before f. 1, after f. 6, after f. 24, after f. 69, and ?3 leaves removed after f. 73.
Script: Gothic, written below top line.
Binding: Post-1600. Blind-stamped brown leather covers with gold tooling.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: Western Germany.
Provenance:
?A convent in West Germany: the calendar commemorates numerous saints from the Trier and Cologne region, including the Two Ewalds of Westphalia, and Adelheidis, probably the 11th-century Benedictine abbess of Villich.
Dorothea, daughter of the Margrave Albert Achilles of Brandenburg, abbess of the Poor Clares at Bamberg (b. 1471, d. 1520, abbess 1498-1520): her 16th-century ownership inscription (f. 170v).
Leopold de Rothschild (b. 1845, d. 1917), British banker and race horse breeder: his 19th-century bookplate with the monogram LR, and details of the manuscript’s placement at the Rothschild property Ascott House, ‘Ascott, Wing, Bucks. Room, Drawing, Case C, Shelf 4’ (inner front board).
Evelyn de Rothschild (b. 1931), British financier: his sale, Christie’s, 1979; purchased by the British Library for £45,615.
- Information About Copies:
- Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk.manuscripts/.
- Publications:
-
The British Museum Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts, 1976-1980, 2 vols (London: British Museum, 1995), 1, pp. 162-63.
Judith Oliver, ‘Worship of the Word: Some Gothic Nonnenbücher in their Devotional Context’, in Women and the Book: Assessing the Visual Evidence, ed. by Lesley Smith and Jane H. M. Taylor (London and Toronto: The British Library and University of Toronto Press, 1996), pp. 106-122 (107-08, 112, 116, 118, n. 9).
Janet Backhouse, The Illuminated Page: Ten Centuries of Manuscript Painting (London: The British Library, 1997), pp. 90-91, no. 74.
Judith Oliver, ‘A Primer of Thirteenth-Century German Convent Life the Psalter as Office and Mass Book (London, BL, ms Add. 60629)’, in The Illuminated Psalter, Studies in the Content, Purpose and Placement of its Images, ed. by F. O. Büttner (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004), pp. 259-70.
Jutta Frings and Jan Gerchow, Krone und Schleier: Kunst aus mittelalterlichen Frauenklöstern, [Exhibition catalogue] Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn, und Ruhrlandmuseum Essen, 2005 (Munich: Hirmer, 2005), pp. 443-44, no. 362.
Judith Oliver, Singing with Angels: Liturgy, Music, and Art in the Gradual of Gisela von Kerssenbrock (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), pp. 104, 203.
- Exhibitions:
- Gold, British Library, London, 20 May 2022 - 2 October 2022
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)