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Egerton MS 1139/1
- Record Id:
- 032-002747658
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002747658
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100022637190.0x000001
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Egerton MS 1139/1
- Title:
-
Detached binding from Egerton MS 1139 (the 'Melisende Psalter')
- Scope & Content:
-
Components of a 12th-century binding with later additions, formerly attached to Egerton MS 1139 (the 'Melisende Psalter'), now stored separately.
Contents:
- 2 ivory panels, with scenes from the life of David on the upper cover (image labelled as f. v-recto), and the six vices and six works of charity, illustrating Matthew 25:35-36,on the lower cover (image labelled as f. vii-verso), with numerous inscriptions. Made from thick sheets of ivory, into which the relief was cut, with small pieces of turquoise, ruby-coloured gemstones, and jet. Some traces of red pigment visible;
- 2 separated ivory panel backings (images labelled as f, v-verso and f. vii-recto), and 2 wooden panels (4 images, labelled as f. vi-recto, f. vi-verso and f. viii-recto, f. viii-verso);
- 2 metal plates (4 images, labelled as f. ix-recto to f. x-verso);
- embroidered silk spine, with silver thread and equal-armed crosses in red and blue;
- post-1600 covers of red leather with gold tooling and 4 modern paper flyleaves (labelled ff. i-recto to iv-verso).
The carved word 'Herodius' on the lower cover (image labelled as f. vii-verso) possibly refers to the artist or to Fulk of Anjou (the bird name, 'herodias' could be used synonymously with 'fulica' (coot), and the French vernacular for coot 'foulque'), see discussion in Cahier, Nouveaux mélanges (1884) and Zeitler, 'Distorting mirror' (2000).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Egerton Manuscripts
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "032-002747658", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Egerton MS 1139/1: Detached binding from Egerton MS 1139 (the 'Melisende Psalter')" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002747658
- Is part of:
- not applicable
- Hierarchy:
- 032-002747658
- Container:
- not applicable
- Record Type (Level):
- Fonds
- Extent:
-
Detached former binding with ivory panels
- Digitised Content:
- http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Egerton_MS_1139/1 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-

- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1131
- End Date:
- 1143
- Date Range:
- 1131-1143
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
- Restrictions to access apply please consult British Library staff
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- User Conditions:
- Publications:
-
M. Didron, Iconograpahie chrétienne: histoire de Dieu (Paris: Imprimerie royale, 1843), p. 473, no. 2.
A. Du Sommerard, Les arts au moyen age, 5 vols (Paris: Vinchon, 1838-46), V, pp. 162-63.
Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1841-1845 (London: British Museum, 1850), pp. 87-88.
M. Didron, Christian Iconography: or, the History of Christian Art in the Middle Ages, trans. by E. J. Millington (London: Bohn, 1851), p. 462.
M. Digby Wyatt, The Art of Illuminating (London: Dan and Son Lithographers, 1860; repr. Studio Editions, 1987), p. 31.
P. Ch. Cahier, Nouveaux mélanges d’archéologie d’histoire et de littérature sur le moyen age, 4 vols (Paris: Firmin Didot, 1874-1877), II (1874): Ivoires, miniatures, émaux, pp. 1-14, pls 1-2.
Walter de Gray Birch and Henry Jenner, Early Drawings and Illuminations: An Introduction to the Study of Illustrated Manuscripts (London: Bagster and Sons, 1879), p. 1.
W. Y. Fletcher, Foreign Bookbindings in the British Museum (London: Kegan Paul, 1896), pl. 2.
O. M. Dalton, Byzantine Art and Archaeology (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1911), fig. 428.
J. A. Herbert, Illuminated Manuscripts (London: Methuen, 1911), pp. 57-60, pl. 6.
J. A. Herbert, Illuminated Manuscripts and Bindings of Manuscripts Exhibited in the Grenville Library, Guide to the Exhibited Manuscripts, 3 (Oxford: British Museum, 1923), p. 40, no. 5.
J. A. Herbert, British Museum: Reproductions from Illuminated Manuscripts, Series 3, 3rd edn (London: British Museum, 1925), pl. 6.
A Guide to the Exhibition of Some Part of the Egerton Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1929), no. 4.
Albert Boeckler, Das Goldene Evangelienbuch Heinrichs III (Berlin: Deutscher Verien für Kunstwissenschaft, 1933), p. 59 no. 1.
Die byzantinischen Elfenbeinskulpturen des X.-XIII.Jahrhunderts, ed. by Adolph Goldschmidt and Kurt Weitzmann, 2 vols (Berlin: Deutscher Verlag fur Kunstwissenschaft, 1934), II, no. 224a, b [with additional bibliography].
D. Talbot Rice, English Art 871-1100, Oxford History of English Art, 2 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1952), p. 110.
T. S. R. Boase, English Art 1100-1216, Oxford History of English Art, 2 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1957), p. 191.
Hugo Buchthal and Francis Wormald, Miniature Painting in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1957), esp. pp. 1-14, 139-40.
Francis Wormald, 'The Calendar of Queen Melisende's Psalter', 'Litanies of Saints', and 'Prayers following the Litany in Queen Melisende's Psalter', in Hugo Buchthal and Francis Wormald, Miniature Painting in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1957), pp. 122-34.
E. B. Garrison, Studies in the History of Mediaeval Italian Painting, 3 vols (Florence: L’impronta, 1953-58), III (1957-1958), pp. 302-04, 307-08.
André Grabar and Carl Nordenfalk, Romanesque Painting from the Eleventh to the Thirteenth Century, trans. by Stuart Gilbert (Lausanne: SKIRA, 1958), pp. 138, 172.
Otto Pächt, C. R. Dodwell, and Francis Wormald, The St. Albans Psalter (Albani Psalter) (London: Warburg Institute, 1960), pp. 52-53.
Frauke Steenbock, Die kirchliche Prachteinband im frühen Mittelalter (Berlin: Deutscher verlag fur Kunstwissenschaft, 1965), no. 90.
C. R. Dodwell, Painting in Europe: 800 to 1200 (London: Penguin Books, 1971), 157, pls. 172-73.
T. S. R. Boase, ‘Ecclesiastical Art in the Crusader States in Palestine and Syria’, in A History of the Crusades, ed. by Kenneth M. Setton, 6 vols (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1969-1989), IV: The Art and Architecture of the Crusader States, ed. by Harry W. Hazard (1977), pp. 69-139 (pp. 125-29, 138-39, pls XXXIXa-d).
Andrew G. Watson, Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts c. 700-1600 in The Department of Manuscripts: The British Library, 2 vols (London: British Library, 1979), no. 598.
Nigel Morgan, 'Notes on the Post-Conquest Calendar, Litany and Martyrology of the Cathedral Priory of Winchester with a Consideration of Winchester Diocese Calendars of the Pre-Sarum Period', in The Vanishing Past: Medieval Studies Presented to Chrisopher Hohler, ed. by Alan Borg and Andrew Martindale (Oxford: B. A. R., 1981), pp. 133-74 (pp. 157, 162 no. 17).
Miriam Foot, Pictorial Bookbindings (London: British Library, 1986), pp. 46-48, pls. 44, opposite p. 5.
Francis Wormald, Collected Writings, ed. by J. J. G. Alexander, T. J. Brown, and Joan Gibbs, 2 vols (London: Harvey Miller, 1984-1988), II: Studies in English and Continental Art of the Later Middle Ages, p. 16.
Aliza Cohen-Mushlin, A Medieval Scriptorium: Sancta Maria Magdalena de Frankendal, Wolfenbütteler Mittelalter-Studien, 3, 2 vols (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1990), I, p. 135.
Bianca Kühnel, ‘The Kingly Statement of the Bookcovers of Queen Melisande’s Psalter’, in Tesserae: Festscrhift für Joseph Engemann, ed. by E. Dassmann and K. Thraede, Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum, Ergänzungsband, 18 (1991), pp. 340-57.
John Lowden, ‘The Image and Self-Image of the Medieval Ruler’, in Kings and Kingship in Medieval Europe, ed. by Anne J. Duggan, King’s College London Medieval Studies, 10 (London: King’s College, 1993), pp. 213-40 (pp. 226-28, pl. 5).
Bianca Kühnel, Crusader Art of the Twelfth Century: A Geographical, an Historical, or an Art Historical Notion? (Berlin: Mann, 1994), pp. 51, 53, 61 n. 1, 63-125, 155, 160, 162-63, 166-67, figs. 47, 69, 87.
John Lowden, catalogue entry, in Byzantium: Treasures of Byzantine Art and Culture from British Collections, ed. by David Buckton (British Museum: London, 1994). nos. 180-81 [exhibition catalogue] [with additional bibliography].
Jaroslav Folda, The Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land 1098-1187 (Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 137-63, pls. 6.8-6.12.
Andreas Petzold, Romanesque Art (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1995), p. 7, pl. 1.
P. Alessandra Maccioni-Ruju and Marco Mostert, The Life and Times of Guglielmo Libri (1802-1869): Scientist, Patriot, Scholar, Journalist and Thief (Hilversum: Verloren, 1995), pp. 221, 266-67, pl. 48.
Robert W. Scheller, Exemplum: Model-Book Drawings and the Practice of Artistic Transmission in the Middle Ages (ca. 900 - ca. 1450) (Amsterdam: University Press, 1995), p. 143.
Janet Backhouse, The Illuminated Page: Ten Centuries of Manuscript Painting in the British Library (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), no. 30.
The Glory of Byzantium: Art and Culture of the Middle Byzantine Era A. D. 843-1261, ed. by Helen C. Evans and William D. Wixom (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1997), no. 259 [with additional bibliography] [exhibition catalogue].
Holger Klein, 'The so-called Byzantine Diptych in the Winchester Psalter, British LIbrary, MS Cotton Nero C. IV', Gesta, 37 (1998), 26-43 (pp. 35-36, fig. 19).
The Apocalypse and the Shape of Things to Come, ed. by Frances Carey (London: British Museum, 1999), p. 67.
Jean Brodahl, 'The Melisende Psalter and Ivories (BL Egerton 1139): An Inquiry into the Status and Collecting of Medieval Art in Early Nineteenth-Century France' (unpublished PhD dissertation, Brown University, 1999).
Barbara Zeitler, 'The Distorting Mirror: Reflections on the Queen Melisende Psalter (London, B. L., Egerton 1139)', in Through the Looking Glass: Byzantium Through British Eyes, ed. by Robin Cormack and Elizabeth Jeffreys, Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies, 7 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), pp. 69-81.
Vrej Nersessian, Treasures from the Ark: 1700 Years of Armenian Christian Art (London: Briths Library, 2001), no. 131 [exhibition catalogue].
Adelaide Bennett, 'Commemoration of Saints in Suffrages: From Public Liturgy to Private Devotion' in Objects, Images, and the Word: Art in the Service of the Liturgy, ed. by Colum Hourihane, Index of Christian Art Occasional Paper, 6 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), pp. 54-78 (pp. 55, 74 no. 14).
Kathleen S. Schowalter, ‘The Ingeborg Psalter: Queenship, Legitimacy, and the Appropriation of Byzantine Art in the West’, in Capetian Women, ed. by Kathleen Nolan (New York: Palgrave, 2003), pp. 99-135 (pp. 103-20, pls. 5.1, 5.3).
Christina Dondi, The Liturgy of the Canons Regular of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem: A Study and a Catalogue of the Manuscript Sources, Bibliotheca Victorina, 16 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004), pp. 13, 63-64, 104, 121-23, 126, 131, 139, 162-66, 253-66, 331, pl. 3.
Frauke Steenbock, ‘Psalterien mit kostbaren Einbänden’ in The Illuminated Psalter: Studies in the Content, Purpose and Placement of its Images, ed. by F. O. Büttner (Belgium: Brepols, 2004), pp. 435-40 (p. 439, pls. 453-55) [part 2, binding].
Jaroslav Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, from the Third Crusade to the Fall of Acre: 1187-1291 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 5-6, 10, 13, 18, 93-94, 210, 212, 215, 282, 285, 294, 324, 401, 423, 426, 508-09, 514, 518, 524.
Naomi Ruth Pitamber, 'Hybrid Devotion in Medieval Jerusalem: The Melisende Psalter's Identity Crisis' (unpublished master's thesis, University of Texas at San Antonio, 2005).
Saladin und die Kreuzfahrer, ed. by Alfried Wieczorek, Mamoun Fansa, and Harald Meller, Publikationen der Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen, 17 (Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 2005), p. 179, pl. 101, no. C.39 [exhibition catalogue].
Janet Backhouse, 'The Case of Queen Melisende's Psalter: An Historical Investigation', in Tributes to Jonathan J. G. Alexander: The Making and Meaning of Illuminated Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts, Art and Architecture, ed. by Susan L'Engle and Gerald B. Guest (London: Harvey Miller, 2006), pp. 457-70.
Scot McKendrick and Kathleen Doyle, Bible Manuscripts: 1400 Years of Scribes and Scripture (London: British Library, 2007), p. 84, fig. 71.
Sacred: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and their Sacred Texts (London: British Library, 2007), p. 206 [exhibition catalogue].
Margaret Scott, Medieval Dress & Fashion (London: British Library, 2007), pp. 48-49, pls 23, 24.
Kathleen Doyle, catalogue entry, Byzantium 330-1453, ed. by Robin Cormack and Maria Vassilaki (London: Royal Academy, 2008), no. 260 [exhibition catalogue].
Jill N. Claster, Sacred violence: the European crusades to the Middle East, 1095-1396 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), pp. 177, 330, pl. 4.
Helen A. Gaudette, The Spending Power of a Crusader Queen: Melisende of Jerusalem', in Women and Wealth in Late Medieval Europe ed. by Theresa Earenfight (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), pp. 135-48 (pp. 136-37).
Jaroslav Folda, 'Melisende of Jerusalem, Queen and Patron of Art and Architecture in the Kingdom of Jerusalem', in Reassessing the roles of women as 'makers' of medieval art and architecture, ed. by Therese Martin, 2 vols (Boston: Brill, 2012), II, pp. 429-77 (pp. 450-59, pl. 8).
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Related Archive Descriptions:
- Egerton MS 1139