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Cotton MS Tiberius C VI
- Record Id:
- 040-001102251
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-001101582
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000001246.0x00025d
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100189742516.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Cotton MS Tiberius C VI
- Title:
-
Psalter with a prefatory pictorial cycle, computistic tables, prayers, confession, a homily in Old English and collects ('The Tiberius Psalter')
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
ff. 2r-6r: Lunar and paschal tables; details and the equivalent tables in the Leofric Missal (Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Bodley 579, as described in Warren, Leofric Missal (1883)), are as follows:
f. 2r: Table for calculating the age of the moon in a lunation of 29 days (Leofric f. 45v);
f. 2v: Calendar for February and March;
f. 3r: Calendar for April and May;
f. 3v-4r: Table of the terms of Lent, Easter etc. : 'Terminus secondae lunae initii' (Leofric, f. 51v) and 'Terminus xiiii lunae paschalis' (Leofric, f. 52r);
f. 4v: Table for calculating the age of the moon on the first day of a given month: 'De ratione saltis lunae' (Leofric, f. 46r);
f. 5r: Table for finding the day of the week on the first day of a given month: 'Circulo per XXVIII annus solaris cursus singulorum mensium (Leofric, f. 46v);
f. 5v: Table for calculating the moon's position in the zodiac (Leofric 48r);
f. 6v: Diagram of Vita and Mors;
f. 7r: Horologium and Easter computations on the fingers of a hand;
ff. 7v-16r: A prefatory cycle of scenes from the Old and New Testaments;
ff. 16v-18r Diagrams of musical instruments with descriptions in Latin;
ff. 19r-27v: Prefaces to the Psalter followed by prayers and the Ordo Confessionis;
ff. 28r-30r: The Latin homily, De septiformi spiritu, incipit, 'Spiritus sanctus pro septinaria operatione' is followed by an Old English version of the same text (ff. 28v-30r), with the rubric, 'Her is þæt ylce on ænglisc', incipit, 'Isaias se witega awrat'. The Old English text has a 15th- or 16th-century English interlinear gloss to the first 35 lines. Two Latin prayers follow on f. 30r, the second with the Old English rubric, 'Dis gebed baeda sang æt þam saltere'.
ff. 31r-129v: The Latin Psalter in the Gallican version (imperfect), ending at Psalm 113.11, with an interlinear gloss in Old English; each Psalm has a heading and is followed by a Collect . The Collects are part of the Spanish series: see Wilmart, Psalter Collects (1949). On f. 114r a note has been added in Latin in a 12th-century hand, incipit, 'Non interficias nec sanguis relaxetur'. followed by note in Anglo-Norman French, incipit 'Sunt II iurs en cascun mais ico que l'en cummenset'.
Decoration:
Two full-page miniatures in colours with full borders (ff. 18v, 30v).
27 outline drawings in colours preceding the Psalter (ff. 7v-16r) and within the Psalter (ff. 71v, 114v, 126v).
Four full-page initials with full acanthus borders in colours at the beginning of the prefaces and Psalms 1, 51 and 101 and 109 (ff. 19r, 31r, 72r, 115r and 127r).
Large initials with decoration in colours at the beginning of Psalms 26, 38, 52, 67, 80, 97 (ff. 48v, 60, 73, 85, 98v, 112).
Computistic and canon tables, with architectonic and figural imagery outlined in colours (ff. 2v-5r).
Initials in red, blue or green at text divisions and at each verse of the Psalms. Highlighting and rubrics in red.
The subjects of the miniatures and drawings are:
ff. 2v-3r: Standing angels in the spandrels of the arches;
f. 4v: Two lions decorating a computistical table;
f. 5r: Two eagles, devouring their prey, decorating a computistical table;
f. 5v: A feast, perhaps representing the month of January;
f. 6v: A diagrammatic representation of Vita et Mors, with Christ-Vita above and a naked woman/angel below, both holding scrolls with numbers for the calculation of the chances of recovery or death;
f. 7r: Circular diagram (above); a large hand emerging from drapery with Easter computations written on the fingers (below);
f. 7v: The Creation, with the head and hands of the Creator above the earth. He holds a pair of dividers and scales and has two horns or trumpets issuing from his mouth, representing his breath; below, the Holy Ghost moves over the waters.
f. 8r: David rescuing a lamb from the jaws of a lion with the flock grazing below;
f. 8v: David with his sling and a group of Israelites behind, and, below, David thrusting Goliath's sword into his chest;
f. 9r: Goliath, with a helm, shield, and sword; a group of people (Philistines) behind him, fleeing;
f. 9v: The Anointing of David by Samuel;
f. 10r: David seated on his throne with a harp;
f. 10v: The third Temptation: Christ and the Devil, who has wings with eyes;
f. 11r: Christ riding into Jerusalem on a donkey with crowds watching;
f. 11v: Christ washing the feet of St Peter, with an angel above bringing a towel from Heaven;
f. 12r: Judas kissing Christ on the cheek, with men carrying torches in the background;
f. 12v: Christ standing before Pilate, who is seated in a pavilion;
f. 13r: The Crucifixion, with one Roman soldier piercing Christ's side with a spear, the other holding a sponge;
f. 13v: The Angel at the empty tomb of Christ appearing to the three Holy Women;
f. 14r: The Harrowing of Hell; with Christ bending down to rescue souls;
f. 14v: Doubting Thomas touching Christ's side;
f. 15r: The Ascension;
f. 15v: Pentecost, with the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove coming down to the Disciples;
f. 16r: St Michael defeating the dragon;
f. 16v-18r: Diagrams of biblical musical instruments including the tympanum, lute, cithara and bell, with David playing the psaltery (f. 17v);
f. 18v: Christ in glory, holding a horn and cross;
f. 30v: David and his musicians;
f. 71v: A tonsured ecclesiastic in Mass vestments, perhaps St Jerome;
f. 114v: Christ with a cross and staff, trampling on a dragon;
f. 126v: The Holy Trinity, in a quatrefoil within a circle, with God the Father in the middle, the Lamb on his right and the Dove on his left.
Includes Wormald's 'Type II' initials (Francis Wormald, 'Decorated initials' (1945), p. 126). This is the only Anglo-Saxon Psalter with a prefixed cycle of pictures, according to Kauffmann, Romanesque Manuscripts (1975) p. 17, and the earliest surviving example of a Psalter with prefatory illustrations, according to Zeitler, Queen Melisende Psalter (2000) p. 72.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Cotton Collection
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-001101582
040-001102251 - Is part of:
- Cotton MS : Cotton Manuscripts
Cotton MS Tiberius C VI : Psalter with a prefatory pictorial cycle, computistic tables, prayers, confession, a homily in Old English and collects… - Hierarchy:
- 032-001101582[0462]/040-001102251
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Cotton MS
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100189742516.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Anglo-Norman
English, Old
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1050
- End Date:
- 1199
- Date Range:
- 3rd quarter of the 11th century-2nd half of the 12th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
- Restrictions to access apply please consult British Library staff
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- User Conditions:
-
Letter of introduction required to use this manuscript.
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Material: Parchment.
Condition: Damaged by fire in 1731.
Dimensions: 245 x 150mm (text space: 220 x 120mm).
Foliation: ff. 129 (+ 1 unfoliated parchment flyleaf and 5 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 4 unfoliated blank parchment leaves after ff. 18, 30, 71, and 114 + 9 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the end); f. 1 is a parchment flyleaf/
Collation: All parchment folios have been mounted separately on modern paper leaves so the original collation is not detreminable; post-medieval quire signatures on some folios show that quires were originally 8 leaves (see Ker, Anglo-Saxon (1957), p. 262). Several quires are missing at the end.
Script: Caroline minuscule.
Binding: British Museum in-house (1894). Brown leather, tooled in gold, with the Cottonian arms gold-stamped on the upper and lower covers.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
Winchester, England (possibly the Old Minster; for evidence from the script and decoration: see discussion in Temple, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts (1976), p. 117; for the Old English gloss: see Morrell, Biblical Materials (1965), p. 107).
Provenance:
Elizabeth Boleyn (b. c. 1480, d. 1538), Countess of Wiltshire and daughter of Thomas Howard (b. 1443, d. 1524), 2nd Duke of Norfolk: perhaps to be identified as 'An old psalter. Limned that was Eliz the Duke of Norfocks daughter', listed in the seventeenth-century copy of the catalogue of Cotton's library, Harley MS 6018, f. 149r (see Tite, Cotton's Library (2003), pp. 34, 109).
William Lambarde (b.1536, d.1601), antiquary and lawyer: perhaps to be identified as 'Psalteriu[m] latine Saxonu[m] in Foll I had of Mr Lambert', listed in the seventeenth-century copy of the catalogue of Cotton's library, Harley MS 6018, f. 159v (see Tite, Cotton's Library (2003) pp. 51, 109).
Sir Robert Bruce Cotton (b. 1571, d. 1631), 1st baronet, antiquary and politician, in his collection: listed in his catalogues (Add MS 35213, ff. 37r (no. 38) and 43v; Add MS 36789, f. 157r; Add MS 36682). Cotton’s collection was augmented by his son, Sir Thomas Cotton (b. 1594, d. 1662), 2nd baronet: his name inscribed (f. 2r).
Sir John Cotton (b. 1621, d. 1702), 3rd baronet and grandson of Sir Robert Cotton: he bequeathed the entire Cotton collection of books and manuscripts to trustees ‘for Publick Use and Advantage’, 12 and 13 William III, c. 7.
Formed one of the foundation collections of the British Museum in 1753.
- Information About Copies:
-
Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts
Select digital coverage available for this manuscript, see Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/welcome.htm.
- Publications:
-
Alexander, Jonathan J. G., Norman Illumination at Mont St Michel 966-1100 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), p. 60-1, 91, 92 n. 4, 93, 120, 133 n. 1, 148 n. 3, 152, 193, pls 18d, 40c.
Alexander, Jonathan J. G.,Insular Manuscripts: 6th to the 9th Century, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 1 (London: Harvey Miller, 1978), p. 46, 65.
Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: Art, Word, War, ed. by Claire Breay and Joanna Story (London: The British Library, 2018), no. 131 [exhibition catalogue].
Behn, Friedrich, Musikleben im Alterum und frühen Mittelalter (Stuttgart, 1954), p.157.
Binski, Paul, Becket’s Crown: Art and Imagination in Gothic England 1170-1300 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), pl. 87.
Birch, Walter de Gray and Henry Jenner, Early Drawings and Illuminations: An Introduction to the Study of Ilustrated Manuscripts (London: Bagster and Sons, 1879), p. 4.
Bovey, Alixe, Monsters and Grotesques in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2002), pp. 32-33, pl. 27.
Brown, George, 'The Psalms as the Foundation of Anglo-Saxon Learning', in The Place of the Psalms in the Intellectual Culture of the Middle Ages, ed. by Nancy Van Deusen (Albany: State University of New York, 1999), pp. 1-24 (p. 7).
Campbell, Alistair P., ed., The Tiberius Psalter, Ottawa Medieval Texts and Studies, 2 (Ottawa, 1974).
Carey, Frances, ed., The Apocalypse and the Shape of Things to Come (London: British Museum, 1999), p. 64, no. 1 [exhibition catalogue].
Chardonnens, László Sándor, Anglo-Saxon Prognostics 900-1100: Study and Texts, Brill's Studies in Intellectual History, 153(Leiden: Brill, 2007), p. 602.
Dodwell, C. R., The Canterbury School of Illumination 1066-1200 (Cambridge, 1954), pp. 5, 18, 23, pls.10a, 12d.
Gameson, Richard, The Manuscripts of Early Norman England (c. 1066-1130) (Oxford: University Press, 1999), no. 406.
Hayward Gallery, London: English Romanesque Art 1066-1200, 5 April-8 July 1984 (London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1984), no. 1 [exhibition catalogue].
Gneuss, Helmut, Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A List of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 241 (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2001), no. 378.
Herbert, J.A., Illuminated Manuscripts (London, 1911), p.119, pl. 14.
Heslop, T. A., 'A Dated 'Late Anglo-Saxon' Illuminated Psalter', Antiquaries Journal, 72 (1992), 171-74.
Heslop, T. A., ‘The Implication of the Utrecht Psalter in English Romanesque Art’, in Romanesque: Art and Thougth in the Twelfth Century: Essays in Honor of Walter Cahn, ed. by Colum Hourihane, Index of Christian Art Occasional Papers, 10 (Princeton: Index of Christian Art, 2008), pp. 267-90 (pp. 277).
Higgitt, John, The Murthly Hours: Devotion, Literacy and Luxury in Paris, England and the Gaelic West (London: British Library, 2000), pp. 230.
Hilmo, Maidie , Medieval Images, Icons, and iIlustrated English Literary Texts: From the Ruthwell Cross to the Ellesmere Chaucer (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 38, 42, 50, fig. 5.
Hughes-Hughes, Augustus, Catalogue of Manuscript Music in the British Museum, 3 vols (London, 1906–09), III, pp. 356–63, 366, 368–69, 371.
James, Montague Rhodes , 'Illustrations of the Old Testament', in A Book of Old Testament Illustrations (Roxburghe Club: Oxford, 1927), p. 26.
Kauffmann, C. M., Romanesque Manuscripts 1066-1190 Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 3 (London: Harvey Miller, 1975), pp. 17-8, 32, fig. 4.
Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), no.199.
Kessler, Herbert L., 'Evil Eye(ing): Romanesque Art as a Shield of Faith' in Romanesque Art and Thought in the Twelfth Century: Essays in Honor of Walter Cahn, ed. by Colum Hourihane (Princeton: Index of Christian Art, 2008), pp. 267-90 (p. 277).
Kidd, Peter 'A Re-examination of the Date of an Eleventh-Century Psalter from Winchester (British Library, MS Arundel 60)', Studies in the Illustration of the Psalter, ed. by B. Cassidy and R. M. Wright (Stamford, Lincs.: Shaun Tyas, 2000), pp. 42-54 (p. 45).
Kiernan, K. S. , 'Alfred the Great's Burnt Boethius', in The Iconic Page in Manuscript, Print, and Digital Culture, ed. by George Bornstein and Theresa Tinkle (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998) pp. 7-32.
Kimmens, Andrew C., ed., The Stowe Psalter, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979), p. ix.
Loewe, Raphael , 'Herbert Bosham’s Commentary on Jerome’s Hebrew Psalter' Biblica, 34(1953), p.166.
Mitchell, H. P., 'Flotsam of Later Anglo-Saxon Art', Burlington Magazine, 42 (1923), pp.107-08, pl.VIIc.
Millar, Eric. G., English Illuminated Manuscripts from the Xth to the XIIIth Century (Paris: Van Oest, 1926), pl. 27a.
Morrell, Minnie Cate, A Manual of Old English Biblical Materials (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1965), p. 107.
Moyen Âge: entre ordre et désordre: Musée de la musique, 26 mars-27 juin 2004 (Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 2004, p. 96 [exhibition catalogue].
Page, Sophie, Astrology in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2002), p. 8, pl. 2.
McKendrick, Scot, & Kathleen Doyle, Bible Manuscripts: 1400 Years of Scribes and Scripture (London, 2007), figs. 53-54;
Openshaw, Kathleen, ‘The battle between Christ and Satan in the Tiberius Psalter’,Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 52 (1989) 14–33.
Openshaw, Kathleen. "Images, Texts and Contexts: The Iconography of the Tiberius Psalter, London, British Library, Cotton MS. Tiberius C.VI." Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Toronto, 1990.
Page, Sophie, Astrology in Medieval Manuscripts, (London: British Library, 2002), p. 8, pl. 2.
Prescott, A. ""Their Present Miserable State of Cremation": The Restoration of the Cotton Library." In Sir Robert Cotton as Collector: Essays on an Early Stuart Courtier and His Legacy, edited by C. J. Wright, 391-454. London: British Library, 1997.
M. R. Rambaran-Olm, John the Baptist's Prayer or the 'Descent from Hell' from the Exeter Book (Cambridge: Brewer, 2014), pp. 136-38.
Temple, Elzbieta, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 900-1066, Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 2 (London: Harvey Miller, 1976), no. 98.
Wormald, Francis, English Drawings of the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries (London, 1952), pp. 50–53, 57, 64, 68, 71, 76.
Wormald, Francis. 'An English Eleventh-Century Psalter with Pictures', Walpole Society 38 (1962): pp. 1-11.
Zeitler, Barbara, '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 (p. 72).
- Exhibitions:
- Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: Art, Word, War, British Library, London, 19 October 2018 - 19 February 2019
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)