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Cotton MS Domitian A XVII
- Record Id:
- 040-001103696
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-001101582
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000001273.0x000009
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Cotton MS Domitian A XVII
- Title:
- Psalter (‘Psalter of Henry VI’)
- Scope & Content:
-
This manuscript was made around 1405-1410, possibly for Louis, duke of Guyenne and Dauphin of France; in c. 1420 it was supplemented with a set of computistical tables (ff. 8r-11r); and in c. 1430-1431 the Psalter was possibly adapted for king Henry VI of England. At this stage the English arms were painted over the earlier arms of France in a series of royal portraits included in existing miniatures, and a new cycle of miniatures was inserted.
The manuscript includes:
1. Flyleaves with the shelfmark of the Cottonian library and description of contents (ff. ii recto-1r).
2. Calendar in French (ff. 2r-7v);
3. Computistical, lunar tables for the years 1420-1462 (ff. 8r-11r);
4. Psalter in 8 liturgical divisions, with Canticles, ends imperfectly at the beginning of the Litany, explicit: ''Sancta virgo virginum'' (ff. 12r-288v).
f. 98 was removed by Sir Robert Cotton and the miniature was cut out of it to form part of the frontispiece of Cotton MS Tiberius A. II. In 1848, the miniature alone was restored to the manuscript by Sir Frederic Madden, keeper of manuscripts at the British Museum (d. 1873).
Decoration:
The manuscript contains two separate series of miniatures: 8 miniatures in colours and gold at the beginning of Psalm divisions (ff. 13r, 50r, 75r, 98r, 123r, 151r, 178r, 207r) and a cycle of 7 miniatures in colours and gold added later on the facing pages (ff. 12v, 49v, 74v, 122v, 150v, 177v, 206v). Foliate initials in gold and colours, line fillers. Each page is surrounded by a full border.
The miniatures of the first campaign were attributed by Meiss (1974) to the Master of Berry’s Clères Femmes (fl. c. 1400–1410), but this attribution has not been universally accepted (see McKendrick in Royal Manuscripts 2011). The artist(s) of the second campaign was associated with the Master of the Royal Alexander (Reynolds 1994).
The subjects of miniatures are:
Psalm 1: David fighting Goliath; King David playing his harp; Young prince at prayer (f. 13r).
Psalm 26: The young prince presented by St Louis to the Virgin (f. 50r).
Psalm 38: The young prince presented by St Catherine to the Virgin (f. 75r).
Psalm 52: The young prince praying before Christ as Vir Dolorum (f. 98r).
Psalm 68: Christ and the apostles in a ship on a stormy sea, with two smaller scenes of Jonas and Tobias in the border (f. 123r).
Psalm 80: Coronation of the Virgin with saints (f. 151r).
Psalm 97: The young prince attending a mass (f. 178r).
Psalm 109: The young prince before God the Father with Christ showing him his wounds and the Virgin showing her breast (f. 207r).
Added miniatures:
Interior of a chapel with a bishop and other clerics sitting in stalls (f. 12r).
Hermits (f. 49v).
Nuns praying in stalls (f. 74v).
Monks praying in stalls (f. 122v).
Monks praying in stalls (f. 150v).
Nuns praying in stalls (f. 177v).
King David with other musicians (f. 206v).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Cotton Collection
Royal Manuscripts Digitisation Project - Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-001101582
040-001103696 - Is part of:
- Cotton MS : Cotton Manuscripts
Cotton MS Domitian A XVII : Psalter (‘Psalter of Henry VI’) - Hierarchy:
- 032-001101582[1161]/040-001103696
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Cotton MS
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
288 folios.
- Digitised Content:
- http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Cotton_MS_Domitian_A_XVII (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- French
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1400
- End Date:
- 1435
- Date Range:
- c 1405-c 1430
- 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: 205 x150 mm (text space:)
Foliation: fos. ii + 288 + i (the unfoliated flyleaves include 1 paper leaf at the beginning and at the end, and 1 parchment leaf at the beginning; f. 1 is a parchment flyleaf; 2 blank unfoliated leaves after f. 7).
Script: Gothic.
Binding: British Museum in-house binding. Rebound in 1841.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: France (Paris), France or England (ff. 8r-11r), and France (Paris or Rouen) (ff. 12v, 49v, 74v, 122v, 150v, 206v).
Provenance:
Louis (b. 1397, d. 1415), duke of Guyenne and dauphin of France, perhaps made for him: the miniatures include a portrait of a young boy wearing the royal arms of France (now overpainted with the arms of England) (e.g., f. 50r).
Henry VI (b. 1421, d. 1471), king of England and lord of Ireland, and duke of Aquitaine, adapted for him: the royal arms of England overpainting the arms of France in a series of royal portraits (see above).
Patrick Young (b. 1584, d. 1652), librarian successively to prince Henry Frederick, James I, and Charles I: included in Sir Robert Cotton''s list of loans, exchanges, and memoranda (Add. MS 35313, f. 34v) as ''An old latin Salter in 8o'' received from Young, c. 1616 (see Tite 2003, p. 77).
Sir Robert Bruce Cotton (b. 1571, d. 1631), 1st baronet, antiquary and politician: Cottonian shelfmark by the ''Stylized hand'', ''Domitianus A. 17'' (f. ii verso), and a table of contents by the Cottonian librarian Richard James (f. 1r). Included in Cotton catalogues, Add. MS 36789, f. 114v, and Add. MS 36682.
Cotton’s collection was augmented by his son, Sir Thomas Cotton (b. 1594, d. 1662), 2nd baronet, and grandson, Sir John Cotton.
Sir John Cotton (b. 1621, d. 1702), 3rd baronet: 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.
- Administrative Context:
-
France (Paris), France or England (ff. 8r-11r), and France (Paris or Rouen) (ff. 12v, 49v, 74v, 122v, 150v, 206v).
- Information About Copies:
-
Full digital coverage available for this manuscript, see Digitised Manuscripts http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/.
- Publications:
-
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. 13.
J. A. Herbert, Illuminated Manuscripts and Bindings of Manuscripts Exhibited in The Grenville Library, Guide to the Exhibited Manuscripts, 3 (Oxford: British Museum, 1923), no. 61.
Schools of Illumination: Reproductions from Manuscripts in the British Museum, 6 vols (London: British Museum, 1914-1930), VI: French: Mid 14th to 16th Centuries, pl. 11a.
Jean porcher, Les Belles Heures de Jean de France, duc de Berry (Paris: Bibliothèque nationale de France, 1953), pp. 26-27.
Millard Meiss, ''French and Italian Variations on an Early Fifteenth-century Theme: St Jerome in his Study'', Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 62 (1963), 147-70 (p. 149).
Otto, Pächt, ''Zur Entstehung des "Hieronymus in Gehäus"'', Pantheon, 21 (1963), 131-42 (pp. 138-39).
Eleanor Spencer, ''The Master of the Duke of Bedford: The Salisbury Breviary'', Burlington Magazine, 108 (1966), 607-12 (p. 612).
Millard Meiss, with Sharon Off Dunlap Smith and Elizabeth Home Beaton, French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry: The Limbourgs and Their Contemporaries, 2 vols (London: Thames and Hudson, 1974) I, pp. 375, 405
English Court Culture in the Later Middle Ages, ed. by V. J. Scattergood and J. W. Sherborne (London: Duckworth, 1983), pl. 10.
Catherine Reynolds, ‘English Patrons and French Artists in Fifteenth-Century Normandy’, in England and Normandy in the Middle Ages, ed. by D. Bates and A. Curry (London, 1994), p. 304.
Kathleen L. Scott, Later Gothic Manuscripts 1390-1490, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 6, 2 vols (London: Harvey Miller, 1996), II, 154, 240.
Janet Backhouse, The Illuminated Page: Ten Centuries of Manuscript Painting in the British Library (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), no. 130.
Justin Clegg, The Medieval Church in Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2003), p. 2 (frontispiece), p. 30, fig. 24.
Colin G. C. Tite, The Early Records of Sir Robert Cotton''s Library: Formation, Cataloguing, Use (London: British Library, 2003), pp. 77, 207-08, 256.
Janet Backhouse, ''The Psalter of Henry VI (London, BL, MS Cotton Dom. A. XVII)’'', in The Illuminated Psalter: Studies in the Content, Purpose and Placement of its Images, ed. by F. O. Büttner, (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004), pp. 329-36.
Gregory T. Clark, ''The Influence of the Limbourg Brothers in France and the Southern Netherlands'', in The Limbourg Brothers: Nijmegen Brothers and the French Court 1400-1416, ed. by Rob Dückers and Pieter Roelofs (Amsterdam: Ludion, 2005), pp. 209-35 (pp. 217-23).
Catherine Reynolds, ''The "Très Riches Heures", the Bedford Workshop and Barthélemy d''Eyck'', Burlington Magazine, 147 (2005), 526-33 (p. 529).
Patricia Stirnemann and Claudia Rabel, ''The "Très Riches Heures" and Two Artists Associated with the Bedford Workshop'', Burlington Magazine, 147 (2005), 534-38 (p. 538).
Scot McKendrick, John Lowden, and Kathleen Doyle, Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination (London: British Library, 2011), no. 141 exhibition catalogue.
- Exhibitions:
- Discovering literature: Shakespeare and Renaissance, (online), 30 April 2016-
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)