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Harley MS 2895
- Record Id:
- 040-002048726
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002048726
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000761.0x0000a5
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100056045318.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 2895
- Title:
-
Psalter ('La Charité Psalter')
- Scope & Content:
-
This manuscript contains the so-called 'La Charité Psalter', named after the Cluniac priory of La Charité-sur-Loire where the manuscript was produced at the end of the 12th century. A prayer for a community's abbess on f. 90v suggests that the Psalter was written for a nunnery affiliated with the abbey, perhaps the Benedictine nunnery of the Holy Cross in Poitiers. This manuscript belongs to a small group of French Psalters in which an attempt was made to illustrate each of the 150 psalms with a miniature instead of a select number of psalms at the Psalter's divisions. The 'La Charité Psalter', however, lost several of its initials, most likely in the 17th century, when an owner mutilated the manuscript.
Contents:
ff. 1r-6v: A Calendar of Saints.
f. 7r: Calendric verses, beginning: ‘Pocula Ianus amat sed februus algeo clamat’.
ff. 7v-8r: Computistical tables in blue and green frames.
ff. 9r-87v: The Book of Psalms with prayers intersecting and following the Psalms, imperfect due to the loss of folios or parts of folios, beginning at Psalm 2:8.
ff. 88r-93r: A Litany of Saints.
The manuscript contains a later addition:
f. 87v: A copy of the final prayer of the Book of Psalms, written in a 16th- or 17th-century script.
[ff. 8v, 93v are blank].
Decoration:
56 large historiated initials in colours on gold or coloured grounds at the beginning of most Psalms, featuring foliate decoration and zoomorphic figures (ff. 7r, 7v, 10v, 12r, 12v, 15r, 15v, 17r, 19r, 19v, 20r, 20v, 21v, 22r, 22v, 24r, 25v, 27v, 28r, 34r, 34v, 36r, 36v, 38r, 39v (damaged), 40r, 41r, 41v, 42v, 43v, 44v, 47v, 48v, 50v, 51r, 51v, 55r, 56r, 56v, 57v, 59r, 63r, 64r, 69r, 69v, 70r, 70v, 71r, 71v, 72r, 73v, 75v, 81r, 81v, 82v, 83r): for a list of the subjects of the initials see Haseloff, Die Psalterillustration (1938), pp. 34-35; 1 large animal initial (two 'dragons') in red and blue against a gold ground (f. 72r); 10 large initials in colours and gold with foliate interlace and anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figures (ff. 74r, 74v, 76r, 77v, 78r, 78v, 85r, 85v, 86r, 86v); at least 29 other initials have been excised (ff. 10r, 14r, 14v, 18v, 23r, 25r, 26v, 29v, 30v, 31r, 31v, 32r, 33r, 35v, 37r, 39r, 42r, 46r, 46v, 49v, 54r, 60 [lower half], 61 [lower half], 62 [upper half], 65v, 67v, 79 [lower half], 80v, 84 [lower half]). 12 large miniatures in colours in roundels with gold grounds and inside blue frames, containing combination of the Labours of the Months and Signs of the Zodiac (ff. 1r-6v). Large 'KL' letters in gold on coloured grounds with foliate decoration (ff. 1r-6v). Architectural frame for a table in colours (f. 8r). Medium initials in red with blue penwork decoration, or in blue or green with red penwork decoration (some with penwork decoration in two or all of these colours) (from f. 44v mainly without green). Small initials in red, green, or blue (from f. 44v mainly without green). Rubrics in red. Paraphs in red or blue, some in foliate forms in of heads or objects, and with decoration in the other colour.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- England and France 700-1200 Project
Harley Collection - Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002048726", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 2895: Psalter ('La Charité Psalter')" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002048726 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 2895 : Psalter ('La Charité Psalter') - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[2896]/040-002048726
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
A parchment codex
- Digitised Content:
- https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100056045318.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1175
- End Date:
- 1199
- Date Range:
- 4th quarter of the 12th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 255 x 160 mm (text space: 180 x 105 mm).
Foliation: ff. i + 93 + ff. 14*, 34*, 37*, 55*, 59*, 61*, 78*, 78**, 78***, 79* ( + 6 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 1 unfoliated parchment flyleaf and 7 unfoliated modern paper flyleaves at the end); f. i is a paper flyleaf mounted on a paper stub; ff. 14*, 34*, 37*, 55*, 59*, 61*, 78*, 78**, 78***, and 79* are foliated parchment stubs; 1 unfoliated stub between f. 87 and f. 88; 2 unfoliated stubs after f. 93. The lower halves of ff. 60, 79 and 84, and the upper half of f. 62 have been removed; several other leaves are missing (see the pastedown on f. [96] recto for a full overview). The quires have been mounted on paper guards; 1 paper pastedown on f. [iv] recto (bibliographical notes); f. [95] recto (foliation); f. [96] recto (collation); f. [97] verso (note of examination).
Script: Protogothic.
Binding: Post-1600. British Museum/British Library in-house: red leather with the Harleian bookplate gold-stamped on the upper and lower covers; the spine inscribed in gold at the British Museum: ‘LA CHARITÉ PSALTER’; the label of the old spine has been pasted on f. [v] recto: ‘DIURNALI MUTILATUM’ and ‘COD. SEC. XI’; re-bound in 1973 (year gold-stamped inside upper cover).
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: La Charité-sur-Loire, Central France.
Provenance:
?The Benedictine nunnery of the Holy Cross, Poitiers: apparently written for an abbey of nuns in some relationship with the Cluniac monastery of La Charité-sur-Loire, north of Nevers: suggested by the dedication of the church of La Charité in the calendar for March 9 'dedicatio ecclesiae de kar' [highlighted in blue ink]; the feast for the Translation of St Benedict (‘Translatio Sancti Benedicti’) is also highlighted in blue ink ink (f. 2r); that the Psalter was written for a nunnery is indicated by a prayer with reference to an abbess: 'Ut abbatissam nostram conservare et confortare digneris te rogamus' (f. 90v). The nunnery of Holy Cross is suggested in Turner, Romanesque Illuminated Manuscripts (1966), p. 26.
An unknown 15th- or 16th-century owner: inscription for Leonard, abbot (at Corbigny), confessor for 15 October (f. 5v: ‘Leonardi abbatis’).
The Harley Collection, formed by Robert Harley (b. 1661, d. 1724), 1st earl of Oxford and Mortimer, politician, and Edward Harley (b. 1689, d. 1741), 2nd earl of Oxford and Mortimer, book collector and patron of the arts, inscribed as usual by their librarian, Humfrey Wanley '13 die mensis Augusti A. D. 1724' (f. 1r); and 'Horum Psalmorum Veersio, stille quae dicitur B. Hioronymi GALLICANA' (f. 9r).
Edward Harley bequeathed the library to his widow, Henrietta Cavendish, née Holles (b. 1694, d. 1755) during her lifetime and thereafter to their daughter, Margaret Cavendish Bentinck (b. 1715, d.1785), duchess of Portland; the manuscripts were sold by the Countess and the Duchess in 1753 to the nation for £10,000 (a fraction of their contemporary value) under the Act of Parliament that also established the British Museum; the Harley manuscripts form one of the foundation collections of the British Library
- Information About Copies:
-
Complete digital coverage available for this manuscript; see Digitised Manuscripts, https://bl.uk/manuscripts/.
- Publications:
-
Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), II (1808), p. 718.
William Henry James Weale and others, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Second Series of Fifty Manuscripts (Nos. 51 to 100) in the Collection of Henry Yates Thompson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1902), p. 132.
[George Warner], Reproductions from Illuminated Manuscripts, Series I (London: British Museum, 1907), pl. 19.
[John Alexander Herbert], British Museum: Reproductions from Illuminated Manuscripts, Series 1, 3rd edn (London: British Museum, 1923), pl. 19.
[John Alexander Herbert], Illuminated Manuscripts and Bindings of Manuscripts Exhibited in The Grenville Library, Guide to the Exhibited Manuscripts, 3 (Oxford: British Museum, 1923), no. 42.
Eric Millar, Souvenir de l’Exposition de Manuscrits Français a Peintures organisée a la Grenville Library (British Museum) in Janvier-Mars 1932 (Paris: Société Française de Reproductions de Manuscrits a Peintures, 1933), p. 18 (no. 8), pl. 8.
Günther Haseloff, Die Psalterillustration im 13. Jahrhundert: Studien zur Geschichte der Buchmalerei in England, Frankreich und den Niederlanden ([n. p.]: [n. pub.], 1938), pp. 33-35.
Joan Evans, Cluniac Art of the Romanesque Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1950), pp. 88-89.
Derek Howard Turner, Romanesque Illuminated Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1966), pp. 26-27, pl. 16.
Illuminated Manuscripts Exhibited in the Grenville Library (London, British Museum, 1967), no. 40.
Janet Backhouse, The Illuminated Manuscript (Oxford: Phaidon, 1979), pl. 21.
Patricia Danz Stirnemann, 'Nouvelles pratiques en matiere d'enluminure au temps de Philipe Auguste', in La France de Philippe Auguste: Le temps des mutations, ed. by R-H Bautier (Paris: CNRS, 1980), pp. 955-80 (p. 963, no. 6, pl. 4).
Martin Kauffmann, British Library, Harley MS 2895: the La Charité Psalter (Unpublished MA dissertation, University of London, Courtauld Institute of Art, 1986).
The Utrecht Psalter in Medieval Art: Picturing the Psalms of David, ed. by Koert van der Horst, William Noel, and Wilhelmina C. M. Wüstefeld (Utrecht: HES Publishers, 1996), pp. 154, 155 n. 98.
Janet Backhouse, The Illuminated Page: Ten Centuries of Manuscript Painting in the British Library (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), p. 62 (no. 47).
Elizabeth A. Peterson, ‘Scholastic Hermeneutics in Historiated Initials’, in The Illuminated Psalter: Studies in the Content, Purpose and Placement of its Images, ed. by Frank O. Büttner (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004), pp. 349-59 (pp. 349 n. 1, p. 352 n. 17, 354-55).
Scot McKendrick and Kathleen Doyle, Bible Manuscripts: 1400 Years of Scribes and Scripture (London: British Library, 2007), p. 96, fig. 83.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Notes:
- This manuscript is part of The Polonsky Foundation England and France Project: Manuscripts from the British Library and the Bibliothèque nationale de France, 700-1200.