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Add MS 38116
- Record Id:
- 040-002057326
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002057322
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000001102.0x0003a9
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100057739585.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Add MS 38116
- Title:
- Psalter ('The Huth Psalter')
- Scope & Content:
-
This Psalter is notable for the prefatory image cycle of 11 full-page illuminations, some of which exhibit unusual subject matter. Entries in the calendar and litany of northern English saints, including St Hugh of Lincoln (in blue), suggest a Lincolnshire or Yorkshire origin, and it was likely created between 1280-1300 (Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts (1988), no. 167).
Contents:
f. 1v: Guide for calculating Easter in Latin and French.
ff. 2r-7v: Calendar, with late 14th-century additions.
ff. 8v-13v: Prefatory cycle.
ff. 14v-150r: Psalter (Gallican).
ff. 150r-164r: Canticles.
ff. 164r-168v: Litany.
ff. 169r-174r: Offices of the Dead.
Decoration:
11 full-page framed miniatures in colours on gold grounds (ff. 8v-13v). 2 full-page historiated initials in colours on gold grounds with zoomorphic and foliate decoration (ff. 14v, 119v). 7 historiated initials with display script and partial borders with birds, animals, and foliate and zoomorphic decoration (ff. 35r, 48r, 60v, 89r, 103v, 105v, 119v). 24 small calendar roundels of the signs of the Zodiac and labours of the month in colours (ff. 2r-7v). 2 initials have been removed (ff. 60r, 73r). Numerous framed initials in gold on rose and blue grounds with white highlights throughout. Numerous alternating small initials in gold with pen-flourishing in blue or in blue with pen-flourishing in red throughout. Line-fillers in red and blue with gold throughout.
The subjects of the miniatures are:
f. 8v: God the Creator framed by a quatrefoil surrounded by six roundels of Creation scenes: the Creation of the Firmament, God holding a compass, the Creation of the Trees, the Sun and Moon, the Animals, and Adam;
f. 9r: The Temptation, Expulsion, Eve spinning and Adam digging, and Cain murdering Abel;
f. 9v: The Annunciation, Annunciation to the Shepherds, and Nativity;
f. 10r: The Adoration of the Magi, Herod ordering the Massacre of the Innocents, and the Massacre of the Innocents;
f. 10v: The Entry into Jerusalem and the Betrayal;
f. 11r: Christ before Caiaphas, the Derision of Christ, and the Flagellation;
f. 11v: The Crucifixion, including the nailing of Christ to the Cross, the giving of the sponge and spearing of Christ's side;
f. 12r: Christ emerging from the Tomb, 'Noli me tangere', Ascension and Pentecost;
f. 12v: Martyrdoms of Sts Peter, Andrew, Paul and Stephen;
f. 13r: Martyrdom of St Thomas Becket, St Margaret emerging from the dragon, and the Martyrdom of St Catherine;
f. 13v: The Last Judgement.
The subject of the two full-page historiated initials are:
f. 14v: Historiated 'B' with the Tree of Jesse, including David attacking Goliath with his slingshot, and two knights tilting;
f. 119v: Historiated initial 'D' at the beginning of Psalm 109 with two roundels of the Trinity, above, and the Coronation of the Virgin, below, with two half roundels on either side containing female figures representing Ecclesia and Synagoga.
The subjects of the 7 historiated initials are:
f. 35r: Anointing of David or Solomon;
f. 48r: A man standing before David;
f. 60v: Christ above the Fool with a man pointing upwards to Christ;
f. 89r: David playing the bells with a musician and acrobat;
f. 103v: Three monks singing at a lectern;
f. 105v: David kneeling before Christ;
f. 119v: The Coronation of the Virgin and Ecclesia and Synagoga, beneath the Trinity.
The style of illumination has links to the William of Devon group and the Salvin Hours, British Library, Additional MS 48985 (Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts (1988), nos. 158 and 167).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Additional Manuscripts
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002057322
040-002057326 - Is part of:
- Add MS 38114-38126 : HUTH BEQUEST. The following thirteen MSS., 38114-38126, were included amoung the fifty books to be selected from his…
Add MS 38116 : Psalter ('The Huth Psalter') - Hierarchy:
- 032-002057322[0002]/040-002057326
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Add MS 38114-38126
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
A parchment codex.
- Digitised Content:
- https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100057739585.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1280
- End Date:
- 1300
- Date Range:
- 1280-1300
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript.
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment codex.
Dimensions: 235 x 160 mm (text space 145 x 90 mm).
Foliation: ff. 174 (+ 3 modern paper flyleaves at the beginning and end).
Script: Gothic, written below top line.
Binding: Post-1600. Brown leather with gold tooling; marbled endpapers.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: England, N. (Lincoln?).
Provenance:
(?) Robert de Upton (perhaps the witness to a charter at Kingswood Abbey in 1280): his obit, added to the calendar for 2 August, c.1300 (f. 5v).
Alfred Henry Huth (b. 1850, d. 1910), book collector: his bookplate inside the upper binding and in his catalogue, The Huth Library, 5 vols (London: Ellis & White, 1880), IV, pp. 1191-192; bequeathed by him to the British Museum in 1910 (see Catalogue of the Fifty Manuscripts (1912), no III).
- Administrative Context:
- Northern England.
- Information About Copies:
- Select digital coverage available for this manuscript; see the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts, https://bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/.
- Publications:
-
Catalogue of the Fifty Manuscripts & Printed Books bequeathed to the British Museum by Alfred Huth (London: Trustees of the British Museum, 1912), pp. 2-4.
Schools of Illumination: Reproductions from Manuscripts in the British Museum, 6 vols (London: British Museum, 1914-1930), II: English 12th and 13th Centuries (1915), pl. 12 c-d.
The British Museum Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the years 1911-1915, 2 vols (London: British Museum, 1969), I, Descriptions, pp. 14-16.
Eric. G. Millar, English Illuminated Manuscripts from the Xth to the XIIIth Century (Paris: Van Oest, 1926), p. 1128.
Eric G. Millar, British Museum Reproductions from Illuminated Manuscripts, Series 4 (London: British Museum, 1928), pls 21, 22.
Günther Haseloff, Die Psalterillustration im 13. Jahrhundert : Studien zur Geschichte der Buchmalerei in England, Frankreich und den Niederlanden Kiel ([n.pub.], 1938), p. 61.
Peter Brieger, English Art 1216-1307, Oxford History of English Art 4, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1968), p.167.
Janet Backhouse, The Illuminated Manuscript (Oxford, 1979), pl. 31.
François Avril and Patricia Danz Stirnemann, Manuscrits enluminés d’origine insulaire VIIe-XXe siècle (Paris: Bibliothèque nationale, 1987), p. 162.
Nigel Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts 1250-1285, 2 vols, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 4 (London Harvey Miller, 1982-1988), II: 1250-1285, no.167 [with additional bibliography].
Ruth Dean and Maureen Bolton, Anglo-Norman Literature: A Guide to Texts and Manuscripts (London: Anglo-Norman Text Society, 1999), no. 343.
John Higgitt, The Murthly Hours: Devotion, Literacy and Luxury in Paris, England and the Gaelic West (London: British Library, 2000), pp. 212, 217, 224, 252, 258.
Naomi Reed Kline, Maps of Medieval Thought: The Hereford Paradigm (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2001) pp. 65-67.
Ruth Mellinkoff, 'One is Good, Two are Better: The Twice-Appearing Ass in a Thirteenth-Century English Nativity', in New Offerings, Ancient Treasures: Studies in Medieval Art for George Henderson, ed. by Paul Binski and William Noel (Stroud, 2001), pp. 325-42.
Paul Binski, Becket’s Crown: Art and Imagination in Gothic England 1170-1300 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), pl. 180.
F. O. Büttner, ‘Der illuminierte Psalter im Westen’, in The Illuminated Psalter: Studies in the Content, Purpose and Placement of its Images, ed. by F. O. Büttner, (Belgium: Brepols, 2004), pp. 1-106 (p. 15).
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)