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Lansdowne MS 420
- Record Id:
- 040-002075122
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002075122
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000001257.0x0001d9
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100059470505.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Lansdowne MS 420
- Title:
- Psalter
- Scope & Content:
-
This manuscript contains an illuminated Psalter that was most likely produced in the diocese of London in the 1220s. The manuscript’s style of decoration appears to be influenced by contemporary French Psalters (Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts (1982), pp. 86-87). Of special interest are the manuscript’s decorated initials and many marginal decorations that contain numerous images of fish and other zoomorphic and hybrid figures, some of which may have been influenced by fables (e.g. the fox with the crosier on f. 77r and f. 86v).
Contents:
ff. 2r-6v: A Calendar.
ff. 12v-140v: The Book of Psalms, imperfect.
ff. 140v-154r: Canticles (a canticle based on Isaiah 38; a canticle based on 1 Samuel 2; Cantemus Domino gloriose; Domine audivi auditum; Audite celi que loquar; Benedicite, omnia opera Domini; Benedictus Dominus Deus Israel; Magnificat; Nunc dimittis; the Athanasian Creed (Quicumque vult)).
ff. 154r-156v: The litany of saints.
Decoration:
1 full-page miniature in colours against a gold background in a rectangular frame in gold, orange and blue on f. 12r: King David playing harp with a musician.
10 two-compartment miniatures in colours, each containing two roundels in rectangular frames in gold, orange and blue. The subjects of the miniatures are as follows:
f. 7r: The Annunciation and the Visitation.
f. 7v: The Nativity and the Annunciation to the Shepherds.
f. 8r: The Journey of the Magi and the Magi before Herod.
f. 8v: The Adoration and the Dream of the Magi.
f. 9r: The Death of Herod and the Coronation of Archelaus; Joseph’s Dream and the Flight into Egypt.
f. 9v: Christ teaching and Joseph advised by the angel to return from Egypt; the return from Egypt and (possibly) the Wedding at Cana.
f. 10: Christ’s baptism and the Temptations of Christ.
f. 10v: The Raising of Lazarus and Entry into Jerusalem.
f. 11r: The Washing of the Feet and Last Supper.
f. 11v: The Arrest of Christ and the mocking of Christ.
10 roundels with the signs of the Zodiac and 10 roundels with the labours of the months, in colours against a gold background, on ff. 2r-6v (July and August are missing). Text in gold frames on ff. 2r-6v.
1 large (full-page) initial (‘B’) with 4 prophets in medallions in the corners, 1 medallion with King David. 1 medallion with an animal retainer, 8 medallions containing animals playing instruments, against a blue background, in frames of gold and orange (f. 12v).
1 large historiated initial (‘D’) in gold, containing a miniature in colours of the Judgement of Solomon (f. 47r).
Large initials in gold and blue, some containing fish. Medium gold initials in purple frames with anthropomorphic (e.g. Christ on f. 13r), zoomorphic (fish and dragons) and hybrid (e.g. a monk with a zoomorphic head on f. 24v) figures inside their letters against a blue background at the beginning of separate psalms. Small gold initials in purple and blue frames at the beginning of separate verses, some with pen-flourishing in red and blue. Line-fillers in blue and red, containing chains of human heads, hands, and zoomorphic figures (predominantly fish). Fish, human heads and zoomorphic figures in red and blue, with pen-flourishing, in the margins. Many drawings based on the manuscript’s miniatures have been added in brown ink by an owner in the margins.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- England and France 700-1200 Project
Lansdowne Collection - Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002075122", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Lansdowne MS 420: Psalter" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002060013
040-002075122 - Is part of:
- Lansdowne MS 1-1245 : Lansdowne Manuscripts
Lansdowne MS 420 : Psalter - Hierarchy:
- 032-002060013[0285]/040-002075122
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Lansdowne MS 1-1245
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100059470505.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1220
- End Date:
- 1229
- Date Range:
- 1220s
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 305 x 215 mm (text space: 220 x 135 mm).
Foliation: 156 ( + 5 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 6 at the end); f. [v] is a modern paper leaf with the watermark: ‘G Pike 1806’; f. 1 and f. [157] are modern paper leaves with watermarks of a coat of arms (both unidentified); f. 1 folio missing between f. 4 and f. 5 (July-August); 1 folio missing between f. 59 and f. 60 (Psalms 50:10-52).
Script: Gothic.
Binding: Post-1600. Red leather with gold tooling and the heraldic arms of Lansdowne, the spine inscribed in gold at the British Museum: ‘PSALTERIUM CUM CANTICIS. SEC. XIII’.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: London, Southeastern England.
Provenance:
?A workshop in the diocese of London: the Calendar includes entries for the bishops of London Mellitus and Erkenwald (and his Translation), St Ethelbert, St Osyth, and St Ethelburga.
?A member of the Hulse family in Norbury: an owner has added an obit to the Calendar for David Hulse of Norbury, who died on 24 May 1436; perhaps the same member added brown ink drawings in the margins throughout the manuscript (and possibly an erased ownership inscription on f. 138r).
?John Somers (b. 1651, d. 1716), Baron Somers, lawyer and politician: a note dated 1738 by James West that it once belonged to Somers (f. 1r).
Sir Joseph Jekyll (bap. 1662, d. 1738), lawyer and politician, brother-in-law of Somers: a note dated 1738 by James West that it was purchased from him (f. 1r).
James West (1703-1772), politician and antiquary: a note that it was purchased by him from Jekyll dated 27 February 1738 (f. 1r); his sale, May 1773, purchased by William Petty (a shelfmark or price on f. 1r: 'LLe 108').
William Petty (formerly Fitzmaurice) (b. 1737, d. 1805), 2nd earl of Shelburne and 1st marquess of Lansdowne, prime minister: his book-plate with heraldic arms and the motto 'virtute non verbis' (centre of the bindings); purchased by the British Museum together with 1244 other Lansdowne manuscripts in 1807.
- Information About Copies:
-
Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts, https://bl.uk/manuscripts/.
Select digital coverage available for this manuscript; see the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts, https://bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/.
- Publications:
-
Henry Ellis and Francis Douce, A Catalogue of the Lansdowne Manuscripts in the British Museum (London, 1819), no. 420.
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. 6.
John Alexander Herbert, Illuminated Manuscripts (London: Methuen, 1911), p. 179.
John Bradley, Illuminated Manuscripts, 2nd edn (London: Bracken Books, 1920), p. 253 (no. 18).
Eric G. Millar, English Illuminated Manuscripts from the Xth to the XIIIth Century (Paris: Van Oest, 1926), p. 119.
Margaret Rickert, Painting in Britain: the Middle Ages, 2nd edn (London: Penguin Books, 1965), pp. 98, 100 pl. 96a.
Lilian M. C. Randall, Images in the Margins of Gothic Manuscripts (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966), p. 33.
Francis Klingender, Animals in Art and Thought to the End of the Middle Ages, ed. by Evelyn Antal and John Harthan (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1971), p. 399, pl. 232.
Mojmír S. Frinta, ‘Punchmarks in the Ingeborg Psalter’, in The Year 1200: A Symposium (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1975), pp. 251-60 (p. 253, fig. 4).
Nigel Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts, 2 vols, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 4 (London Harvey Miller, 1982-1988), I: 1190-1250, no. 37, pls 126-129; II: 1250-1285, pp. 81, 117, 138.
Jonathan J. G. Alexander, Medieval Illuminators and their Methods of Work (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), p. 162 n. 87.
Nigel Morgan, ‘The Decorative Ornament of the Text and Page in Thirteenth-Century England: Initials, Border Extensions and Line Fillers’, in Decoration and Illustration in Medieval English Manuscripts, English Manuscript Studies 1100-1700, 10 (London: British Library, 2002), pp. 1-33 (p. 13, pls 14, 17).
Claus Michael Kauffmann, Biblical Imagery in Medieval England 700-1500 (London: Harvey Miller, 2003), p. 173.
- 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.