Add MS 50000

Extract from the British LibraryCatalogue of Additions (2000): THE OSCOTT PSALTER DYSON PERRINS MSS. Vol. II (formerly Dyson Perrins MS. 11). Psalter in Latin, with a metrical paraphrase of the psalms in French; written and illuminated in England, circa 1265-1270. See Warner, op. cit., i, pp. 40-7; ii, pls. xi-xv; S. C. Cockerell, Exhibition of Illuminated Manuscripts, Burlington Fine Arts Club, London, 1908, no. 39, pl. 38; E. G. Millar, English Illuminated Manuscripts from the Xth to the XIIIth Century, Paris and Brussels, 1926, p. 127; O. E. Saunders, English Illumination, Florence and Paris, 1928, i, pp. 67-8, ii, pl. 70; P. Brieger, English Art: 1216-1307, Oxford, 1957, pp. 180-1, pls. 67a, 75a; Brown, Meredith-Owens, Turner, op. cit., p. 31, colour frontispiece; M. Rickert, Painting in Britain: The Middle Ages, 2nd ed., 1965, pp. 113-14, pl. 119; D. H. Turner, Early Gothic Illuminated Manuscripts in England, 1965, pp. 25-7, pls. iii-iv and 13; M. Scheele and D. H. Turner, English Book Illustration 966-1846, 1965, pp. 9, 15; D. H. Turner, Reproductions from Illuminated Manuscripts, British Museum, Series V, 1965, nos. xi-xii; D. H. Turner, Illuminated Manuscripts Exhibited in the Grenville Library, 1967, no. 18, pl. 5; D. H. Turner, 'The Development of Maître Honoré', The Eric George Millar Bequest of Manuscripts and Drawings, B.M.Q., xxxiii, nos. 1-2, 1968, pp. 61-2; D. H. Turner, 'Two Rediscovered Miniatures of the Oscott Psalter', B.M.Q., xxxiv, 1969-70, pp. 10-19, pls. iv-v; G. Henderson, 'Studies in English Manuscript Illumination', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, xxxi, 1968, pp. 145-7, pls. 47a, c; P. Verdier, P. Brieger, M. F. Montpetit, Art and the Courts: France and England from 1259 to 1328, exhibition catalogue, National Library of Canada, Ottawa, 1972, pp. 62, 93-4, fig. 54, pls. 32-3; J. J. G. Alexander and C. M. Kauffmann, English Illuminated Manuscripts 700-1500, exhibition catalogue, Bibliothèque Royale Albert Ier, Brussels, 1973, no. 55, pl. 27; J. M. Backhouse, The Illuminated Manuscript, Oxford, 1979, p. 42, pl. 32; R. Marks and N. J. Morgan, The Golden Age of English Manuscript Painting 1200-1500, 1981, pp. 67-9, pls. 14-15; N. Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts 1250-1285, London, 1988, no. 151. Purchased by Dyson Perrins in 1908 from St Mary's College, Oscott (bookplate, f. i). Dyson Perrins's bookplate and number (f. ib), with a label showing its former Dyson Perrins number (52) on f. v. It was suggested by Abbess Laurentia McClachlan, O.S.B. (see Warner, op. cit., i, p. 47), that the MS. was given or bequeathed to Oscott College by Charles Blundell, of Ince Blundell Hall, Lancashire (d. 1837), son of Henry Blundell, the art collector (d. 1810).

Paper and vellum; ff. v+257. 298 x 187mm. 20 lines. Gatherings: i6, ii14 (1 excised, now Add. MS. 54215; 3 and [8?] excised), iii10 (1 excised), iv8, v8, vi10, vii8, viii8, ix10, x6, xi10, xii-xvii8, xviii10, xix10, xx8, xxi4 (4 excised), xxii10, xxiii-xxvii8, xxviii6, xxix-xxxi10. One excised leaf, now Add. MS. 54215, was identified in 1964 (see Turner, 'Two Rediscovered Miniatures'). Turner argued, ibid., that the MS. was possibly executed for Cardinal Ottobuono Fieschi, legate in England 1265-8, afterwards Pope Adrian V. He drew attention to the unusual entries in the calendar for the Apparition of Michael (8 May) and Agatha (12 July), both written in gold. He suggested that these entries might point to a patron with Italian interests. He also pointed out that the seated figure wearing mitre and cope represented on the leaf which is now Add. MS. 54215 does not have the normal episcopal insignia, suggesting that he might be a cardinal. Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts, pp. 138-9, comments that 'Although the "Italian" entries might reflect his [the legate's] interests it is difficult to understand why he had any connection to explain Modwenna and Edith of Polesworth . . . This identification is very ingenious but is difficult to reconcile with the evidence of the Calendar whose idiosyncratic features hardly seem suitable for a papal legate'. Morgan suggests that the psalter was intended for a 'patron in the West Midlands who had a particular interest in the religious houses of Burton-upon-Trent and Polesworth'. The MS. is in a single hand. The scribe may be the William who is mentioned on f. 215, or the name may be that of the author of the paraphrase of the psalms.

Crimson leather binding with sunk centre and corner-pieces richly tooled; doublure of the same leather also tooled, the fly-leaf opposite covered with green watered silk. Edges gilt and gauffered in a lozenge pattern. Inside the upper cover is the binder's name, J. Jones, Liverpool; and the date is approximately given by the watermark on the inner leaf after f. 17, 'J. Green, 1814'.

Contents:

1. ff. 1-6b. Calendar, in gold, blue, red and black. See further Warner, op. cit., i, pp. 40-1, and Turner, 'Two Rediscovered Miniatures', pp. 13-15.

2. ff. 18-215. Psalter, with first (Beatus) page missing. In the margin a metrical paraphrase in French, in six-line stanzas (another 13th cent. version of which is Harley MS. 4070), beg 'Cil est benure/Ki nest pas ale/As conseils as feluns:/Ne estut el sentier/Out Ceus Ki uunt pecher/Ne as seges a bricuns', ends: 'Willelme ki me escrit/Seit de deu beneit/Ki nus a rachete/Et si li doint la grace/Kil maigne uant sa face/Kant sera trespasse.'

3. ff. 216-229. Canticles, Te Deum and Athanasian Creed.

4. ff. 229-233. Litany, invoking Thomas Becket, before Laurence, as fifth and a John as ninth of eleven martyrs; a Mark after Silvester and Gregory (Pope Mark) as third and Edmund of Canterbury and William of York as last two of fourteen confessors; and Radegundis as ninth, Tecla as tenth, Genouefa as twelfth and Frideswide as thirteenth of seventeen virgins.

5. ff. 233-241b. Office of the Dead, Sarum use, with musical notation.

6. ff. 104b-110. Psalter of the B. V. Mary: 'Incipit psalterium Beate Marie uirginis sumptum de uerbis et sensibus psalmorum dauid a beato Anselmo archiepiscopo cantuariae'. In rhyming quatrains, beg. 'Aue porta paradisi:/Lignum uite quod amisi:/per te mihi iam dulcesit/ et salutis fructus crescit', ending: 'Salue fili. Salue mater/salue deus summe pater/quem sanctorum exercitus/omnisque laudat spiritus.' The corresponding psalm verses are in the right hand margin and at the psalms the Psalter is interrupted by a prose prayer to the Virgin, with a similar one coming at the end of the text. On the Psalter of the Virgin as formed in the present MS., see U. Chevalier, Repertorium Hymnologicum, i, Louvain, 1892, no. 2037, and G. M. Dreves, Analecta Hymnica Medii Aevi, xxxv, Leipzig, 1900, pp. 189-99. Besides St Anselm, St Jerome and 'a certain religious of Pontigny' have been attributed with the authorship of the text.

The decoration of the MS. consists of twenty-two full page miniatures, calendar medallions, historiated and other initals, marginal subjects and line endings, as follows (see Warner, op. cit., i, pp. 42-7):

I. Calendar medallions. Two roundels on each page of the calendar, the top one with the zodiac sign, the bottom one with the labour of the month.

II. Full page minatures. These come between the calendar and the psalter and now number twenty-two. As at present arranged, the series is out of order and three folios appear to be missing. The missing folio which is now Add. MS. 54215 contains on one side a miniature of the Tree of Jesse and on the other an enthroned ecclesiastic, presumably the person for whom the Psalter was commissioned. This folio probably came at the beginning of the sequence of miniatures. In order to complete the cycle of scenes from Christ's life, representations are required of the Nativity of Christ, the Annunciation to the Shepherds, the Entry into Jerusalem and the Last Supper, and these were probably found on two further missing folios. These folios presumably followed the arrangement of most of the other leaves containing miniatures, with two scenes from the Life of Christ, with supporting subjects, on one side and a single figure of a saint on the other. If so, there would originally have been twelve single figures of saints in the sequence of miniatures and these may well have been meant for the twelve apostles. It seems likely that the sequence of miniatures originally began with the folio that is now Add. MS. 54215, continued with a series of diptychs in which a pair of facing pages relating to the saviour's life alternated with a pair of pages with figues of saints, and concluded with representations of the Last Judgement, Christ in Majesty and King David. With reference to the present foliation of the Oscott Psalter, the suggested original order of its full page miniatures would be:- Add. MS. 54215 (picture of patron on recto, Tree of Jesse on verso), f. 7, missing folio (single figure of saint on recto, Nativity of Christ and Annunciation to the Shepherds on verso), ff. 8, 9, 13, 14, missing folio (the Entry into Jerusalem and Last Supper on recto, single figure of saint on verso), ff. 16, 10, 11, 17, 12, 15. In their present order the miniatures represent:

1. f. 7. Upper roundel: the Annunciation. Lower roundel: the Visitation. At the sides: left, the creation of heaven and earth; right, the creation of the sea. In the corners: four heads.

2. f. 7b. St Peter.

3. f. 8. Upper roundel: the Three Magi on horseback. Lower roundel: the Magi before Herod. At the sides: left, the creations of the birds and beasts; right, the creation of Adam. In the corners: four bearded heads, one crowned.

4. f. 8b. St Andrew.

5. f. 9. St Bartholomew.

6. f. 9b. Upper roundel: the Adoration of the Magi. Lower roundel: the Magi warned by an angel. At the sides: left, God carrying the sleeping Adam; right, the creation of Eve. In the corners: above, two angels with censers; below, the horses of the Magi.

7. f. 10. Upper roundel: Christ mocked. Lower roundel: Christ scourged. At the sides: left, Noah building the Ark; right, Noah receiving back the dove. In the corners: a King, half length, with a sword, and three heads.

8. f. 10b. Unidentified saint.

9. f. 11. Unidentified saint.

10. f. 11b. Upper roundel: the Carrying of the Cross. Lower roundel: the Crucifixion. At the sides: left, the destruction of Sodom and Lot's wife; right, an angel leads away Lot's family. In the corners: above, two heads mocking; below, the Virgin and St Peter.

11. f. 12. Unidentified saint.

12. f. 12b. Upper and lower roundel: The Last Judgement. Outside and around the roundels are scenes of the resurrection of the dead.

13. f. 13. Upper roundel: the Massacre of the Innocents. Lower roundel: the Flight into Egypt. At the sides: left, God addressing Adam and Eve; right, the Fall. In the corners: above, heads in a helmet and mail coif; below, heads of a queen praying and a man in a flat cap.

14. f. 13b. Unidentified saint.

15. f. 14. Unidentified saint.

16. f. 14b. Upper roundel: the Purification. Lower roundel: the Baptism of Christ. At the sides: left, God rebukes Adam and Eve; right, the Expulsion from Paradise. In the corners: above, two figures with tapers; below, Saul and David.

17. f. 15. Christ in Majesty. In the corners: the evangelists with their symbols.

18. f. 15b. King David.

19. f. 16. Unidentified saint.

20. f. 16b. Upper roundel; the Betrayal of Christ. Lower roundel: Christ before Pilate. At the sides: left, the sacrifices of Cain and Abel; right, the murder of Abel. In the corners: above, two angels; below, two Jews with pointed caps.

21. f. 17. Upper roundel: the Harrowing of Hell. Lower roundel: the Resurrection. At the sides: left, Abraham followed by Isaac; right, the sacrifice of Abraham. In the corners: four heads, two with mail coifs.

22. f. 17b. Unidentified saint.

III. Ten historiated initials marking the ferial divisions of the psalter (the initial for Ps. 1 is missing), the beginning of the Office of the Dead and the beginning of the Psalter of the Virgin. The initials are decorated with foliage and dragons, proliferating into the margins. Further decoration of the initials, and the pages bearing them, consists of human figures, animals, grotesques, etc. This cycle of scenes occurs in a number of English psalters of 1240-1300: see G. Haseloff, Die Psalterillustration im 13. Jahrhundert, Kiel, 1938, pp. 60-4, table 16. The scenes are:

1. f. 48. Ps. 26. Initial D. The Coronation of David.

2. f. 66b. Ps. 38. Initial D. David kneeling before Christ.

3. f. 83. Ps. 51. Initial Q. David playing the harp before Saul.

4. f. 84. Ps. 52. Initial D. David and a fool.

5. f. 101. Ps. 68. Initial S. Above, Jonah about to be cast out of the boat; below, Jonah and the whale.

6. f. 125. Ps. 80. Initial C. David playing on five bells.

7. f. 146b. Ps. 97. Initial C. Three clerks at a lectern, singing.

8. f. 168. Ps. 109. Initial D. Above, the Trinity; below, the Ascension.

The scene in the initial at the beginning of the Office of the Dead represents a funeral (f. 233) and that in the initial at the beginning of the Psalter of the Virgin shows the Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple (f. 242).

IV. Smaller initials to the individual psalms, etc., 150 of which are historiated. Their decoration and composition comprise foliage, dragons, human figures, animals, grotesques, etc.

V. Verse initials. These are alternately burnished gold decorated with blue penwork and blue decorated with red penwork.

VI. Line endings, comprising ornamental designs in blue and gold, frequently forming feather, herring bone or guilloche patterns, and outline drawings of dragons, lions, dogs, horses, rabbits, grotesques, etc.

It has been argued that the full page miniatures, whilst coming from the same atelier, are the work of two artists. The first artist seems to have been responsible for the single figures of saints and King David, while the second produced the miniatures of scenes from the Life of Christ with the Last Judgement and Christ in Majesty: see Turner, Early Gothic Illuminated Manuscripts in England, pp. 25-7. The calendar medallions and major historiated initials should probably be assigned to a third hand. They do not show the sophistication of the full page miniatures in, for example, the use of posture or facial expression to convey dramatic feeling.

Turner, Saunders, Verdier and others have proposed a date of circa 1270 for the Oscott Psalter (see, e.g., Turner, Early Illuminated Manuscripts, p. 29, and 'Two Rediscovered Miniatures', p. 17; Verdier, Brieger, Montpetit, pp. 93-4; Backhouse, op. cit., p. 42), based on a supposed similarity in the style of illumination in the Oscott Psalter to the paintings on the Westminster Panel or Retable, and the miniatures in the Latin text of the Douce Apocalypse in the Bodleian Library, for facsimile reproductions of which see M. R. James, The Apocalypse in Latin and French (Bod. MS. Douce 10), Roxburghe Club, Cambridge, 1922; A. G. and W. O. Hassall, The Douce Apocalypse, London, 1961; Apocalypse. MS. Douce 180, Codices Selecti, lxxii, Graz, 1981, with commentary by P. Klein, Codices Selecti, lxxii*, Graz, 1983. The paintings on the Westminster panel were dated circa 1270 by F. Wormald (see 'Paintings in Westminster Abbey and Contemporary Paintings', Proceedings of the British Academy, xxxv, 1949, pp. 161-76) and E. Tristram (see English Medieval Wall Painting: the Thirteenth Century, Oxford, 1950, pp. 127-48, 562-4). A historiated initial in the Douce Apocalypse (f. 1) contains the arms used by Edward I and Eleanor of Castile before their accession to the throne, and it has consequently usually been assumed that the Douce Apocalypse was executed between 1254 and 1272. James assigned it to circa 1270, but did not provide a detailed justification of this dating. It should be noted, however, that other dates have been suggested for both the Westminster Panel and the Douce Apocalpyse (e.g. Henderson, op. cit., pp. 113-29, gives circa 1260; Rickert, op. cit., pp. 112-13, 115-18, circa 1258). Doubts have also been expressed as to whether the arms of Edward and Eleanor are a reliable indication of the dating of the Douce Apocalypse (e.g. Henderson, op. cit., pp. 121-3; Klein, op. cit., pp. 38-42). Nevertheless, Klein, who provides the most detailed analysis of the dating of the Douce Apocalypse, has concluded that the miniatures in the Latin text of the Douce Apocalypse were executed between 1270 and 1274, and places the Westminster Panel in the 1280s. This is based on stylistic analysis of works attributed to the 'Court School' of Westminster, and stresses parallels between the miniatures in the Douce Apocalypse and paintings in the south transept of Westminster Abbey, generally accepted as having been executed circa 1270 (see Tristram, op. cit., pp. 121-7). Klein's dating of the Douce Apocalypse would support a dating of circa 1270 for the Oscott Psalter. Although the miniatures in the Douce Apocalypse and the illumination in the Oscott Psalter are sufficiently close in style to suggest that they are also extremely close in date (compare, e.g., the facial types, the gesticulating fingers of the figures and the flatness of their tunics by comparison with their mantles), the Oscott Psalter is in some respects less stylistically advanced than the Douce Apocalypse (e.g., the figures in the Douce Apocalypse have more elegant and mannered poses). This suggests that the Oscott Psalter was executed just as work was starting on the Douce Apocalypse, placing it at the beginning of the period proposed by Klein for the miniatures in the Douce Apocalypse. If Turner's identification of the patron of the Oscott Psalter portrayed in Add. MS. 54215 with Cardinal Ottobuono Fieschi is accepted, this would also support a dating of circa 1270.

Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts, no. 151, gives a dating for the Oscott Psalter of circa 1265-1270, but rejects the suggestion of parallels with Westminster painting as 'only applicable as a general influence evident in two particularly elegantly posed Apostle figures (ff. 10v, 12), and . . . not characteristic of the more usual angular harshly posed figures with sharp facial expressions'. He argues that the smaller scale work and decoration was mainly by artists from a workshop located in Oxford, and states that the head types of some of the full page miniatures suggest a derivation from some artists of the de Brailes workshop, based in Oxford. He states that 'Border bars terminating in triangular blocks of ornament are an inheritance from the de Brailes workshop as is the setting of medallions against foliate coils occurring in the Tree of Jesse page'.

Brieger (op. cit., p. 180) has suggested that there is a parallel between the single figures of saints in the Oscott Psalter and the medallions of the apostles on the vault of the chapter house, Christ Church, Oxford (see Tristram, op. cit., pl. 83-93), but few similarities in the style and treatment of figures are apparent. The Oscott Psalter has also been related in certain likenesses of script, layout, and figure style to the Salvin Hours, Add. MS. 48985 (see Brown, Meredith-Owens, Turner, op. cit., p. 31). There are a number of resemblances between the miniatures in the Oscott Psalter and those in the fragment of a psalter in St John's College, Cambridge, MS. K. 26, and in an apocalypse in the Gulbenkian collection in Lisbon, LA 139, formerly Yates Thompson MS. 55 (see Henderson, op. cit., pp. 145-7; photographs of the MS. are MS. Facs. 560 (1)). The theatrical poses of the single figures of saints in the Oscott Psalter seem to recall the treatment of the figure of St John in some apocalypse illustrations, particularly those in the former Dyson Perrins MS. 10, which was subsequently in the Ludwig collection and is now in the J. Paul Getty Center, Los Angeles (see Henderson, op. cit., pp. 145-7; A. von Euw and J. M. Plotzek, Die Handschriften der Sammlung Ludwig, 1, Cologne, 1979, no. III; and, for a facsimile reproduction, M. R. James The Apocalypse in Latin (MS. 10 in the collection of C. W. Dyson Perrins), Oxford, 1927).