The Eadwine psalter

Margaret T. Gibson, T. A. Heslop, Richard William Pfaff, Margaret Gibson, Richard W. Pfaff

The Eadwine Psalter (Cambridge, Trinity College MS R.17.1) is arguably the most ambitious manuscript produced in England in the twelfth century. Over a dozen scribes and artists combined to produce a book which contains five different versions of the text of the Psalms, three in Latin, one in Old English, and one in Anglo-Norman, with a prologue, a commentary, and a concluding prayer to each Psalm. In addition, the most complex set of Psalter illustrations available, those from the ninth-century Utrecht Psalter, was adapted for the project; the largest known cycle of prefatory biblical pictorial narratives of the period was devised and appended as a pictorial preface; and every Psalm, prayer, and Canticle was given a set of fully illuminated major initials as well as gold and silver minor initials throughout. Several other noteworthy images feature in the book: a portrait of the...

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