English Manuscript Illustration and the Utrecht Psalter

* This article is dedicated with respect and gratitude to Dr. Walter W. S. Cook on his seventieth birthday. Its preparation was assisted by a grant from the Graduate School Research Fund of the University of Minnesota. Photo acknowledgements: for the Utrecht Psalter (Utrecht, Univ. Library, Script. Eccl. 484), Facsimile for the Palaeographical Society, published by Spencer, Sawyer, Bird and Co., London, 1874; Harley Psalter (Brit. Mus. Harley MS 603), after author's negatives; Eadwine Psalter (Cambridge, Trinity Coll. MS R.17.1), after M. James, Canterbury Psalter; the “Parisian” (Paris, Bib. Nat. MS Lat. 8846), after H. Omont, Psautier illustré du XIIIe siècle, Paris, 1906. Other photographs are credited in the notes.

Abstract

THE uncertainty of our knowledge concerning the actual relation of the Utrecht Psalter to its English descendants is illustrated by the fact that the Psalter in Paris (Bib. Nat. MS Lat. 8846) which is usually attributed to Canterbury and about 1200 has been called a copy of the Utrecht manuscript by one group of scholars or a copy of the Eadwine (or Canterbury) Psalter by another group.¹ Both these attributions are strictly inaccurate as I shall show later. This bold statement is meant more to dramatize the problem than to detract from the importance of the contributions of various scholars who have dealt with the larger subject of English manuscript illustration or with works whose relevance to the English schools is perhaps incidental.² The purpose of this study is to analyze in some detail the relation of the Utrecht Psalter miniatures to their accepted English relatives and others less well known, in the hope of throwing additional light on the origin and development of English illustration during the Romanesque and Gothic periods without recapitulating unnecessarily the work already well performed by the scholars who have written on related problems in recent years.