Defensive Addenda to the Problem of the Utrecht Psalter

* This study was assisted by the Graduate School Research Fund of the University of Minnesota. For the more crucial Dutch passages in Engelbregt's book I am indebted to Mrs. Ann Luyten Dieperink.

Abstract

My “retirement” around 1960 from research in early mediaeval art in order to concentrate on some problems in modern art which I had been cultivating collaterally for the past thirty years was disturbed first by the belated and mysterious appearance of Wormald's booklet and then by Engelbregt's recent book on the Utrecht Psalter—both challenging my views on the origin of its style and iconography.¹ In an Appendix to my small book on that famous manuscript I commented reluctantly and inadequately on the former publication.² The latter I would have disposed of in a brief review as being unworthy of extended evaluation, but since it has the appearance of a semi-official publication commemorating and “critically” reviewing a century of scholarly investigation on the nature and origin of the psalter I decided to take this opportunity to reveal some new evidence that will, I hope, silence any future attempts at proving that its miniatures were original creations of the ninth century. First I shall concentrate on disproving Engelbregt's claims.