The Anglo-Catalan Psalter
Produced at Christ Church in Canterbury, England, ca. 1180–1200, and in Catalonia, ca. 1340–50
Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, ms. lat. 8846
The Anglo-Catalan Psalter (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, ms. lat. 8846) was copied in Canterbury ca. 1180–1200, taking its layout however not from the Utrecht but from the Eadwine model, including the texts of the Gallicanum, the Romanum, and the Hebraicum. An English artist executed half of the illustrations contemporaneously with the scribe, but rather than outline drawings, he produced fully-painted miniatures with burnished gold backgrounds that in many cases gave a personal reinterpretation of the text. In the fourteenth century this manuscript appeared in Spain, where the illustration was completed by a gifted Catalonian artist around 1340–50, in an entirely different style.
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Open to fols. 62v–63r, at the beginning of Psalm 36, Noli emulari (“Do not emulate evildoers”). Compare this illustration with the illustration of the same Psalm in the Eadwine Psalter on the left. Among the examples of word illustration: at mid ground left, a man falls on his sword and another runs himself through at lower left (“pierced by their own swords,” “drawing his sword”); at upper right four men seated around a table eating (“in the days of dearth they shall have enough”). Below center, two men with scythes and another plowing, and another sowing seed (“the righteous who possess the land”).
Detail of fol. 62v, illustrating Psalm 36.
Detail of fol. 109v, illustrating Psalm 64 .
Detail of fol. 144v, illustrating Psalm 80.
Detail of fol. 135r, illustrating Psalm 77.
Detail of fol. 20r, illustrating Psalm 11.
Facsimile: The Anglo-Catalan Psalter (Barcelona: M. Moleiro Editor, 2004)
Gift of Saint Louis University Library Associates, 2007RETURN TO THE UTRECHT PSALTER AND ITS COPIES
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