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66-714: The Eadwine Psalter or Eadwin Psalter is a heavily illuminated 12th-century psalter named after the scribe Eadwine, a monk of Christ Church, Canterbury (now Canterbury Cathedral ), who was perhaps the "project manager" for the large and exceptional book. The manuscript belongs to Trinity College, Cambridge (MS R.17.1) and is kept in the Wren Library . It contains the Book of Psalms in three languages: three versions in Latin, with Old English and Anglo-Norman translations, and has been called

132-482: A century earlier, in the last decades of Anglo-Saxon England. At least ten scribes contributed to the texts, at least five of them contributing to the Old English text, and at least six artists, who may overlap with the scribes. It is difficult to tell many of these apart. It seems likely that Eadwine contributed to the scribing, but his hand cannot be confidently identified. However, at least according to T. A. Heslop,

198-562: A century. The Mudil Psalter , the oldest complete Coptic psalter, dates to the 5th century. It was found in the Al-Mudil Coptic cemetery in a small town near Beni Suef , Egypt . The codex was in the grave of a young girl, open, with her head resting on it. Scholar John Gee has argued that this represents a cultural continuation of the ancient Egyptian tradition of placing the Book of the Dead in tombs and sarcophagi . The Pahlavi Psalter

264-661: A claim to the English throne due to his familial relationship with the Anglo-Saxon King Edward the Confessor. [5] Ultimately, William was successful in his conquest and secured the English throne soon after the year 1072. This sudden rise to power had a range of socio-political, economic, social, and religious consequences for England. For example, and most notably, William replaced all Anglo-Saxon bishops, save Wulfstan of Dorchester, with Norman bishops. [6] In addition, he increased

330-590: A number of iconographic innovations that would endure throughout the Middle Ages. It also contains the earliest surviving example of French literature, the Chanson de St Alexis or Vie de St Alexis , and it was probably commissioned by an identifiable man and owned by an identifiable woman. Since the early 19th century it has been owned by the church of St. Godehard in Hildesheim , Lower Saxony in northwestern Germany, but

396-500: A saint in 1173; however his feast day is not included in the calendar. The book is included in the catalogue of the library of Christ Church made in Prior Eastry's inventory in the early fourteenth century. It was given by Thomas Nevile, Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, to Trinity College, Cambridge in the early seventeenth century, presumably without the prefatory folios, which are thought to have been removed around this time. The binding

462-761: A scriptorium for the creation of manuscripts for the community’s use. [9] In this way, the Norman conquest indirectly enabled the St. Albans Psalter. In fact, much of the artwork in the psalter itself marks a departure from Anglo-Saxon artistic styles and instead represents the Romanesque style of art . Romanesque style of art began around 1000 A.D. in Europe. Its primary modes of appearance were architectural sculpture, stained glass, manuscript illuminations, and wall paintings. [10] Despite occasional Anglo-Saxon features in its illumination cycle,

528-530: A similar very early cycle. On the other hand George Henderson argued that the cycle may have been planned specially for the Eadwine Psalter, based on direct reading of the bible, with the New Testament scenes sometimes "following the sequence of a particular gospel, at times constructing an intelligent first-hand synthesis of more than one gospel." There is usually thought to have been a fifth sheet covering

594-474: A single scene, or several. In the latter case, usually they are divided horizontally to give two wide spaces. Within these two or more scenes may be contained without formally interrupting the picture space. The scenes shown can be summarized as: Morgan Library, M 724 British Library Morgan Library, M 521 Victoria and Albert Museum Psalter The English term ( Old English psaltere , saltere ) derives from Church Latin . The source term

660-514: A time when the language was no longer in current use". The manuscript is the most extensively decorated 12th-century English manuscript. There are 166 pen drawings with watercolour (a traditional Anglo-Saxon style), based on their counterparts in Utrecht , which lack colour. There are also the four painted leaves, now detached, with the biblical cycle, with some 130 scenes; there may have been at least one more page originally. These may be referred to as

726-733: Is Latin : psalterium , which is simply the name of the Book of Psalms (in secular Latin, it is the term for a stringed instrument, from Ancient Greek : ψαλτήριον psalterion ). The Book of Psalms contains the bulk of the Divine Office of the Roman Catholic Church . The other books associated with it were the Lectionary , the Antiphonary , and Responsoriale , and the Hymnary . In Late Modern English, psalter has mostly ceased to refer to

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792-468: Is 17th-century. By the early 19th century the detached folios were in the collection of William Young Ottley , the British Museum 's print curator and a significant art collector, but no admirer of medieval art. At the sale in 1838, after his death in 1836, the sheets were individual lots and bought by different buyers. The Victoria and Albert Museum's sheet fetched two guineas (£2 and 2 shillings). It

858-534: Is a fragment of a Middle Persian translation of a Syriac version of the Book of Psalms, dated to the 6th or 7th century. In Orthodox Christianity , the Book of Psalms for liturgical purposes is divided into 20 kathismata or "sittings", for reading at Vespers and Matins . Kathisma means sitting, since the people normally sit during the reading of the psalms. Each kathisma is divided into three stases , from stasis , to stand, because each stasis ends with Glory to

924-632: Is a prefatory cycle of four folios, so eight pages, fully decorated with a series of miniatures in compartments showing the Life of Christ , with parables and some Old Testament scenes. These pages, and perhaps at least one other, were removed from the main manuscript at some point and are now in the British Library , Victoria and Albert Museum (with one each), and two in the Morgan Library in New York. It

990-653: Is now stored and administered at the nearby Dombibliothek (Cathedral Library) in Hildesheim Cathedral . A single leaf from the manuscript is at the Schnütgen Museum , Cologne ; one further leaf, and one further cutting, are missing from the volume, their whereabouts unknown. The manuscript as it survives in Hildesheim has 209 folios (i.e. 418 pages) of vellum , which are numbered by a modern hand in Arabic numerals in

1056-569: Is one of the most important surviving Carolingian manuscripts and exercised a major influence on the later development of Anglo-Saxon art . In the Middle Ages psalters were among the most popular types of illuminated manuscripts , rivaled only by the Gospel Books , from which they gradually took over as the type of manuscript chosen for lavish illumination. From the late 11th century onwards they became particularly widespread - Psalms were recited by

1122-448: Is to date most of the book to 1155–60, but the portrait of Eadwine and the waterworks drawings to perhaps a decade later. The large waterworks drawing shows the cathedral as it was before the major fire of 1174, which provoked the introduction of Gothic architecture to the cathedral, when William of Sens was brought in to rebuild the choir. The period also saw the momentous murder of Thomas Becket in 1170, and his rapid canonization as

1188-402: Is unclear who Eadwine was and what role he played in the creation of the manuscript; the documentary traces of monastic Eadwines (and Edwins and Adwins etc) of about the right time and place are few, and hard to fit to the facts and statements of the manuscript. The inscription around the portrait declares that he is sriptorum princeps (sic), "prince of scribes" (or "first among scribes"), so he

1254-524: The Albani Psalter or the Psalter of Christina of Markyate , is an English illuminated manuscript , one of several psalters known to have been created at or for St Albans Abbey in the 12th century. It is widely considered to be one of the most important examples of English Romanesque book production; it is of almost unprecedented lavishness of decoration, with over forty full-page miniatures, and contains

1320-529: The Book of Genesis , especially as there is one in the Great Canterbury/ Anglo-Catalan Psalter , which has a closely similar cycle. The emphasis on the life of David , who appears in 5 scenes, as well as the Tree of Jesse, is appropriate for the figure regarded as the author of the psalms. All the pages use a basic framework of twelve square compartments divided by borders, which may contain

1386-579: The St Albans Psalter and the Lambeth Bible respectively. Though comparison with the Utrecht -derived images in Cambridge is complicated by the different technique and the many stylistic features retained from the original, the first artist seems closest to these. The idea of such a cycle was already about, and one key exemplar was probably the 6th-century Italian St Augustine Gospels , a key relic of

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1452-477: The "B" of the words Beatus vir... ("Blessed is the man...") at the start of Psalm 1 . This was usually given the most elaborate decoration in an illuminated psalter, often taking a whole page for the initial letter or first two words. Historiated initials or full-page illuminations were used to mark the beginnings of the major divisions of the Psalms, or the various daily readings, and may have helped users navigate to

1518-577: The "Hebrew" version, or Versio juxta Hebraicum , Jerome's translation from the Hebrew Bible. The columns reverse their sequence on recto pages, so that the Gallican column, which has a larger text size, is always nearest the edge of the page, and the Hebrew nearest the bound edge. Between the lines of the text of the psalms, the "Hebrew" version has a translation into contemporary Norman-French , which represents

1584-408: The "Picture Leaves". At the end of the book there is the full-page portrait of Eadwine, followed by drawings with colour showing Christ Church, Canterbury and its water channels, one over a full opening, and the other more schematic and on a single page. These are thought to be at least afterthoughts, added to what were intended as blank flyleaves, as found in a number of other manuscripts. Throughout

1650-624: The Book of Psalms (as the text of a book of the Bible) and mostly refers to the dedicated physical volumes containing this text. Dedicated psalters, as distinct from copies of the Psalms in other formats, e.g. as part of a full edition of the Old Testament, were first developed in the Latin West in the 6th century in Ireland and from about 700 on the continent . The extensively illustrated Utrecht Psalter

1716-583: The Father... , at which everyone stands. The reading of the kathismata are arranged so that the entire psalter is read through in the course of a week. During Great Lent it is read through twice in a week. During Bright Week (Easter Week) there is no reading from the Psalms. Orthodox psalters usually contain the Biblical canticles , which are read at the canon of Matins during Great Lent. The established Orthodox tradition of Christian burial has included reading

1782-617: The Psalms are given side by side. In the order they occur on the verso pages, these are the "Gallican" version, a translation from the Greek Septuagint which was used by most of the Western church, the "Roman", the Gallican version as corrected by Saint Jerome from the Hebrew Bible , which was used by churches in Rome, but was also an Anglo-Saxon favourite, especially at Canterbury. Last comes

1848-507: The Psalms in the church throughout the vigil , where the deceased remains the night before the funeral, a reflection of the vigil of Holy Friday . Some Orthodox psalters also contain special prayers for the departed for this purpose. While the full tradition is showing signs of diminishing in practice, the psalter is still sometimes used during a wake . See also Category:Illuminated psalters See also Category:Psalters St Albans Psalter The St Albans Psalter , also known as

1914-478: The St Albans Psalter came into being only during the abbacy (1119-1146) of Geoffrey de Gorham or Gorron, and it was possibly owned by Christina of Markyate (c. 1098-c. 1155-1166), anchoress and later prioress of Markyate , or at least associated with her at some point after her death. If she did indeed own it, it is not clear whether the manuscript was intended for her from the beginning, whether it

1980-603: The St. Albans Psalter is considered to be the paradigm of Romanesque-style artwork. The tightly controlled thick-bordered frames, the symmetry of some illuminations, the interdependent relationship between size and level of importance, and the curved forms of figures’ bodies are all characteristic of both the St. Albans Psalter and Romanesque-style artwork. The psalter is believed to be commissioned by abbot Geoffrey of St. Albans and anchoress Christina of Markyate . According to The Life of Christina of Markyate, Christina and abbot Geoffrey were close, platonic friends. The relationship

2046-507: The Utrecht Psalter. The book is large, with 281 vellum folios or leaves (two-sided) in Cambridge, measuring an average 455 by 326 millimetres (17.9 in × 12.8 in). The four detached leaves have presumably been trimmed and are now 400–405 mm x 292–300 mm. The texts are: "a calendar, triple Metrical Psalms ... canticles, two continuous commentaries, two prognostications". The three main different Latin versions of

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2112-402: The accepted c.1120-c.1145 date-range, there is no firm scholarly consensus about the relative and absolute chronology of the creation of the five constituent parts. There are generally thought to be the work of at least six scribes and four artists in the volume, but there is disagreement about their identity, and who was responsible for what. Published opinions until the 1960s were mostly that

2178-415: The bulk of the illumination, over 80% of the prefatory cycle and over 90% of the miniatures in the psalms and canticles, is by a single artist, who he calls the "Principal Illuminator". To Heslop, the diverse styles and limited "guest appearances" of the other artists suggests that they are mobile laymen employed for the task by the monastery, of the sort who were even at this early date beginning to take over

2244-413: The calendar and litany varied greatly and can often give clues as to the original ownership of the manuscript, since monasteries and private patrons alike would choose those saints that had particular significance for them. Many psalters were lavishly illuminated with full-page miniatures as well as decorated initials. Of the initials the most important is normally the so-called " Beatus initial ", based on

2310-529: The clergy at various points in the liturgy , so psalters were a key part of the liturgical equipment in major churches. Various different schemes existed for the arrangement of the Psalms into groups (see Latin Psalters ). As well as the 150 Psalms, medieval psalters often included a calendar, a litany of saints, canticles from the Old and New Testaments , and other devotional texts. The selection of saints mentioned in

2376-420: The combination in a single manuscript of the scholarly psalterium triplex with a very large programme of illumination, and translations into two vernacular languages, is unique. The psalter was "a tool for study and teaching" rather than a display manuscript for the altar. The Old English translation contains a number of errors which "have been explained as the result of uncritical copying of an archaic text at

2442-1823: The community of St. Albans. [14] The historical considerations of abbot Geoffrey and anchoress Christina Markyate are important to address because, as previously mentioned, an on-going debate exists about whether or not the St. Albans Psalter was commissioned for Christina. [1] "The Medieval Abbey." The Cathedral and Abbey Church of Saint Alban. Last Modified 2017. Accessed 9 December 2018. http://www.stalbancathedral.org/history/monastic-site. [2] Ibid., "The Medieval Abbey." [3] "Story of St. Alban." The Cathedral and Abbey Church of Saint Alban. Last Modified 2017. Accessed 9 December 2018. http://www.stalbancathedral.org/history/story-of-st-alban [4] Ibid., "Story of St. Alban." [5] "The Norman Invasion of England." Penfield Central School District. Accessed 9 December 2018. http://www.penfield.edu/webpages/jgiotto/onlinetextbook.cfm?subpage=1505054. [6] "Norman Conquest." Encyclopædia Britannica. Last Modified 2018. Accessed 9 December 2018. http://www.britannica.com/event/Norman-Conquest. [7] Ibid., "Norman Conquest." [8] Ibid., "Norman Conquest." [9] Kristen M. Collins, Nancy Turner, and Peter Kidd, The St. Albans Psalter Painting and Prayer in Medieval England (J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 2013), 9. [10] Conrad Rudolph, A Companion to Medieval Art: Romanesque and Gothic in Northern Europe , (New Jersey, Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), 106. [11] Trans. C.H. Talbot, The Life of Christina of Markyate, (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2010), 68. [12] Ibid., The St. Albans Psalter Painting, 17. [13] Ibid., The St. Albans Psalter Painting, 16. [14] Ibid., The St. Albans Psalter Painting, 17. Within

2508-471: The conventional type of an author portrait , at this period most often seen in evangelist portraits at the start of the Gospels . These look right or forward to the pages following containing their work. Eadwine's is placed at the end of the book, after the text, so he looks left, back over it. As recorded by M. R. James : "The following inscription in green and red capitals surrounds the picture beginning at

2574-515: The details, but there is general agreement that the psalter was created at St Albans Abbey . The first editor Adolph Goldschmidt considered Roger († ante 1118), hermit and monk of St Albans, to be the scribe of the psalms. The hermit Roger, whose death anniversary (12 September) is recorded in the calendar, is likely to be identical with Roger d'Aubigny , a brother of abbot Richard d'Aubigny (1087-1119) and father of William d'Aubigny (Pincerna) and Nigel d'Aubigny . According to subsequent scholars

2640-470: The different format, but generally rather close. However, the sense of the landscape setting suffers considerably. Kenneth Clark commented that "the Utrecht Psalter is full of landscape motives taken from Hellenistic painting, and its impressionistic scribbles still imply a sense of light and space. There is no simpler way to show the triumph of symbol over sensation in the middle ages than to compare its pages with [their Eadwine Psalter equivalents]." It

2706-588: The events commemorated by the feast days of the liturgical calendar. Ottonian cycles such as that in the Codex Aureus of Echternach still show the miracles and parables, but the cycle here has more scenes than any Ottonian one. Sources for the selection of scenes are probably considerably older than the 12th century, and might possibly go back as far as the St Augustine Gospels, of about 600, which were then at Canterbury, and no doubt more complete than now, or

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2772-488: The founder of the cathedral's rival St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury , where it then was, though it has also since found its way to a Cambridge college. This has one surviving page (of an original three, at least) with compartmented scenes of the life of Christ, which include many miracles and incidents from the ministry of Jesus rarely depicted by the High Middle Ages. The Eadwine pages include one of these scenes, from

2838-416: The illumination of manuscripts. The dating of the manuscript has been much discussed, mainly on stylistic grounds (regarding both the script and the illustrations), within the broad range 1130–1170. On folio 10 there is a marginal drawing of a comet , with a note in Old English (in which it is a "hairy star") that it is an augury ; following the comet of 1066 the English evidently took comets seriously. This

2904-534: The loose sheets to the main Cambridge manuscript, although Hanns Swarzenski in 1938 and C. R. Dodwell in 1954 had already proposed this. These pages "contain by far the largest New Testament cycle produced in England or anywhere else in the 12th century", with some 150 scenes. The emphasis on the miracles and parables of Christ was most untypical in Romanesque cycles in general, which concentrated almost exclusively on

2970-468: The manuscript was made before c.1125, or even before c.1123; this was modified in the 1980s to the decade c.1120-1130; while in the 1990s and 2000s several scholars have proposed dates in the 1130s. Attributions dating the manuscript to after 1145, or after 1155, have not gained general acceptance. The main units of text are: The last three listed are often said to have been written by the same scribe, identified by some as Abbot Geoffrey himself, giving

3036-425: The monastery in a book he had been closely associated with, with the waterworks drawings also acting as a memorial to Prior Wibert, who had done considerable work on the water system. Some scholars see both aspects of the script and the portrait as evoking Eadwig Basan , the most famous of English scribes (and perhaps also the artist of the miniatures in his manuscripts), who was a monk at Christ Church Canterbury over

3102-504: The most ambitious manuscript produced in England in the twelfth century. As far as the images are concerned, most of the book is an adapted copy, using a more contemporary style, of the Carolingian Utrecht Psalter , which was at Canterbury for a period in the Middle Ages. There is also a very famous full-page miniature showing Eadwine at work, which is highly unusual and possibly a self-portrait. In addition to this, there

3168-444: The number of church councils and created laws against simony and clerical marriage. [7] Furthermore, he replaced Anglo-Saxon abbots with Norman ones. [8] Combined, these actions enhanced the monastic life in England. For instance, the first Norman abbot arrived at the St. Albans monastery in 1077. While an abbot at St. Albans, he acquired new property for the monastery, helped to construct the new Romanesque abbey church, and established

3234-470: The oldest surviving text of the psalms in French, the "Roman" version has a translation into Old English , and the "Gallican" version has Latin notes. The Hebrew version was "a scholarly rather than a liturgical text", and related more to continental scholarly interests, especially those at Fleury Abbey . There are a number of Psalters with comparable Latin texts, and a number of luxury illuminated psalters, but

3300-412: The painted figure represents, alive through the ages, whose genius the beauty of this book demonstrates. Receive, O God, the book and its donor as an acceptable gift. The portrait, and the waterworks drawings that follow it, have sometimes been seen as later additions, though more recent scholarship is moving away from this view. The portrait might then be a memorial added to commemorate a notable figure of

3366-659: The practice of personal devotions. The psalter is also a part of either the Horologion or the breviary , used to say the Liturgy of the Hours in the Eastern and Western Christian worlds respectively. Non-illuminated psalters written in Coptic include some of the earliest surviving codices (bound books) altogether. The earliest Coptic psalter predates the earliest Western (Irish) one by more than

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3432-455: The priest to save the man whom he was protecting. This action, in addition to refusing to comply with pagan beliefs, ultimately led to Alban’s beheading, hence becoming a martyr in the Christian community.   The abbey remained relatively peaceful from its inception in 793 up until the Norman invasion of England in 1066. Duke William II of Normandy invaded England because he believed he had

3498-487: The relevant part of the text, as medieval books almost never had page numbers. Many psalters, particularly from the 12th century onwards, included a richly decorated "prefatory cycle" &ndash. A series of full-page illuminations preceding the Psalms, usually illustrating the Passion story, though some also featured Old Testament narratives. Such images helped to enhance the book's status, and served as aids to contemplation in

3564-446: The start of Luke 9, 58 (and Matthew 8, 20): "et ait illi Iesus vulpes foveas habent et volucres caeli nidos Filius autem hominis non habet ubi caput reclinet" – "Jesus said to him: The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air nests: but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head." For the iconography of the prefatory cycle, see below. The copies of Utrecht images are compressed to fit

3630-496: The text very many initials are decorated, with over 500 "major" initials fully painted with gold highlights, mostly at the first letter of each of the three text versions of each psalm. The prefatory miniature cycle is divided stylistically. Of the eight pages, six and a half are in one style, but most of the Victoria and Albert folio in another. This is usually thought to mark a change of artist. The two styles can be related to those of

3696-550: The top on L. SCRIPTOR (supply loquitur). SRIPTORUM (sic) PRINCEPS EGO NEC OBITURA DEINCEPS LAVS MEA NEC FAMA. QVIS SIM MEA LITTERA CLAMA. LITTERA. TE TVA SRIPTVRA QUEM SIGNAT PICTA FIGURA Ɵ- (top L. again). -Ɵ PREDICAT EADWINVM FAMA PER SECULA VIVUM. INGENIUM CVIVS LIBRI DECUS INDICAT HVIVS. QVEM TIBI SEQUE DATVM MVNVS DEUS ACCIPE GRATVM." which translates as: Scribe: I am the chief of scribes, and neither my praise nor fame shall die; shout out, oh my letter, who I may be. Letter: By its fame your script proclaims you, Eadwine, whom

3762-455: The top right corner of the rectos, and there is an additional numbering of the miniatures at the bottom of their pages. A full page measures 27.6 x 18.4 cm. There are many signs that the pages have been trimmed down from their original size. The binding is of leather, and medieval, although it was restored in modern times, perhaps the 1930s. The manuscript is composed of five physically separable parts: Scholarly opinion differs on many of

3828-435: Was adapted for her while it was being made, or whether it became hers after its completion; recent research remains divided on this issue. Additions were made to the manuscript at various times until after her death, which is recorded in the calendar. Little is known about the origins of the St. Albans monastery; however, tradition claims that the monastery was founded in approximately 793 by King Offa of Mercia . [1] When it

3894-411: Was also mutually beneficial, for "while [Geoffrey] busied himself in supplying the maiden’s needs, [Christina] strove to enrich the man in virtue" (68). [11] Christina would advise abbot Geoffrey on his ecclesiastical assignments and had even provided undergarments for him on his journey to Rome. [12] Their relationship broke away from the traditional one between a male cleric and an anchoress because she

3960-505: Was bought by the museum in 1894. One of the two sheets in the Morgan Library passed through various hands and was bought by J.P. Morgan in 1911 and the other was added in 1927, after his death. The British Museum bought their sheet in 1857. All the surviving parts of the original manuscript were reunited in the exhibition English Romanesque Art, 1066–1200 in London in 1984, though the catalogue entries, by Michael Kauffmann , did not relate

4026-523: Was established, the abbey housed both men and women and followed the rule of Saint Benedict . [2] The abbey is named after St. Alban, who is the first recorded Christian martyr dating back to the third or fourth century. [3] Alban became well known for housing a Christian priest who was fleeing from persecutors in Roman Britain . [4] When the Prince ordered soldiers to search Alban’s house, Alban dressed as

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4092-408: Was in the role of an advisor. So much is their relationship a point of peculiarity that scholars have attempted to argue that Christina’s vita was commissioned by Geoffrey in order to elevate the status of St. Albans as a holy site and for Christina of Markyate. Geoffrey entered the St. Albans community as a monk from France in restitution for borrowing vestments from St. Albans as props for a play he

4158-404: Was probably one of the many scribes working on the manuscript, but probably also playing the main role in deciding the contents and organizing the work. He may also have paid for it, though he was certainly not the prior of Canterbury at the time, as these are all known, and Wybert or Wibert (r. 1153–1167) was prior for the most likely periods for the book's creation. His portrait is clearly of

4224-618: Was produced around the mid-century, perhaps 1155–60, and perhaps in two main campaigns of work, one in the 1150s and the other the decade after. It was sometimes called the "Canterbury Psalter" in the past, as in the 1935 monograph by M. R. James , but this is now avoided, if only to avoid confusion with other manuscripts, including the closely related Harley Psalter and the Great Canterbury Psalter (or Anglo-Catalan Psalter, Paris Psalter), which are also copies made in Canterbury of

4290-426: Was producing. [13] During his time at St. Albans, he rose through the ranks and made new contributions to the liturgy. Christina of Markyate, on the other hand, was the daughter of a wealthy Anglo-Saxon family who attempted to force her into marriage by way of deceit, trickery and scandal. Hence, she lived a substantial portion of her life as a recluse and was even protected by a hermit for a brief time until she entered

4356-604: Was thought to relate to the appearance of Halley's Comet in 1145, but another of 14 May 1147 is recorded in the Christ Church Annals, and the 1145 one is not. There were further comets recorded in 1165 and 1167, so the evidence from astronomy has not settled the question. Such a large undertaking would have taken many years to complete; the Anglo-Catalan Psalter was left unfinished in England, like many other ambitious manuscript projects. The current broad consensus

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