Blickling psalter

Accession number:

MS M.776

Title:

Blickling psalter

Created:

Northern Northumbria, England, possibly Melrose, ca. 730.

Binding:

Previously in ca. 1730 rough blind-tooled calf; rebound by Marguerite Duprez Lahey in brown goatskin, blind tooled, in board slip-case covered with marbled French paper.

Credit:

Purchased in 1932.

Description:

94 leaves (1 column, 24 lines), bound : vellum, ill. ; 306 x 230 mm

Provenance:

Belonged (1505-1635) to the City of Lincoln: names of Richard Hunston, common clerk (1505-1506) and (the latest) Richard Hird (1635); William Pownall (1724); sold to Sir Richard Ellys, Wocton, Lincolnshire (1724); passed by inheritance to the Marquess of Lothian, Blicking Hall, Norfolk; his sale (New York, American Art Association, Jan. 28, 1932, lot 1) to Dr. A.S.W. Rosenbach, New York; purchased for the Pierpont Morgan Library from Rosenbach, Feb. 4, 1932.

Notes:

Ms. Biblical psalter; written and decorated in England, in northern Northumbria, perhaps Melrose, ca. 730; the psalter is preceded by a 15th century calendar.
Romanum version with some Gallican readings, preceded by a 15th century calendar.
The psalter is incomplete--Cf. PML files.
According to Soeda (dissertation, p. 320) the Blickling Psalter (M.776) is the only extant Psalter written in Insular half-uncial that copies the layout of the Vespasian Psalter (London, British Library, MS Cotton Vespasian A.I.) perhaps deliberately used as a model.
Musical notation: early neumes on several leaves.
Decoration: large ornamental initials and decorative title headings at the beginning of the Psalms; stylistically Hiberno-Northumbrian and Irish-Celtic.

Variant Title:

Lothian psalter

Script:

insular majuscule

Language:

Latin and Anglo-Saxon

Resources:

Description/Bibliography

Century:

8th century

Genres:

Manuscripts