A Shining PsalterThis page is from a psalter (St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 26, p. 13) th
A Shining PsalterThis page is from a psalter (St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 26, p. 13) that was produced in the now-ruined Abbey of Malmesbury, England, in the early fourteenth century. The text is a gothic script in Latin and German, with rubrics and decorative initials dividing the text into smaller parts. While there are no larger illustrations on this page, this manuscript can be called “illuminated” in its truest sense: among the red and blue of the leafy marginal illustrations there is glimmering gold. Another striking feature is the decorated initial B that starts Psalm One on this page, as well as the peculiar human head stemming from one of the marginal decorations above. A psalter such as this one would usually include the psalms as well as a liturgical calendar and some prayers. It was a medieval must-have book up until the thirteenth century, used both publicly and privately – in liturgical performance as well as in private devotional reading. The way the psalter was used was later adopted for the Book of Hours, which followed the psalter and related breviary, and largely overtook both in popularity among laypeople from the thirteenth century onward. These kinds of books for private devotional reading would have been the first books that regular (albeit well-to-do) people would have had the chance to own. - Anna Käyhkö -- source link
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