A Dismembered Thirteenth-Century Brabantine Psalter

Abstract

The notorious book breaker Otto Ege was responsible for the destruction of many medieval manuscripts, including a diminutive private devotional psalter made in Brabant in the second half of the thirteenth century. A significant number of its historiated initials have now reemerged, allowing for a tentative reconstruction of the book and identification of the atelier where it was produced. The presence of saints in its psalm division initials sets it apart from the ubiquitous French David cycle normally found in such psalters, and links it instead to contemporary work in Flanders. The present article identifies nearly forty surviving leaves, looks at what they tell us of Ege’s working methods, describes their codicological features and style, and examines the provenance of the book back to the late Elizabethan period. Close study of the individual historiated initials, and comparison with their Flemish contemporaries, disproves the assumption that the Brabantine atelier was just copying from a more dominant Flemish center. Instead, the independence of their compositions from Flemish workshop models, and selection of often novel subjects, shows that this region was cognizant of the contemporary Flemish iconographic cycle but also distinct from it. To set the Brabantine psalters in context, finally, contemporary work in Brussels is surveyed as the central Belgian region has long been rather neglected in scholarship.