An image fit for a king: the Glazier Psalter reconsidered

Abstract

The starting point for this enquiry into the iconography of royal power in the thirteenth century is the set of prefatory miniatures in an English Psalter (Pierpont Morgan Library, Glazier MS 25). On one of these folios, the artist has combined the pose of authority associated with power with the ritual of the Coronation service in such a way as to suggest that the purpose behind the commission was to celebrate royal authority. This paper traces some of the sources of this pose which appears to have some common currency in works produced for aristocratic circles especially in the London workshops, such as the Morgan Apocalypse and the illustrated Life of Edward in Cambridge University Library. Given that the pose was grafted on to the contemporary image of the English coronation ceremony, the paper examines the context provided by the other miniatures in the Psalter, proposing that the chosen iconography adds up to a clear statement of royal authority. Related to the question of the Psalter's intended owner, is the question of whether the image of sovereignty in the Glazier manuscript might reflect ideas of kingship held by Henry Third, in the light of the documentary evidence and the art historical evidence of royal commissions. Some hypotheses are offered for the existence of models of kingship around the Abbey and the Palace of Westminster by examining the types of imagery with which Henry associated himself. On the basis of the evidence presented, there are grounds for the claim that Henry had a view of the royal authority which may have influenced the iconography of kingship in the thirteenth century to reflect developing ideas of severeignty.