The iconography of the Utrecht Psalter and the Old EnglishDescent into Hell

Abstract

The Old EnglishDescent into Hellfits uneasily into the poetic corpus remaining to us from Anglo-Saxon England. The poem is an oddity both thematically and genetically, and (insofar as it has attracted any attention at all) the history of its criticism has been an unrewarding search for sources. TheDescentpresents a sourcing problem at its most basic, for its parts are so disparate that it is difficult even to construct a horizon of expectations from which to read the work. I hope to suggest here a new analogue, as well as a new way of thinking about sources and analogues in Old English literary studies, that may prove fruitful. The more rewarding context for comparative study of theDescent into Hellis not textual, but pictorial; I argue that visual exegesis of the psalms reveals both the source and the nature of the connection between the poem's two primary topics. In particular, iconography derived from the enormously influential Utrecht Psalter (Utrecht, Universiteitsbibliotheek, 32) provides a structural model, if not for the composition of the text in the most direct sense, then certainly for both medieval and modern understanding of it.