The Imagery of the Magdalen in Christina of Markyate's Psalter (St. Albans Psalter)

Abstract

The St. Albans Psalter, one of the masterpieces of English Romanesque painting, includes in its prefatory cycle two paintings featuring Mary Magdalen: Christ in the house of Simon, with the Magdalen at the feet of Christ, and Mary Magdalen announcing the resurrection to the apostles. The latter is so rare as to be almost unique, while the former is relatively more familiar but still unusual in the context of psalter illustration. These images can be interpreted in relation to the recluse and nun, Christina of Markyate, for whom the Psalter appears to have been made, and in terms of the large body of writing devoted to the Magdalen in this period. As evidenced in contemporary devotional literature, including the prayers of St. Anselm (1033-1109) and the De institutione inclusarum of Aelred of Rievaulx (ca. 1100-1167), the growth in the cult of the Magdalen was closely linked with a new emphasis on affective piety. In early medieval exegesis, the Magdalen is interpreted allegorically as the type of the church or as the model of the contemplative life; by the later middle ages, she had become an intimately personal moral exemplar and a directly accessible patroness. The Magdalen images in the St. Albans Psalter, and Christina of Markyate herself, exemplify the transformation of the Magdalen into a personal model of the spiritual life. This transformation was itself part of a larger shift toward a more intimate and emotional spirituality, a shift in which women played a significant role and which transformed traditional assumptions concerning the nature and use of visual images in religious observance.