The incongruities of the St Albans Psalter

Abstract

The twelfth-century English illuminated manuscript now in Hildesheim was in the seventeenth century at Lampringe, a monastery of the English congregation. The earliest art historians who studied the manuscript ascribed its origins to St Albans, but recently it is often asserted to have been designed or adapted for the use of Christina of Markyate. This paper discusses the various names given to the manuscript and questions the validity of assigning a role in its production to Christina. Roger the hermit, Christina's protector, was associated in some way with the manuscript before her and his importance as a religious figure is reassessed. The manuscript comprises four elements: a calendar, a biblical picture-cycle, a vernacular saint's life in verse, and a psalter. The presence of the Chanson d'Alexis in the manuscript is puzzling, but Abbot Richard of St Albans, Roger's monastic superior, who dedicated a chapel in his monastery to Alexis is the person most likely to have been responsible for this. How the four items might have come together is discussed, but the nature of the evidence ought to make it clear that this problem is insoluble.