English Psalter Research Articles

Hwaet! Five Psalms Inspired by The Old English Psalter

Hwaet! Five Psalms Inspired by The Old English Psalter

Biblical Commentary and Translation in Later Medieval England: Experiments in Interpretation

Biblical Commentary and Translation in Later Medieval England: Experiments in Interpretation

The coordinated glosses of the Eadwine Psalter and their source(s)

The paper presents the results of an extensive study into double glosses employed in the Old English gloss to the Eadwine Psalter in order to verify the possible sources of this linguistically complex manuscript. The analysis shows that the affiliation of the gloss is complicated, with numerous glosses which do not belong to the established Old English psalter glossing tradition. Additionally, the results shed some light on several of the baffling questions concerning the Old English gloss to the Eadwine Psalter, such as the number of hands and the glossing practice behind the production of this manuscript. Ultimately, the paper shows that contrary to the popular opinion, the Old English gloss to the Eadwine Psalter is a valuable source of linguistic data which moreover provides information on the twelfth-century scribal practice in the post-Conquest England.

The Psalms and Medieval English Literature: From the Conversion to the Reformation ed. by Tamara Atkin, and Francis Leneghan

Reviewed by: The Psalms and Medieval English Literature: From the Conversion to the Reformation ed. by Tamara Atkin, and Francis Leneghan Emma Knowles Atkin, Tamara, and Francis Leneghan, eds, The Psalms and Medieval English Literature: From the Conversion to the Reformation, Cambridge, D. S. Brewer, 2017; hardback; pp. xviii, 344; 18 b/w illustrations; R.R.P. US $99.00, £60.00; ISBN 9781843844358. In his introduction to this valuable collection of thirteen essays Francis Leneghan identifies the psalter as 'the most highly prized, frequently copied and widely used of all books of the Bible' (p. 1) for medieval Christians. Throughout the volume its foundational role in intellectual culture is emphasized as contributors examine how memorization of and repeated exposure to the Psalms impacted literature. This, alongside a recurrent interest in the varieties of voice present in the Psalms, creates an ongoing conversation which is one of the volume's great successes. A thematic structure assists the creation of connections between essays. This usefully destabilizes period boundaries and establishes links between [End Page 180] vernacular engagements with the psalter across the volume's roughly 800-year scope (c. 700–c. 1500). In making these associations it offers an important and necessary contribution to the recent upsurge of scholarly interest in the Psalms by drawing together expert contributors from different periods and placing their work in dialogue. Leneghan's useful introductory essay traces the reception of Psalm 50.1–3 from the Vespasian Psalter to Thomas Brampton's fifteenth-century paraphrase of the Penitential Psalms, and highlights the constancies and differences present in approaches to the psalter over time. Opening the 'Translation' section, Jane Roberts's chapter examines the fifteen psalters with a vernacular gloss that survive from Anglo-Saxon England. She focuses on the relationship between gloss and manuscript, distinguishing between 'opportunistic' glosses at one end of the scale and 'integral' at the other (p. 40). Concentrating on one of the psalters Roberts discusses, Mark Faulkner argues persuasively that an archaic exemplar for the idiosyncratic Old English gloss found in the twelfth-century Eadwine Psalter was deliberately chosen. Annie Sutherland promotes the significance of the fourteenth-century Prose Psalter in her chapter. She demonstrates that the attitude to translation lying behind it, in which it 'translates not what the Psalter says but what the Psalter means' (p. 126), offers a different rhetorical approach to that found in more imitative translations. The consistent revision of vocabulary between the Earlier and Later Versions of the Psalms in the Wycliffite Bible leads Elizabeth Solopova to argue that these were texts created with different translation strategies in mind. She suggests that the revisions were part of an attempt to develop a 'standard terminology for theological and devotional discourse' (p. 145). The 'Translation' section ends with Katherine Zieman's chapter on Richard Rolle's English Psalter which carefully considers the stages of revision this text went through and the motivations that lay behind these. The 'Adaptation' section opens with Leneghan's compelling reading of the ornamental alliteration in the 'little admired' (p. 179) Old English Metrical Psalms. He argues, in perhaps the standout essay of the volume, that this created a musicality in the translation which aided memorization. Daniel Anlezark follows this with a discussion of the treatment of the Psalms in what he re-names the Old English Office (formerly the Old English Benedictine Office) and examines what this suggests about prayer in the Anglo-Saxon church. M. J. Toswell concludes a trio of chapters on Old English by demonstrating the ways in which the deep understanding of the Psalms in the period is reflected in syntactic and rhetorical parallels in a variety of Old English poetic genres. Completing the section Mike Rodman Jones demonstrates how certain disputational Psalms were deployed at 'distinct and specific textual moments' (p. 252) in Middle English alliterative poetry. The volume concludes with a section on 'Voice'. Lynn Staley opens this with an examination of the relationship between Richard Maidstone's Penitential Psalms and his Concordia that places them in their late fourteenth-century [End Page 181] political context. Vincent Gillespie surveys a series of classical and medieval sources to consider the connections between poetic theory and the interpretation...

EXTRACTS FROM A REVISED VERSION OF RICHARD ROLLE'S "ENGLISH PSALTER" IN MS LONGLEAT 3, AN EARLY VERSION WYCLIFFITE BIBLE

In the early fifteenth century, individuals sympathetic to Wycliffite views revised more than once and extensively Richard Rolle's English Psalter, a Middle English translation and exposition of the Latin Psalms and Canticles.1 Five substantial extracts from one of these Wycliffi te versions, hitherto unidentified, appear as marginal glosses to Psalms i, iii, xix, xx, and xxi, according to the Vulgate numbering, in Warminster, Marquess of Bath, Longleat House MS 3 (hereafter simply Longleat), a copy of the Wycliffite Bible in the early translation. The glossator is not the main biblical text scribe of Longleat, although he does add matter other than the Rolle selections to the manuscript, as I explain below. His English Psalter extracts derive from the revised text of Rolle's work identified by Anne Hudson in her recent critical edition of the Wycliffite versions as RVi, but not it would seem from any of the copies Hudson used.2 Here, following a brief introduction to the manuscript, I describe the context and content of the extracts, discuss the possible Wycliffite sympathies of the Longleat glossator, and then present the extracts in edited form with variants from Hudson's edition.Among the more than 250 surviving manuscripts of the Wycliffite Bible, Longleat, once owned by the Norfolk antiquary Henry Spelman, was copied according to Mary Dove c.1390-1400 and is distinctive in several ways.3 A hefty folio, measuring approximately 395 x 285 mm, it is one of only five complete copies of the early Wycliffite translation to have been identified, although the text lacks some of the Old Testament prologues and all of those for the New Testament and is now defective at the end in the Apocalypse. Longleat is also one of a small number of copies of the Wycliffite Bible that indicate clearly the non-canonical status of the Old Testament canticle called the Prayer of Manasseh, copied here immediately after II Chronicles xxxvii.15 and given the rubric Pis preyere of Manasses is not in Ebreu (fol. 156). The Wycliffites were especially interested in this prayer because, before his penance, King Manasseh of Judah was a notorious idolater and opposition to religious images is a common Wycliffite theme.4 Conrad Lindberg identifies Longleat as 'one of the best' manuscripts of the early Wycliffite translation of the Bible5 and Dove describes its distinction in containing 'lengthy Middle English glosses on some Psalms', the extracts I have identified as deriving from a copy of RVi.61. The context and content of the extractsAccording to Wyclif and his followers, the Bible is the only reliable foundation of doctrine (sola Scriptura) and as such requires careful exegesis.7 Psalm exegesis is especially challenging, since the Psalter circulated during the Middle Ages in multiple discrepant Latin versions and its meaning was regarded as particularly dense. Rolle praises the Psalms in the preface to his English Psalter as 'perfeccioun of dyuyne pagyne', in that the Book of Psalms encompasses the teachings of both the Old and New Testaments - 'lare' (spiritual wisdom) that the rest of the Bible 'draghes langly' (treats at length).8 The anonymous author of the General Prologue to the Wycliffite Bible endorses and elaborates this view:he Sauter comprehendþ al þe elde and newe testament and techiþ pleynli [fully] þe mysteries of þe Trinite and of Cristis incarnacioun, passioun, risyng aeen and stiyng [ascension] into heuene and sendyng doun of þe Hooli Goost and prechyng of þe gospel, and þe coming of antecrist, and þe general doom of Crist, and þe glorie of chosun men to blisse and þe peynes of hem þat shulen be dampned to helle.9Several Wycliffite bibles containing the Psalms and stand-alone Wycliffite psalters have marginal glosses. These are drawn primarily from the fourteenth-century Franciscan Nicholas of Lyra's Postilla super totam Bibliam, secondarily from Augustine's Enarrationes in Psalmos, and thirdly (in only a few instances) from other commentaries, such as Cassiodorus' Expositio Psalmorum. …

Two Revisions of Rolle's English Psalter Commentary and the Related Canticles ed. by Anne Hudson

Two Revisions of Rolle's English Psalter Commentary and the Related Canticles ed. by Anne Hudson

Is there a method in this… madness? On variance between two manuscript copies of a Middle English Psalter

The objective of the paper is to determine the extent and the possible sources of the intertextual lexical variation between two manuscript copies of a single Middle English Psalter known, among other names, as the Middle English Glossed Prose Psalter. The purpose of the paper can be understood only if one approaches the variance from a medieval perspective on text with respect for the inherent features of manuscript culture and an understanding of the exceptional character of the text analysed in the study, which topics are briefly discussed within the paper. The extent of the variance is measured in relation to the nominal choices attested in the two copies of the text, the rationale behind the variation being sought separately in each case, taking into account the contextual intricacies of all the occurrences of the nouns under analysis.

A Further Book Annotated by Stephan Batman, with New Material for His Biography

BL MS Arundel 158, a copy of Richard Rolle’s English Psalter, contains a series of annotations in the hand of Stephan Batman, providing one further example to illustrate Batman’s interest in Middle English biblical literature, and also identifying the precise date of Batman’s birth.

Richard Rolle’s Psalter Rendition: The Work of a Language Purist?

Abstract Richard Rolle’s Psalter rendition, as any of the medieval English Psalter translations, is thickly enveloped in a set of assertions, originating in the nineteenth century, whose validity has been accepted unquestioned. It is the purpose of the present paper to investigate one such claim concerning the vocabulary selection, according to which Rolle’s rendition would employ almost exclusively lexical items of native origin, except for the instances where no proper item with native etymology presents itself in a particular context and Rolle is forced to use a Latin-derived word. The assertion generates at least two problematic issues. Firstly, it identifies Rolle’s translation as most exceptional in relation to the remaining 14th-century English Psalter translations: the Wycliffite Bibles and the Middle English Glossed Prose Psalter of which the former are asserted to be overtly influenced by the Latin text they render and the latter deeply indebted both syntactically and, more importantly, lexically to a ‘French source’. Secondly, it ascribes Richard Rolle the ideas nowadays covered by the term linguistic purism. Therefore, it seems necessary to analyse the lexical layer of the text in search of evidence, or lack thereof, which sets Rolle’s translation lexically apart from other renditions and sheds some light on the issue of Rolle’s supposed linguistic purism. Such a study is conducted on the basis of the nominal layer of the first fifty Psalms of the four relevant texts analysed in relation to their common Latin source text as only the juxtaposition of all of these enables one to (dis)prove the claim cited above. To provide a wider context from which to view them, the findings will be presented in relation to an overview of the contemporary theory of translation and set against a broadly sketched linguistic map of contemporary England.

Two Revisions of Rolle's English Psalter Commentary and the Related Canticles

Two Revisions of Rolle's English Psalter Commentary and the Related Canticles

Middle English Gospel Glosses and the Translation of Exegetical Authority

The non-Wycliffite Middle English commentaries on the Synoptic Gospels in MSS London, British Library Egerton 842 (Matt.), Cambridge, University Library Ii.2.12 (Matt.), and Cambridge, Corpus Christi College Parker 32 (Mark and Luke) are important witnesses to the widespread appeal of scholastic exegesis in later fourteenth-century England. They appear to have been produced by two different commentators (or teams of commentators) who worked without knowledge of one another's undertakings but responded similarly to the demand for vernacular biblical material. The commentary on Matthew represents a more extensive effort at compilation than the Mark and Luke texts, and, in his elaborate prologue, the Matthew commentator translates the priorities of scholastic Latin criticism even as he tailors his writing to meet the perceived needs of his English readers. Especially when considered alongside the Wycliffite Glossed Gospels, these texts illustrate further the variety and richness of vernacular biblical commentary composed in the decades following the important precedent of Richard Rolle's English Psalter.

The Doctrine of the Hert: A Critical Edition with Introduction and Commentary and A Companion to “The Doctrine of the Hert”: The Middle English Translation and Its Latin and European Contexts

The Doctrine of the Hert: A Critical Edition with Introduction and Commentary and A Companion to “The Doctrine of the Hert”: The Middle English Translation and Its Latin and European Contexts

Two Revisions of Rolle's English Psalter Commentary and the Related Canticles, Vol. 1 ed. by Anne Hudson (review)

Two Revisions of Rolle's English Psalter Commentary and the Related Canticles, Vol. 1 ed. by Anne Hudson (review)

Richard Rolle's English Psalter and the Making of a Lollard Text

Rolle's English Psalter and the Making of a Lollard Text. Richard Rolle's English Psalter was frequently copied and, by the early fifteenth century, was a source of religious controversy, as one writer complained that Lollard scribes had contaminated an otherwise orthodox text by introducing heretical glosses. Modem scholars, largely content to accept this claim, have struggled to identify exclusively Lollard elements in the manuscripts. This essay reexamines the problem of defining heterodoxy in the English Psalter by focusing less on the putative sources of interpolated passages than on how features of Rolle's original text-notably its emphasis on personal confession and its ambivalence about clerical authority-made it susceptible to both Lollard theology and ecclesiastical scrutiny. The author concludes that, while manuscript variation undoubtedly raised suspicion, the heresy of the English Psalter should also be seen as the product of historical change, as an ambitious vernacular text coll...

An image fit for a king: the Glazier Psalter reconsidered

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.

The Old English Metrical Psalter: An Annotated Set of Collection Lists with the Psalter Glosses. Sarah Larratt Keefer

<i>The Old English Metrical Psalter: An Annotated Set of Collection Lists with the Psalter Glosses</i>. Sarah Larratt Keefer

Conflicts betweenRegnumandSacerdotiumas Reflected in a Canterbury Psalter of ca. 1215

An English Psalter in Paris (Bibl. Nat., MS lat. 770) has never been seriously studied by art historians.1 Even the challenge of unidentified scenes has been neglected.2 Yet the extraordinary program of pictures contained in this book forms a unique historical document: the pictures present an allegory of the conflicts between regnum and sacerdotium, the Crown and the Church, in the period around 1200, and especially in the reign of King John. Political allegory was safely veiled by scriptural imagery and exegesis and hidden in a private liturgical book, but once deciphered the pictures appear as outspoken as the most extreme of contemporary treatises on kingship, and more powerful in their impact than the written word. The Psalter also deserves interest as a transitional production, made at a time when secular painters were beginning to provide illuminations for monastic books.

An Early Fourteenth-Century English Psalter in the Escorial

Previous articleNext article No AccessAn Early Fourteenth-Century English Psalter in the EscorialLucy Freeman SandlerLucy Freeman Sandler Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes Volume 42, Number 11979 Published for the Warburg Institute and the Courtauld Institute Views: 3Total views on this site Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/751085 Views: 3Total views on this site Copyright © 1979 by The Warburg Institute. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

The Tiberius Psalter ed. by A.P. Campbell

127 publication, without being strained through the precepts set forth in that admirable Halpenny-Priestley chapter in Thesis and the Book. We might fault both books on bibliography. Neither Moss nor Ricou offers enough help for the reader who wants to penetrate deeper into the study of spatiality, psychological, social, and aesthetic: few geographers, no sociol­ ogists, no modern historians; few of the philosophers and psychologists who help us understand the imaging process by which environment impinges on the human mind. But, in spite of this thinness in background, a theory of spatiality does emerge from the two books. Each moves beyond thematic studies of books in which protagonists inhabit and affect geophysical and social space, and interact in psychological space, to a sense of Canadian novels as structures, whose forms are radically affected by recognition of Canadian environment. Elizabeth w aterston / University of Guelph A.P. Campbell, editor, The Tiberius Psalter (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press 1974). xxv, 302. $18.00 Professor Campbell deserves the thanks of students of Old English language (and other philologists) for undertaking the task of editing the last previously unedited Old English psalter, Cotton Tiberius C vi. While a black-and-white facsimile has been available in Wormald's limited edition of the early 1960s, the facsimile is rare and not to be found in most university libraries. Campbell's labours have made the text available for a wider audience who might have difficulty locating a copy of the facsimile as well as those who would, in any case, find it difficult to work directly from a facsimile. The present edition includes a general bibliography, a well annotated descrip­ tion of the manuscript (with some comments on its relationship to other psalter glosses), and three handsome colour plates, which make it evident that Campbell is quite right in remarking that "a full facsimile edition of this psalter in colour is long overdue." The text is printed in the manuscript spelling, both Latin and Old English, as it should be; emendations and suggested corrections appear in footnotes, along with some collations with other psalter glosses. Abbreviations have been expanded, and the punctuation is as close to the pointing of the manuscript as modern printing fonts allow. In general, Campbell's editorial principles seem as close to the ideal as could be desired; the only striking omission is the lack of any discussion of the language of the text. However, now that it is in print, other scholars will have the opportunity of such study. There are very few typographical errors in the editorial matter. The only ones I have noted in the introduction are miniscule for minuscule (p xvi) ; Vitelluis for Vitellius (p xvii) ; and (xvii n 5) Cottoniam for Cottonian. This would seem 128 to bode well for the accuracy of the text itself, and indeed a spot check brought to light only two errors in the first ten psalms; inserne for iserne in the English (Ps 2:9) and vehementer omitted in the Latin (Ps 6 :11). However, students of the text should check the accuracy of the transcription against a facsimile before using the Psalter as linguistic evidence since there is no other way of determin­ ing where typographical errors may have slipped in when the text is, in both languages, oddly spelled and peppered with scribal errors. That Campbell may have occasionally nodded himself is to be suspected when he has let through such a peculiar phrase as "corrections and other erasures" (p xviii): the rest of the sentence makes it clear that the "corrections" referred to are not simply "erasures," since those in the Latin text are said to be "in the lighter ink of the gloss." Such reservations are, of course, routine, and should not detract from our gratitude to Professor Campbell, and to the University of Ottawa Press. The Press is to be warmly commended for supporting a truly scholarly publication which can scarcely be expected to pay its own way. In these dark days for those of us perverse enough to pursue areas which do not cater to pop culture, such a press is as rare as the unicorn depicted in its emblem. Constance b . hieatt / University...

An Illuminated English Psalter of the Early Thirteenth Century

An Illuminated English Psalter of the Early Thirteenth Century