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An Illuminator of the Queen Mary Psalter Group: The Ancient 6 Master*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 April 2011

Extract

This study traces the career of a single illuminator (the Ancient 6 Master) who was active in England from c. 1310 to 1335. For much of this time it can be shown that he worked in collaboration with the artist of Queen Mary's Psalter, one of the most profusely illustrated English manuscripts in existence Although a large number of books have been grouped under the heading of the ‘Queen Mary’ style, they have never received a proper classification, nor has any detailed attention been given to the problem dating. This paper attempts both to isolate the works in which the two artists participated and to propose a sequence ofproduction. Since most of these manuscripts are devoid of internal documentary evidence for dating, a chronology has been devised on the basis of the Ancient 6 Master's artistic development; this has involved an investigation of minor aspects of style. As a result, it has been possible to learn about the career of the Queen Mary Artist, and by virtue of the few firmly datable manuscripts, viewed in the light of the chronology proposed, dates have been suggested for the others within this group.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1986

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References

Notes

1 Warner, G. F., Queen Mary's Psalter (London, 1912)Google Scholar; James, M. R., A Peterborough Psalter and Bestiary ofthe Fourteenth Century, Roxburghe Club (Oxford, 1921)Google Scholar; Saunders, O. E., English Illumination (Florence and Paris, 1928), i, 90-1, 94–8Google Scholar; Millar, E. G., English Illuminated Manuscripts of the XIVth and XVth Centuries (Paris and Brussels, 1928), 1117Google Scholar; Ker, N. R., ‘Liber Custumarum, and other manuscripts formerly at the Guildhall’, Guildhall Miscellany, iii (1954), 3745Google Scholar; Gordon, O. K., ‘Two unusual calendar cycles of the fourteenth century‘, Art Bulletin, xlv (1963), 245–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rickert, M., Painting in Britain: the Middle Ages, 2nd edn. (Harmondsworth, 1965), 124-8, 240 nn. 1928Google Scholar.

In addition, the manuscripts of this group have been discussed in Laing, A. H., ‘The Queen Mary Apocalypse, London, British Museum, Royal MS 19.B.XV’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Johns Hopkins University, 1971)Google Scholar. This deals primarily with the Apocalypse itself and does not give a detailed account of problems of style, nor does it attempt to formulate a chronology for the manuscripts of this group.

2 Pickering, O. S., ‘Some similarities between Queen Mary's Psalter and the Northern Passion’, J. Warburg & Courtauld Institutes, xxxv (1972), 135–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar; M. Roberts, ‘Towards a literary source for the scenes of the Passion in Queen Mary's Psalter’, ibid. xxxvi (1973), 361-5.

3 Wormald, F., ‘Some pictures of the Mass in an English XlVth-century manuscript’, Walpole Soc. xli (1966-1968), 3945Google Scholar; Alexander, J. J. G., ‘English early fourteenth-century illumination: recent acquisitions’, Bodleian Lib. Rec. ix (1974), 7280Google Scholar.

4 Downside Abbey MS 26533 and the Bangor Pontifical. See Michael, M. A., ‘The Harnhulle Psalter-Hours: an early fourteenth-century English illuminated manuscript at Downside Abbey’, J.B.A.A. cxxxiv (1981), 8199Google Scholar; Ker, N. R., Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, ii: Abbotsford-Keele (Oxford, 1977), 4853, 433-4Google Scholar.

5 Sandier, L. F., ‘A fragment of the Chertsey Breviary in San Francisco’, Bodleian Lib. Rec. xi 1983 155–61Google Scholar.

6 Verdier, P., Brieger, P. and Montpetit, M. Farquhar, Art and the Courts: France and England from 1259 to 1328, 2 vols. (Ottawa, 1972)Google Scholar; Lasko, P. and Morgan, N. J. (eds.), Medieval Art in East Anglia 1300-1520 (Norwich, 1973)Google Scholar.

7 The iconography of the Queen Mary group and the sources of the style also require detailed investigation. I intend to make these the subject of a later study. I deal with the question of provenance in my paper entitled ‘“Liber Horn”, “Liber Custumarum” and other manuscripts of the Queen Mary Psalter workshops’, Medieval Art and Architecture in London, British Arch. Assoc. Conference Transactions, 1984, forthcomingGoogle Scholar.

8 For MS Ancient 6, see Ker, N. R., Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, i: London (Oxford, 1969), 428–9Google Scholar; Laing, , op. cit. (note 1), 180–3 and nn. 43-8Google Scholar; Alexander, , op. cit. (note 3), 74 n. 3Google Scholar, where it is referred to erroneously as a book of hours; Sandier, L. F., The Peterborough Psalter in Brussels and other Fenland Manuscripts (London, 1974), 123, 135,137 n. 10,143 n. 79,98-9 (no. 12)Google Scholar; and Alexander, J. J. G., ‘Painting and manuscript illumination for royal patrons in the later Middle Ages’, in Scattergood, V. J. and Sherborne, J. W. (eds.), English Court Culture in the Later Middle Ages (London, 1983), 142Google Scholar. Exhibited in Brussels in 1973, English Illuminated Manuscripts 700-1500, ed. Alexander, J. J. G. and Kauffmann, C. M., Bibliothéque Royale Albert ier, Brussels, no. 65. For a full description of the manuscriptGoogle Scholar, see Appendix I of this paper.

9 This glazed effect appears to have resulted from generous proportions of glair being mixed with the pigment (glair was used as a binding agent in illumination), or gum arabic, ‘a much stronger tempera than glair’ which ‘develops the transparency and saturation of pigments’. ‘Colours applied with glair were therefore sometimes “varnished”, in and after the fourteenth century, with mixtures of strong glair and honey or sugar, to increase their depth and richness’ (Thompson, D. V., The Materials and Techniques of Medieval Painting (London, 1936), 55–6)Google Scholar. Thompson concludes that ‘in general the tendency seems to have been for gum to displace glair, especially in and after the fourteenth century’ and ‘the surface is often shiny, from a deliberate excess of gum’ (pp. cit., 56-7). For further details of glair and gum arabic see Thompson, D. V. and Hamilton, G. H. (eds.), De Arte Illuminandi (New Haven, 1933), 1314Google Scholar.

10 An expression coined by Warner in his description of this technique in Royal 2.B.VII (op. cit. (note 1), 22). This is possibly mosaic gold, for further discussion of which see Thompson, and Hamilton, , op. cit. (note 9), 4-5, 37–8Google Scholar; Thompson, , op. cit. (note 9), 181–4Google Scholar; Ross, J. L., ‘A note on the use of mosaic gold’, Studies in Conservation, xviii (1973). 174–6Google Scholar.

11 The predominant leaf types are beech, ivy and sycamore, the latter often interspersed with small gold balls, especially in the minor decoration. See Appendix I, 2, for a description of each folio of major decoration.

12 The illumination comprises historiated initials, partial borders and two bas-de-page miniatures. The manuscript has been mutilated and some of the illumination has suffered from rubbing. What is currently known to have survived, apart from some recently discovered leaves in San Francisco (Gleeson Library, University of San Francisco, MS BX 2033 A2), is found in four separate volumes in the Bodleian. The major part of the sanctorale is in Lat. liturg. e.39; the calendar, litany, a leaf of the psalter and a leaf containing the feast of St Scholastica are in Lat. liturg. e.6 and the major part of the temporale (with two detached leaves of the sanctorale bound in) in Lat. liturg. e.37. Most of the illumination, now in fragments, is mounted in Lat. liturg. d.42. They were formerly Douce d.13 and Douce 381. See Madan, F., A Summary Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, iv (Oxford, 1897)Google Scholar, no. 21956 (Douce 381, fo. 126, the Beams initial) and no. 21989 (Douce d.13). For Lat. liturg. e.6, see Madan, F. and Craster, H. H. E., A Summary Catalogue …, vi (Oxford, 1924)Google Scholar, no. 32558. See also Alexander, , op. cit. (note 3), 72Google Scholar, nn. 1-4, and 78-80 for the illuminated pages; Cockerell, S. C., The Gorleston Psalter (London, 1907), 1819 n-3Google Scholar, where the Beams page is briefly mentioned (it was at that time Oxford, Bodleian Douce 381); Wormald, F., English Benedictine Kalendars after A.D. 1100, i, Henry Bradshaw Society, lxxvii (1938), 8193Google Scholar; Pächt, O. and Alexander, J. J. G., Illuminated Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library Oxford (Oxford, 1973) iii no. 543 (e.40 should be d.42)Google Scholar; Lasko, and Morgan, , op. cit. (note 6), no. 16 (the Beams page was exhibited at Norwich)Google Scholar; Sandier, L. F., ‘An early fourteenth-century English Breviary at Longleat’, J. Warburg & Courtauld Institutes, xxxix (1976), 4, 10, 10 n. 43Google Scholar; The Douce Legacy, catalogue of an exhibition in the Bodleian Library, Oxford (Oxford, 1984), no. 73Google Scholar. For the recently discovered leaves in San Francisco, see Sandier, , op. cit. (note 5)Google Scholar.

13 Queen Mary's Psalter will be discussed below and bibliography given.

14 The historiated initial which has been mounted on fo. 45 of Lat. liturg. d.42, not as yet located in the text of the Breviary (Alexander, , op. cit. (note 3), 80)Google Scholar, can be attributed to the Queen Mary Artist, while the other two initials which remain unidentified, now mounted on fos. 46 and 47 of Lat. liturg. d.42, are by the Ancient 6 Master. The illumination to psalm 101, included in the San Francisco leaves, is also by the Ancient 6 Master. Sandier, (op. cit. (note 5), 159–60)Google Scholar denies the presence of the Queen Mary Artist in the Breviary, attributing all the work to another hand.

15 Although this technique occurs throughout the sanctorale and the psalter, by the Ancient 6 Master, it is not found in the temporale, for which the Queen Mary Artist was responsible. The Ancient 6 Master employs a wider range of colour than the Queen Mary Artist; this includes maroon, cobalt blue and deep cerise pigments. This more extensive palette is well illustrated by the Beatus page mounted on fo. 20 of Lat. liturg. d.42.

16 The illuminated part of the text is a treatise on the Virtues and Vices written for Philip III of France by his confessor. This is followed by various psalms, prayers and religious texts in English and two prayers in Latin. For a description of the miniatures see James, M. R., A Descriptive Catalogue ofthe Manuscripts in the Library of St John's College, Cambridge (Cambridge, 1913), 291–3, no. 256Google Scholar. See also Millar, , op. cit. (note 1), 16, 55, 81 (chart no. 225), pi. 40a, bGoogle Scholar; Rickert, , op. cit. (note 1), 240 n. 28Google Scholar; Alexander, , op. cit. (note 3), 73,74 n. 73Google Scholar; Lasko, and Morgan, , op. cit. (note 6), no. 6Google Scholar.

17 My division of labour accords with that already proposed by Alexander, (op. cit. (note 3), 74 n. 3)Google Scholar, who suggests that ‘two hands occur in the Somme le Roi, … and that of these the second (pp. 113, 117,127,139,143,145 and 164) is the main artist of the Queen Mary Psalter, and the first (pp. 1,12,18) is the artist of Ancient 6’.

18 The Evangelist is given the symbol of St Mark in error.

19 This manuscript in 53 folios comprises four religious tracts. The section beginning ‘Isci comence le dialogue del piere e del fix’ (fos. i-27v) opens with a miniature showing a seated doctor addressing a group of students. Folios 28-44v contain the Speculum Ecclesiae of St Edmund Rich, in Anglo-Norman: at the beginning there is a half-page miniature of the saint in cope and mitre addressing a group of students. The short Tract on the Mass (fos. 45-48v) is the only fully illuminated portion, with twelve miniatures depicting various points in the Mass. For a full transcription of the text and description and illustration of the miniatures in this section, see Wormald, , op. cit. (note 3), esp. 40–3 and pis. 37-42Google Scholar. The final portion is that of the so-called Psalter of St Jerome (fos. 49-52), which opens with a historiated initial showing the mitred St Jerome. In addition to the illustrations included in this paper, reference will be made to the plates in the Wormald article. See also The Douce Legacy (see note 12), no. 224.

20 A detailed account of the part played by the Queen Mary Artist is not within the scope of this paper.

21 The fragment of text in 10 folios is an unattributed account in Anglo-Norman of the Lives of Adam and Eve and of the Passion. See Madan, , op. cit. (note 12), no. 21653Google Scholar; Millar, , op. cit. (note 1), 15, 54-5,81 (chart no. 223), pis. 37-8Google Scholar; Tristram, E. W., ‘The wall paintings at South Newington’, Burlington Mag. lxii (1933), 117Google Scholar; Scenes from the Life of Christ in English Manuscripts, Bodleian Library Picture Book no. 5 (Oxford, 1951)Google Scholar, pis. 2, 3; English Illumination of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, Bodleian Library Picture Book no. 10 (Oxford, 1954), pi. 12Google Scholar; Clive-Rouse, E. and Baker, A., ‘The wall-paintings at Longthorpe Tower, near Peterborough, Northants.’, Archaeologia, xcvi (1955), 15 n. 6, 16Google Scholar; Verdier, el al., op. cit. (note 6), no. 30Google Scholar; Pächt, and Alexander, , op. cit. (note 12), no. 539Google Scholar; Lasko, and Morgan, , op. cit. (note 6), no. 17Google Scholar; Alexander, , op. cit. (note 3), 73 n. 4,74Google Scholar; Michael, , op. cit. (note 4), 90 and n. 43Google Scholar; The Douce Legacy (see note 12), no. 224.

22 In the Psalter of St Jerome there are 32 lines and minor variants occur in other parts of the text in frangais 13342.

23 In Douce 79 they precede the text and illustrate the life of the Virgin: Annunciation (fo. 2), Nativity (fo. 2v), Assumption (fo. 3) and the Coronation of the Virgin (fo. 3v). They do not appear to relate to the text.

24 In the case of Douce 79 it has been suggested (Verdier, et al., op. cit. (note 6), 101)Google Scholar that these grounds result from the unfinished state of the miniatures, but this argument loses strength in the light of frangais 13342.

25 The two miniatures illustrated in this paper from franc, ais 13342 are in a technique which approaches grisaille. Those in question occur in the portion illustrating the Tract on the Mass (fos. 45-48v).

26 The seat of the Virgin and Child and the tomb of the resurrected Christ (Wormald, , op. cit. (note 3), pi. 38)Google Scholar and the seat of the Trinity (ibid., pi. 42).

27 In the Douce Legacy (see note 12; no. 224), Dr A. C. de la Mare, before access to the present article was possible, depended on my earlier conclusions, for which see m y unpublished M.A. dissertation cited at the beginning of this study (* above). There, I attributed the minor decoration in Douce 79 and francjais 13342 to the Ancient 6 Master, but have since concluded that the Queen Mary Artis t was responsible, drawing heavily on the forms and techniques of the Ancient 6 Master.

The bas-de-page scenes which occur on fos. iv-3 of français 13342 are not by either artist. Although contemporary, they do not form an integral part of a border or miniature, and their appearance in this manuscript is anomalous.

28 There are minor variants: franqais 13342 has pen flourishes in red and mauve decorating the one-line initials, a feature lacking in Douce 79, and its text is consistently interspersed with red capitulum marks, the latter only occurring twice in the Oxford manuscript; the parchment for the full-page miniatures in Douce 79 (fos. 2-3v) is fairly thick and brittle in quality, that of fos. 4-13v is thinner and softer, whereas that in franc.ais 13342 is of a moderate thickness but with some variation; and the Ancient 6 Master does not work in what survives of the Oxford portion.

29 For discussion of the Psalter, see Watson, B., ‘The East Anglian problem: fresh perspectives from an unpublished psalter’, Gesta, xiii, pt. 2 (1974), 316Google Scholar. Brief references to the Psalter can also be found in Sandier, , op. cit. (note 8), table, 98–9, no. 11, 123,137 n. 10,143 n. 79Google Scholar. Sandier refers to an eight-part division of the psalter text, while Watson discovered tha t the folios containing the illustrations to psalms 51 and 101 had been removed: fo. 67v ends ‘… et omnes iniquitates meas dele. Cor mundu m crea in me deus et’ at the twelfth verse of psalm 50, while fo. 68 begins ‘… (preceptio)nis lingua(m) dolosa(m)’, the sixth verse of psalm 51. Similarly, fo. I26V ends with ‘…mei in medio domu s mee’, at the second verse of psalm 100, while fo. 127 begins‘…(soli)tudinis factus sum sicut nicticorax in domicilio’, the seventh verse of psalm IOI. Each of these gatherings is minus a leaf. I have relied on Watson's collation since the manuscript is too tightly bound to collate with ease.

30 There is illumination for psalms 26, 38, 52,68, 80, 97, 109 and 119, as well as for Confitebor (the first of the Canticles) and Placebo (the opening to the Office of the Dead). On this manuscript, see also Appendix IV.

31 The figure of the Fool in this initial provides a unique example in this manuscript of predominantly dark grey flesh, subtly modelled in darker tones of brown, with the body in turn highlighted in thick white pigment and pink touches of colour then applied to the cheeks and lips. Unfortunately it is not possible to illustrate these technique s adequately from black and white photographs.

32 The particularly distinctive maroon (a pigment not used by the Queen Mary Artist) of the overgarment of the Person on the left in the Trinity initial on fo. 145 exactly matches that of the Person on the right in the Chertsey initial of the Trinity.

33 See note 9.

34 The highlights range from those which are basically watercolour in technique, with softly modulated tones, to those in which a thick consistency of white pigment is applied to the contours of the form in a series of dry brush strokes.

35 There are serrated half cabbage-leaves, beech sprays, oaks bearing acorns, small clovers, ivy leaves, strawberry flowers, columbines, daisy and marigold buds, lion heads which bite into foliage, and vine leaves, variegated, or in single colours, highlighted in white along their veins and interspersed with small burnished gold balls. For Ancient 6, see note 11.

36 For an illustration see Watson, , op. cit. (note 29) ng. 7Google Scholar

37 See, for example, Warner, , op. cit. (note i), pis. 301–10Google Scholar.

38 Saunders, , op. cit. (note i), 95Google Scholar. See Warner, , op. cit. (note 1), pi. 188Google Scholar.

39 For example, the St Christopher in Westminster Abbey. See Tristram, E. W., English Medieval Wall Painting: the Thirteenth Century (Oxford, 1950), pls. 1112Google Scholar, and compare with Warner, , op. cit. (note 1), pl. 101Google Scholar.

40 Warner, , op. cit. (note 1), pl. 239Google Scholar.

41 Ibid., pls. 67-80 and passim.

42 Ibid., pl. 188.

43 Ibid., pl. 229.

44 Ibid., pl. 239.

45 This manuscript has received attention in a number of general volumes, but only principal studies will be cited here (see also notes 1-6). For an account of the Psalter's structure and iconography, see Warner, , op. cit. (note 1)Google Scholar. A summary of the latter is given in Warner, G. F. and Gilson, J. P., British Mttseum: Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King's Collections (London, 1921), i, 42–7Google Scholar; iv, pls. 24-5. See also Millar, , op. cit. (note 1), 13-15,52–4,81 (chart no. 222), pls. 30-6Google Scholar; Saunders, , op. cit. (note 1), 94–8Google Scholar, pls. 101-2; and Rickert, , op. cit. (note 1), 127-8, 240 nn. 23-5, pl. 127Google Scholar. Since this paper is primarily concerned with tracing the career of the Ancient 6 Master, a detailed account of this manuscript is not attempted here, but I hope to make it the subject of a later study.

46 The miniatures and historiated initials in the main psalter text and not the miniatures of the prefatory cycle, which are in a tinted drawing technique.

47 See note 35. Sandier, (op. cit. (note 5), 160)Google Scholar claims that the ‘sprays of large multicoloured five-pointed leaves, amidst which gold balls are interspersed’ in the Chertsey Breviary are little known in the Queen Mary group, recurring only in La Somme le Roi. However, they are found in Queen Mary's Psalter and occur extensively in the manuscripts of this workshop (see notes 11, 35, 59 and 63).

48 Examples can be found on fos. 87, 97v and 265v.

49 Warner, , op. cit. (note 1), plsGoogle Scholar. 149 and 185.

50 Despite the sizeable nature of the undertaking, the principal illumination in Royal 2.B.VII can be assigned to the Queen Mary Artist alone.

51 Formerly MS 14 in the collection of Dyson Perrins. See Burlington Fine Arts Club, Exhibition of Illuminated Manuscripts (London, 1908), no. 50, pl. 47Google Scholar; Warner, , op. cit. (note 1), 56Google Scholar; Warner, G. F., Descriptive Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts in the Library of C. W. Dyson Perrins, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1920), no. 14, 57–9 and pls. XXI, XXIIGoogle Scholar; Millar, , op. cit. (note 1), 16, 55, 81 (chart no. 224), pl. 39Google Scholar; Saunders, , op. cit. (note 1), 95,98Google Scholar; Sotheby and Co., The Dyson Perrins Collection, Part One (London, 9th 12 1958), lot 11, pls. 11, 12Google Scholar; Plummer, J., Manuscriptsfrom the William S. Glazier Collection (New York, 1959), no. 26 and pl. 23Google Scholar; Rickert, , op. cit. (note 1), 128,240 nn. 26-7Google Scholar; Plummer, J., The Glazier Collection of Illuminated Manuscripts (New York, 1968), no. 36 and pls. 33–4Google Scholar; Verdier, et al., op. cit. (note 6), no. 28Google Scholar; Sandier, , op. cit. (note 8), table, 98–9 (no. 10), 119,136 n. 11.1,137 nn. 10,13, fig. 331Google Scholar; Watson, , op. cit. (note 29), 811 (he notes that the Trinity figures on fo. 102 have been retouched in the faces and around the shoulders)Google Scholar; and Sandier, , op. cit. (note 5), 159–60, 161 nn. 10,12,13 and fig. 3Google Scholar.

52 There is a ten-part division of the psalter text; psalms 119 and 143 are also historiated, as are the openings to the Canticles and the Office of the Dead.

53 I have not examined Glazier 53 in its original form and have had to rely mainly on other writers' observations on technique. Where these exist, however, they support my own conclusions drawn from photographic reproductions.

54 Plummer, 1968, op. cit. (note 51), 28Google Scholar.

55 Watson, , op. cit. (note 29), 8Google Scholar.

56 Warner, , op. cit. (note 1), pl. 187Google Scholar.

57 As stated earlier, this study does not attempt to discuss iconography fully, but relevant points are raised where they have a bearing on stylistic arguments. See Appendix IV, note 1 ID.

58 For the authors in question, see note 51.

59 Watson, , op. cit. (note 29), 910Google Scholar. Included in the repertoire of motifs are lion heads and birds, leaf and grotesque masks composed within lozenges of foliage and other forms of interlace. The flower and leaf forms comprise beech and oak sprays, variegated vine leaves interspersed with burnished gold balls, marigold and daisy buds, ivy, serrated half cabbage-leaves, strawberry flowers and columbines. See also notes 11 and 35.

60 See Appendix IV note n o for a discussion of the iconography of the Longleat Psalter.

61 Warner, , op. cit. (note 1), pl. 274Google Scholar.

62 Sixteen complete leaves containing marginal decoration remain in the portions of the Breviary preserved in the Bodleian (see Alexander, , op. cit. (note 3), 7880)Google Scholar. There is one illuminated leaf, containing a historiated initial (psalm 101) and border, amongst the San Francisco leaves (see Sandier, , op. cit. (note 5)Google Scholar, fig. 2). See also my note 12.

63 Almost identical forms occur in Longleat MS 11 (see figs. 4 and 7 in Watson, , op. cit. (note 29))Google Scholar, Royal 2.B. VII (see Warner, , op. cit. (note 1), pls. 149, 185)Google Scholar, Glazier 53 (pl. Liia here), français 13342 (pl. XLVIb here) and Ancient 6 (pl. XLJ here).

64 This is also the case in Queen Mary's Psalter. See Warner, , op. cit. (note 1), pl. 274Google Scholar.

65 Although the marginal decoration throughout La Somme le Roi (see note 17 for a division of hands) is strongly reminiscent of the work of the Ancient 6 Master in both palette and design, it would appear that the Queen Mary Artist was responsible for the execution of the borders accompanying his historiated initials and small miniatures. This may also be the case in the Chertsey Breviary, where only one folio survives containing a border with an initial by the Queen Mary Artist (Lat. liturg. d.42, fo. 15). Although it is possible that these borders are by the Ancient 6 Master, this would be an anomaly for the workshop, since in all other instances it appears to have been customary for the artist to assume responsibility for illuminating both the historiated initial and border where they exist together on a page. The Queen Mary Artist's appropriation of the Ancient 6 Master's palette and border forms in these two works is a clear indication of the closely collaborative nature of their partnership.

66 Wormald, , op. cit. (note 3), pl. 37Google Scholar.

67 Ibid., pl. 38.

68 Ibid., pl. 37.

69 Ibid., pl. 38.

70 Ibid., pl. 42.

71 Warner, , op. cit. (note 1), pl. 294Google Scholar.

72 Since the Queen Mary Artist was clearly responsible for the design and execution of the decoration in Douce 79 and frangais 13342 (except for fo. 49), he reverts almost exclusively to the forms used in Royal 2.B.VII, except for the rectilinear structure on fo. 28 in français 13342, of the Ancient 6 Master's invention.

73 French examples include: Paris, Musee Jac-quemart-Andre MS 1, a book of hours of the use of Paris; Paris, Bibliothéque Nationale MS lat. 10483-4 (Belleville Breviary), and New York, The Cloisters MS 54. i.2 (Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux). As in French manuscripts, Ancient 6 has an eight-part division of the psalter text (see Appendix I, 2) and its unusually small size suggests that it may have been emulating a book of hours. For Parisian examples with which Ancient 6 can be specifically compared, see Morand, K., Jean Pucelle (Oxford, 1962), pls. 11, in, v and viGoogle Scholar.

74 In blue and red at 4 April: ‘Obitus sancte memorie domine iohanne regine francie’ (Jeanne de Navarre died on 2 April 1305); and in blue at 29 November: ‘Obitus domini philippi regis francie’ (Philip IV died on 29 November 1314).

75 St Francis, in gold (4 Oct.) with an octave (11 Oct.) and his translation on 25 May, also in gold. For a description of the calendar, see Appendix 1,1. A Franciscan calendar may not have been uncommon for a manuscript commissioned within the court circle. There is evidence for Dominican patronage in Paris at this time, as the following manuscripts of Dominican use suggest: Hours of Jeanne d'Évreux, and Belleville Breviary (see note 73). The calendar of Ancient 6 could have been prepared under the direction of a Franciscan. For English royal patronage of Franciscans, see Little, A. G., Studies in English Franciscan History (Manchester, 1917), 3540Google Scholar, and of the London Greyfriars, Kingsford, C. L., The Grey Friars of London (Aberdeen, 1915), 17-18, 35–8Google Scholar. For Dominicans as royal confessors, see Palmer, C. F. R., ‘The King's Confessors’, The Antiquary, xxii (1890), 114–20, 159-61, 262-6Google Scholar; xxiii (1891), 24-6.

76 Jeanne de Navarre and Philip IV were Queen Isabella's parents. Laing, (op. cit. (not e 1), 182–3)Google Scholar points out that Isabella took the habit of the Poor Clares after she was removed from the Regency in 1330. The inventory taken on her death in 1352 (Vale, J., Edward III and Chivalry (Woodbridge, 1982), 170)Google Scholar confirms that she possessed books ‘de usu fratrum minorum’, although these do not include any psalters.

77 France: Azure semy de lys or; England: Gules three lions passant guardant or; Count o f Hainault: Or four lions rampant in quadrangle the first and fourth sable the second and third gules, set lozengewise. Properly the last arms should be: Quarterly, first and fourth, Or a lion rampant sable (Flanders), second and third, Or a lion rampant gules (Holland). The omission of the pourfilar or division lines can, however, be paralleled on the tomb of Philippa of Hainault (Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, London, i (London 1924), pi. 26). I am grateful to Nicholas Rogers for this information.

78 There is no reason why a book executed for Isabella should include the arms of Flanders and Holland quarterly, as borne by William III, count of Hainault. The placement of the shields on fo. 20 might support the idea that Ancient 6 was a present to Philippa from her mother-in-law. Philippa's confessor was John Mablethorpe, Guardian of the London Greyfriars (Kingsford, , op. cit. (note 75), 56)Google Scholar.

79 Alexander, 1983, op. cit. (note 8), 142Google Scholar.

80 In his discussion of the Longleat Psalter, Watson, (op. cit. (note 29), 4)Google Scholar notes that the ‘Sarum Feast of the Relics is found in the calendar on September 15th, possibly suggesting a terminal date of 1319’. In 1319 the Sarum Feast of Relics was moved from 15th September because it conflicted with the Octave of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (see Legg, J. Wickham (ed.), The Sarum Missal (Oxford, 1916), vi)Google Scholar. However, there is always an overlap period after the institution of a new feast, so the pre-1319 date, although likely on grounds of style, cannot be unreservedly relied on. Even if the kneeling monk in Glazier 53 is accepted as Richard of Canterbury, collector of books, who was born in 1281 and who became treasurer of the Abbey in 1334 (see James, M. R., The Ancient Libraries of Canterbury and Dover (Cambridge, 1903), 539)Google Scholar, these dates are clearly too unspecific to be of value in determining a chronology. The latest obit in the Chertsey Breviary is that of Abbot Bartholomew, who died in 1307, while Abbot John de Rutherwyk (1307-46) is not entered. Royal 2.B.VII, St John's S.30 and the Oxford/Paris manuscript contain no internal evidence for dating.

81 See Flahiff, G. B., ‘The use of prohibitions by clerics against ecclesiastical courts in England’, Mediaeval Studies, iii (1941), in n. 47, 114 n. 67, 115 n. 68Google Scholar; id. The Writ of Prohibition to Court Christian in the thirteenth century’, Mediaeval Studies, vi (1944), 276 n. 77,284 n. 117Google Scholar; vii (1945) 240 n. 59. For a discussion and edition of the text, see Haas, E. de and Hall, G. D. G. (eds.), Early Registers of Writs, Selden Society, lxxxvii (London, 1970), lv-lxi, 108311Google Scholar. See also Pacht and Alexander, , op. cit. (note 12), no. 576Google Scholar.

82 Flahiff, de Haas and Hall (see note 81). The manuscript consists of a Register (fos. 9-104) and Statutes (fos. 105-164). The text containing the illumination was written throughout in one hand in the period 1318-20. De Haas and Hall note that the first writ in the Register is dated 8th October 1318, the date at which the writing may have begun. They further note that the manuscript cannot have been completed before 1320, the date of the De attinctis Statute (Westminster, Michaelmas 1320) with which the volume ends. Since there are other writs in the Register which involve a date somewhere between the two (see Haas, de and Hall, , op. cit., lix n. 1)Google Scholar they conclude that it is an ‘up-to-date … Register, written in 1318/20’ (Ibid., lxi). The dating and contents of the text suggest that the illumination was carried out immediately after the text was completed in 1320, a date which can be relied on with a considerable degree of certainty.

83 Comparisons have been made between Royal 2.B.VII and the works of Jean Pucelle: see, for instance, Martindale, A., Gothic Art (London, 1967) 138Google Scholar. Although the arrangement of the various decorative elements—miniature, histori-ated initial and bas-de-page—compares closely to that in the Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux, it was not until the execution of the Oxford/Paris manuscript that the Queen Mary Artist attempted spatial modelling of the type encountered in the Parisian Hours.

84 See Appendix III for a suggested dating and chronology of these manuscripts.

85 For further discussion of this question see my paper cited in note 7.

86 SeeN. Ker, R., Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, iii: Lampeter-Oxford (Oxford, 1983), 513–15Google Scholar. The original scribal hand, contemporary with the illumination, ends on fo. 171v with a statute dated 30th September 1331 (The Statutes of the Realm, i (London, 1810), 265-9). The earliest added item by a later scribe (there is no illumination after fo. 166) is a statute dated 6th Jun e 1335 (Ibid., 273-4)-

87 For the harping David, see pl. Ormesby v in Cockerell, S. C. and James, M. R., Two East Anglian Psalters at the Bodleian Library, Oxford. The Ormesby Psalter. The Bromholm Psalter, Roxburghe Club (Oxford, 1926)Google Scholar; for the St Omer Psalter, see Thompson, H. Yates, Facsimiles in Photogravure of Six Pages from a Psalter, Written and Illuminated about 1325 A.D. for a Member of the St Omer Family in Norfolk (London, 1900)Google Scholar. The date stated in this title is clearly too early; I have suggested (see my forthcoming Ph.D. dissertation, University of London, entitled ‘The Stylistic Sources, Dating and Development of the Bohun Workshop, c. 1340 to 1400’) that on stylistic grounds the St Omer Psalter dates to c. 1340. For a detailed bibliography on the two manuscripts, see Lasko, and Morgan, , op. cit. (note 6), nos. 21, 28Google Scholar.

88 I deal with this question in the paper cited in note 7.

89 Wormald, , op. cit. (note 3), 44Google Scholar. See also Warner, , op. cit. (note 1), 7Google Scholar, with reference to the marginal decoration in Royal 2.B.VII; Saunders, , op. cit. (note 1), 95, 98 in connection with the Psalter of Richard of CanterburyGoogle Scholar; and Rickert, , op. cit. (note 1), 128, who reiterates Saunders's commentsGoogle Scholar.

90 Comparison can be made between the reclining Jesse and Tree in the Longleat Psalter (pl. XLVIIIb here) and the Jesse Tree on fo. 8 of the Gorleston Psalter, B.L. Add. MS 49622. For a reproduction of this page, see Cockerell, , op. cit. (note 12), pl. ivGoogle Scholar, or Rickert, , op. cit. (note 1), pl. 131Google Scholar. The initial B in the Longleat Psalter was already occupied when it passed into the hands of the Ancient 6 Master, who then placed the Jesse Tree in a rather incongruous position alongside the David roundels of the late thirteenth-century programme (see Appendix IV). The design and disposition of the elements within the right-hand border, which shows seated figures enclosed by ovals of foliage-bearing tendrils, are closely analogous in both the Longleat and Gorleston pages. See also note 109.

91 It has been demonstrated by Pacht that the artist who executed eight of the historiated initials and accompanying borders (those to psalms 38, 51, 52,68,80,97,101 and 109) in the Ormesby Psalter, Oxford, Bodleian MS Douce 366, derived motifs from this form of art: see Pächt, O., ‘A Giottesque episode in English mediaeval art’, J. Warburg & Courtauld Institutes, vi (1943), 5170, esp. 54-6CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Transfer of decorative forms by this method is discussed by Alexander, J. J. G. in ‘An English illuminator's work in some fourteenth-century Italian law books at Durham’, Medieval Art and Architecture at Durham Cathedral, British Arch. Assoc. Conference Transactions, ill (1980), 149–53Google Scholar.

92 There are a number of other manuscripts which contain elements of ‘Queen Mary’ decoration, but are partly illuminated in the style of a different workshop; these I have termed ‘Subsidiary’. Discussion of this material lies outside the scope of the present study, but is the subject of my paper cited in note 7.

93 See my paper cited in note 7.

94 Dijk, S. J. P. van, Sources of the Modern Roman Liturgy (Leiden, 1963), ii, 365–76Google Scholar.

95 Feast introduced at the chapter of Assisi in 1269 (Ibid., 441).

96 Included in several late thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century Franciscan calendars (Ibid., 381).

97 Canonized on 7th April 1317 (Toynbee, M. R., S. Louts of Toulouse and the Process of Canonisation in the Fourteenth Century (Manchester, 1929), 201)Google Scholar.

98 Feast adopted at the chapter of Lyons in 1299 (Dijk, van, op. cit. (note 94), 449)Google Scholar. A chapel of St Louis was establishe d at the London Greyfriar s about 1305. Margaret of France (d. 1318), the second foundress of the church, was his granddaughter (Kingsford, , op. cit. (note 75), 70, 202–3)Google Scholar. I am grateful to Nicholas Rogers for his opinion on the calendar text of Ancient 6.

99 For a full description see note 77.

100 Comparison can be made with the specimen of script shown on pl. 11 (bottom right-hand corner) beginning ‘Fidelium deus’ in Dijk, S. J. P. van, ‘An advertisement sheet of an early fourteenth-century writing master at Oxford’, Scriptorium, x (1956), 47-64, at 52, 59 and 56–8Google Scholar, where the example is described under nos. 3, 4 and 6-7.1 am grateful to Professor Julian Brown for his opinion on the script of Ancient 6.

101 See Appendix IV for a discussion of the other hand in this manuscript.

102 See note 65.

103 See note 65.

104 A fragment of Jacobus de Voragine, Legenda Aurea, Oxford, Bodleian MS Lat. th. c.30, contains two historiated initials, one on each side of a single leaf, illustrating the martyrdoms of saints Anastasia and Stephen: see Pächt, and Alexander, , op. cit. (note 12), no. 541Google Scholar, where other references are given. Although the initials are not in perfect condition, enough survives to indicate that they were illuminated by the Queen Mary Artist and probably belong to the same point in the chronology as the Chertsey Breviary. I am grateful to Dr Christopher de Hamel for drawing my attention to further leaves from this manuscript, now in private hands in Copenhagen: see Sotheby and Co. (London), 2nd February i960, lot 242. See also Sotheby and Co. (London), 19th May 1958, lot 112 (ex S. C. Cockerell).

105 Watson, , op. cit. (note 29), 56Google Scholar.

106 Ibid., fig. 3.

107 Ibid., 8. See fig. 3 for the Longleat Beatus initial and fig. 9 for the Glazier 53 initial.

108 The nearest parallel I have been able to find is with the Salvin Hours (London, B.L. Add. MS 48985). Although the figural illuminator of the Longleat Beatus initial (see Watson, , op. cit. (note 29), fig. 3)Google Scholar cannot be found in this work, the subject matter is similarly compartmentalized, there is the parallel use of decorative lettering within the histo-riated initial and an agreement in certain elements of ornament. For illustrations with which the Longleat initial can be compared, see Millar, E. G., Illuminated Manuscripts from the Xth to the XIIIth Century (Paris and Brussels, 1926), pls. 97–8Google Scholar; Brown, T. J., ‘The Salvin Horae’, British Museum Quarterly, xxi (1957/1959), 812CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pl I; and Morgan, N. J., Early Gothic Manuscripts, ii, no. 158 (forthcoming)Google Scholar. In terms of ornament there are also connections with the William of Devon group of manuscripts (for illustrations, see Bennett, A. L., ‘Additions to the William of Devon Group’, Art Bulletin, liv (1972), 3140)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

109 Cambridge, Corpus Christi MS 53 has the Jesse Tree in this position on the Beams page, but a harping David, and not scenes from the Life of David, occurs in the initial B. See James, , op. cit. (note 1)Google Scholar, Pictures in the Psalter, 1 (fo. 19).

110 Watson, , op. cit. (note 29), 9Google Scholar. In psalm 26, the initial is divided, with Christ blessing in the upper register, while a supplicating David kneels below, supported by two standing figures; in psalm 38, a single figure supports David and there is no altar; psalm 68 substitutes a blessing Christ for Jonah thrown overboard, as in Ancient 6, with which there is a particularly close correspondence; in psalm 80, the subject matter is again clearly divided by the bar of the initial E which supports David's bells, while Christ in Majesty can be seen in a vesica shape; the hand of God appears in psalm 97. Compartmentalizing the iconography, as in Longleat psalm 52, which contains David on the left, the Fool on the right and Christ in Majesty above, does not occur in Royal 2. B. VII. For the relevant initials in Queen Mary's Psalter, see Warner, , op. cit. (note 1), pls. 163, 174, 187, 198, 211 and 225Google Scholar. The Ancient 6 Master's iconographic and stylistic origins clearly lie in a different direction from those of the Queen Mary Artist.