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1 results

  • 21 - Psalters

  • from PART III - TYPES OF BOOKS AND THEIR USES
  • Edited by Richard Gameson, University of Durham
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain
    Published online:
    28 March 2012
    Print publication:
    22 December 2011, pp 468-481

  • Summary

    This chapter discusses psalter manuscripts and their uses, and argues that the Book of Psalms was a living text for the Anglo-Saxons and the Irish. A manuscript copy of the psalter was itself a tangible manifestation of Christian worship, a primer for the recitation of the office, and a set of personal devotions. An Anglo-Saxon psalter manuscript could vary in size from the palm of the hand to over half a metre in height. Glossing was one of the most interesting of the Anglo-Saxon responses to the psalter. Almost from the earliest of times, the Anglo-Saxons glossed the psalter in the vernacular. Traditionally, the psalter glosses have been divided into two groups, named for their earliest and most coherent exempla: the A tradition, from the Vespasian Psalter; and the D tradition, from the Regius or Royal Psalter. The chapter also examines the substantial evidence for scholarly study of the psalms in Insular centres.