Queen Mary Psalter

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Page from the psalter

The Queen Mary Psalter (British Library, Royal MS 2 B.vii) is a fourteenth-century English psalter named after Mary I of England, who gained possession of it in 1553.[1] The psalter is noted for its beauty and the lavishness of its illustration, and has been called "one of the most extensively illustrated psalters ever produced in Western Europe" and "one of the choicest treasures of the magnificent collection of illuminated MSS. in the British Museum".[2][3]

Origin and history of the manuscript

The psalter was perhaps produced c. 1310–1320 by one main scribe and, unusually for a work so heavily illuminated, a single artist,

Old Royal Library to the British Museum.[3]

Elements of the text are not known from other manuscripts and may have been specially composed. Some of the captions and illustrations betray the influence of the twelfth-century Historia scholastica.

At least twenty manuscripts from the fourteenth century have survived that reflect the "Queen Mary style".

Joseph, if read in the proper historical context, suggest Isabella: "it [the Joseph cycle] functioned in two ways: as a commentary on royal policy and current events during the reign of Edward II, and as an "anti-model" of conjugal fidelity for his queen, Isabella of France."[8]

Description

Pannage, Harvesting acorn to feed swine.

The Queen Mary Psalter is noted for its ornate, embroidered binding, executed on crimson velvet under Mary I; "on each side is a large conventional pomegranate-flower worked on fine linen in coloured silks and gold thread."

House of Tudor.[1][3]

The

Mary and Saint Anne. A final group of images concerns saints, three of whom are female (Catherine of Alexandria, Mary Magdalene, and Margaret the Virgin); in the case of two of the three male saints, Thomas Becket and Saint Nicholas, special attention is paid to the saints' mothers.[10]

References

Notes
References
  1. ^ a b c Davenport 56-57.
  2. ^ "Royal", 272
  3. ^ a b c d Warner 2.
  4. ^ a b c d e Stanton 172.
  5. ^ "Facsimiles."
  6. ^ Warner 1-2.
  7. ^ Stanton 184-86.
  8. ^ a b Smith 147.
  9. ^ Stanton 177.
  10. ^ Stanton 183-84.
Bibliography
  • Davenport, Cyril (1899). English embroidered bookbindings. The English bookman's library. Vol. 1. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner and Company.
  • "Facsimiles of Illuminated Manuscripts in Special Collections, 14th century: Queen Mary Psalter". University of Arizona. 2006. Retrieved 24 May 2011.
  • Papanicolaou, Linda Morey (1981). "The Iconography of the Genesis Window of the Cathedral of Tours".
    S2CID 193440105
    .
  • Smith, Kathryn A. (1993). "History, Typology and Homily: The Joseph Cycle in the Queen Mary Psalter".
    S2CID 155781985
    .
  • "Royal": McKendrick, Scott, Lowden, John and Doyle, Kathleen, (eds), Royal Manuscripts, The Genius of Illumination, 2011, British Library, 9780712358156
  • Stanton, Anne Rudloff (1997). "From Eve to Bathsheba and Beyond: Motherhood in the Queen Mary Psalter". In Jane H. M. Taylor (ed.). Women and the book: assessing the visual evidence. The British Library studies in medieval culture. Lesley Janette Smith. Toronto: U of Toronto P. pp. 172–89.
    ISBN 978-0-8020-8069-1
    .
  • Warner, George (1912). Queen Mary's Psalter Miniatures and Drawings by an English Artist of the 14th Century Reproduced from Royal Ms. 2 B. Vii in the British Museum (PDF). London: British Museum.

External links

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