Gripla - 01.01.1980, Page 325

SELMA JÓNSDÓTTIR
HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PSALTER
ATSKÁLHOLT
There is now considerable material to be added to the article ‘Frag-
ments of an English Psalter in Iceland’, published in 1967 in the Ice-
landic periodical Andvari.1 The Andvari article deals with two vellum
leaves with a Latin text in the National Library of Iceland, and one in
the National Museum of Iceland. One of the leaves in the Nat.Libr.,
I.B. 363 8vo, which has been badly cut, is adomed with an historiated
initial at the beginning of Psalm 38, depicting the Adoration of the
Magi bumt in gold (Photo 1). The other leaf, Lbs. fragm. 51, not only
has text but also ornamental linefillings in blue and red. One side of
the vellum leaf in the Nat.Mus., no. 4678, is void but the other is
decorated with a full page picture of the Crucifixion, leaving no room
for text. On the top of the leaf, however, is the following inscription:
‘Istud psalterium pertinet domui de Carehowe’ (This psalter belongs to
the cloister at Carrow). This inscription is written in a different hand
from the text on the Nat.Libr. leaves. However, the mode of decoration
and the colours of the Crucifixion picture are so like the Magi minia-
ture that all three vellum leaves must have come from the same manu-
script, a psalter from c. 1290-1320. As explained in the Andvari
article, the illuminations on the three leaves most closely resemble
illuminations in English manuscripts from about 1300-1325 which D.
Egbert names the Tickhill Psalter group.2
The three vellum leaves were evidently from a splendid old manu-
script, but had been used here in Iceland for bookbindings. In the
Arnamagnæan Institute in Copenhagen many Latin vellum leaves are
to be found which long ago were used for the same purpose. But
despite a thorough search before the publication of the Andvari article
in 1967, no leaves or fragments were found there resembling those
found in Iceland. It was in January 1972 that I first came across 29
vellum leaves in Accessoria 7dV which evidently originated from the
same book as the leaves found in the Nat.Libr. and the Nat.Mus. in