Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1980, Blaðsíða 9

Acknowledgements
When, in the early 1960s, I searched the Scandinavian manuscript
libraries for material relating to the Nidaros Ordinary (ON, edited in
1968), I became acquainted with a great many liturgical fragments of
Icelandic origin, or used in Iceland in the Middle Ages. In particular,
I was struck by the numerous fragments of a psalter of fifteen divisions,
with prayers following upon each group of ten psalms, so far seemingly
unknown. In September 1963 I presented the problem of this psalter in
a communication to the Fourth International Conference of Patristic
Studies in Oxford. At the same time, thanks to the kindness of Dom
Henry Ashworth of Quarr Abbey, I had the opportunity to see the late
Dom André Wilmart’s (ti940) notes relating to psalters, which were
then deposited at Quarr Abbey. The late Dom Gabriel Beyssac of Le
Bouveret (t 1965) took a great interest in this psalter and sent me notes
on the organization of the Ambrosian Psalter. Dom Petrus Siffrin of
Trier (ti963), though ill at the time, had the great kindness to answer
my letter and to direct my attention to H. Schneider’s work on psalter
divisions in general. The psalter of fifteen divisions, however, had not
come within the range of these eminent scholars, with their unparallelled
experience of medieval manuscripts.
During the elaboration of this book, both as regards the psalter of
fifteen divisions and the other liturgical manuscripts described in it, I
have received generous assistance from friends and colleagues. Dom
Jean Deshusses helped to unravel a rare prayer text of my oldest
missal fragment, and Michel Huglo, maitre de recherches au C.N.R.S.,
gave his opinion on the musical notation of the same fragment. On the
origin of another missal fragment, I could draw on the expertise of
Neil R. Ker. Jean-Baptiste Molin, F.M.C., communicated to me his
notes on early psalters from his studies of the manuscripts containing
the ‘Deprecatio Gelasii’. Thanks to the generosity of Dom Joseph