Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1980, Blaðsíða 115
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seemingly received the same treatment; of these, however, the only
extant ones are the 6-line initial of ps. 52, and the 9-line initial of ps.
68. Initials of the remaining psalms spån 3 lines.
The large initials - of ps. 1, 51, 52, 68, 101 - have been executed in
a pattem of interlaced vegetal, and also zoomorphic scrolls, in red and
yellow on blue ground, in a style which was fully developed before
1200.5 The initials of the remaining psalms, at intervals of ten, are in
two red colours or in red and light-blue; the ‘ordinary’ psalm-initials
are executed in bright or dark red or in light-blue. Verse-initials
alternate in red and blue, or in two red colours. The Hours of the
Passion are distinguished by eight illuminations.6
The psalter contained in A and A ’ is a psalter of fifteen divisions. A
great many manuscripts - all fragmentary - of this psalter have come
to light. They help to fill in the lacunae of A and A but none of them
contain the private prayers, the Office of the dead, and the Hours of
the Passion. AM 241a fol. (Psalter) may have been planned as one
book, though the faet that the last two gatherings are binions (ff. 28-
35) gives room for doubt. In the following, the four parts of this
manuscript will be treated separately.7
5 The initials of ps. 51 and ps. 52 have been reproduced by H. Hermannsson, Plate
32 c.
6 They have all been reproduced by H. Hermannsson, Plates 31 a-f, and 32 a-b.
7 For a survey of the psalters of the common type used in the North, of foreign as
well as of Scandinavian origin, see article ‘Psalter’: KLNM 13 (1968), 583-95.
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