Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1980, Síða 139
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guished by a 7-line initial; ps. 81 by a 4-line, ps. 82 by a 3-line initial;
the prayer after ps. 80 by a 2-line initial. These initials, except that of
ps. 80, are filled in with scrolls, and they protrude into the margins
with bulbous or spear-like patterns.
Sa is the only one of our psalter fragments to contain an historiated
initial. The initial E of ps. 80 (Exultate) is filled in with a representa-
tion of the ‘throne of mercy’ or ‘Gnadenstuhl’ of the highly stylized
late-medieval type. In the usual scheme of psalter illustrations,
however, it is used for the initial of ps. 109, ‘Dixit dominus domino
meo: Sede a dextris meis’.1 Connected with this initial, a stylized tree-
trunk forms a border running along the inner and upper margins; on the
upper-margin trunk, a bird and its chick are seen facing one another.
The colours are two shades of red, together with yellow, blue, and green.
Date: fifteenth century, first half. The scribe, certainly a profes-
sional, breaks his minims and marks his Vs with long hair-lines. See
Plates 128-129.
Contents:
F. (l)r: Ps. 80, versicles and beginning of prayer
F. (l)v: Prayer (continued), Ps. 81 - Ps. 82,1-14
The leaf subsequently received additions for liturgical use. In the lower
margin of the recto texts are added in a later hånd for feria sexta:
‘Invitatorium. Dominum qui fecit nos. Venite adoremus. Ant. Exultate
deo. Ps. ipsum‘\ and in the upper margin of the verso there are the
additions ‘Ant. Exultate deo adiutori nostro. Ant. Tu solus altissimus.
Ps. Deus quis similis’, all with musical notation on four lines.
The Calendars Formerly Prefixed to the Pater Noster Psalter
The two Norwegian manuscripts, Na and Nb, are the work of
‘private hånds’. The very fine Swedish Sa is a scriptorium book, but as
the only Swedish member, and a late one, it cannot help us to date
1 See G. Haseloff, Die Psalterillustrationen im 13. Jahrhundert (1938), pp. 100
sq.; Leroquais, Les Psautiers, 1, Introduction, p. CXXXIII. For a special study of the
‘throne of mercy’ theme, see W. Braunfels, Die heilige Dreifaltigkeit (Diisseldorf
1954); for the Scandinavian representations, article ‘Nådastolen’: KLNM 12 (1967),
415-23.