Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1980, Qupperneq 189
171
MS Boulogne-sur-mer 20, f. 228v, the Saint-Bertin Psalter, written in the year 999;
see Leroquais, Les Psautiers, 1, p. 98;
Brit. Mus. MS Cotton Galba XIV, ff. 21v-27v, of the early eleventh century; see
Turner, Milan, p. 374.
The text from ‘Precor omnes sanctos angelos’ to the end, which in our manuscript
appears as the third prayer, has much in common with a prayer found in the mid-ninth-
century Irish Psalter in Basel; see the facsimile edition, Umbrae codicum occidentalium,
5 (1960), f. 3v; the text has been printed by H. Barre, Priéres anciennes, p. 94. It also
occurs in the ninth-century MS Orléans 116; see Barre, op. cit., p. 83. Shortened
versions of this prayer are found in the following manuscripts:
Brit. Mus. MS Harley 863, f. 116r, ed. LeofC 1, col. 451;
the Camaldolese Psalter c. 1150, ed. Turner, Camaldoli, p. 124;
Bruxelles MS 9961-62 (593), f. 133v, Oratio ad omnes angelos (see below, p. 174).
The Prayers to the Apostles
The loss of two leaves between f. (27) and f. (28) deprives us of the
beginning of this series. The lost texts immediately preceding f. (28)
must have been a prayer to St. Peter and the rubric of the prayer to St.
Paul which begins on f. (28)r = p. 15; the series ends on f. (28)v = p.
16. Some of the rubrics are nearly illegible. See Plates 79-80.
The oldest extant collections of prayer-texts, dating from the late
eighth to the eleventh century, contain but a few prayers of intercession
to the Virgin, St. Michael, St. John the Baptist, St. Peter, St. Paul, St.
John the Evangelist, St. Andrew, and the patron saint of the commu-
nity for which the manuscript in question was written. Prayers directed
to all the Apostles appear in ninth-century manuscripts, e.g. the Book
of Ceme. One such prayer, beginning ‘Sanctissimi apostoli’, is the last
one of our series of prayers to the Apostles. Series of private prayers
directed to each Apostle, individually, are of comparatively late
appearance. Such series are found in the following manuscripts, dating
from the late eleventh to the early sixteenth century:
Marturi = Firenze Biblioteca Laurentiana MS Plut. XVII, 3, is the
famous psalter with an abundant collection of prayers, illuminated by
‘the Master of the Marturi Psalter’, or Masters, as there are two illumi-
nators at work. It was written for the Benedictine monastery of San
Michele a Marturi near Poggibonsi in the diocese of Firenze by one
‘Johannes monachus’. The date of the Marturi Psalter has been
established by two art historians. E. B. Garrison dated it to the mid-
twelfth century, K. Berg to the third quarter of the twelfth century, or