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Detailed record for Harley 2895
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| Title |
Psalter, imperfect, beginning with Psalm 2:8 and with folios excised (the 'Charité- sur- Loire Psalter), with a calendar and related tables (ff. 1-8v), with prayers (f. 87r-v); and litany and prayers (ff. 88-93v) |
| Origin |
France, Central |
| Date |
Last quarter of the 12th century |
| Language |
Latin |
| Script |
Protogothic |
| Decoration |
12 large miniatures in colours on gold grounds of combined labours and symbols of the months (ff. 1-6v). Large 'KL' letters in gold on coloured grounds with foliate decoration (ff. 1-6v). Architectural frame for a table in colours (f. 8). Large historiated or decorated initials in colours on gold or coloured grounds originally at the beginning of most Psalms, many excised. Large initials in red with blue penwork decoration, or in blue or green with red penwork decoration (some with penwork decoration in two or all of these colours) (from f. 44v mainly without green). Small initials in red, green, or blue (from f. 44v mainly without green). Paraphs in red or blue, some in foliate forms in of heads or objects, and with decoration in the other colour. |
| Dimensions in mm |
255 x 160 (180 x 105) |
| Official foliation |
ff. i + 93 ( + 6 unfoliated modern flyleaves at the beginning and 7 at the end) |
| Collation |
List of collation information established with the manuscript was rebound in 1972-3 (affixed to the second flyleaf at the end). |
| Form |
Parchment codex |
| Binding |
BM/BL in-house. Rebound in 1973; pattern in colours on edges. |
| Provenance |
Apparently written for an abbey of nuns in some relationship with the Cluniac monastery of La Charité-sur-Loire, north of Nevers: dedication of the church of La Charité in the calendar for March 9 'dedicatio ecclesiae de kar' (f. 2); prayer with reference to an abbess 'Ut abbatissam nostram conservare et confortare digneris te rogamus' (f. 90v).
? The Benedictine nunnery of the Holy Cross, Poitiers: proposed by Turner 1966 p. 26.
Added 16th-century ? inscription for Leonard, abbot (at Corbigny), confessor for 15 October.
The Harley Collection, formed by Robert Harley (b. 1661, d. 1724), 1st earl of Oxford and Mortimer, politician, and Edward Harley (b. 1689, d. 1741), 2nd earl of Oxford and Mortimer, book collector and patron of the arts, inscribed as usual by their librarian, Humfrey Wanley '13 die mensis Augusti A. D. 1724' (f. 1); and 'Horum Psalmorum Veersio, stille quae dicitur B. Hioronymi GALLICANA' (f. 9).
Edward Harley bequeathed the library to his widow, Henrietta Cavendish, née Holles (b. 1694, d. 1755) during her lifetime and thereafter to their daughter, Margaret Cavendish Bentinck (b. 1715, d.1785), duchess of Portland; the manuscripts were sold by the Countess and the Duchess in 1753 to the nation for £10,000 (a fraction of their contemporary value) under the Act of Parliament that also established the British Museum; the Harley manuscripts form one of the foundation collections of the British Library. |
| Notes |
See also Yates Thompson 17 and Additional 15603 for other manuscripts from La Charité.
Ampersands.
Colour notes (ff. 22v, 59).
f. i is a parchment flyleaf.
Thomas Becket is included in the calendar (f. 6v).
Calendar for calcuation of Easter with the dates 1164 and 1183 (f. 7v). |
| Select bibliography |
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), II (1808), no. 2895.
W. H. James Weale, Montagu Rhodes James, S. C. Cockerell, and others, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Second Series of Fifty Manuscripts (Nos. 51 to 100) in the Collection of Henry Yates Thompson (Cambridge: University Press, 1902), p. 132.
[George Warner], Reproductions from Illuminated Manuscripts, Series I, (London: British Museum, 1907), pl. 19.
[J. A. Herbert], British Museum: Reproductions from Illuminated Manuscripts, Series 1, 3rd edn (London: British Museum, 1923), pl. 19.
[J. A. Herbert], Illuminated Manuscripts and Bindings of Manuscripts Exhibited in The Grenville Library, Guide to the Exhibited Manuscripts, 3 (Oxford: British Museum, 1923), no. 42.
Eric Millar, Souvenir de l’Exposition de Manuscrits Français a Peintures organisée a la Grenville Library (British Museum) in Janvier-Mars 1932 (Paris: Société Française de Reproductions de Manuscrits a Peintures, 1933), no. 8.
D. H. Turner, Romanesque Illuminated Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1966), pp. 26-27, pl. 16.
Illuminated Manuscripts Exhibited in the Grenville Library (London, British Museum, 1967), no. 40.
Janet Backhouse, The Illuminated Manuscript (Oxford: Phaidon, 1979), pl. 21.
Patricia Danz Stirnemann, 'Nouvelles pratiques en matiere d'enluminure au temps de Philipe Auguste', in La France de Philippe Auguste: Le temps des mutations, ed. by R-H Bautier (Paris: CNRS, 1980), pp. 955-80 (p. 963, no. 6, pl. 4).
Martin Kauffmann, 'British Library, Harley MS 2895 : the La Charité Psalter' (unpublished master's dissertation, University of London, Courtauld Institute of Art, 1986).
The Utrecht Psalter in Medieval Art: Picturing the Psalms of David, ed. by Koert van der Horst, William Noel, and Wilhelmina C. M. Wüstefeld (Utrecht: HES Publishers, 1996), pp. 154, 155 n. 98.
Janet Backhouse, The Illuminated Page: Ten Centuries of Manuscript Painting in the British Library (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), no. 47.
Elizabeth A. Peterson, ‘Scholastic Hermeneutics in Historiated Initials’, in The Illuminated Psalter: Studies in the Content, Purpose and Placement of its Images, ed. by F. O. Büttner, (Belgium: Brepols, 2004), pp. 349-59 (p. 349 n. 2, p. 352 n. 17, pp. 354-55).
Scot McKendrick and Kathleen Doyle, Bible Manuscripts: 1400 Years of Scribes and Scripture (London: British Library, 2007), p. 96, fig. 83. |
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f. 1
Detail |
f. 1v
Detail |
f. 2
Detail |
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f. 2v
Detail |
f. 3
Detail |
f. 3v
Detail |
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f. 4
Detail |
f. 4v
Detail |
f. 5
Detail |
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f. 5v
Detail |
f. 6
Detail |
f. 6v
Detail |
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f. 9
Detail |
f. 9v
Detail |
f. 10v
Detail |
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f. 12
Detail |
f. 12v
Detail |
f. 15
Detail |
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f. 15v
Detail |
f. 17
Crucifixion |
f. 17
Crucifixion |
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f. 19
Detail |
f. 19v
Detail |
f. 20
Detail |
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f. 20v
Detail |
f. 21v
Detail |
f. 22
Detail |
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f. 22v
Detail |
f. 24
Detail |
f. 25v
Detail |
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f. 27v
Detail |
f. 28
Detail |
f. 34
Detail |
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f. 34v
Detail |
f. 36
Detail |
f. 36v
Detail |
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f. 38
Detail |
f. 39v
Detail |
f. 40
Detail |
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f. 41
Detail |
f. 41v
Detail |
f. 43v
Detail |
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f. 44v
Detail |
f. 47v
Detail |
f. 48v
Detail |
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f. 50v
Detail |
f. 51
Detail |
f. 51v
Detail |
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f. 55
Detail |
f. 56
Detail |
f. 56v
Detail |
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f. 57v
Detail |
f. 59
Detail |
f. 63
Detail |
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f. 64
Detail |
f. 69
Detail |
f. 69v
Detail |
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f. 70
Detail |
f. 70v
Detail |
f. 71
Detail |
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f. 71v
Historiated initial |
f. 71v
Detail |
f. 72
Historiated initial |
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f. 72
Detail |
f. 72
Detail |
f. 73v
Christ with the Apostles |
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f. 73v
Christ with the Apostles |
f. 74
Detail |
f. 74v
Detail |
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f. 76
Detail |
f. 77v
Detail |
f. 78
Detail |
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f. 78v
Detail |
f. 81
Detail |
f. 81v
David fleeing from Absalom |
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f. 81v
David fleeing from Absalom |
f. 82v
Detail |
f. 83
Historiated initial |
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f. 83
Detail |
f. 85
Detail |
f. 85v
Detail |
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f. 86
Detail |
f. 86v
Detail |
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