After William the Conqueror’s invasion of England in 1066, a dialect of French known as Anglo-Norman became one of the dominant literary languages of the royal court and nobility. Written in England during the second half of the 12th century, this illuminated volume contains a number of works in Anglo-Norman French, including the only surviving copy of an Anglo-Norman interlinear gloss, or translation, of the Gallican version of the book of Psalms. It also includes a fragment of the Comput (Computus), the oldest extant scientific text in the vernacular, composed by the poet Philippe de Thaon (active 1113–1140).
Texts were added to the manuscript in the centuries that followed its production, including a list of plants in Anglo-Norman, a fragment of an Old French metrical romance, and several Latin and Middle English prayers.
This manuscript was digitised with the support of The Polonsky Foundation.
Public Domain in most countries other than the UK.
Manuscripts containing commentaries on the book of Psalms were widely circulated during the medieval period. Tuija Ainonen and Kathleen Doyle examine some of these glossed volumes.
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