Extent: fols. 171; parchment; paper; 170 x 113 (115 x 70 for main interior quires, 135 x 85 for first and last additional quires) mm bound to 180 x 125 mm
Layout: 1 column, 22 lines Script: Formal gothic bookhand with additions in a cursive gothic bookhand Decoration: 1- to 2-line alternately red or blue initials, one illuminated initial and border, white-patterned blue initial infilled with rinceaux with blue and orange leaves on gold on a notched gold ground extending into an a pink and gold bar border in the inner margin Decoration: Panel borders in the topand bottom with flowers and acanthus leaves set in a trellis on spiraling black ink sprays with numerous hairlines and small gold balls Binding: Bound in mottled brown 18th-century leather over pasteboard, spine with five raised bands, with the title, “Psalterium” and the shelfmark “188” in gilt, rebacked and repaired in Oxford, November, 1936, in very good condition. Collation: i (paper) + ii (parchment) + 171 + iii (parchment) + i (paper) folios on parchment, modern foliation in pencil, as follows: i-ii (parchment flyleaves), iii-xii (ten parchment leaves with later texts), 1-161, 162-164 (parchment flyleaves), 165 (paper flyleaf); complete (collation i^8 [ff. v-xii] ii-ix^8 x^10 [3, f. 67, single, 8, following f. 71, cancelled with no loss of text] xi-xiv^8 xv^6 [ff. 106-111] xvi-xxi^8 xxii^2) . 22v, 35v, 48, 61v, 79, 97, 112, added in spaces originally left blank; outer and lower margin (with border) of f. 1 worn, ff. 22, 34, 35, with short slits at the fore-edge extending into text, which is still legible, lower margin f. 65 torn, most of f. 161 missing, some stains, thumbing, and slight cockling, overall in good condition. Provenance: Purchased from Les Enluminures, 2019 Provenance: Copied and illuminated in the second quarter of the fifteenth century in the Southern Netherlands, possibly in Bruges, judging from the style of the initial and border on f. 1; the scribes left spaces for initials within the Psalter, but they were never completed at this point in the manuscript’s life. Provenance: Transformed in the second half of the fifteenth century, c. 1460-1500, by owners in Northern France, into a Psalter for liturgical use with the addition of numerous texts in the margins and on leaves at the beginning and end of the volume; Provenance: initials were added within the Psalter marking readings for Matins according to secular use, evidence that the volume at this time was used a member of the secular clergy, a Franciscan or Dominican, or perhaps an Augustinian Canon. Provenance: F. iii, copied in a cursive Gothic bookhand, is almost certainly a recycled document, and was once the front pastedown (on f. iii verso the beginning of the added text is copied over erased text). Provenance: By the later part of the sixteenth century our manuscript appears to have been brought to England, “Rich<arde H ffrancis?>” entered his name on f. ii verso in red ink; the psalms are numbered throughout, sometimes in red ink, likely at this time. Prayers were added on the f. i, probably slightly later. Provenance: The question of how this Psalter and the accompanying texts for the (Catholic) Divine Office were used in England is an interesting one. Provenance: In pencil (partially erased), “Robert Benson,” 18th-century(?),” ff. 163v and 164v; Robert may have added the biblical citation in English on f. ii; there is a note that was vigorously expunged (and un-read by us) on f. 164. Provenance: Contents described on f. 165 in ink in the twentieth century, noting that the binding was repaired in 1936; this same hand added a title and brief note on the front flyleaf f. i. On f. 165 the writer is identified in pencil as D. Justin McCann. Father Justin McCann described other manuscripts owned by the Abbey in the Ampleworth Journal 51 (1946), pp. 112-116. Provenance: Ampleforth Abbey, with their ink stamp front flyleaf f. i, and shelfmark label ‘M/188/.S.S,” inside front cover; above which is written “M. S. 60a”; cataloguing card laid in (M.S. 188 (60a)). Described while at Ampelforth in Ker, 1977, vol. 1, pp. 32-22. Provenance: Ampleforth Abbey is a community of English Benedictine monks in North Yorkshire, which was founded in 1802, although they trace their history back to the last monk of Westminster Abbey, who was exiled to France in 1607 and established a monastic community there. A Psalter copied before the middle of the fifteenth century became a liturgical Psalter used for the services of the Divine Office by the end of the century when texts were carefully added, probably in Northern France. A century later, the manuscript was in England, where it was still in active use. Catholic manuscripts used in post-Reformation England (called “recusant”) are always of interest. This is a dynamic manuscript, crowded with evidence of its transformation by generations of users, making it particularly suited for use today in the modern classroom. Previous shelfmark: Psalter
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