A digital facsimile of selections fromWalters Ms. W.16, Fragmentary Psalter
Published by: The Walters Art Museum 600 N. Charles Street Baltimore, MD 21201 http://www.thewalters.org/
Released under a Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/legalcode Published 2013
This document is a digital facsimile of selections from a manuscript belonging to the Walters Art Museum, in Baltimore, Maryland, in the United States. It is one of a number of manuscripts that have been digitized as part of a project generously funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, and by an anonymous donor to the Walters Art Museum. More details about the manuscripts at the Walters can be found by visiting The Walters Art Museum's website www.thewalters.org. For further information about this book, and online resources for Walters manuscripts, please contact us through the Walters Website by email, and ask for your message to be directed to the Department of Manuscripts.
Shelf mark
Walters Art Museum Ms. W.16
Descriptive Title
Fragmentary Psalter
Text title
Psalter
Abstract
This fragmentary psalter was made in the thirteenth century in southern Germany. Several quires are missing from the beginning and end of the book, resulting in the loss of a large portion of the psalms, as well as most of the Office of the Dead. The manuscript itself has no decoration outside of slightly enlarged red initials. However, an ornate gilded and jewel-encrusted cover was added to the original wood boards in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, and it is a product of that era. The only original medieval elements within this pastiche are the thirteenth-century enamels, which are of Cologne origin.
Date
13th century CE
Origin
Wurzburg (?), southern Germany
Form
Book
Genre
Devotional
Language
The primary language in this manuscript is Latin.
Support material
Parchment Parchment is in poor condition, with top and bottom edges severely damaged by water and/or fire
Extent
Foliation: 61 Several quires cut out at beginning and end of book; current condition reflected in modern pencil foliation in upper right corners of rectos, with occasional second number that has been struck out
Collation
Formula: 1(8), 2(6), 3(8,-6), 4(8,-4), 5(8,-6), 6-8(8), 9(2,-2), 10(2,-2) Catchwords: None Signatures: None Comments: Quire 2 composed of a bifolium with four single sheets sewn in; quires 9 and 10 are detached, non-continuous
Generated: 2013-09-24 14:41 -04:00
folios; quires begin on fols. 1(1), 9(2), 15(3), 22(4), 29(5), 36(6), 44(7), 52(8), 60(9), and 61(10); stubs from two quires of eight remain at the beginning, and from two quires of eight and one quire of six at the end Dimensions
14.7 cm wide by 20.9 cm high
Written surface
8.0 cm wide by 13.2 cm high
Layout
Columns: 1 Ruled lines: 18 Ruled in dark brown ink
Contents
fols. 1r - 61v: Title: Psalter Text note: Text incomplete due to large groups of pages missing from beginning and end, and several others missing throughout Hand note: Formal Gothic bookhand; two sizes used according to liturgical function; two scribes evident; mainly second scribe who varies size of script (e.g. fols. 60r-61v: Office of the Dead) Decoration note: Enlarged red initials (2-7 lines) begin each psalm; smaller red initials (1 line) at beginning of each line; rubrics in red; text in black ink fols. 1r - 38r: Title: Psalms Incipit: ...[taber]naculis iustorum dextera Domini fecit virtutem Text note: Text begins imperfectly at the very end of Psalm 117:15; stubs visible between fols. 13 and 14, 19 and 20, 24 and 25, 33 and 34, however no text is missing fols. 38r - 55r: Title: Canticles Incipit: Confitebor tibi fols. 55r - 57v: Title: Litany and collects Incipit: Kyrie eleyson
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Text note: Notable in the litany: SS. Burchardus, Udalricus, and Pinnosa fols. 58r - 61r: Title: Office of the Dead Rubric: Vigilia. Incipit: Verba mea auribus percipe Text note: Fragmentary fols. 61r - 61v: Title: Collects Rubric: In depositione defunctorum oratio. Incipit: Quesumus domine Text note: Text ends imperfectly Decoration
Upper board outside: Title: Upper board outside, nineteenth-century pastiche with authentic thirteenth-century champlevé enamel panels Form: Upper board outside fol. 2v: Title: Capital "R" Form: Text page with capital "R" (2 lines) Text: Psalm 118
Binding
The binding is not original. Wood boards are original; ornate gilded metal cover is a nineteenth- or early twentieth-century pastiche, with Christ enthroned surrounded by Evangelists in medallions; a letter from Léon Gruel in states that he thought it was authentic; ca. 1200 German champlevé enamel panels embedded in cover are authentic (one was removed due to condition in 1955); nineteenth-century red velvet on lower board
Provenance
Created in southern Germany, possibly Wurzburg, in the thirteenth century Léon Gruel, Paris, late nineteenth or early twentieth century Henry Walters, Baltimore, purchased from Léon Gruel before 1931
Generated: 2013-09-24 14:41 -04:00
Acquisition
Walters Art Museum, 1931, by Henry Walters' bequest
Bibliography
De Ricci, Seymour. Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada. Vol. 1. New York: H. W. Wilson Company, 1935, p. 771, cat. no. 89.
Contributors
Catalogers: Dutschke, Consuelo; Herbert, Lynley; Noel, William; Sciacca, Christine; Valle, Chiara Editor: Herbert, Lynley Copy editor: Joyal, Stephanie Conservators: Owen, Linda; Quandt, Abigail Contributors: Bockrath, Diane; Davis, Lisa Fagin; Emery, Doug; Klemm, Elizabeth; Tabritha, Ariel; Toth, Michael B.
Generated: 2013-09-24 14:41 -04:00
This document is a digital facsimile of selections from a manuscript belonging to the Walters Art Museum, in Baltimore, Maryland, in the United States. It is one of a number of manuscripts that have been digitized as part of a project generously funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, and by an anonymous donor to the Walters Art Museum. More details about the manuscripts at the Walters can be found by visiting The Walters Art Museum's website www.thewalters.org. For further information about this book, and online resources for Walters manuscripts, please contact us through the Walters Website by email, and ask for your message to be directed to the Department of Manuscripts.
The Walters Art Museum 600 N. Charles Street Baltimore, Maryland 21201 http://www.thewalters.org/
Released under a Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/legalcode Published 2013