A digital facsimile of selections fromWalters Ms. W.69, Psalter of St. Mary of Strasbourg
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.69
Descriptive Title
Psalter of St. Mary of Strasbourg
Text title
Psalter
Abstract
This Latin psalter was made in the second half of the thirteenth century for use in the Diocese of Constance, Germany. By the fourteenth century, it was owned by the church of St. Mary of Strasbourg, from which it gets its name. The long life and enthusiastic use of the manuscript is attested to by a multitude of added inscriptions, prayers, and antiphons with neumes, most dating to the fifteenth or sixteenth century. An early system of bookmarking is also evident; strips of parchment have been cut in some of the margins and folded through a slit in the leaf, creating tabs that would have helped the reader navigate through the text. Illumination also served this function, for while a short cycle of images from the life of Christ introduces the manuscript, the rest of the illuminations--large decorated initials as well as smaller ones in silver and gold--mark the important psalms for the reader. The style of illumination found here is closely related to two other psalters from Constance: Sigmaringen, Royal State Archives Ms. 11 and Fulda, Hessische Landesbibliothek Fulda Ms. Aa 82.
Date
Second half of the 13th century CE
Origin
Upper Rhineland, Germany
Form
Book
Genre
Devotional
Language
The primary language in this manuscript is Latin.
Support material
Parchment Medium- to heavy-weight parchment; edges of folios dark brown; early (possibly original?) parchment tabs, created by cutting a strip of parchment from the margin and looping it back through a slit, mark important text divisions
Extent
Foliation: i+135 Two sets of foliation: early pen foliation written in roman numerals in upper right corners of rectos and modern pencil
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foliation in the same location (followed here); front flyleaf early but not original, foliated (not structurally integral to the first quire) Collation
Formula: i, 1(2), 2-4(8), 5(10,-3,7), 6(8,-1), 7-11(8), 12(10,-3,7), 13-16(8), 17(10,-3,7), 18(4), 19(2) Catchwords: None Signatures: None Comments: Quires begin on fols. 2(1), 4(2), 12(3), 20(4), 28(5), 36(6), 43(7), 51(8), 59(9), 67(10), 75(11), 83(12), 91(13), 99(14), 107(15), 115(16), 123(17), 131(18), 135(19); last folio of quire 18 tipped to the first folio of the quire later in the thirteenth century, at the same time that quire 19 was added
Dimensions
13.7 cm wide by 19.4 cm high
Written surface
10.3 cm wide by 14.7 cm high
Layout
Columns: 1-2 Ruled lines: 21 Ruling not visible; layout does not apply to added prayers on fol. 136v
Contents
fols. 2r - 136v: Title: Psalter Text note: Psalter, canticles, and litany thirteenth century; prayers added to blank folios at the back, fifteenth or sixteenth century; German antiphons and neumes added occasionally throughout, e.g. fols. 24r, 32r, 34r, etc.; additional notes found in margins throughout Hand note: Written in pre-Gothic bookhand; antiphons added in margins in cursive bookhand; front and back pastedowns in Gothic bookhand; Office of the Dead and added prayers in other hands Decoration note: Four full-page miniatures; one large inhabited initial (18 lines); three large decorated initials (12-18 lines); eight small silver and gold initials (5-7
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lines); red flourished initials throughout; rubrics in red; text in black ink fols. 2r - 3v: Title: Prefatory cycle Decoration note: Full-page miniatures on fols. 2r-v and 3r-v fols. 4r - 119r: Title: Psalter Incipit: Beatus vir Text note: Gallican Psalter with three-part division at Ps. 1 (fol. 4r), Ps. 51 (fol. 41v), and Ps. 101 (fol. 80r); lesser division at Ps. 109 (fol. 92r) and at the eight liturgical psalms (which include Ps. 1): Ps. 26 (fol. 21v), Ps. 38 (fol. 32r), Ps. 52 (fol. 42r), Ps. 68 (fol. 52v), Ps. 80 (fol. 66v), Ps. 97 (fol. 78r), and Ps. 118 (fol. 96v) Decoration note: Inhabited initial on fol. 41v; large decorated initials on fols. 4r, 80r, and 92r; small silver initials on fols. 21v, 32r, 42r, 52v, 66v, 78r, and 96v fols. 119r - 130v: Title: Canticles, Pater Noster, and Apostles' Creed Rubric: Ysajas Incipit: Confitebor tibi domine Contents: Fols. 119r-128r: Canticles; fol. 128v: Pater Noster; fols. 128v-130v: Apostles' Creed Decoration note: Small silver and gold initial on fol. 119r fols. 130v - 133v: Title: Litany and collects Rubric: Letania Incipit: Kyrie eleyson Text note: Notable saints in litany connected to Constance: SS. Pelagi, Aureli, Conrade, and Verena; some Swiss and south German saints also present: SS. Placide, Odalrice, Afra of Augsburg, Othmare of St. Gall, Findane, Walpurga, and Regula; collects incomplete fols. 133v - 133v:
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Title: Plainchant hymn to Mary Rubric: Oratio sancta Maria Incipit: Ave beatissima civitas divinitatis Text note: Added later to blank part of folio fols. 134r - 136r: Title: Office of the Dead: Vespers Rubric: Vespere defunctorum Incipit: Placebo domino in regione Text note: Text added (very early addition) to blank folios; incompletely copied at end Hand note: Written in Gothic bookhand fols. 136v - 136v: Title: Added prayers Text note: Many different prayers by several fifteenthor sixteenth-century hands, added to an originally blank folio and continuing onto the back pastedown Hand note: Written in cursive scripts Decoration
fol. 2r: Title: Annunciation Form: Full-page miniature fol. 2v: Title: Nativity Form: Full-page miniature fol. 3r: Title: Crucifixion Form: Full-page miniature fol. 3v: Title: Christ in majesty Form: Full-page miniature fol. 4r: Title: Decorated initial "B" (Beatus vir) Form: Decorated initial "B," 17 lines Text: Psalm 1 fol. 41v: Title: Inhabited initial "Q" (Quid gloriaris) with winged dragon
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Form: Inhabited initial "Q," 18 lines Text: Psalm 51 fol. 80r: Title: Decorated initial "D" (Domine exaudi) Form: Decorated initial "D," 18 lines Text: Psalm 101 fol. 92r: Title: Decorated initial "D" (Dixit dominus) Form: Decorated initial "D," 12 lines Text: Psalm 109 Binding
The binding is not original. Possibly fourteenth century; beech boards covered with alum-tawed pigskin(?); pastedowns made from leaves of a thirteenth-century psalter litany; blind-tooled fillet decoration in a diaper pattern on boards, particularly visible on the lower board; brass clasp added in the fifteenth century(?); spine lettered in an eighteenth-century script, reading "Psalterium Msc. pergam. cum canticis et symbolis"
Provenance
Made for use in the Diocese of Constance after 1224 (litany includes Conrad, bishop of Constance, canonized 1224, as well as other saints associated with Constance and Swiss and south German saints) Used by the church of St. Mary of Strasbourg, fourteenth century (pastedowns from a thirteenth-century psalter litany including SS. Odilia of Hohenbourg and Atala of Strasbourg; fourteenth-century(?) inscription on fol. 2r, reading "In choro propositi ecclesie Sancte Marie Argentin" [St. Mary of Strasbourg]) Owned by Dominicans in the fifteenth century(?) (Dominic added twice; Thomas [canonized 1333] added to the litany in a fifteenth-century script) Martin Bassonier, fifteenth century (signature on back pastedown) Bénigne-Charles Févret de Saint Mémin (1770-1852), France (bookplate on front pastedown)
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Léon Gruel collection, Paris, late nineteenth or early twentieth century Henry Walters, Baltimore, acquired from Gruel before 1931 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, no. 88. Swarzenski, Hanns. The Berthold Missal, the Pierpont Morgan Library MS 710, and the Scriptorium of Weingarten Abbey. New York: Pierpont Morgan Library, 1943, p. 58, no. 148. Jeauneau, Édouard. "Un 'dossier' carolingien sur la création de l'homme, Génèse I,26-III,24." Revue des Études Augustiniennes 28 (1982): 112-132.
Contributors
Catalogers: Herbert, Lynley; Walters Art Museum curatorial staff and researchers since 1934 Editors: Herbert, Lynley; Noel, William Copy editor: Bockrath, Diane Conservators: Owen, Linda; Quandt, Abigail Contributors: Bockrath, Diane; Dutschke, Consuelo; Emery, Doug; Hamburger, Jeffrey; Klemm, Elizabeth; Noel, William; Tabritha, Ariel; Toth, Michael B.
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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