Utrecht Psalter - History and Copies

History and Copies

The entire volume contains 108 vellum leaves, approximately 13 inches (330 mm) by 10 inches (250 mm) in size. The pages are formed by quires of 8 pages folded (Birch, 64, 67). There was probably at least an "author portrait" of David at the start, and the surviving text begins with a large initial with insular-style interlace (picture at top).

The psalter was at one time thought to be a 6th-century work largely because of the use of archaic conventions in the script. The Psalter is written in rustic capitals, a script which by the 9th century had fallen out of favour in Carolingian manuscripts. These are now widely viewed as imitation rustic capitals, and the manuscript is dated no earlier than the 9th century (Lowe, 237). It has been suggested that because of the capitals and the book's size, the Utrecht Psalter was intended as a choir book for several monks to read at the same time while singing; alternatively that it was intended for young monks learning the Psalms by heart in groups, a suggestion that perhaps better explains the amount of illustration. The psalter is believed to have been made near Reims, as its style is similar to that of the Ebbo Gospels (Benson, 23). It may have been sponsored by Ebbo, Archbishop of Reims, and so is usually dated between 816 and 835. Others have argued for a date c. 850, saying that the psalm illustrations draw from the travels of Gottschalk of Orbais, and the illustration with the Athanasian Creed and other details pertain more to Ebbo's successor, Hincmar (Chazelle, 1058, 1068, 1073).

A period spent in the late 9th century in the area of Metz, perhaps at the court of Charles the Bald, has been suggested on the basis of apparent influences from the manuscript in the art of the area. The manuscript had reached Canterbury Cathedral by c. 1000, at which time a copy began to be made of it; this, the Harley Psalter, is in the British Library as MS Harley 603 (Benson, 14). The Psalter was copied in full three times in the Middle Ages, the second copy being the Eadwine Psalter (Cambridge, Trinity College Library, MS R.17.1) of 1155–60, with additions 1160–70, and the texts extended to five versions of each psalm. The last copy is a fine version in full colour with gold backgrounds that is known as the "Anglo-Catalan Psalter" or MS Lat. 8846 in the BnF, of 1180-90 (Morgan, 47-9). This was half-illustrated by an English artist in about 1180-1200, and completed by a Catalan artist in 1340-50, naturally using a different Gothic style. The images are necessarily somewhat simplified, and the number of figures reduced.

Earlier there were derivative works in other media; similar groups of figures appear in a Carolingian engraved crystal in the British Museum (the Lothair Crystal, stylistically very different) and metalwork, and some late Carolingian ivories repeat figure compositions found in the Utrecht psalter (Calkins, 211).

The original manuscript spent at least two centuries at Canterbury from the year 1000, and after the English Dissolution of the Monasteries (Canterbury was a monastic cathedral) came into the possession of Robert Bruce Cotton, the famous English antiquary, at which point it was rebound, with his arms on the cover. Cotton lent the manuscript to the great collector the Earl of Arundel, who took it into exile with him during the English Civil War; it was taken to the Netherlands in around 1642 and sold on Howard's death by his widow and son. It reached Utrecht University in 1716, at which point it was incorporated into the University Library. It was rediscovered in the library in 1858 (Benson, 13).