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Walters Ms. W.69, Psalter of St. Mary of StrasbourgBrowse images (Browse images in a new window) | TEI in XML format
Manuscript
Psalter of St. Mary of Strasbourg
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
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 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
Contents:
fols. 2r - 136v:Decoration:
fol. 2r:
fol. 2v:
fol. 3r:
fol. 3v:
fol. 4r:
fol. 41v:
fol. 80r:
fol. 92r:
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)
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, Ãdouard. "Un 'dossier' carolingien sur la création de l'homme, Génèse I,26-III,24." Revue des Ãtudes 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.
Publisher
The Walters Art Museum
License
Licensed for use under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported Access Rights, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/legalcode. It is requested that copies of any published articles based on the information in this data set be sent to the curator of manuscripts, The Walters Art Museum, 600 North Charles Street, Baltimore MD 21201.
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