Illustrated Manuscripts

Psalm 109 is nearly universally interpreted as God speaking to Christ. A special decorated letter marks the beginning of the text in manuscript psalters because the Psalm was often devoted to Vespers on Sundays. In depictions of the Trinity in French and English psalters, God the Father and Christ are typically enthroned together with the Holy Ghost, symbolized by a dove, descending between them. The white flesh tones, wavy coiffures, and elongated fingers relate this leaf to what is probably the most "Parisian" of all surviving English illuminated manuscripts of the early fourteenth century, the Queen Mary Psalter (London, British Library, ms. Royal 2 b.vii), named after the sixteenth-century queen who appears to have once owned it. The workshop may have been active in East Anglia during 1310-35, though its specific location remains unknown.

The parent manuscript from which this leaf comes once belonged to the parish church of St. Botulph at Iken in Suffolk. His name appears among the English saints listed in the original manuscript's litanies, suggesting the book was written in Suffolk, or at least intended for use there. Orfforde and Pondhall, two place names mentioned on the original flyleaf, are in Suffolk.

Reprinted from The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection of Manuscript Illuminations