Koninklijke Bibliotheek

This page provides a general introduction to the psalter. If you wish to go directly to the digitized manuscript, click on the link in the image below:

The psalter

A psalter is a prayer book containing the 150 psalms from the Old Testament, attributed to David. During the Middle Ages, a psalter was the most widespread prayer book among laymen. Children of high birth, girls as well as boys, learned to read from a psalter, in Latin.

The calendar

A calendar complements the texts of the psalms. In the Middle Ages, any calendar would typically include many anniversaries of saints.

Facing the calendar pages are the 'works of the month' - images of typical activities for that time of year.

The 'works of the month' and their order were standard features in 12th-century psalters, but their execution differed widely. In this manuscript, the works of the month are presented as full-page miniatures, which was rare in the twelfth century.

Most images relate to agricultural activities. The people depicted are farm workers - to be recognized not only by their simple clothing, but also by their rough facial features. Such features are often attributed to 'common' people, as opposed to noblemen or saints.

The works of the month for April and May typically depicted noblemen in leasure activities. Their clothing reflects their riches and their facial features are markedly more regular than those of common men.

Small miniatures within the calendar

Each calendar page features three smaller images, two of bloodletting and one of the respective sign of the zodiac. In the Middle Ages bloodletting was a remedy against all sorts of maladies. The 24 images of bloodletting in this manuscript are unique, they are not present in any other manuscript. Perhaps the psalter's patron particularly favoured bloodletting as a means of staying healthy.

Images from the life of Christ

Following the calendar are a number of images from the life of Christ, a so-called 'christology'. These are stand-alone images not accompanied by text. Perhaps they were used for oral instruction. It seems that some of the typical Christological images are missing from this manuscript. We must assume someone took them out somewhere along the line.

The psalms

In this psalter the 150 psalms have been subdivided in 10 sections of varying length. Every section starts with a so-called 'historiated initial', an initial depicting passages from the psalms.

Origins of the psalter

Scholars' theories about the origins of the psalter have varied over the years. According to David van der Kellen (1827-1895), Director of the Dutch Museum for History and Art in Amsterdam, the clothing depicted in the images dates from the second half of the thirteenth century. KB Director Willem G.C. Byvanck (1848-1925) was of the opinion that the psalter was written and illuminated around 1200. Most modern researchers agree with this latter view and date the psalter towards the end of the twelfth century. In any case, the psalter was written after 1173, because the calendar mentions the anniversary of Thomas Becket's murder in 1170. Becket was canonised in 1173.

KB Director Byvanck was the first scholar to point to Fécamp on the Normandy coast as the probable place of origin. He based his assertion on the calendar listing of Saint Waning on 9 January and his octave a week later. The presence of an octave indicates that festivities surrounding the saint might last for a week, which is a sure sign of special veneration by the scriptorium (the scribes' workplace) and/or the patron. Saint Waning is known as the founder of the Fécamp Abbey in the seventh century.

In 1996 the art historian Walter Cahn reported that St. Waning's relics had been transported to Ham in Picardy, over 200 kilometers to the east, in the ninth century. Following his reasoning, the psalter might have been produced in Ham. Few researchers, however, support this location.

In 2012 stylistic research indicated that the manuscript might have been produced in Paris around 1200-1210.

However that may be, all experts seem to agree that the psalter's patron must have held saints from Normandy, especially Rouen and Fécamps, in very high regard.

Is Eleanor of Aquitaine indeed the psalter's patron?

Scholars agree on one thing: the psalter must have been produced for a very rich noble lady. She is portrayed on fol. 28v, kneeling opposite the opening initial of Psalm 1, 'Beatus vir', depicting David and David & Goliath.

Her identity was not much discussed by researchers until recently. In 2016 research by Rodriguez Viejo pointed in the direction of Eleanor of Aquitaine. Several arguments are submitted to support this claim.

The blue-white coat lining visible in the clothing of the psalter's patron is identical to the lining in a mural probably depicting Henry II & Eleanor's family in Chinon, a village near Fontevraud. The patron saint of the chapel in question, Radegundis, is mentioned only in this particular psalter.

The same blue-white lining can be discerned in the clothing of the nobleman opposite the April calendar in the psalter fol. 4v. Both he and the nobleman facing May wear capes with hermine linings fol. 5v, suggesting royal blood.

Only one other psalter is known with a female patron's portrait opposite Psalm 1: the Psalter of Helmarshausen (now in Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery, ms. W.10). This psalter was made shortly after 1185 for Mathilde, duchess of Saxony († 1189). Mathilde was Eleonora and Henry II's eldest daughter, and she and her husband spent some time in Normandy in 1182-1184, while they were exiled from Saxony. It is safe to assume that Mathilde met up with her mother during this time. Eleanor was under house arrest in England after her revolt against Henry II in 1173-1174, but she is known to have made a few trips to Normandy during her house arrest. Perhaps Mathilde was inspired by the psalter which Eleonora had recently acquired and ordered a similar prayer book?

Who was Eleanor of Aquitaine?

Eleanor (born 1122/24) was the heiress to the powerful duke William of Aquitaine. She was well-known for her richess, her intelligence and her beauty, making her a most eligible bride. She was first married to the crown prince of France (later known as Louis VII), and became queen of France at the age of 13 or 15. She divorced her husband in 1151 (a rare and bold move for a woman in her days). Her second marriage, to Henry II of Normandy, brought her to the English throne. She bore Henry eight children, two of whom would become King of England themselves: Richard the Lionheart and John Lackland.

Eleanor was actively involved in the administrations of both her husband and her sons, and arranged marriages for her daughters into important royal and ducal houses. In 1173/1174 she revolted against her husband in support of her sons and was subsequently placed under house arrest for 15 years. But when her son Richard ascended the English throne in 1189, she re-emerged as a political influencer.

She died after a long and turbulent life on 1 April 1204. She is buried in the Abbey of Fontevraud. Her effigy pictures Eleanor reclining on her back with a book in her hands. It is the earliest known example of a non-clerical woman in a reading position. Perhaps in the effigy Eleanor is holding our psalter, as a symbol of her passing from the transitory to the eternal.

Whereabouts of the psalter in later centuries

Around the middle of the thirteenth century, the psalter turns up in the frontier region between Hainaut and Flanders. Additions to the calendar attest to this. They include the anniversaries of Johanna of Constantinople, countess of Flanders and Hainaut († 1244), of William of Dampierre († 1231), his daughter Joanna, countess of Bar († 1246), his son William, count of Flanders († 1251), his son John, lord of Dampierre († 1258) and his daughter-in-law Machteld of Béthune († 1263). Also included are the anniversaries of a bishop of Tournai, an abbot of Anchin, a provost of Mons and a scholaster of Cambrai. The anniversaries were written down by different scribes, not long after the events themselves.

The manuscript reemerges in the late eighteenth century, when it is held by Georges-Joseph Gérard (1734-1814), a civil servant at the Brussels court with a passion for books. He acquired the manuscript before he was appointed secretary of the Société Littéraire, the predecessor of the Academy of Sciences and Letters, in 1769. He put his name in the book, dated 1767 (fol. 1r). His collection of books included about one hundred medieval manuscripts. The psalter was given the signature 'A 1', indicating the importance of the psalter for the owner. Four years after Gérard's death, most of his collection was transferred to the National Archives. In 1832 the manuscripts within the collection where handed over to the KB.

'Disclaimer'

Are we really certain that the psalter was produced for Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine? Perhaps we should refrase that question: if not for Eleanor, then for whom was this exquisite psalter produced?

Links

• Bibliographical description and detailed contents

Literature

• Jesús Rodriguez Viejo, ‘Royal manuscript patronage in late ducal Normandy: a context for the female patron portrait of the Fécamp Psalter (c. 1180)’, Ceræ. An Australasian journal of medieval and early modern studies 3 (2016), p. 1-23.
• Jesús Rodríguez Viejo, ‘Byzantine influences on Western aristocratic illuminated manuscripts: the Fecamp Psalter (ms. The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, 76 F 13) and other related works’, Estudios Bizantinos, 1 (2013), 105-39.
• Marianne A. Schouten, ‘Het Fécamp psalter. Een onderzoek naar de lokalisering en datering van manuscript 76 F 13 van de Koninklijke Bibliotheek te Den Haag’. Masterscriptie Kunstgeschiedenis Universiteit van Amsterdam, 2012.
• Ed van der Vlist, Schitterende schatten. Verluchte handschriften in de Koninklijke Bibliotheek. Amersfoort/Brugge 2011, p. 54-57.