Psalter: MS McClean 41

Titles

Psalter

Entities

• Psalter

Categories

• Illuminated manuscript
• Manuscript

Description

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Parchment, ii modern paper flyleaves + iv seventeenth-century paper flyleaves (foliated 1 – 4) + vii fifteenth-century parchment flyleaves (foliated i – vii) + 154 fols. + iv sixteenth-century paper flyleaves + ii modern paper flyleaves, 192 x 140 (130 x 95) mm, 18 long lines, ruled in plummet, leaves lost after fol. 106v.

BINDING: nineteenth century, blind-stamped brown leather over pasteboard.

CONTENTS: paper fols. 2r – 4v at front Office of the Guardian Angel continued on four paper flyleaves at end (addition, seventeenth century); parchment fols. i recto – 1v Hymns and ferial office (addition, fifteenth century); fols. 1v – 137v Psalter, Gallican; fols. 138r – 151r Canticles and Quicumque vult; fols. 151r – 153v Litany with collects; fol. 153v Prayer for recovery of Holy Land written over erased collects (addition).

DECORATION: Eleven historiated initials with foliate extensions on gold grounds: fol. 1v Psalm 1, [B, full-page] Coronation of the Virgin (above), Burial and Assumption of the Virgin (below), St Francis displaying stigmata on left, St Elizabeth with book on right; fol. 2r Psalm 2, [Q, 4 ll.] David playing harp and holding ring, initial supported by female hybrid emerging from border foliate bar, gold cock perched on rod extending upwards in outer margin; fol. 23r Psalm 26, [D, 8 ll.] Christ holding scroll inscribed respicite. fides uestra saluos uos fecit and addressing two blind men; fol. 36r Psalm 38, [D, 8 ll.] Flight into Egypt; fol. 48r Psalm 51, [Q, 8 ll.] Massacre of the Innocents; fol. 48v Psalm 52, [D, 7 ll.] Second Temptation of Christ, devil holding scroll inscribed Si filius dei mitte te deorsum, Christ holding scroll inscribed Non temptabis dominum deum tuum; fol. 61v Psalm 68, [S, 8 ll.] St Peter walking on the water, Christ holding scroll inscribed confidite ego sum nolite timere, St John holding scroll inscribed dominus est; fol. 77r Psalm 80 [E, 7 ll.] Raising of Lazarus, Christ holding scroll inscribed Lazare ueni foras; fol. 92r Psalm 97, [C, 8 ll.] Two clerks singing from book on lectern; fol. 94r Psalm 101, [D, 7 ll.] Agony in the Garden; fol. 138r Canticle of Isaiah, [C, 8 ll.] Doubting Thomas touching Christ’s side and holding scroll inscribed dominus meus et deus meus.

ORNAMENTATION: Alternate red and blue penwork initials [2 ll.] with pen-flourished infill and extensions including occasional birds or dragons for ordinary Psalms, Litany, and Canticles; alternate red and blue onle-line penwork initials; red and blue pen-flourished line-fillers.

Notes

History note: Marie Becket, sub-prioress of the Carmelite convent in Liège (seventeenth-century ownership inscription, paper fol. 1r at front); sister Marie Linerloz, 1636 (ownership inscriptions beneath coat of arms on paper fol. 1v at front and on fol. 56v); acquired by Walter Sneyd, Keele Hall, Staffordshire, in 1851 (bookplate inside upper cover, mentioned in letter to Thomas Philipps dated 8 Dec. 1851; Munby 1972, 113); his sale, Sotheby’s, London, 16 Dec. 1903, lot 660; purchased by Frank McClean (1837 – 1904); his bequest, 1904