Ramsey-Psalter

The Ramsey Psalter is a colored imaged with 174 Psalter preserved parchment scroll, which was created in 1300 in the Benedictine abbey of Ramsey in Cambridgeshire.

Description

The texts of the Psalms are consistently in Latin under the use of many Abbreviationen in one of the translation of the Septuagint. In some places German -language instructions are added to the Psalms in the margin. The finely drawn, detailed and colored illustrations, initials and own text ends are almost entirely covered with gold leaf. The parchment sheets in the format of 17 centimeters by 26 centimeters are described and painted on both sides. The exceptional and extensive decoration of the Ramsey Psalter is one of the most important examples of Gothic receive ended manuscripts.

Overall, the Psalter of 174 sheets obtained, which are divided according to the ancient Psalm count is as follows:

• Sheet 1: Binding, Unlabeled
• Journal 2a: Psalm order for Sundays and weekdays, small font in the colors red and dark brown
• Journal 2b: Unlabelled
• Sheet 3 to 5a: Prayers with red headlines and red and blue initials
• Journal 5b: Unlabelled
• Sheet 6-10: Ten consuming and elaborate, multi-colored images with biblical scenes from the Old Testament and New Testament and scenes with the partons of the abbey, usually with four scenes per page
• Journal 11-16: The twelve months of the Benedictine calendar in red, blue and gold lettering. At the end of the month of December is a portrait of William of Grafham, the cellarer of the Abbey of Ransey mapped.
• Sheet 17a: Full-page image with Jesus and Mary sitting side by side on a throne. Among the holy Lucius, King of Britain, smashed with the cross bar a pagan statue
• Sheet 17b: The Psalms dedicated prayer of Jerome with halbsseitigem image
• Journal 18-37: Large, illustrated Initial " B" Note in the margin: Nocturn on Sunday, Psalm 1 to 25 with multi-colored, gold leaf initials and own text ends at the edge King David with harp
• Journal 38-41: Large, illustrated Initial " D" Note in the margin: Nocturn on Monday Psalm 26 to 30.15 with multi-colored, gold leaf initials and own text ends
• Sheet 42 to 51a: Psalm 30.15-37 with monochrome, red initials and own text ends
• Journal of 51b to 53: Large Initial " D", Psalm 38 to 40.4 with monochrome, red initials and own text ends ( the original leaves are lost)
• Sheet 54 to 63a: Psalm 40.4 to 50, with multi-colored, gold leaf initials and own text ends
• Journal 63: Large, illustrated Initial " Q", Psalm 51 with multi-colored, gold leaf initials and own text ends
• Sheet 64 to 76a: Large, illustrated Initial " D" Note in the margin: Nocturn on Wednesday, Psalm 52-67 with multi-colored, gold leaf initials and own text ends
• Sheet 76 to 91a: Large, illustrated Initial " S" Note in the margin: Nocturn on Dornstag, Psalm 68-79 with multi-colored, gold leaf initials and own text ends
• Sheet 91 to 105a: Large, illustrated Initial " E" note in the margin: Nocturn on Frytag, Psalm 80 to 96 with multi-colored, gold leaf initials and own text ends
• Journal 105b to 107a: Large, illustrated Initial " C " Note in the margin: Nocturn on Sambstag, Psalm 97 to 100 with multi-colored, gold leaf initials and own text ends
• Journal 107b to 120: Large, illustrated Initial " D", Psalm 101 to 108 with multi-colored, gold leaf initials and own text ends
• Sheet 121 to 152a: Large, illustrated Initial " D" note in the margin: The vesper & Sonnentag, Psalm 109-150 with multi-colored, gold leaf initials and own text ends
• 152 Journal: Large Initial " C", Isaiah 12 with multi-colored, gold leaf initials and own text ends
• Journal 152b and 153: Initial " E", Isaiah 38.10-20 with multi-colored, gold leaf initials and own text ends
• Journal 153b and 154a: Initial " E", 1 Samuel 2.1 to 10 with multi-colored, gold leaf initials and own text ends
• Sheet 154 and 155: Initial " C " Exodus 15.1 to 19 with multi-colored, gold leaf initials and own text ends
• Journal 155b to 157a: Initial " D", Habakkuk 3 with multi-colored, gold leaf initials and own text ends
• Sheet 157-160: Initial " a", Deuteronomy 32.1 to 43 with multi-colored, gold leaf initials and own text ends
• Journal 160b and 161: Initial " B" Canticle of the Divine with multi-colored, gold leaf initials and own text ends
• Journal 161b and 162: Initial " T" Te Deum with multi-colored, gold leaf initials and own text ends
• Journal 162b and 163a: Initial " B" canticle of Zechariah, Initial " M" Mary's song of praise, Initial " N", Canticle of Simeon with multi-colored, gold leaf initials and own text ends
• Sheet 163-166: Initial " G", Gloria, Initial " P " Pater noster, Initial " C", Credo, Initial " P", Quicumque with multi-colored, gold leaf initials and own text ends
• Sheet 167 to 169a: Initial " K " Litany of the Saints with blue and red initials, no longer in its original version
• Journal 169b to 170: Initial " S" prayers with blue and red initials
• Journal 171a: Initial " I", the beginning of John's Gospel in the colors red and dark brown
• Journal 171b to 173a: Initial " S" prayers with blue and red initials
• Journal 173b: Unlabelled
• Sheet 174: Binding, Unlabeled

Formation

The Ramsey Psalter was produced from 1303 to 1310 according to other data 1286-1316 in the Benedictine abbey of Ramsey in Cambridgeshire, which had then worked for over three hundred years there and represented an important spiritual center in the Anglo- Saxon countries. The local Benedictine used the book for their own purposes.

The Psalter was the cellarer of William Grafham around 1310 the abbot of Ramsey, John of Sawtry passed. The founding and history of the abbey are depicted on page 9b.

In preparing the detailed initials of the artist may have been influenced by the place in England wealthy reception of the pre-Romanesque Utrecht Psalter.

Whereabouts

The Ramsey Psalter has long been owned by lay people and diocesan priests and came in the middle of the 16th century the Benedictine monastery Saint Blaise. After the dissolution of the monastery in 1806 in the wake of secularization it came to Carinthia in the Benedictine abbey of Saint Paul in the Lavant Valley.

Originally, the Ramsey Psalter had ten particularly ornamented initials, of which only nine are preserved. The eleven elaborate image thumbnails were separated from the bound work some time ago and the resulting ten pages (sheets 6-10 ) are now in the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York. The remaining part of the work is located in the Abbey of St. Paul in the Lavant Valley.

Others

A Psalter from the end of the 10th century ( British Library, Harley 2904 ) is also referred to as the Ramsey Psalter.