
The Tiberius Psalter (
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...
Cotton MS. Tiberius C.vi) is one of at least four surviving
Gallican psalters produced at
New Minster, Winchester
The New Minster in Winchester was a royal Benedictine abbey founded in in Winchester in the England, English county of Hampshire.
Alfred the Great had intended to build the monastery, but only got around to buying the land. His son, Edward the ...
in the years around the
Norman conquest of England
The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Normans, Norman, French people, French, Flemish people, Flemish, and Bretons, Breton troops, all led by the Du ...
(the other three being the
Stowe Psalter,
Vitellius Psalter and
Lambeth Psalter). The manuscript can now be seen in full online at the British Library website.
It has the earliest known cycle of prefatory miniatures in a psalter (f. 7v–16r), a form which became very popular over the following centuries; the 12th-century
St. Albans Psalter has one of the best known and fullest of such cycles. The Tiberius cycle depicts the lives of
David
David (; , "beloved one") was a king of ancient Israel and Judah and the third king of the United Monarchy, according to the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament.
The Tel Dan stele, an Aramaic-inscribed stone erected by a king of Aram-Dam ...
and Christ, linking them
typologically. The miniatures are in a so-called "third style" of late
Anglo-Saxon art
Anglo-Saxon art covers art produced within the Anglo-Saxons, Anglo-Saxon period of English history, beginning with the Migration period art, Migration period style that the Anglo-Saxons brought with them from the continent in the 5th century, ...
, "in which the Winchester and
Utrecht
Utrecht ( ; ; ) is the List of cities in the Netherlands by province, fourth-largest city of the Netherlands, as well as the capital and the most populous city of the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of Utrecht (province), Utrecht. The ...
styles fused and assumed an even greater monumentality". Most of them use with great expressiveness the English tinted outline drawing style which had developed over the previous century; a few use a fully painted style, for example f. 30v, with a portrait of the enthroned David.
Its estimated date has been rather mobile in recent years, moving from "mid-11th century", or "around 1050", to "3rd quarter of the 11th century" according to the British Library in 2016.
The manuscript is incomplete and was damaged in the
Cotton Library
The Cotton or Cottonian library is a collection of manuscripts that came into the hands of the antiquarian and bibliophile Sir Robert Bruce Cotton MP (1571–1631). The collection of books and materials Sir Robert held was one of the three "foun ...
fire of 1731, removing the top corners of each of the first few pages. It was rebound in 1894, with the folios mounted individually into a book with a larger page size. The 129 original pages are about 248 x 146 mm. After initial material, there are 24 pages with drawings, 5 illustrating the life of David and 11 that of Christ. There is a large initial and illuminated border with Winchester style acanthus foliage at the beginning of the main sections of the book, such as the start of Psalm 1 (f. 31r).
There is a continuous interlinear gloss in
Old English
Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...
of the psalms, and other
vernacular
Vernacular is the ordinary, informal, spoken language, spoken form of language, particularly when perceptual dialectology, perceived as having lower social status or less Prestige (sociolinguistics), prestige than standard language, which is mor ...
material.
[Backhouse et al., 83]
"he Production and Use of English Manuscripts, 1060 to 1220"
database
File:Tiberius Psalter f8r.png, F. 8r, David and the Lion
File:Tiberius Psalter f8v.png, F. 8v, David, facing Goliath
File:Tiberius Psalter f9r.png, F. 9r, Goliath slain
File:Tiberius Psalter f9v.png, F. 9v, Saul
Saul (; , ; , ; ) was a monarch of ancient Israel and Judah and, according to the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament, the first king of the United Monarchy, a polity of uncertain historicity. His reign, traditionally placed in the late eleventh c ...
and David
File:Tiberius Psalter f10v.png, F. 10v, Temptation of Christ
The temptation of Christ is a biblical narrative detailed in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. After being baptized by John the Baptist, Jesus was tempted by the devil after 40 days and nights of fasting in the Judaean Desert. At the ...
File:Tiberius Psalter f12r.png, F. 12r, Arrest of Christ
File:Tiberius Psalter f13v.png, F. 13v, Women at the tomb
File:Tiberius Psalter f14r.png, f. 14r. Doubting Thomas
A doubting Thomas is a skeptic who refuses to believe without direct personal experience—a reference to the Gospel of John's depiction of the Apostle Thomas, who, in John's account, refused to believe the resurrected Jesus had appeared to ...
File:Tiberius Psalter f18v.png, F. 18v, Christ in Majesty
File:Tiberius Psalter f30v.png, F. 30v, Enthroned David
File:Tiberius Psalter f31v.png, F. 31r Beatus initial
File:Tiberius Psalter f31v2.png, F. 31v Psalm text page
References
References
*"BL"
BL, Cotton MS Tiberius C VI with the MS fully online
*
Backhouse, Janet,
Turner, D.H., and
Webster, Leslie, eds.; ''The Golden Age of Anglo-Saxon Art, 966–1066'', 1984, British Museum Publications Ltd,
*
Brown, Michelle P., ''Manuscripts from the Anglo-Saxon Age'', 2007, British Library,
*Openshaw, K. M., 'The Battle between Christ and Satan in the Tiberius Psalter', ''Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes'', 52 (1989), 14–33.
Further reading
*Campbell, A. P., ed., ''The Tiberius Psalter, Edited from British Museum MS Cotton Tiberius C vi.'', Ottawa Medieval Studies, 2 (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1974).
*Pulsiano, Phillip, '233. London, British Library Cotton Tiberius C. vi: "Tiberius Psalter"', in ''Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Microfiche Facsimile'' (Binghamton, NY: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1994), vol. 2: Psalters I, pp. 38–42.
*Wormald, Francis, 'An English, Eleventh-Century Psalter with Pictures: British Library, Cotton MS Tiberius C.VI.', in ''Collected Writings: I. Studies in Medieval Art from the Sixth to the Twelfth Centuries'', ed. by J. J. G Alexander et al., 123-37 + plates (London: Harvey Miller Publishers; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), pp. 180–81
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Illuminated psalters
Cotton Library
Later Anglo-Saxon illuminated manuscripts
Old English literature
11th-century illuminated manuscripts