Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 075: Glossed Psalter (Glossa ordinaria)

purl.stanford.edu/kz066hg9217

Title:

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 075: Glossed Psalter (Glossa ordinaria)

Alternate Title:

Psalterium Glosatum

Language:

Latin

Extent:

ff. 280

Dimensions:

419 Height (mm) and 289 Width (mm)

Approximate Date:

[ca. 1200 - 1225]

Table of contents:

Glossed Psalter (Glossa ordinaria)

Description:

This large glossed Psalter, CCCC MS 75, dating to c. 1220, contains the commentary of Peter Lombard (c. 1095-1160) completed towards the end of his life in 1158/9. This was the most read of all commentaries on the psalms in the later centuries of the Middle Ages. This is a luxury copy with historiated initials placed at the liturgical divisions of the psalms, even though this book was intended for scholarly rather than liturgical use. The iconography of these initials is characteristic of the specifically English system used in the thirteenth century, although some of them, like Noah's drunkenness for psalm 51, are rarely found. M. R. James suggested that the script was characteristic of the abbey of St Albans, but the study by Thomson of St Albans books of this period rejects it. It might have been made in East Anglia because it is illuminated by the same artists as the Psalter, London, BL MS Lansdowne 431, which was made for an Augustinian house in that region, perhaps Barnwell near Cambridge.