Luttrell Psalter
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Luttrell Psalter (British Library, Add. MS 42130) is an illuminated manuscript written and illustrated circa 1320 – 1340 by anonymous scribes and artists. Over the years, many different scholars have dated the manuscript between several different time periods, in relation to the style used and relevant events of the decade. Eric Millar reasons that the manuscript was made around 1335-1340, before the death of Anges Sutton, Sir Geoffrey’s wife, because the illustrations display indications of the “late ‘decadence’ of the Late East Anglian style”. Lucy Sandler prefer to date the creation around 1325-1330 because the styles are similar to the other manuscripts of that time. Michelle Brown believes it was made and planned much later, around 1330 to 1345. There is no certain date for the completion of the Luttrell Psalter; it can only be estimated through analysis of the manuscript itself.
Along with the psalms (beginning on 13 recto), the Luttrell Psalter contains a calendar (1 r), canticles (259 verso), the Mass (283 v) and an antiphon for the dead (295 r). The pages vary in their degree of illumination but many are richly covered with both decorated text and marginal pictures of saints and Bible stories, of rural life, farming, cooking, doctoring, spouses squabbling, musicians playing, etc. It is considered by some to be one of the richest sources for visual depictions of everyday rural life in England of the Middle Ages.
