The St. Albans Psalter: Painting and Prayer in Medieval England by Kristen Collins, Peter Kidd, and Nancy K. Turner (review)

This short book provides a brief introduction to the St. Albans Psalter, a medieval English illuminated manuscript, and details the examination of its material composition conducted while on loan at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Owned by the church of St. Godehard in Hildesheim, Germany, the Psalter was temporarily unbound in 2007 for documentation and conservation. It made its way to the Getty in 2012, where scholars and conservators were able to get a closer look at individual leaves. The Saint Albans Psalter: Painting and Prayer in Medieval England was published to accompany the Getty Center exhibition Canterbury and St. Albans: Treasures from Church and Cloister, which ran from 30 September 2013 to 2 February 2014. The exhibit presented the St. Albans Psalter along with stained glass windows from Canterbury Cathedral, which together offered an extraordinary opportunity for the public and scholars alike to take a closer look at twelfth-century English painting through these two medieval masterpieces.

The St. Albans Psalter itself is one of the most famous books produced in medieval England due to its unprecedented illustrations and the unanswered questions regarding its exact date, its production, and its owners. It was likely created between 1120 and 1140 at St. Albans Abbey, 25 miles north of London, where England’s first saint had been martyred by the Romans. St. Albans became a significant center of manuscript production in the Middle Ages, and the Psalter remains one of the finest post-conquest examples of Romanesque illumination, marking a break with early Anglo-Saxon style illustrations. A shining example of how the Norman Conquest marked not only a political break but also an artistic one, this manuscript contains full-page pictures, miniatures, and intricately decorated initials.

The first of two articles in the book outlines the history and the contents of the manuscript, providing a basic introduction to the text. Kristen Collins, associate curator in the Getty’s Department of Manuscripts, begins with a brief history of the abbey at St. Albans after the Norman Conquest, discussing the possible dating of the book and introducing the two people thought to have used it, Prioress Christina of Marykate and Abbot Geoffery of St. Albans. This is followed by an overview of the debates surrounding the manuscript’s production at St. Albans as well as issues of patronage and readership. Collins shows the integral role that illustrations play in devotional lives of the consumers as she takes us through each section of the book (Calendar, Prefatory Cycle, Alexis Quire, Psalter, and Diptych), offering commentary on select images throughout. She also points out the ways in which the Psalter, with its uniquely detailed illustrations featuring gold and brilliant colors, breaks with the past and deviates from others of its time. Towards the end of the chapter she offers a very brief analysis of the role of pictures in devotion during the high Middle Ages. The article is very accessible for non-specialists and useful for those interested in learning more about history and development of medieval art and devotional materials. As the author suggests, a broader investigation of “artistic production” taking place at other key areas of manuscript illumination would shed more light on the St. Albans Psalter.

The second article will likely be of more interest to scholars of medieval manuscripts, as it delves into the specifics of the materiality of the book and reveals the findings of the physical examination by Nancy Turner, manuscripts conservator in the Department of Paper Conservation at the Getty, and Peter Kidd, a freelance researcher specializing in medieval manuscripts. Investigations into the St. Albans Psalter usually begin with debates regarding patronage, possible owners, or the monastic communities surrounding the book. Kidd and Turner, however, take advantage of their opportunity to examine the disassembled manuscript with backlighting, infrared imaging, and magnification. They zero in on the physical features of the...