Great Canterbury Psalter

Detail of folio 144v, from the Catalan portion, illustrating Psalm 80

The Great Canterbury Psalter (also called the Anglo-Catalan Psalter or Paris Psalter[1]) is an early 13th- and mid 14th-century illuminated manuscript with the shelfmark MS lat. 8846 in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris. It was made in two different locations and moments in time: at Canterbury around 1200 (184 pages) and in Catalonia around 1340. It is the last of a series of copies of the Utrecht Psalter made in Canterbury, following the Harley Psalter and the Eadwine Psalter.[2]

The English elements are: the main texts, but only taking the Psalms up to Psalm 98; a prefatory cycle of biblical scenes, from both Old and New Testaments, over eight pages, each divided into 12 square compartments (one has 18 medallions instead); illustrations to the Psalms adapting the Utrecht compositions, but only covering most of the psalms up to Psalm 52.[3]

  1. ^ Not to be confused with the Byzantine Paris Psalter. "Great Canterbury Psalter" seems to be a name invented by Nigel Morgan
  2. ^ Morgan (1982), 47
  3. ^ Morgan (1982), 47