Albani Psalter
The Albani Psalter ( English Albani Psalter ), also St. Albans Psalter , Psalter von St. Albans (after the English St Albans Psalter ) or Psalter der Christina von Markyate , is a major work of English Romanesque illumination . It originated in the 12th century in St. Alban's Abbey in Hertfordshire . Today it is in the Hildesheim Cathedral Library and represents one of its most precious treasures.
description
The work, which is more than four hundred pages long, belongs to the genus of medieval psalteries , which were intended for domestic devotion or liturgical prayer. The main literary content is the psalms of the biblical Vulgate , plus the old French song of Alexius and, at the beginning, a liturgical calendar . The picture program includes more than forty full-page miniatures from the Gospel , various depictions of saints and artistic decorative paintings , including over 200 initials decorated with gold .
The Albani Psalter is almost unprecedented in terms of external effort and iconography and, for its part, has had a lasting influence on the later pictorial tradition.
Beginning of Psalm 21
Simon's feast
Christ in the Garden of Getsemane
Christ opens the realm of the dead
Our Father with initial
history
The first editor Adolph Goldschmidt identified the writer of the Psalms with the hermit and monk of St. Albans Roger († before 1118), who is mentioned in the calendar with the day of his death (September 12th). The hermit is probably the clerical Anglo- Norman nobleman Roger d'Aubigny, a brother of Abbot Richard d'Aubigny (1087–1119). According to the following researchers, however, the Albani Psalter did not come into being until around 1120 and 1145 during the Abbatiat of Geoffrey von Gorham . According to them, the work was a gift for the hermit Christina von Markyate , with whom Abbot Geoffrey is said to have been in close spiritual friendship. More likely, however, the book was used in the abbey's choral service.
During the civil war from 1642 to 1649, English Benedictines brought the psalter with other treasures to their new refuge, the Lamspringe monastery near Hildesheim. Presumably when it was dissolved in 1803, it came into the possession of the St. Godehard Basilica in Hildesheim, whose books have been kept in the cathedral library since 1908.
From September 12, 2009 to January 24, 2010, all the sheets of the Psalter were shown side by side in the Hildesheim Cathedral Museum after the manuscript had to be dismantled for restoration. A similar exhibition is planned for the Getty Museum in autumn 2013 .
Literary processing
The historical novel by Peter Dyckhoff Albani. The unheard of adventure , the background of which is the story of the Psalter, was published in 1998 (Steinkopf Verlag, Stuttgart).
literature
- Jochen Bepler, Christian Heitzmann (ed.): The Albani Psalter. Status and prospects of research. Hildesheim 2013.
- Katie Bugyis: The Author of the Life of Christina of Markyate: The Case for Robert de Gorron (d. 1166) , in: The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 68 (2017), pp. 719-746
- Bernhard Gallistl : The St. Albans Psalter and its liturgical use , in: Concilium Medii Aevi 15 , 2012, pp. 213–548 (accessed on November 28, 2012)
- Bernhard Gallistl: 'The Christina of Markyate Psalter'. A Modern Legend: On the Purpose of the St. Albans Psalter , in: Concilium medii aevi 15 , 2014, pp. 21-55, available online as a PDF file: cma.gbv.de , accessed on December 6, 2012
- Bernhard Gallistl: Codex and Room. The St Albans Psalter , in: European Research Center for Book and Paper Conservation Restoration. Newsletter 2/2015 , Nov. 2015, pp. 4–17 (accessed on December 21, 2015)
- Jane Geddes : The Albani Psalter. A splendid English manuscript from the 12th century for Christina von Markyate , Verlag Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 2005, ISBN 978-3-7954-1751-2 .
- Adolph Goldschmidt : The Albanipsalter in Hildesheim and its relation to the symbolic church sculpture of the XII. Century , Siemens, Berlin 1895
- Nicolaus Strube : A way to mystical sources. Meditations on the Albani Psalter , Verlag Monika Fuchs, Hildesheim 2006, ISBN 978-3-940078-01-8 .
Web links
- All pictures and commentary (University of Aberdeen)