Florian Psalter

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Book page with the monogram "Mons Mariae"

The trilingual Florian Psalter (also St. Florians Psalter and Florianspsalter , Latin Psalterium Florianense , Codex Florianus and Psalterium trilingue ; Polish Psałterz floriański ; Czech Žaltář floriánský and Svato-Floriánský Žaltář " ) was created after 1384 either in the Augustinian scriptorium Mariae ” in Glatz or in the Kraków Wawel script. The Psalter has been in the Warsaw National Library since 1931 .

history

The Augustinian canon monastery "Mons Mariae" in Glatz , which was founded by the Prague Archbishop Ernst von Pardubitz before 1350 , and which had been settled with monks from the Augustinian canons in Raudnitz , soon gained supraregional importance and participated in the establishment and development of other religious branches. When Hedwig von Anjou became king of Poland in 1384, she intended to found an Augustinian monastery in the Cracow suburb of Kazimierz and to call monks from the Augustinian monastery there. Presumably she soon gave them the order to make a trilingual psalter for the liturgical equipment in the Glatzer scriptorium. Hedwig, who led a pious life, grew up bilingual. She promoted science and the church and was also a patron of the Teutonic Order . She had several works from her library translated into Polish, which encouraged the spread of the written language. By her untimely death in 1399, about two-thirds of the psalter had been completed. After an interruption of a few years, the less precise and not so magnificent last third was probably completed by 1404. This year the actual founding and opening of the Augustinian monastery took place in Kazimierz. It was there that the psalter was used. In 1556 he is said to have been in the Kraków Corpus Christi Church ( Bazylika Bożego Ciała ).

It is not known when and how it came to Upper Austria , where it received a splendid Renaissance binding around 1564. In 1637 it was first listed in the library catalog of the St. Florian monastery . There the Psalter was rediscovered in 1827 by the monastery archivist Joseph Chmel . In the same year, together with the librarians JS Bandtkie and Bartholomäus Kopitar, he published a treatise on the find, which was published in both Latin and Polish. Because of the information contained therein about the age of the Psalter and its connection to the Anjou house , a scholarly dispute broke out with Count Stanislaus von Dunin-Borkowski, which was finally held in public in 1834 between him and B. Kopitar.

In 1931 the Psalter was sold to the Polish government with the permission of the Vatican authorities. In 1939 the only complete complete edition to date was published in Lemberg under the title "Psałterz Florjański - Łacińsko-polsko-niemiecki" ( Psalterium Florianense - Latin-Polish-German ) and provided with a text-critical apparatus . Since the Polish part of the Psalter is one of the oldest text documents of this language, a new edition took place in Łódź in 2002 . In 2010, Rudolf Hanamann published a detailed linguistic analysis of the German part of the Florian Psalter and its cultural-historical classification.

description

In three languages on parchment written manuscript is 32 cm high and 22 cm wide. Of the original 298 sheets, 296 have survived. The first two pages of the prologue are lost. Each sheet is described with two columns. After each Latin psalter verse, the Polish text follows first, and then the German text, although the translation does not always adhere to the Latin text.

Since the Polish text contains numerous archaisms , it is assumed that it was based on an older psalter that was previously in Cracow and that Queen Hedwig sent to Glatz. Since the Polish text also contains a number of bohemisms , it is possible that an older Czech psalter was also used for the translation into Polish. The psalter written by Peter von Patschkau around 1340 was probably used for the German text.

Three scribes worked on the Psalter:

  • the first wrote the text up to verse 18 of Psalm 101,
  • the second continued it to verse 2 of Psalm 106 and
  • the third scribe completed the work.

After the ( lost ) introduction, from which the final sentence “Hy is the prologus latynsch polansch and duczis and the other latin polant and duczis” has survived, leaves 3 to 231 / reverse side with psalms 1–118b described. Then follows as an insert on pages 231 / back to 236 / back the Athanasian Creed and then on pages 236 to 288 Psalms 118c to 150. The last are the prayers:

  • Hymn of Praise of Isaias (sheet 288 / back to sheet 289)
  • Song of the Czechias (sheets 289 to 291)
  • Song of Anna (sheets 291 to 293)
  • Song of Moses and
  • Habakkuk's prayer (pages 293 to 296 / back)

Artistic arrangement

The psalter is richly illustrated in the style of Bohemian-Silesian book illumination . It corresponds to the artistic design of the liturgical books of the dioceses of Prague and Olomouc that were created during the reign of Emperor Charles IV . The Psalter also contains numerous drolleries in the style of the Burgundian book illumination of the time, which was also introduced at the Prague court. The letters of the beginning of the Psalms and verses, the headings and decorative strips are richly decorated in gold and other bright colors. On the leaf ornament, which surrounds the decorative letter “B”, there is a monogram of the Glatzer Augustinian monastery “Mons Mariae”. It consists of the weave of a standing and lying Gothic "M", and is also repeated under the left column of the back of sheet 53, where it is carried by a floating angel. Another angel below the right column has a coat of arms. It is the coat of arms of the Hungarian branch of the House of Anjou , from which the founder, Queen Hedwig, came from.

Digitized

literature

  • Ludwik Bernacki: Geneza i historja psałterza florjańskiego. Uwagi o części niemieckiej psałterza podał Adam Kleczkowski, miniatury kodeksu omówił Władystaw Podlacha. In: Rocznik Zakładu Narodowego Imienia ossolińskich. 1, 1927, ISSN  0137-415X , pp. 1-20.
  • Stanislaus von Dunin-Borkowski: On the history of the oldest Polish psalter at St. Florian near Linz, called the psalter of Queen Margaret. An answer to the criticism in the year books of Austrian literature, volume 67, year 1834, page 154. Sollinger, Vienna 1835, digitized .
  • Rudolf Hanamann: The German part of the Florian Psalter. Language analysis and cultural-historical classification. Lang, Frankfurt am Main a. a. 2010, ISBN 978-3-631-59866-5 ( Regensburg Contributions to German Linguistics and Literature Studies. Series B: Investigations 96), (At the same time: Regensburg, Univ., Diss., 2009).
  • Historical Commission for Silesia (Ed.): History of Silesia. Volume 1: Ludwig Petry u. a. (Ed.): From primeval times to the year 1526. 5th reviewed edition. Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1988, ISBN 3-7995-6341-5 , p. 419f.
  • Joseph Klapper: The St. Florian Psalter, a Glatzer cultural monument. In: Glatzer Heimatblätter: Heft 1, 1942, ZDB -ID 550730-3 , pp. 5-9.
  • Bartholäus Kopitar : Anti-Tartar or production of the facts in the matter of the Viennese Editio Princeps (1834) of the oldest monument of the Polish language. Bonnier, Stockholm 1836, digitized .

Web links

Commons : Florianer Psalter  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The reference to the Scriptorium of the Glatzer Augustinians was first made in 1928 by Ludwig Bernacki and was repeated in 1942 by Joseph Klapper. See the relevant literature [1]
  2. ↑ Witold Taszycki, Polish historical dialectology, 1947. According Taszycki but, the language of the Psalter numerous features of Krakauer's dialect not Silesian on
  3. ↑ The above reference to missing features of Silesian is incorrect. In the county of Glatz , which until 1742 belonged directly to Bohemia and not to Silesia, not the Silesian but the Glätzian dialect was spoken.
  4. ↑ Josef Vintr:  Kopitar, Bartholomäus. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 12, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1980, ISBN 3-428-00193-1 , p. 566 ( digitized version ).
  5. ↑ [2]
  6. ↑ Peter von Patschkau