The Luttrell Psalter: A Facsimile

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The Insular Contribution to the Transmission of Biblical Texts', a chapter in the Vatican's History of the Bible, La Bibbia, Formi e Modeli , ed. P. Cherubini (Vatican Publications: Vatican City, 2005). Richard K Emmerson and PJP Goldberg, ‘’ The Lord Geoffrey had me made’: Lordship and Labour in the Luttrell Psalter’ in JS Bothwell et al (eds), The Problem of Labour in Fourteenth-Century England, 2000. Hagiography or History? Early Medieval Approaches to Establishing Origin and Provenance for Insular Copies of Scripture In Listen, O Isles, unto me: Studies in Medieval Word and Image in honour of Jennifer O’Reilly, ed. E. Mullins and D. Scully (Cork: University College Cork, 2011), pp. 278-290. All of our upcoming public events and our St Pancras building tours are going ahead. Read our latest blog post about planned events for more information.

Making History at the British Library' for the Making History online project, IHR, SAS, University of London (2008). The Luttrell Psalter is illuminated throughout, although the final eighty folios are sparsely decorated especially in comparison to the rest. The major text divisions are demarcated with ten historiated initials and another thirty-nine smaller versions make further subdivisions. Over 230 additional marginalia occupy the first 180 folios. A range of subjects from biblical to fantastical are represented. The most valuable for the understanding of medieval life are the dozens of scenes of farming, hunting, entertainment and music-making. The illuminations may have been left unfinished due to Geoffrey’s death in 1345. A Book of Personal Devotion and Eternal Prayer The psalter has been used extensively for research into the clothing, habits and way of life for medieval peasantry as well as nobility. However some scholars today are more inclined to see the Psalter’s scenes as idealised versions of reality, designed to please Sir Geoffrey rather than his workers. This produced 2-4 monographs or electronic publications per annum which set the book in its broader historical and social context (from late Antiquity to the Renaissance; northern Europe, the Mediterranean and near East). The creation of the Luttrell Psalter might be connected either to the papal dispensation of 1331 which allowed the Luttrell-Sutton marriage or to the coming of age in 1334 of Andrew Luttrell, Sir Geoffrey's son. [6] Such indications are present in the illustrations in the manuscript. The psalter contains a portrait of Luttrell, at the end of Psalm 109, fully armed and mounted on a war-horse, with an extravagant display of the Luttrell arms. The image is believed to have served to emphasise his knightly status during a marriage union of a family member. [6] To assert his role as patron of the work, the line Dominus Galfridus Louterell me fieri fecit ("Lord Geoffrey Luttrell caused me to be made") appears above the portrait. [8] The manuscript contains images of beggars and street performers and grotesques, all symbolizing the chaos and anarchy that was present in mediaeval society and feared by Sir Geoffrey Luttrell and his contemporaries.Stilt walkers, acrobats, human-animal hybrids… This is not a fantasy novel: it is a world-famous Late Medieval manuscript made in Lincolnshire, England. The Luttrell Psalter has been considered the one manuscript that accurately portrays life in medieval rural England. However, the Psalter was commissioned by and created for Sir Geoffrey. Therefore it is more likely that the images of farmers at work are idealized portrayals meant to please the lord of the manor, rather than demonstrate everyday life. The Latin text includes a calendar, psalter, and additional devotional texts. Penned by a single scribe but with the hand of at least four artists, the Luttrell Psalter contain images from all aspects of life from the toil of agriculture to fantastic expressions of the medieval imagination making it the most remarkable of manuscripts. Detailed Depictions of Everyday Life The Scribe as Evangelist: Illuminated images of biblical transmission, from the Lindisfarne Gospels to the York Gospels', for a festschrift for Jennifer O'Reilly, ed. E. Mullin (2009).

Four members of the family are important in the story of the Psalter in the fourteenth century – Sir Geoffrey and his wife Agnes, their eldest surviving son, Andrew and his first wife, Beatrice. Geoffrey was born in 1276 in Irnham, Lincolnshire, the village at the centre of his life where he was later married and buried. In terms of status the Luttrells have been described as ‘minor baronage’ though only Robert, Lord Luttrell (d.1297) was summoned individually to Parliament and was thus the only member of the family to rank as a peer. Sir Geoffrey Luttrell seems more suited to being described as a member of the gentry. Facsimile Film: 80 seconds providing a visual introduction to the Psalter, using the facsimile edition HERE … The Tower of Babel: the architecture of the early western written vernaculars', in A. J. Duggan, J. Greatrex and B. Bolton, eds, Omnia Disce. Medieval Studies in Memory of Leonard Boyle, O.P. (Ashgate, Aldershot , 2005). What makes the Luttrell Psalter unique is that it is richly illustrated with depictions of everyday life in rural England in the first half of the 14th century. Acquired by the British Museum in 1929, it is considered one of the British Library’s greatest treasures.Female book-ownership and production in Anglo-Saxon England: the Evidence of the Ninth-Century Prayerbooks' The Barberini Gospels: Context and Intertextuality', in A. Minnis and J. Roberts, eds, Text, Image, Interpretation: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Literature and its Insular Context in honour of Eamonn Ó Carragáin (Brepols: Turnhout, 2007), pp. 89-116. On 166v the Commentary states "Grotesque in lower margin". There is no grotesque in the lower margin. Then two sentences later the Commentary describes what is actually in the lower margin - "In the lower margin, a housewife holding a spindle....". keynote speaker at conference - Gothic Art and Thought in the Middle Ages, Index of Christian Art, Princeton University, 2009 It was planned by Geoffrey and by at least one cleric, perhaps one of his chaplains or his confessor. Their planning of the details was highly intricate, the illustrations being carefully chosen to link to the text and bring out the meaning of the text. The words were written by a single scribe but six artists contributed the illustrations over time, one of whom knew the family well or came to stay at Irnham (suggested by the quality of the likenesses of individuals). The artists may have come from the local monastic houses of Stamford and Bourne but historians have also suggested the involvement of artists from religious houses at Lincoln, Norwich or York. Why was it created?

In S. Turner, and D. Petts, eds, Early Medieval Northumbria: Kingdoms and Communities, Studies in the Early Middle Ages 24 (Turnhout: Brepols)The Lichfield Angel and the Manuscript Context: Lichfield as a Centre of Insular Art', Journal of the British Archaeological Association 160 (2007), 8-19.

The Holkham Bible Picture-Book , a facsimile with accompanying commentary, transcription and translation (Folio Society & British Library: London, 2008), Folio Soc. and BL edns.In her article ‘ New evidence about Sir Geoffrey Luttrell’s raid on Sempringham Priory, 1312’ Joyce Coleman says: