Eadwine Psalter

"The Norman Conquest was a time of turbulent upheaval of political power in English history.  Not only was did the ruling family change, but the culture that was brought with them changed the culture of England forever.  Some of the most significant and telling pieces of history left to the modern day are manuscripts.  Through these, there is evidence of a society of change, where social ideas and theology, among many other things, are morphing.  It is, therefore, imperative that scholars not waste these resources when trying to fit history into a cultural context.  As Olson states in Fair and Varied Forms, “Interpreting historical texts in terms of their larger cultural context is both necessary and problematic.”  With this in mind, I endeavor to discover and discuss major differences found in the Harley and Eadwine Psalters in relation to their parent-document, the Utrecht Psalter, in order to find evidence by which scholars may examine the cultural climate in which each manuscript was created.  Differences in these specific manuscripts may then lead to speculation about the choices made by the creators and inform scholars of the contemporary culture of Canterbury, and more widely England, in the turbulent time of the Norman Conquest..."

The 'Biblia Gregoriana' was one of the chief treasures of St. Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury. It stands in first place in both the late fifteenth-century catalogue of the abbey library and the early fifteenth-century list of the 'Gregorian' books venerated at the abbey. It apparently no longer survives, but it has left multiple traces in records and monuments in England spanning many centuries. They extend from the early Anglo-Saxon period to the Stuart age. Major traces reside in the ninth-century 'Royal Bible' made at St. Augustine's Abbey (London, British Library, Royal MS 1 E.vi) and its relatives.

Close study of these traces, set in the context of the transmission of Bible manuscripts to and through England, reveal that the 'Biblia Gregoriana' was a magnificent large-format Late-Antique Bible in Latin, mainly in the Vulgate version of St. Jerome. It was written in stately script, most probably uncial, and equipped with both a number of purple leaves and a very large cycle of illustrations, to rival the largest cycles known in Late-Antique manuscripts from the whole Mediterranean world.

Such a manuscript would have been prized anywhere, but it had special significance at the abbey founded by Gregory's missionary Augustine, first archbishop of Canterbury. The tradition that it had been sent by Gregory the Great to or with Augustine could be accurate.