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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 September 2008
The main contents of the Bosworth Psalter (BM Add. 37517; henceforth cited as B) are on palaeographical grounds commonly assigned to the last quarter of the tenth century. It is thus the oldest surviving English manuscript in which all the important texts of the Benedictine Office – psalter, canticles, hymns and monastic canticles – have been placed together. These texts are preceded by a calendar of slightly later date. Parts of the psalter and six of the canticles were glossed in Old English very early in the eleventh century and there are Latin additions contemporary with the Old English gloss – a short litany, prayers and mass-texts. Finally some psalms were heavily annotated in Latin in the twelfth century. B, still bound in its original oak covers, is of considerable interest on several counts. Early English psalters supply a very good text of the Psalterium Romanum, and B is one of those which appear in the apparatus of Weber's new edition. The hymnologist appreciates B as the oldest representative of the ‘New Hymnal’ in England. And the art historian values it both for its initials to the psalms, which display a style different from that of the contemporary Winchester School, and for the full-page figure of Christ on 128v. Hence any light that can be thrown on the place of origin of this manuscript is important to several disciplines.
page 173 note 1 For more detailed descriptions see F. A. Gasquet and Bishop, E., The Bosworth Psalter (London, 1908), pp. 3–14Google Scholar; The New Palaeographical Society 1st ser. 2 (London, 1903–1912)Google Scholar, notice of pls. 163–4; Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1906–1910 (London, 1912), pp. 65–6Google Scholar; Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford, 1957), pp. 161–2Google Scholar; and Gneuss, H., Hymnar und Hymnen im englischen Mittelalter, Buchreihe der Anglia 12 (Tübingen, 1968), 104–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The psalter glosses are discussed and printed by Lindelöf, Uno, ‘Die altenglischen Glossen im Bosworth-Psalter’, Mémoires de la Société Néo-Philologique à Helsing fors 5 (1909), 139–200.Google Scholar
page 173 note 2 Le Psautier Romain et les Autres Anciens Psautiers Latins, ed. R. Weber, Collectanea Biblica Latina 10 (Rome, 1953).Google Scholar
page 173 note 3 Gneuss, , Hymnar, pp. 55ff.Google Scholar
page 173 note 4 See Wormald, Francis,‘Decorated Initials in English Manuscripts from A.D. 900–1100’, Archaeologia 91 (1945), 110CrossRefGoogle Scholar and pl. ii Kendrick, T. D., Late Saxon and Viking Art (London, 1949), pp. 35 and 104Google Scholar; Rice, D. Talbot, English Art, 871–1100, The Oxford History of English Art 2 (Oxford, 1952) pp. 196–7Google Scholar; Dodwell, C. R., The Canterbury School of Illumination, 1066–1200 (Cambridge, 1954) pp. 34, 40 and 53Google Scholar; and Rickert, Margaret, Painting in Britain: the Middle Ages, 2nd ed. (London, 1965), pp. 33 and 62.Google Scholar
page 174 note 1 See Gneuss, , Hymnar, pp. 252–6Google Scholar, and my Munich Ph.D. thesis, in progress, on the monastic canticles and their Anglo-Saxon glosses.
page 174 note 2 The Bosworth Psalter, p. 126.
page 174 note 3 Wildhagen, K., ‘Studien zum Psalterium Romanum’, Festschrift für Lorenz Morsbach, ed. Holthausen, F. and Spies, H., Studien zur englischen Philologie 50 (Halle, 1913), 456–9Google Scholar and Kendrick, Art, pp. 35 and 104.
page 174 note 4 Catalogue of Additions 1906–10, p. 66.
page 174 note 5 Henry Bradshaw Society 72 (1934), 57–69. He gives no hint that he disagrees with E. Bishop.
page 174 note 6 Archaeologia 91 (1945), 110 and 135Google Scholar; Dodwell, , Illumination, pp. 34 and 123Google Scholar; and Rickert, , Painting, p. 62Google Scholar, but on p. 33 she assigns it, following E. Bishop, to Christ Church.
page 174 note 7 The Salisbury Psalter, Early English Text Society o.s. 242 (London, 1959), 4Google Scholar, n. 1.
page 174 note 8 Hymnar, p. 71.
page 174 note 9 Medieval Libraries of Great Britain, 2nd ed. (London, 1964), pp. 35 and 42.Google Scholar
page 174 note 10 Catalogue, p. 162. Immediately afterwards Ker mentions the later entry ‘Obitus Ailmæri m°’ in the calendar at 26 March. This might give the impression that the obit - omitted in Wormald's edition – was his reason for assigning the calendar to the abbey, but this is not intended (personal communication). I have been unable to find out anything about this monk. The obits in the Christ Church martyrology, London, Lambeth Palace Library, 20 (early-sixteenth-century) start at a date too late for the present purpose. The twelfth-century martyrology from St Augustine's, BM Cotton Vitellius C. xii, lists obits of several Ælmers but none on 26 March. There is an æer, abbot of St Augustine's and later bishop of Sherborne, who according to Stubbs, W. (Registrum Sacrum Anglicanum, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1897), p. 33Google Scholar) died on 18 September (1023). But the obit in Vitellius C. xii on 6 April, ‘Obitus Aelmerus episcopus qui fuit abbas huius loci’ (the italicized words are inserted by a later hand), shows that Stubbs, who relied on an entry in the Liber Vitae of Hyde (Liber Vitae: Register and Martyrology of New Minster and Hyde Abbey, Winchester, ed. W. de G. Birch (London, 1892), p. 272Google Scholar) is wrong here.
page 175 note 1 I am obliged to Professor H. W. G. Gneuss and especially to Professor P. A. M. Clemoes, who read an earlier draft of this paper and whose suggestions have contributed greatly to its improvement.
page 175 note 2 Wormald, HBS 72 (1934), 57; The Bosworth Psalter, p. 27.
page 175 note 3 Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, ed. F. Liebermann (Halle, 1903–1916) 1, 240Google Scholar (V, 16. Atr.).
page 175 note 4 The erasure obviously cannot be dated. However, two possibilities might be considered. First, if the erasure was effected in 1008 or shortly thereafter, why was the new date not entered? A better context for the erasure might be the period of the apparent decline of Edward's cult in Canterbury after the Conquest (see below, p. 176). Bishop, (The Bosworth Psalter, pp. 65 and 82Google Scholar) thinks that the Edward entry is a slightly later addition and that it was made on 17 March because 18 March was already occupied by another entry. The body of the calendar would nonetheless have originated before 1008: otherwise we should expect Edward on 18 March by the main hand.
page 175 note 5 This becomes apparent from a look at the format of Wormald's printed texts, HBS 72 (1934), nos. 4 and 5.
page 176 note 1 The Bosworth Psalter, pp. 30, 34 and 35.
page 176 note 2 The Missal of St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, ed. Martin Rule (Cambridge, 1896).Google Scholar
page 176 note 3 The Bosworth Psalter, pp. 15–16.
page 176 note 4 18 June Transl. s. Mildrethae and 13 September Transl. s. Augustini sociorumque.
page 176 note 5 See below, p. 177, n. 2.
page 176 note 6 17 March Natale s. Eadwardi regis, 11 April s. Cuthlaci anachoritae, 1 June s. Nicomedis m., 15 June s. Eadburge v., 23 June s. Æðeldryðe v., 21 July s. Praxedis v., 5 August s. Oswaldi regis et m., 24 August s. Patricii sen. in glæstonia, 31 August s. Aidani episc, 16 September ss. Lucie et Geminiani, 24 September Conceptio Johannis bapt., 25 September s. Ceolfriþi abb. in glæstonia and 31 October Passio s. Quintini m.
page 176 note 7 Edward, Guthlac, Nicomedes, Lucia et Geminianus and Conceptio Johannis bapt. were not originally in Tiberius; Edward was added in the fifteenth century. Eadburg and the three special Glastonbury feasts in B, Patrick, Aidan and Ceolfrith, are neither in Arundel nor in Tiberius.
page 176 note 8 For the following see TheBoswortb Psalter, pp. 35–7.
page 177 note 1 See the St Augustine's martyrology, Vitellius C. xii, I28r: ‘In cantia monasterio apostolorum PETRI et PAULI depositio sancti letardi silvanectensis episcopi et confessoris. qui cum filia regis francorum nomine Berhta in has partes directus est. ut eius sanctitatis exemplo Christianę religionis cultum pagano adhuc regi coniuncta non mutaret’ (the italicized words are in a later hand over an erasure). See also Bede, Historia Eccksiastica 1. 25.
page 177 note 2 Liudhard was buried in St Augustine's. If the calendar in B was really from the abbey, we should expect him to have at least a simple feast, as has Nothelm.
page 177 note 3 Salisbury, Cathedral Library, 150 (West Country, c. 969–78); BM Cotton Nero A. ii (Wessex, eleventh-century); Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 113 (Evesham?, of the latter half of the eleventh century); and Rome, Vatican Library, Reg. lat. 12 (Bury, c. 1050).
page 177 note 4 Inventories of Christ Church, Canterbury, ed. J. W. Legg and W. H. St John Hope (London, 1902), p. 80.Google Scholar
page 177 note 5 See The Canterbury Psalter, facs. with introd. by M. R. James (London, 1955), p. 2.Google Scholar
page 177 note 6 Calendars (26 May and Ordinatio s. Augustini on 16 November): Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College 238; Canterbury, Cathedral Library E. 19; BM Cotton Vespasian A. ii; and Cambridge, St John's College 262. Then the missal CCCC 270, the book of devotions Cambridge, University Library, Ff. 6. 16 and Joscelin, , Historia Translatitmis Sancti Augustini, ed. Migne, Patrologia Latina 155, cols. 13–14.Google Scholar
page 178 note 1 The italicized words are in a later hand over an erasure.
page 178 note 2 Arundel 155; Cambridge, Trinity College 987; Paris, BN lat. 770; BM Egerton 2867 and other calendars; and the martyrologies BM Arundel 68 and London, Lambeth Palace Library, 20.
page 178 note 3 DecretaLanfranci: the Monastic Constitutions of Lanfranc, ed. and trans. D. Knowles (London, 1951), p. 59.Google Scholar
page 178 note 4 London, Lambeth Palace Library, 159, 224V.
page 178 note 5 Oxford, Bodleian Library, Add. C. 260; BM Cotton Tiberius B. iii; Canterbury, Cathedral Library, Register K; BM Add. 6160; Oxford, Bodleian Library, Auct. D. 2. 2; and London, Lambeth Palace Library, 558.
page 178 note 6 See Thomas, of Elmham, , Historia Monasterii S. Augustini Cantuariensis, ed. Ch. Hardwick, Rolls Series (1858), pp. 317–18.Google Scholar
page 178 note 7 That the above-mentioned early archbishops, all buried in St Augustine's, are mostly omitted in later calendars of the cathedral, is no proof to the contrary. It is quite conceivable that for the adaptation of the Glastonbury calendar to the use in Canterbury, recourse was also had to the monastic tradition of St Augustine's. The early archbishops were an old cause for controversy in Canterbury (see James, M. R., The Canterbury Psalter, p. 2Google Scholar). But as monastic life in Christ Church had died out long before Dunstan's coming the abbey must have exercised some temporary influence in the age of reform.
page 179 note 1 The Bosworth Psalter, pp. 30–2. Bishop once comes very near the correct date: ‘We may therefore conjecturally assign it to a date nearly coincident with that event [Ælfheah's martyrdom], say 1030’ (p. 42).
page 179 note 2 Personal communication from T. A. M. Bishop; see also his English Caroline Minuscule (Oxford, 1971)Google Scholar, fig. 24.
page 179 note 3 Personal communication.
page 179 note 4 For Dunstan's successors see Darlington, R. R., ‘Ecclesiastical Reform in the Late Old English Period’, EHR 51 (1936), 389–90.Google Scholar
page 179 note 5 Bishop, The Bosworth Psalter, pp. 32 and 88–9Google Scholar) thinks that the Dunstan entry in Arundel is indeed by a different though contemporary hand.
page 180 note 1 E.g. Eton College 78 and Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ashmole 1525. The bodies of these manuscripts were written in Christ Church, but the calendars originated in St Augustine's.
page 180 note 2 Ker, , Catalogue, pp. 161–2.Google Scholar
page 180 note 3 ibid. p. 162.
page 180 note 4 Sisam, , The Salisbury Psalter, p. 4Google Scholar, n. 1.
page 180 note 5 Hymnar, pp. 71–4.
page 181 note 1 Detailed description ibid. pp. 85–90 and 98–101.
page 181 note 2 ibid. pp. 127–9.
page 181 note 3 Description and localization ibid. pp. 91–7. Gneuss thinks it quite likely that Julius A. vi was written at Canterbury. That D and this manuscript have their origin in the same place is fairly certain from their close textual affinity, in the Latin text as well as in the Anglo-Saxon gloss, and by the peculiar arrangement of these canticles, which differs from all other English and continental manuscripts.
page 181 note 4 This probably derived from a manuscript from one of the monasteries founded by Bishop Æthelwold.
page 181 note 5 There is one occasion on which a number of manuscripts may have been transferred from Christ Church to St Augustine's: A.SC 1089 F records that after a revolution in St Augustine's the monks were driven out and replaced by twenty-four from Christ Church under the sub-prior Antonius (Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel, ed. C. Plummer (Oxford, 1892–1899) 1, 292Google Scholar). Although the account, written by a Christ Church monk, is probably biased and exaggerated, there may very well have been a certain influx of monks from the cathedral who brought books with them.
page 181 note 6 Plummer, , Chronicles 1, 131.Google Scholar
page 181 note 7 ‘ The Familia at Christ Church, Canterbury, 597–832’, Essay‘s in MedievalHistory Presented to Thomas Frederic Tout, ed. A. G. Little and F. M. Powicke (Manchester, 1925), pp. 1–13Google Scholar and The Pre-Conquest Church in England, 2nd ed. (London, 1963), pp. 313–14.Google Scholar
page 182 note 1 The Monastic Order in Britain, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1966), pp. 696–7Google Scholar. Most important is the account in the Vita Dunstani Auctore B that Dunstan in a dream heard a new anthem: ‘et conscriptam cuidam monacho tam recentem didicisse praecepit: et facto mane universos sibi subjectos, tam monachos quam etiam clericos, fecit hanc discendo personare’ (Memorials of Saint Dunsian, ed. W. Stubbs, RS (1874), pp. 41–2).Google Scholar
page 182 note 2 Sawyer, P. H., Anglo-Saxon Charters (London, 1968)Google Scholar, no. 702; ptd and trans., with a facs., Ordnance Survey, Facsimiles of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts (Southampton, 1878–1884) 11Google Scholar, Westminster Abbey 6; and ptd Cartularium Saxonicum, ed. W. de G. Birch (London, 1885–1893)Google Scholar, no. 1085 and A Hand-Book to the Land-Charters, and Other Saxonic Documents, ed. John Earle (Oxford, 1888), pp. 292–4Google Scholar. For the boundaries see Tapp, W. H., The Sunbury Charter (Sunbury-on-Thames, 1951).Google Scholar
page 182 note 3 There is a group of five surviving Anglo-Saxon charters which were composed by one man whom R. Drögereit calls ‘Eadgar, A’ (‘Gab es eine angelsächsische Königskanzlei?’, Archiv für Urkundenforschung 13 (1935), 335–436)Google Scholar; of these, four were written by the same scribe (Drögereit equates scribe and author). The fifth, SC, is by a different hand. Further evidence is provided by the faulty date in the extant copy of SC (862 for 962, subsequently corrected).
page 182 note 4 Drögereit (‘Königskanzlei’, p. 355, n. 4) considers it probable that the rustic capitals were copied from the original charter of 962.
page 183 note 1 See ibid. pp. 416–17, and Chaplais, Pierre, ‘The Anglo-Saxon Chancery: from the Diploma to the Writ’, Jnl of the Soc. of Archivists 3 (1965–1969), 162–5.Google Scholar
page 183 note 2 Sawyer 1447. For the best edition see Anglo-Saxon Charters, ed. A. J. Robertson (Cambridge, 1939), pp. 90–3 and 336–9Google Scholar; also Facsimiles of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 11, Westminster Abbey 7; Kemble, J. M., ArchJ 14 (1857), 58–61Google Scholar; BCS 1063; Earle, pp. 201–3; and Tapp, , The Sunbury Charter, p. 12Google Scholar (like Earle, he reprints the mistakes in Kemble's text).
page 183 note 3 See Stenton, F. M., The Latin Charters of the Anglo-Saxon Period (Oxford, 1955), pp. 43–4.Google Scholar
page 183 note 4 See Kemble, , ArchK 14 (1857), 59Google Scholar, and Robertson, , Charters, p. 338.Google Scholar
page 183 note 5 Sawyer 894 and 1293.
page 183 note 6 G. Hickes already recognized that Sawyer 1293 is spurious; see Dissertatio Epistolaris (Oxford, 1703), pp. 66, 68, 71 and 82.Google Scholar
page 183 note 7 See Anglo-Saxon Writs, ed. F. E. Harmer (Manchester, 1952), pp. 338–9.Google Scholar
page 183 note 8 Domesday Book, ed. A. Farley and H.Ellis (London, 1783–1816), 128Google Scholarb. The other estates are Hampstead (128a), Shepperton, Hanwell, Cowley, Hendon (Middlesex) (128b) and Parham (Sussex) (17a). Brickendon, Hertfordshire, was granted to Westminster Abbey in a will still extant (Anglo-Saxon Wills, ed. D. Whitelock (Cambridge, 1930)Google Scholar, no. 13), but seems to have changed hands before 1086 (DB 136b, 139b, and 140b). Ewell, Kent, is named in Domesday Book (11a) as the property of the bishop of Bayeux; Bleccenham, Lothereslege, Codenblaw and Paddington are not mentioned there; for the first three of these and the difficult Sillinctune see The Crawford Collection of Early Charters and Documents, ed. A. S. Napier and W. H. Stevenson (Oxford, 1895), pp. 96–8Google Scholar. The early history of Westminster Abbey is still obscure, not the least reason for this being the activity of its monks, who enjoy a dubious fame as forgers of documents. Their claim, repeated in several spurious charters, that Dunstan refounded the abbey was accepted by William of Malmesbury, Ralph of Devizes, John Flete and others (see the introduction to John Flete's History of Westminster Abbey, ed. J. A. Robinson (Cambridge, 1909))Google Scholar but has been taken with a grain of salt in more recent times. Yet the combined evidence of SC, ST, Sawyer 894 and 1293 and Domesday Book suggests that Dunstan can indeed be regarded as the refounder of the abbey; see also Harmer, Writs, pp. 286–9.
page 184 note 1 Paris, Matthew, Chronica Majora, ed. H. R. Luard, RS (1872–1883), III, 75Google Scholar. There are no indications that the abbey possessed Sunbury unlawfully.
page 184 note 2 Sawyer 1293.
page 184 note 3 This widow appears also, in another connection, in the‘Dunstan’charter; see below, p. 185, n. 1.
page 185 note 1 Apparently Dunstan had bought another estate, Shepperton, Middlesex, from Æthelflæd. See the two entries in Sawyer 1293 and 894, immediately following the Sunbury notice: ‘Et illam possessionem in Scepertune emi ab Ealfleda vidua. LX. bizanteis nummis. et dedi loco praescripto’ and ‘Et ilia possessio in Scepertune redeat ad jus Sancti Petri in praefato monasterio post dies Æthelflædi’. Shepperton was owned by Westminster Abbey in 1086 (DB 128b). None of the many Æthelflæds recorded in Searle's, W. G.Onomasticon Anglo-Saxonicum (Cambridge, 1897)Google Scholar can be identified with Ecgferth's widow.
page 185 note 2 It is noteworthy, however, that of all the specimens in Facsimiles of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts and Facsimiles of Ancient Charters in the British Museum (London 1873–1878)Google Scholar two charters connected with Westminster Abbey are in a script closest to B's and SC's: BM Stowe Charters 3 2 (by three hands; the first can be neglected here) and 33 (Sawyer 1451 and 1450). These charters were probably not written at Canterbury: although they have to be dated very early (after 978 and 986 respectively) and seem to be fairly trustworthy in their contents, their extant forms cannot be regarded as entirely genuine and this points to a Westminster origin. Their scripts differ very slightly from B's and SC's and are nearer to the main hand of the Sherborne Pontifical (Paris, BN lat. 943), but the general similarity between all five of them is striking. Moreover the Sherborne Pontifical appears later in the possession of Bishop Wulsin (or Wulfsige) of Sherborne (992–1001), who according to the Westminster monks was made abbot of their community by Dunstan (see William, of Malmesbury, , De Gestis Pontificum Anglorum, ed. N. E. S. A. Hamilton, RS (1870), p. 178Google Scholar; Harmer, Writs, no. 86 and p. 320; and Robinson, J. A., The Saxon Bishops of Wells, British Academy Supplemental Papers 4 (1918), 67–8)Google Scholar. This book bears the marks of a Canterbury origin in its style of ornamentation according to Talbot Rice (English Art, p. 197; for a different opinion see Ker, , Catalogue, p. 438).Google Scholar
page 186 note 1 See above, pp. 180–1.
page 186 note 2 But see below, p. 187, n. 2.
page 186 note 3 See above, p. 179. Along with several others from south-west England two pre-Conquest calendars from New Minster, Winchester, contain the feast of Aldhelm: BM Cotton Titus D.xxvii and Cambridge, Trinity College R.15.32.
page 187 note 1 The Old English gloss to the psalter is closely related to those in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Junius 27 and BM Royal 2.B.v; see Sisam, , The Salisbury Psalter, p. 56Google Scholar. But the Winchester origin of these two manuscripts (almost certain for the former, only possible for the latter) does not justify Wildhagen's speculation (‘Studien zum Psalterium Romanum’, p. 459) that B was moved from its original place and its gloss added by an elderly lady in Nunnaminster (Winchester).
page 187 note 2 Interestingly enough this calendar, according to Bishop, E.(The Bosworth Psalter, p. 125)Google Scholar is ‘practically in its entirety’ an adoption from Christ Church, Canterbury.
page 187 note 3 See Wormald, F., English Benedictine Kalendars after A.D. 1100 11, HBS 81 (1946), 59–60Google Scholar. Of Wormald's post-Conquest calendars only those of Evesham, Gloucester and Muchelney have Æthelberht.
page 187 note 4 Among the ninety-four books bequeathed to Westminster Abbey by Archbishop Simon Langham (1376) there is only a psalterium glosatum (see Robinson, J. A. and James, M. R., The Manuscripts of Westminster Abbey (Cambridge, 1909), pp. 4–7Google Scholar), and the list of service-books in an inventory of the vestry (1388) (ed. Legg, J. Wickham, Archaeologia 52 (1890), 233–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar) is no help. Gasquet thought he had found B in a thirteenth-century list of Christ Church, Canterbury, books: ‘Item psalterium cum ympnario’ (The Bosworth Psalter, p. 4; and James, M. R., Tbe Ancient Libraries of Canterbury and Dover (Cambridge, 1903), p. 140Google Scholar (no. 1776)). But this description is much too indefinite.
