Blickling Psalter, also known as Lothian Psalter, is an 8th-century
Insular illuminated manuscript containing a
Roman Psalter with two additional sets of
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
glosses
A gloss is a brief notation, especially a marginal one or an interlinear one, of the meaning of a word or wording in a text. It may be in the language of the text or in the reader's language if that is different.
A collection of glosses is a ''g ...
.
[McGowan 2007, p. 205]
The earlier of the two sets is the oldest surviving
English translation of the Bible, albeit a very fragmentary one. It consists of 26
glosses, either
interlinear
In linguistics and pedagogy, an interlinear gloss is a gloss (series of brief explanations, such as definitions or pronunciations) placed between lines, such as between a line of original text and its translation into another language. When gloss ...
or
marginal
Marginal may refer to:
* ''Marginal'' (album), the third album of the Belgian rock band Dead Man Ray, released in 2001
* ''Marginal'' (manga)
* '' El Marginal'', Argentine TV series
* Marginal seat or marginal constituency or marginal, in polit ...
, scattered throughout the manuscript.
These so-called "red glosses" are written by a single scribe mostly in red ink in what is known as
West Saxon minuscule, an
Insular script found, for example, in
charters of
Æthelwulf,
King of Wessex from 839 to 858. The glosses were first published in by E. Brock in 1876. A number of corrections were subsequently offered by
Henry Sweet
Henry Sweet (15 September 1845 – 30 April 1912) was an English philologist, phonetician and grammarian.''Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language'', as hosted oencyclopedia.com/ref>
As a philologist, he specialized in the Germanic lang ...
in 1885, and by Karl Wildhagen in 1913.
Only some of the psalms originally contained in the Blickling Psalter survive: Psalms 31.3–36.15 on folios 1–5, Psalms 36.39–50.19 on folios 6–16, and Psalm 9.9–30 on folio 64.
The Psalter is sometimes included in the
Tiberius group, a group of manuscripts from Southern England stylistically related to the
Tiberius Bede
British Library, MS Cotton Tiberius C. II, or the Tiberius Bede, is an 8th-century illuminated manuscript of Bede's ''Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum''. It is one of only four surviving 8th-century manuscripts of Bede, another of which hap ...
(such as
Vespasian Psalter,
Stockholm Codex Aureus
The Stockholm Codex Aureus (Stockholm, National Library of Sweden, MS A. 135, also known as the Codex Aureus of Canterbury and Codex Aureus Holmiensis) is a Gospel book written in the mid-eighth century in Southumbria, probably in Canterbury, wh ...
,
Barberini Gospels
The Barberini Gospels is an illuminated Hiberno-Saxon manuscript Gospel Book (Rome, Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica, Barberini Lat. 570, also known as the Wigbald Gospels), assumed to be of a late 8th-century origin.
History
After coming to l ...
and
Book of Cerne
The Book of Cerne (Cambridge, Cambridge University Library, MS Ll. 1. 10) is an early ninth-century Insular or Anglo-Saxon Latin personal prayer book with Old English components. It belongs to a group of four such early prayer books, the others ...
).
[Brown 2005, p. 282]
See also
*
Old English Bible translations
The Old English Bible translations are the partial translations of the Bible prepared in medieval England into the Old English language. The translations are from Latin texts, not the original languages.
Many of these translations were in fact Bib ...
Notes
References
* E. Brock (1876) ''The Blickling Glosses'', in:
Richard Morris (1876) ''The Blickling Homilies''
Volume II pp. 251–263
*
google books preview*
*
pdf available online:* relevant plates (V–VIII) are available online between pages 24 and 25 of another article in the same volume of the journal,
*
*
* Jane Roberts (2011) "Some Psalter Glosses in Their Immediate Context", in: ''Palimpsests and the Literary Imagination of Medieval England: Collected Essays'', pp. 61–7
google books preview*
google books preview*
google books preview*
*
Henry Wansbrough (2008) "History and Impact of English Bible Translations", in: ''Hebrew Bible / Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation: II: From the Renaissance to the Enlightenment'', pp. 536–55
google books preview* {{cite book, author1=Karl Wildhagen, title=Studien zum Psalterium Romanum in England und zu seinen Glossierungen (in geschichtlicher Entwicklung), date=1913, url=https://archive.org/details/studienzumpsalte00wild, accessdate=10 June 2016, language=de
Hiberno-Saxon manuscripts
8th-century illuminated manuscripts
Illuminated psalters
Old English