The ''Saltair Caisil'' ("Psalter of Cashel") is a now-lost Irish manuscript, which seems to have been highly influential in Irish historiographical tradition. Not an actual

Psalter A psalter is a volume containing the Book of Psalms, often with other devotional material bound in as well, such as a liturgical calendar and litany of the Saints. Until the emergence of the book of hours in the Late Middle Ages, psalters we ...

, it seems to have contained

Munster Munster ( gle, an Mhumhain or ) is one of the provinces of Ireland, in the south of Ireland. In early Ireland, the Kingdom of Munster was one of the kingdoms of Gaelic Ireland ruled by a "king of over-kings" ( ga, rí ruirech). Following the ...

-orientated genealogies, king-lists, synchronisms, and hagiographical material, among other items. Its contents can be at least partially reconstructed via subsequent citation of the manuscript and a couple of descriptions of it; some material may well be reflected or, in some cases, preserved in later, still-extant manuscripts. Both medieval and modern scholarship often holds that the codex was compiled by

Cormac mac Cuilennáin Cormac mac Cuilennáin (died 13 September 908) was an Irish bishop and the king of Munster from 902 until his death at the Battle of Bellaghmoon. He was killed in Leinster. Cormac was regarded as a saintly figure after his death, and his shrine ...

(died 908), bishop and king of Munster. However, it is now generally thought to have been produced under Brían Boruma (died 1014), king of Munster and aspirant king of Ireland, to justify and promote the claims of his own rising dynasty and region. Nonetheless, it could quite possibly have been based on earlier materials. Plentiful citations of the codex by name down to the seventeenth century, particularly for its genealogical doctrines, imply that it had a high status among scholars. Its last known location was in the library of the

Earls of Kildare Duke of Leinster (; ) is a title in the Peerage of Ireland and the premier dukedom in that peerage. The subsidiary titles of the Duke of Leinster are: Marquess of Kildare (1761), Earl of Kildare (1316), Earl of Offaly (1761), Viscount Leinster, ...

, from which it disappeared at some point in the 1630s or 1640s, the library itself being destroyed and dispersed in 1642.

Notes

References

* * * {{citation , first=Pádraig , last=Ó Riain , contribution=The Psalter of Cashel: a Provisional List of Contents , title=Éigse 23 , year=1989 , ref=#Ó Riain Irish manuscripts Irish books 11th century in Ireland Medieval literature Early Irish literature Lost books