Lessons in leadership and liturgy in the Winchcombe Psalter

Journal article

Visual illustration of the Psalms in devotional manuscripts could play a key role in guiding English responses to the Psalms. This paper examines the unusual illustrations added to a combined New Testament and Psalter made for the Benedictine abbey of Winchcombe c.1130–40, now Dublin, Trinity College MS 53. I first consider its depiction of the royal ancestry of Christ and then explore its illustrations to Psalm 1. I argue that these images, displaying the exemplary morals and conduct of ancient Biblical kings, encouraged pictorial meditation on the subject of good Christian rulership. I link an unusual image of David dancing to the cult of St Kenelm at Winchcombe, and suggest it may have emphasised the importance of liturgical performance as a means of spiritual renewal and purification. Finally, I consider the manuscript’s possible ownership, speculating that the manuscript may have been produced to mark the 1138 arrival at Winchcombe of Abbot Robert, a kinsman of King Stephen, but abandoned unfinished during the twelfth-century civil wars between Stephen and the Empress Matilda.

Authors: Slater, L

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Routledge
• Journal: English Studies
• Volume: 98
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 49-62
• Publication date: 2016-11-16
• Acceptance date: 2016-07-25
• DOI: 10.1080/0013838X.2016.1230323
• EISSN: 1744-4217
• ISSN: 0013-838X