Tiberius Psalter
Illustration — The Harrowing of Hell in the Tiberius Psalter The Tiberius Psalter (British Library Cotton MS. Tiberius C.vi) is one of at least four surviving Gallican psalters produced at New Minster, Winchester in the years around the Norman conquest of England (the other three being the Stowe Psalter, Vitellius Psalter and Lambeth Psalter). The manuscript can now be seen in full online at the British Library website. It has the earliest known cycle of prefatory miniatures in a psalter (f.
Also recorded as Cotton MS Tiberius C VI
Tiberius Psalter

Meister des Cotton-Psalters · British Library Cotton MS Tiberius C VI The Yorck Project (2002) 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei (DVD-ROM), distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. ISBN: 3936122202. · Public domain
- Date
- 1100.
- Material
- ink and parchment.
- Held by
- British Library.
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Documentary summary
Illustration — The Harrowing of Hell in the Tiberius Psalter The Tiberius Psalter (British Library Cotton MS. Tiberius C.vi) is one of at least four surviving Gallican psalters produced at New Minster, Winchester in the years around the Norman conquest of England (the other three being the Stowe Psalter, Vitellius Psalter and Lambeth Psalter). The manuscript can now be seen in full online at the British Library website. It has the earliest known cycle of prefatory miniatures in a psalter (f.
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wikidata · Q20817523 · wikipedia · Tiberius Psalter
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7v–16r), a form which became very popular over the following centuries; the 12th-century St. Albans Psalter has one of the best known and fullest of such cycles. The Tiberius cycle depicts the lives of David and Christ, linking them typologically. The miniatures are in a so-called "third style" of late Anglo-Saxon art, "in which the Winchester and Utrecht styles fused and assumed an even greater monumentality". Most of them use with great expressiveness the English tinted outline drawing style which had developed over the previous century; a few use a fully painted style, for example f. 30v, with a portrait of the enthroned David. Its estimated date has been rather mobile in recent years, moving from "mid-11th century", or "around 1050", to "3rd quarter of the 11th century" according to the British Library in 2016. The manuscript is incomplete and was damaged in the Cotton Library fire of 1731, removing the top corners of each of the first few pages. It was rebound in 1894, with the folios mounted individually into a book with a larger page size. The 129 original pages are about 248 x 146 mm. After initial material, there are 24 pages with drawings, 5 illustrating the life of David and 11 that of Christ. There is a large initial and illuminated border with Winchester style acanthus foliage at the beginning of the main sections of the book, such as the start of Psalm 1 (f. There is a continuous interlinear gloss in Old English of the psalms, and other vernacular material. • Illustration — F. 8r, David and the Lion • Illustration — F. 8v, David, facing Goliath • Illustration — F. 9r, Goliath slain • Illustration — F. 9v, Saul and David • Illustration — F. 10v, Temptation of Christ • Illustration — F. 12r, Arrest of Christ • Illustration — F. 13v, Women at the tomb • Illustration — f. Doubting Thomas • Illustration — F. 18v, Christ in Majesty • Illustration — F. 30v, Enthroned David • Illustration — F. 31r Beatus initial • Illustration — F. 31v Psalm text page
History of the document
Dated record
History of the document
Explore 1100–1974
The full dated record · 3 entries
1100
Tiberius Psalter created.
1100
Tiberius Psalter was established or created in 1100.
1974
The Tiberius psalter (1974) is digitised and catalogued by Open Library.
Context
Primary material
Context
The circumstances in which Tiberius Psalter stands. Established or created in 1100. Recorded as made of parchment. Held in British Library.
Documents and archives
Primary material
Documents and archives
authority record
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q20817523: Tiberius Psalter
General reference · Wikidata
reference work
- “Tiberius Psalter”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
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Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.British Library : Collection items : Tiberius Psalter
- 2.Backhouse et al., 83
- 3.Brown, 132-133
- 4.Backhouse et al., 83
- 5.Brown, 133; Openshaw, 14, citing Wormald
- 6.BL, noting other later additions from "2nd half of the 12th century"; a date in the 3rd quarter is also preferred by: Michael Lapidge, Simon Keynes, Malcolm Godden, Anglo-Saxon England, Volume 20, Cambridge University Press (2007), p. 161
- 7.Cited in the source article.
- 8.Backhouse et al., 83
- 9.Backhouse et al., 83; "he Production and Use of English Manuscripts, 1060 to 1220" database
Bibliography printed in the source article · 3
- Campbell, A. P., ed., The Tiberius Psalter, Edited from British Museum MS Cotton Tiberius C vi., Ottawa Medieval Studies, 2 (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1974).
- Pulsiano, Phillip, '233. London, British Library Cotton Tiberius C. vi: "Tiberius Psalter"', in Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Microfiche Facsimile (Binghamton, NY: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1994), vol. 2: Psalters I, pp. 38–42.
- Wormald, Francis, 'An English, Eleventh-Century Psalter with Pictures: British Library, Cotton MS Tiberius C.VI.', in Collected Writings: I. Studies in Medieval Art from the Sixth to the Twelfth Centuries, ed. by J. J. G Alexander et al., 123-37 + plates (London: Harvey Miller Publishers; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), pp. 180–81
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