The "Albani" Psalter:
News

2015

Jochen Bepler (1951-2015)

Jochen Bepler, who was a research librarian at the Dombibliothek, Hildesheim, from 1989, and was its Executive Director since 1993, has died aged 63 after a short illness.

2014

2008 Facsimile Commentary Text Available Online

Muller & Schindler, the publishers of the facsimile of the Psalter, have kindly given me permission to maike available online my text from the commentary volume:

Peter Kidd, Contents and Codicology, in Jochen Bepler, Peter Kidd and Jane Geddes, The St Albans Psalter (Albani Psalter),  (Simbach am Inn, Germany: Muller & Schindler, 2008), pp.41-156 [PDF].

Some addenda and corrigenda are also online.

2009 Conferences Papers Published

Papers [listed on the Bibliography page] from the 2009 Hildesheim conference are now in print.

Front cover

2013

Getty Exhibition Now Open

The exhibition is now open, and has its own web-page: http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/canterbury/

The Getty has also put a brief video on YouTube, giving a glimpse of the current exhibition installation:

Getty installation

Here are some reviews of the show:
http://www.scpr.org/blogs/offramp/2013/09/23/14810/preview-canterbury-and-st-albans-treasures-from-ch/
http://laist.com/2013/09/26/make_a_pilgrimage_to_the_getty.php

New Ph.D. thesis completed

Harold Robert Stirrup, Colour Paint and Gold: The Materiality of English Manuscript Illumination in the Twelfth Century, (PhD thesis, University of York, 2012). Although temporarily embargoed, copies may be requested from the author at http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/3982/

New publication available for pre-order

Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk etc are offering the possibility to pre-order the book that will be published to accompany the forthcoming Getty exhibition (see below): Kristen Collins, Peter Kidd, and Nancy K. Turner, The St. Albans Psalter: Painting and Prayer in Medieval England (Los Angeles, 2013)

Getty book front cover

2013-2014

Psalter to be Exhibited in the USA

The disbound Albani Psalter will be exhibited at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, from late 2013 to early 2014. The bifolia will be rotated at the mid-point of the exhibition period, both to reduce their exposure to light and so that during the course of the exhibition the entire picture cycle and many of the historiated initials will be displayed (cf the exhibition in 2009, below). The gallery space will be shared with the famous Ancestors of Christ stained-glass windows from Canterbury Cathedral, hence the overall title of the exhibition: Canterbury and St. Albans: Treasures from Church and Cloister.

The dates are from 20 September 2013 to 2 February 2014, with a colloqium during the weekend that the show closes, on 1-2 February.

The Getty Museum's website now has the following advance notice:

Canterbury and St. Albans: Treasures from Church and Cloister

September 20, 2013–February 2, 2014

This exhibition brings together masterpieces of medieval English art: panels of stained glass from Canterbury Cathedral and pages from the St. Albans Psalter, a splendidly illuminated book of psalms. Uniting monumental glass painting with the art of book illumination, this presentation reveals how specific texts, prayers, and environments shaped the medieval viewer's understanding of these pictures during the great era of artistic renewal following the Norman Conquest of England.

2012

New publication imminent

A volume of papers, based on those presented at the conference at Hildesheim in November 2009 (see below) is due for publication before the end of 2012. The contents include:

2011

Goldschmidt available again in print

Adolph Goldschmidt, Der Albanipsalter in Hildesheim und seine Beziehung zur symbolischen Kirchensculptur des XII. Jahrhunderts (Berlin: G. Siemens, 1895), which I have long made available as a series of images here, is now (December) available as a print-on-demand from Amazon and many other booksellers.

Facsimile presented to St Albans Abbey

A copy of the Albani Psalter facsimile has been presented to St Albans Abbey by the dicocese of Hildesheim. The story has been covered by the BBC. It will be on display in the exhibition area, but may be studied by prior appointment. As far as I am aware, it is the only copy available to scholars in the UK apart from that at Aberdeen University.

Presentation of Psalter facsimile in St Albans Abbey   Facsimile presentation
[Images from www.glaubeaktuell.net and www.katholisch.de]

The presentation, made during the course of Evensong on 16 August (the feast of the Assumption), was followed by talks in the nave by Peter Kidd and Jochen Bepler.


2010

Joanna Royle's 2008 PhD thesis (see below) is now available as a free PDF download from the University of Glasgow Theses Service


2009

Exhibition in Hildesheim, 19 September 2009 – 24 January 2010

Details in English and German.

The leaves exbibited will be rotated so that it will be possibe to see the entire manuscript over the course of three visits.

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and

Conference in Hildesheim, 5–6 November 2009

The official programme is now available at last.


2008

Facsimile

A new facsimile of the Psalter has now (July) been published in English and German editions by Müller & Schindler. It is accompanied by a commentary volume incorporating new research and new discoveries. The commentary volume (on its own) may be purchased from the publisher for 65 Euro.

German edition, front cover German edition, front cover

English Edition, title page English Edition, title page

Book chapter

Publication is announced for July 2010 (formerly July 2008) of Morgan Powell, Woman in the Mirror: Gender, Literacy, and the Media Revolution of the Twelfth Century, including a chapter 'The Psalter of Christina of Markyate: Image, Narrative and the sponsa corporaliter'.

New PhD Thesis on Christina

Joanna Royle has submitted her PhD thesis,Transitional Holiness in the Twelfth Century: The Social and Spiritual Identity of Domina Christina of Markyate, to the University of Glasgow

New Translation of Christina of Markyate's Vita

Henrietta Leyser and Samuel Fanous, editors of, and contributors to Christina of Markyate: A Twelfth-Century Holy Woman(London, 2005) (partially availablefrom Google Books) have published The Life of Christina of Markyate a revised translation of the Life of Christina of Markyate for the Oxford World Classics series. It is available from Amazon.


2007

PhD on the Alexis Quire

A Johns Hopkins PhD on the Alexis quire by Kathryn (Kate) Gerry was completed in 2007.


2006

Cron Psalter

Cron Psalter

The so-called 'Golden' Psalter, formerly owned by the late Brian Cron, has been acquired by the British library and is now their Add. MS 81084




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Life of St Edmund online

A detailed description, with up-to-date bibliography, and images of the Pierpont Morgan Library's Life of St Edmund are available on their Corsair web catalogue.




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Last updated 5 Jan 2014
Peter Kidd

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