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medieval imaginations:
literature and visual culture in the middle ages



picture data:

medium: manuscript 
date: 14th century
episodes: All
owner/location: Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge, Cambridge
catalogue information: Macclesfield Psalter 16
related images: 636  637  638  639  642  643  644  645  646  647  648  649  651  652  653  654  655  656  657  658  659 

Borders and Margins

Image 650 (This image by courtesy of Sotheby's) From the recently rediscovered Macclesfield Psalter (c.1320-30), probably from Gorleston, Norfolk, and closely related to the Gorleston Psalter. This opening carries the complete Psalm 94, beginning on the second line of the left leaf, and the first few words of Psalm 95 at the bottom of the right leaf. On the left hand page a figure clothed like a man but with a perhaps non-human face sits astride a bushy-bearded grotesque, and turns backwards to blow a trumpet directly into the face of a bird. On the right hand page a hybrid creature, with a human face framed by a luxuriant mane of hair, stands with one front paw raised like a heraldic beast. The exuberance of the decoration seems particularly fitting for these joyful psalms, which exhort the reader to sing praises to the Lord.

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further reading:
Binski, Paul, and Panayotova, Stella, The Cambridge Illuminations: Ten Centuries of Book Production in the Medieval West, London 2005
Panayotova, Stella, The Macclesfield Psalter, Cambridge 2005