Winchester Psalter Manuscript:
- Psalter of Henry of Blois, British Library;
- An Archangel Closing of the Hellmouth “Ein Engel versperrt die Pforten der Unterwelt mit einem Schlüsel;
After the Norman Conquest, the principal language of the aristocracy in England was French, rather than English or Latin. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Bible was translated into French at an early date. Given the importance of the Psalms in the medieval Church, several early French translations were made, including three or four versions of St Jerome’s Gallican or Gallicanum text, known as such because it was adopted in Gaul as the principal form of the Vulgate. St Jerome completed this translation between 386 and 391, basing it on Origen’s Greek text of the Psalms from the edition of the Old Testament in Hebrew and Greek, the Hexapla. Twelve manuscripts of the 12th to 13th centuries are known of the so-called Oxford Psalter, based on the Gallicanum version, compiled in England, they all have an English connection. The Winchester Psalter, with an extensive cycle of images, is the most splendid copy of these English manuscripts.
