The Psalter of Kirkstead Abbey, in Latin and Anglo-Norman, including a map of Wildmore, manuscript on vellum

163 leaves, 260 mm. by 180 mm., complete, collation: 7 preliminaries + i^{8+4, ii-xii12, xiii8+4, mostly with horizontal catchwords, pencil foliation (followed here) repeats '106', mostly 18 lines, ruled in faint plummet, written-space 190 mm. by 120 mm., written in dark brown ink in a rather informal gothic liturgical hand, including the Cistercian punctus flexus punctuation, additions at each end mostly in similar but smaller script, some headings in red, music on fols. 6v-7v on 5-line red staves, versal initials in Psalms throughout alternately red and green, 2-line Psalm initials throughout alternately red and pale blue, other initials at ends in red, green or pale blue}, ten large decorated initials, 4- to 6-line (mostly 5-line) in divided red and blue, enclosing and extended with meandering penwork in red and brown with green and yellow-brown wash, mostly including stylised plants and oak trees with acorns, the Beatus initial including a man shaking a vine to frighten birds plucking at the grapes, some additions, many signs of use, some margins thumbed and slightly frayed, first and last pages pasted to modern flyleaves, rust holes on endleaves from metal fittings on the former binding, generally battered but sound, wide margins (preserving the prickings) and medieval painted edges in foliage designs in red and blue, bound in nineteenth-century English blind-stamped russia, vellum endleaves, title gilt, by B. Maund, Bromsgrove, with his ticket, in a pale brown quarter morocco fitted case gilt

provenance

(1) Kirkstead Abbey, Lincolnshire, founded in 1139, suppressed in 1537.  The manuscript was doubtless written in the abbey itself, for it employs the Cistercian punctus flexus punctuation, and the austerity of the ornament, without gold, is characteristically Cistercian.  It gives every impression of being a local production.  It was made for (and perhaps by) the monk William de Wharrun, whose inscription in red is on the Beatus page, fol. 20r, "Liber fratris Willelmi de Wharrun, cuius anima maneat in celis amen".  The Calendar is of English Cistercian Use, assigning the maximum of 12 lections to SS. Benedict (21 March, and translation, 11 July), Robert of Molesmes (12 April), Peter of Tarantaise (8 May), Bernard (20 August, with octave added), Malachy (5 November) and Edmund of Abingdon (16 November).  The latest datable feast in the Calendar is Saint Louis (25 August), canonised in 1297.  On 27 September is "Dedicatio ecclesie de Kyrkestede, xii lectiones" and an added dedication of the chapel of Saint Leonard (1 October), which is probably where the manuscript was actually kept in the church at Kirkstead.  Obits include dominus John de Kyrketon (20 February, [13]60), John de Kevermond (14 March), John de Luda, abbot (30 March, this is John of Louth, abbot of Kirkstead 1315-c.1336), R. de Boythorp (1 July), and the farming benefaction, "J. de Kevermonde, de quo x vacce apud merbor, precio x marcis" (ten cows in Meer Booth, worth a mark each).  The illustration to Psalm 1, showing a furious man shaking a vine to frighten birds pecking at the grapes, may reflect local experience, at a time when grapes were still grown as far north as Lincolnshire.

(2) The Rev. Henry Campbell (d. 1874), of the Catholic Mission at Bromsgrove (where it was bound), with his bookplate.

(3) Beaumont College, Windsor, their MS VI, bequeathed by Campbell.  The College was a Jesuit boarding school, opened in 1862 and closed in 1967.

(4) Sold by Dawson's of Pall Mall to a private collector; an export licence was granted in 1969 (cf. Archivists' Report, 21, Lincolnshire Archives Committee, 1970, p. 59); it has passed by descent to the present owner.

literature

B. Webb, 'An Early Map and Description of the Inquest on Wildmore Fen in the Twelfth Century', Reports and Papers of the Lincolnshire Architectural and Archaeological Society, n.s., II, 1939 [actually 1944], pp. 141-56.

D. J. Price, 'Medieval Land Surveying and Topographical Maps', Geographical Journal, CXXI, 1955, pp. 3-4 and pl. 1.

N. R. Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain, A List of Surviving Books, 2 ed., London 1964, pp. 107 and 272; Supplement to the Second Edition, 1987, p. 41

P. D. A. Harvey, 'A 13^th-Century Plan for Waltham Abbey', Imago Mundi, XXII, 1968, p. 11.

P. D. A. Harvey and R. A. Skelton, 'Medieval English Maps and Plans', Imago Mundi, XXIII, 1969, p. 101, no. 3.

R. D. Sack, Human Territoriality, Its Theory and History, Cambridge, 1986, pp. 129-30.

H. E. Hallam, 'Wildmore Fen, Lincolnshire, in 1224 x 1249', in R. A. Skelton and P. D. A. Harvey, eds.,  Local Maps and Plans for Medieval England, Oxford, 1986, pp. 73-79.

P. D. A. Harvey, Medieval Maps, London and Toronto, 1991, fig. 76.

D. N. Bell, An Index of Authors and Works in Cistercian Libraries of Great Britain, Kalamazoo, 1992, p. 191.

C. Delano-Smith and R. Kain, English Maps, A History, London, 1999, pp. 14-15.

J. A. Givens, Observations on Image-Making in Gothic Art, Cambridge, 2004, p. 49.

R. C. Wheeler, ed., Maps of the Witham Fens from the Thirteenth to the Nineteenth Century (Lincolnshire Record Society, 96), Woodbridge and Rochester (N.Y.), 2008, pp. 3-5 and 24, and pl. 1.

 

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text

Folio 1v, notes on the Calendar; folio 2r, "Versus ad virginem Mariam, Alma serena pia preclara beata maria ..." (Walther, Initia Carminum, 1959, no. 799), in rhyming verse, followed by a short prayer to Christ; folio 3r, a historical account of the baronies of Bolingbroke and Horncastle & Scrivelsby, and their grants of pasturage in Wildmore to Kirkstead and Revesby (see below); folio 4r, two hymns, "Dic homo cur abuceris discretionis gracia ..." (Walther no. 4353) and "Amor patris et filii veri splendor ..." (Chevalier, Repertorium Hymnologicum, 1892, no. 1004), with 4 lines of music; folio 4v, map of the lands around Wildmore, showing the properties disputed between Revesby and Kirkstead, followed on fols. 5r-6r on Kirkstead's claim, beginning "De Wildmora.  Abbas et conventus de Kirkestede ius et dominium habent in marisco qui vocatur Wildmora preclarum et manifestum sicut per eorum instrumenta ..."; folio 6v, a hymn "Cunctis excellentior angelorum chorus ..." (Chevalier, Supplementum, 1904, no. 25196).

Folio 8r, a Calendar, graded, of English Cistercian use (see above); folio 8r, Calendar tables, followed by prayers for saints, mostly non-specific ("N"), numbered by repeating alphabets, short offices (including the translations of SS. Thomas Becket and Edmund of Abingdon), "accentus secundum modum ordinis" (fol. 17v), on syllabic stress according to Cistercian practice on about 225 words and phrases ("phisiología", "astronómia", "rínoceros", "thomás", etc., perhaps from the De accentibus of Lambert of Poutières), and other prayers and liturgical customs.

Folio 20r, a Psalter, with large initials for Psalms 1 (fol. 20r), 26 (fol. 37v), 38 (fol. 49r), 51 (fol. 59r), 52 (fol. 59r), 68 (fol. 69v), 80 (fol. 83v), 97 (fol. 95r), 101 (fol. 96v) and 109 (fol. 106a, r), followed by canticles (fol. 127r) and Litany (fol. 135v, with many Cistercian and English names), and other prayers.

Folio 139r, the Office of the Dead, and collects for the sick and for various offices throughout the year, followed by other longer prayers in Latin and Anglo-Norman, including "Dominator dues omnipotens qui es trinitas sancta ..." (fol. 154v), "Domine ihesu xpiste qui in hunc mundum ..." (fol. 155v), "Duce sir ihesu crist qu per nostre seint pleisir de femme deignastes nester et homme devenir ..." (fol. 157r, J. Sonet, Répertoire d'incipit de prières en ancien français, 1956, p. 98, no. 541), "Da me deu sir pere qu soeffri passion a iour de vendredi ..." (fol. 158r), "Preciouse dame seinte marie mere deu espouse & amie Pucele fraunche & alose ..." (fol. 158v, Sonet, p. 297, no. 1700), and rhyming verses to the Virgin, "Tristis amore langueo qui causda sum doloris ..." (fol. 160r), "Ave maris stella vera mellis stilla ..." (fol. 160v, Walther no. 1934), and other liturgical prayers and lists of feasts.

map

The importance and fame of the Kirkstead Psalter lies in the remarkable topographical map of parts of northern Lincolnshire on fol. 4v.  This is the third oldest local map of any part of the British Isles, preceded in date only by two domestic plans of monastic waterworks: the folding plan of Christ Church, Canterbury, in the Eadwine Psalter, c.1150 (Cambridge, Trinity College, R.17.1), and an early thirteenth-century plan of springs supplying water to Waltham Abbey (British Library, Harley MS 391, fol. 6r).  The Kirkstead map covers a significantly greater area of the countryside than its two predecessors and is the only one of the three which is truly topographical.  It is approximately contemporary with the Hereford Mappa Mundi, c.1290, and is one of only a handful of British maps of any kind before the late Middle Ages.

The background to the map is given on fols. 3r-3v and 5r-6r.  According to this, William the Conqueror had in about 1067 established two baronies in Lincolnshire, those of Bolingbroke and Horncastle & Scrivelsby, and assigned to them respectively the wetlands called 'East Fen' and 'Wildmore'.  Henry I later gave the barony of Bolingbroke to William Romara, earl of Lincoln, with East Fen and part only of Wildmore.  Romara presented common pasture in Wildmore to Kirkstead Abbey but later gave most of his lands in Wildmore to Revesby Abbey, his own foundation.  King Stephen subsequently divided the remaining barony, giving Scrivelsby to Robert Marmion, whose descendants then granted further lands, including the residue of Wildmore, to Kirkstead Abbey.  The two houses fiercely contested the detail of the benefactions, for right to pasture for sheep was crucial to the economies of Cistercian abbeys, especially in East Anglia.  A generation of litigation and inquests resulted in a compromise reached probably between 1232 and 1239 (and certainly between 1224 and 1249).  It is this agreement which is commemorated by the present map, perhaps drawn here so that it might be made incontestable by being placed on the altar of Saint Leonard at Kirkstead.

The map shows the abbeys of Revesby (at the top centre) and Kirkstead (lower left).  The river Witham runs along the lower edge.  A diagonal divider, approximately along the line of the Newnham Drain, separates the two districts of Fenland pasturage.   On the left is the part which came with the barony of Horncastle & Scrivelsby.  Revesby has only Caxtonhouse at the top.  Kirkstead, however, has five pastures ("vaccariae"), those of Langworth Grange, Hundle House, Newnham, Hermitage and Meer Booth.   On the right is the land which belonged to the barony of Bolingbroke.  This time Revesby has all four pastures, Stickney, Swinecotes, Sibsey and Willows; and Kirkstead has none.  By the compromise, therefore, the two abbeys received five village pastures each.