The recent discovery of an unknown fourteenth-century English manuscript
in a German Cistercian convent has brought to light an exquisite, richly
illustrated psalter, which is analysed and illustrated here for the
first time. Although this remarkable find in Lichtenthal Abbey, near
Baden-Baden, had been identified as belonging to a group of manuscripts
associated with the prominent and royally-connected Bohun family,
neither its illustrations nor its relationship to other Bohun
manuscripts had until now been fully explored. In tracing the history of
the Bohun family and their manuscript patronage, Professor Sandler
places the Lichtenthal Psalter as a product of the 1380s in company with
three other psalters of similar format, each produced by the closely
knit groupt of scibes and artists who worked in the Bohun family
residence at Pleshley Castle in Essex. She describes in detail the
contents of the manuscript, its text and decoration, and offers
evocative descriptions and penetrating interpretations of the
meticulously depicted images that illustrate the Calendar, the Psalms,
and the Office of the Cross. The author also examines in particular the
style and execution of the historiated initials and bas-de-page Old
Testament scences that illustrate the psalms in a continuous narrative
sequence from the Creation to the Life of Moses. She compares these to
the pictorial programs of the related Bohun psalters, and provides
further evidence for the identification of the scribes and artists whose
skill and inventiveness created one of the most outstanding group of
illuminated manuscripts in fourteenth-century England. Every full-page
miniature in the Lichtenthal Psalter is here reproduced in colour and in
the size of the original. In addition there are enlarged detail
reproductions in black-and-white of many of the intricate and tiny
figure compositions that illustrate the biblical narrative, as well as
comparative illustrations of other related Bohun manuscripts. The latter
are listed in full, with relevant literature, in an Appendix.
