The Significance of Heraldry in Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century English-Produced Psalters

Many medieval psalters are richly illuminated with painted and gilded historiated or decorated initials, cycles of miniatures, elaborate page borders and extensive marginalia which have been the subject of much study and scholarship. Some include coats of arms or other heraldic imagery, but less attention has generally been paid to these. While the heraldry in some individual manuscripts or small groups has previously been described in detail, this study is the first attempt to take a broader view and to look beyond straightforward identification to decode its meaning. It analyses the heraldic content of twenty-nine psalters written and illuminated in England between 1230 and 1350, cataloguing the format and placement of heraldry in each manuscript, blazoning it and identifying as far as possible the individuals and families it represents. Attributed heraldry (depicted for people who lived before heraldry existed, or who were fictional) is included in the descriptions. This catalogue (included in the Appendices) is the first to collate the heraldic content for a group of psalters from this period.

The heraldry in each psalter is reviewed to establish its function in the manuscript. Eighteen manuscripts have been grouped into six categories: Companions in Arms, Beneficence, Re-labelled, Reference, Family and Status, and Marriage, making links with the political, military, religious and social contexts of the period. New interpretations of ownership and purpose are proposed for Stockholm National Museum, NMB 2010, British Library, Add MS 49622 and Lambeth Palace Library, MS 233. The heraldry in other manuscripts revises, reinforces or extends the conclusions reached by previous scholars. Examination of the exact positioning of coats of arms with respect to specific psalm verses demonstrates that this was often done deliberately, to deliver a message that would have been readily intelligible to the thirteenth- or fourteenth-century reader. In the oldest manuscript studied, NMB 2010, which is probably the first surviving psalter produced in England to include heraldry, such positioning was used to record the travails of a group of crusading knights. It provides the earliest implicit evidence of formal brotherhood in arms.

The psalter was used in worship and for private study and devotion, but the wealthy individuals who commissioned these splendid manuscripts used heraldry to imbue them with additional meaning. The presence of coats of arms ensured continuing intercession for their owners even when the book was closed. Placing arms adjacent to a ‘Tree of Jesse’ miniature set the family lineage alongside a representation of the descent of Christ, the most sacred lineage of all. Heraldry could display the status and aspirations of the psalter owner, gratitude to benefactors, passage of the manuscript from one owner (and country) to another, or record a succession of marriages. To those who could read its visual language it was much more than an attractive element of the design or a high-status bookplate.