Winchester Psalter

The Winchester Psalter is an English 12th-century illuminated manuscript psalter (British Library, Cotton MS Nero C.iv), also sometimes known as the Psalter of Henry of Blois, and formerly known as the St Swithun's Psalter. It was probably made for use in Winchester, most scholars agreeing that the most likely patron was the Henry of Blois, brother of Stephen, King of England, and Bishop of Winchester from 1129 until his death in 1171. Until recent decades it was "a little-studied masterpiece of English Romanesque painting", but it has been the subject of several recent studies.

The manuscript now has 142 vellum leaves of 32 x 22.25 cm, which after a fire in 1731 have been cut and mounted individually and rebound.

Miniatures

The thirty-eight full-page miniatures are all grouped at the beginning of the manuscript. They are nearly all divided horizontally into two or three compartments with different scenes, creating an unusually extended narrative cycle of more than eighty scenes covering the Old Testament (6 pages), the Life of the Virgin and Life of Christ (23 pages) and several scenes covering the Second Coming and Last Judgement (9 pages) - a number of non-narrative subjects such as the Jesse Tree, Christ in Majesty and an enthroned Virgin being included in these figures. Together they form "one of the most unusual and innovative miniature cycles of the twelfth century"

Most of the miniatures are drawings tinted with coloured washes set against fully painted backgrounds. This is a common English technique from at least the 11th to the 13th century. Two miniatures, of the Death of the Virgin and the Virgin Enthroned, are in a different fully painted technique and style, and follow Byzantine iconographic models, although the forms of the drapery are English in style. The other miniatures are all closely related to one another in style, though some are of markedly higher quality than others.