The Utrecht Psalter in Medieval Art

The Utrecht Psalter, one of the great survivals of the Carolingian Renaissance, was made about 820-835 at the Benedictine monastery of Hautvilliers and decorated with 166 dynamic, almost impressionistic pen drawings which are masterly interpretation of the Psalter text. In 1996 it was exhibited in Utrecht, alongside related manuscripts such as the Aachen and Ebbo Gospels, the Byzantine Khludov Psalter and the later English Harly and Eadwine Psalters, copied in Canterbury when the Utrecht Psalter was for some centuries in England. Five scholarly essays, designed for a wide-ranging readership, include a discussion of Carolingian cultural achievements; an analysis of the Psalter itself and its place in the history of book production; an overview of medieval Psalter illustration in both Byzantium and the West; and an exa- mination of the English copies of the Utrect Psalter in the later Middle Ages.