page_title: St. Albans Psalter
section_title: Contents
hierarchical_section_title: St. Albans Psalter / Contents
caption_attribution_description: Psalm 136 (137), Initial S. In: Albani-Psalter
context_page_description: The St Albans Psalter, also known as the Albani Psalter or the Psalter of Christina of Markyate, is an English illuminated manuscript, one of several psalters known to have been created at or for St Albans Abbey in the 12th century. It is widely considered to be one of the most important examples of English Romanesque book production; it is of almost unprecedented lavishness of decoration, with over forty full-page miniatures, and contains a number of iconographic innovations that would endure throughout the Middle Ages. It also contains the earliest surviving example of French literature, the Chanson de St Alexis or Vie de St Alexis, and it was probably commissioned by an identifiable man and owned by an identifiable woman. Since the early 19th century it has been owned by the church of St. Godehard, but is now stored and administered at the nearby Dombibliothek. A single leaf from the manuscript is at the Schnütgen Museum, Cologne; one further leaf, and one further cutting, are missing from the volume, their whereabouts unknown.
context_section_description: The manuscript as it survives in Hildesheim has 209 folios (i.e. 418 pages) of vellum, which are numbered by a modern hand in Arabic numerals in the top right corner of the rectos, and there's an additional numbering of the miniatures at the bottom of their pages. A full page measures 27.6 x 18.4 cm. There are many signs that the pages have been trimmed down from their original size.  The binding is of leather, and medieval, although it was restored in modern times, perhaps the 1930s.
  The manuscript is composed of five physically separable parts:
  I. (Quire 1; pp. 1–16) Calendar and computistical material
  II. (Quires 2-4; pp. 17–56) Series of full-page miniatures
  III. (Quire 5; pp. 57–72) A quire containing:
  a miniature and text of the Chanson de St Alexis,
  Gregory the Great's defence of the use of images, in Latin and French translation,
  three miniatures depicting the Gospel Emmaus story,
  a drawing of two battling knights, with accompanying text, and
  a Beatus initial, with accompanying text
  IV. (Quires 6-23; pp. 73–414) Psalms, Canticles, Litany, and Collects
  V. (part of Quire 23; pp. 415–418) A bifolium with two full-page miniatures (pp. 416–417) depicting the Martyrdom of St Alban, and King David with musicians
caption: Psalm 136 Initial S
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