With authorative contributions on the historical, stylistic, and iconographic context of this masterpiece of Carolingian Renaissance by R. McKitterick, K. van der Horst, K. Corrigan, F. Mütherich, and W. Noel, and including the catalogue of the 1996 exhibition on the Utrecht Psalter at the Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht.

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.

A study of the making of the Harley Psalter at Christ Church Canterbury c.1020-1130.

Psalters were editions of the Book of Psalms from the Old Testament which were important both as a prayer book and as a means of learning letters. Due to the latter, and the vivid imagery that the texts created, the initial letter became elaborate and additional miniature illustrations were added to mark important places in the text. These six papers, plus an introduction, are taken from a symposium held at St Andrews in 1997 and present discussions of the historical evolution of psalter illustrations and problems of interpretation. They deal with examples of various date and provenance, although largely focusing on Britain, including the Utrecht Psalter, the Book of Kells and the Corbie Psalter.

Discusses the techniques, uses, and aesthetics of medieval drawings; and reproduces work from more than fifty manuscripts produced between the ninth and early fourteenth century.