Abstract
This thesis takes as its objective the historical explanation of the Theodore and Barberini Psalters, two well known eleventh-century Byzantine psalters with marginal illustration. It argues that, despite being extensively studied, certain fundamental perspectives have been sidelined in explanations of the manuscripts. In particular, accounts typically ignore the impact of the dynamics of production and the medium on the choices made by the producers. Similarly, scholars have tended to neglect the context of reception, offering explanations of the imagery that flout the realities of the encounter between viewer and book. The aim of this thesis is accordingly to attempt an explanation of the manuscripts that foregrounds these overlooked perspectives. After an introductory chapter that establishes the parameters for the study, the thesis breaks down into three parts.Part 1 (Preliminary matters) is concerned with fundamentals such as the dating of the psalters and the sources from which they derive. The received view of the relationship between the two psalters is challenged as is prevailing opinion on the date of Barberini.
Part 2 (The makers’ perspective) explores the manuscripts from the production perspective. The section incorporates Chapters 3 to 5, the first of these setting out the methodological approach.
Chapter 4 takes up the issue of production from the scribe’s perspective. Although text undoubtedly was laid down before illumination in both manuscripts, this chapter challenges the ubiquitous notion that this sequence of execution indicates a hierarchy of values in which text has priority over imagery in the psalters. Rather it reveals the scribe as responding to various challenges, a major one being the anticipated visual programme. The chapter also considers whether the close integration of text and image in the Theodore Psalter indicates that the scribe was also the illuminator.
Chapter 5 turns to the illumination of the Psalters. The methodology of inferential criticism adopted in the previous chapter is continued here. The illuminator is essentially treated as first viewer in dialogue with his own work as it progresses and with the material properties and phenomenological potential of the codex form. I also observe in this chapter that, in neither psalter, was the text synchronised with that in the exemplar used. The implications of this are explored and are found to be far reaching in terms of the choices made by the illuminators.
Part 3 (The viewer’s perspective) shifts into teleological mode. Here I attempt to explain the impetus behind selected aspects of the manuscripts by reconstructing the responses they were likely to have evoked in the contemporary audience. The first chapter in Part 3, Chapter 6, sets the theoretical and methodological foundations for the section. Chapters 7 and 8 deal respectively with the orchestration of audience response in the Barberini and Theodore Psalters. In each case my findings challenge received views of the purposes for which these books were produced.
The thesis concludes with an assessment of how far the perspectives explored contribute to a new understanding of why the psalters look the way they do. While certain aspects of the Psalters do not yield to the approach adopted, my overall finding is that our understanding of the books is considerably enriched.
| Date of Award | Dec 2005 |
|---|---|
| Original language | English |
| Awarding Institution |
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| Sponsors | Northern Ireland Department for the Economy |
| Supervisor | Margaret Mullett (Supervisor) |
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