A psalter is a volume containing the Book of Psalms, often with other devotional material bound in as well, such as a liturgical calendar and litany of the Saints. Until the later medieval emergence of the book of hours, psalters were the books most widely owned by wealthy lay persons and were commonly used for learning to read. Many Psalters were richly illuminated and they include some of the most spectacular surviving examples of medieval book art.
Various different schemes existed for the arrangement of the Psalms into groups (see Latin Psalters). As well as the 150 Psalms, medieval psalters often included a calendar, a litany of saints, canticles from the Old and New Testaments, and other devotional texts. The selection of saints mentioned in the calendar and litany varied greatly and can often give clues as to the original ownership of the manuscript, since monasteries and private patrons alike would choose those saints that had particular significance for them.
Many psalters were lavishly illuminated with full-page miniatures as well as decorated initials. Of the initials the most important is normally the so-called "Beatus initial", based on the "B" of the words Beatus vir... ("Blessed is the man...") at the start of Psalm 1. This was usually given the most elaborate decoration in an illuminated psalter, often taking a whole page for the initial letter or first two words. Historiated initials or full-page illuminations were also used to mark the beginnings of the three major divisions of the Psalms, or the various daily readings, and may have helped users navigate to the relevant part of the text (medieval books almost never had page numbers). Many psalters, particularly from the 12th century onwards, included richly decorated "prefatory cycles" - a series of full-page illuminations preceding the Psalms, usually illustrating the Passion story, though some also feature Old Testament narrative. Such images helped to enhance the book's status but would also serve as aids to contemplation in the practice of personal devotions.
The psalter is also a part of either the Horologion or the breviary, used to say the Liturgy of the Hours in the Eastern and Western Christian worlds respectively.
;Printed psalters Psalterium Romanum, 1457 [Mainz], Johann Fust and Peter Schöffer. The first printed psalter. Psalterium Benedictinum, 1459 [Mainz], Johann Fust and Peter Schöffer. The second printed psalter.
Category:Types of illuminated manuscript Category:Eastern Orthodox liturgical books Category:Christian genres Category:Christian terms
be:Псалтыр be-x-old:Псалтыр cs:Žaltář de:Psalter (Textbuch) eo:Psalmaro fa:مزامیرنامه fr:Psautier it:Salterio (liturgia) nl:Psalter (boek) ja:聖詠 pt:Saltério (Bíblia) ru:Псалтирь sv:Psalterium (bönbok) zh:聖詠經This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
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