The Montpellier Psalter is one of the oldest Psalter

Psalter

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...

 from the Carolingian era and was made in the 8th century in the then-Bavarian Mondsee Abbey

Mondsee Abbey

Mondsee Abbey was a Benedictine monastery in Mondsee in Upper Austria.-History:The region of the Mondseeland, in which Mondsee is located, was formerly part of Bavaria. In 748 Mondsee Abbey was founded by Odilo, Duke of Bavaria. The abbey tradition was that the first monks came from Monte Cassino...

 during the reign of the Agilolfings

Agilolfings

The Agilolfings were a family of either Frankish or Bavarian nobility that ruled the Duchy of Bavaria on behalf of their Merovingian suzerains from about 550 until 788...

 and was supposedly originally dedicated to the Bavarian ducal family of Tassilo III of Bavaria. The book saw a turbulent history and is now held in the medicine collection at the Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire in Montpellier

Montpellier

-Neighbourhoods:Since 2001, Montpellier has been divided into seven official neighbourhoods, themselves divided into sub-neighbourhoods. Each of them possesses a neighbourhood council....

, under the shelfmark H. 409.

This small sized psalter contains two miniature illustrations that picture Jesus Christ and King David

David

David was the second king of the united Kingdom of Israel according to the Hebrew Bible and, according to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, an ancestor of Jesus Christ through both Saint Joseph and Mary...

, 165 larger initial

Initial

In a written or published work, an initial is a letter at the beginning of a work, a chapter, or a paragraph that is larger than the rest of the text. The word is derived from the Latin initialis, which means standing at the beginning...

s in gold and silver and more than 2000 smaller initials in the colours yellow, red and green. This generously-illuminated manuscript

Manuscript

A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...

 is influenced by an imagery from Roman Late Antiquity

Late Antiquity

Late Antiquity is a periodization used by historians to describe the time of transition from Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages, in both mainland Europe and the Mediterranean world. Precise boundaries for the period are a matter of debate, but noted historian of the period Peter Brown proposed...

 and is most like based on sixth-century models from Ravenna

Ravenna

Ravenna is the capital city of the Province of Ravenna in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy and the second largest comune in Italy by land area, although, at , it is little more than half the size of the largest comune, Rome...

. The beginning of each psalm is indicated by an ornamented initial in uncial script. The language of the text is Latin.

History

The Montpellier Psalter was long considered to be the oldest Carolingian Psalter of the Frankish Empire

Frankish Empire

Francia or Frankia, later also called the Frankish Empire , Frankish Kingdom , Frankish Realm or occasionally Frankland, was the territory inhabited and ruled by the Franks from the 3rd to the 10th century...

, due to its late antique illustrations. Early scientific sources stated Auxerre

Auxerre

Auxerre is a commune in the Bourgogne region in north-central France, between Paris and Dijon. It is the capital of the Yonne department.Auxerre's population today is about 45,000...

 as the point of origin and dated it between 772 and 795 CE. The philologist Bernhard Bischoff (1906-1991) was the first to revise this, proving that the real origin of the psalter was the Bavarian region and showed that it was made in the scriptorium of Mondsee Abbey

Mondsee Abbey

Mondsee Abbey was a Benedictine monastery in Mondsee in Upper Austria.-History:The region of the Mondseeland, in which Mondsee is located, was formerly part of Bavaria. In 748 Mondsee Abbey was founded by Odilo, Duke of Bavaria. The abbey tradition was that the first monks came from Monte Cassino...

 near Salzburg in what is now Upper Austria

Upper Austria

Upper Austria is one of the nine states or Bundesländer of Austria. Its capital is Linz. Upper Austria borders on Germany and the Czech Republic, as well as on the other Austrian states of Lower Austria, Styria, and Salzburg...

. This prove was among other factors done by demonstrating the similarities of the ornaments to the Tassilo Chalice

Tassilo Chalice

The Tassilo Chalice is a bronze chalice, gilded with silver and gold, dating from the 8th century. The chalice is of Anglo-Saxon design, and has probably been at Kremsmünster Abbey, Austria since shortly after it was made.- History :Dating from c...

 of Kremsmünster Abbey

Kremsmünster Abbey

Kremsmünster Abbey is a Benedictine monastery in Kremsmünster in Upper Austria.-History:The monastery was founded in 777 by Tassilo III, Duke of Bavaria...

.

In that period the Bavarian duchy under the rule of the Agilolfings saw its last period of relative independence from Frankish rule and held close political and cultural ties to the Lombards

Lombards

The Lombards , also referred to as Longobards, were a Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin, who from 568 to 774 ruled a Kingdom in Italy...

 in Italy. Liutberga, the wife of duke Tassilo III of Bavaria was even a daughter of the Lombard King Desiderius

Desiderius

Desiderius was the last king of the Lombard Kingdom of northern Italy...

. These connections are today considered the most likely explanation for the late-antique, upper-Italian influence in the imagery and ornaments of the psalter.

After power struggles and the loss of their Lombardian allies the Agilolfings were finally removed from power in 788 by Charlemagne and the Bavarian duchy was integrated into the Frankish Empire

Frankish Empire

Francia or Frankia, later also called the Frankish Empire , Frankish Kingdom , Frankish Realm or occasionally Frankland, was the territory inhabited and ruled by the Franks from the 3rd to the 10th century...

. It is believed that during this time the psalter was taken from Mondsee and brought to the western part of Francia as a spoil of war. Even Cotani and Hrodrud, the two daughter of Tassilo III, who himself was taken in custody and finally banned into monastic life, were brought into west Franconian captivity, accompanied on the way by Hunric, Abbot of Mondsee. It is believed that they might have taken the psalter with them from Mondsee to Chelle

Chelles, Seine-et-Marne

Chelles is a commune in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located in the Seine-et-Marne department in the Île-de-France region from the center of Paris....

 in today's France. In the 9th century the book was already in Auxerre

Auxerre

Auxerre is a commune in the Bourgogne region in north-central France, between Paris and Dijon. It is the capital of the Yonne department.Auxerre's population today is about 45,000...

, where the final five pages, that presumptively carried the dedications to the Bavarian ducal family, were removed from the psalter and a new dedication under the title Laudes regiae was added to the then Frankish queen Fastrada

Fastrada

Fastrada was an East Frankish noblewoman.* In 783, Fastrada, along with other Saxon women, entered barebreasted into battle against Charlemagne's forces.She became the third wife of Charlemagne, marrying him in 784. She bore him two children:...

, the fourth wife of Charlemagne

Charlemagne

Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...

. Since she died in the year 794, this addition must have taken place before this date.

In the year 1721, the psalter is proven to have been in Lyon, as part of the collection of president Bouhier, along with H. 196

Montpellier Codex

For information on the 11th-century codex Montpellier H159, see Antiphonary of St. Benigne, DijonThe Montpellier Codex is an important source of 13th century French polyphony. The codex contains 336 polyphonic works probably composed ca. 1250-1300, and was likely compiled ca. 1300...

, a famous chansonnier

Chansonnier

A chansonnier is a manuscript or printed book which contains a collection of chansons, or polyphonic and monophonic settings of songs, hence literally "song-books," although some manuscripts are so called even though they preserve the text but not the music A chansonnier is a manuscript or...

 also now in the Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire. After his death, Cîteaux Abbey

Cîteaux Abbey

Cîteaux Abbey is a Roman Catholic abbey located in Saint-Nicolas-lès-Cîteaux, south of Dijon, France. Today it belongs to the Trappists, or Cistercians of the Strict Observance . The Cistercian order takes its name from this mother house of Cîteaux, earlier Cisteaux, near Nuits-Saint-Georges...

 bought the book and during the turmoils of the French Revolution it finally came into the university library of Montpellier

Montpellier

-Neighbourhoods:Since 2001, Montpellier has been divided into seven official neighbourhoods, themselves divided into sub-neighbourhoods. Each of them possesses a neighbourhood council....

, where it is still kept today. This final home also gave its name to the psalter in the modern literature.

During the 1988's exhibition of Bavarian history, that was commonly organised by the Free State of Bavaria and the Austrian Federal State of Salzburg

Salzburg (state)

Salzburg is a state or Land of Austria with an area of 7,156 km2, located adjacent to the German border. It is also known as Salzburgerland, to distinguish it from its capital city, also named Salzburg...

 in Rosenheim

Rosenheim

Rosenheim is a town in Bavaria at the confluence of the rivers Inn and Mangfall. It is seat of administration of the district of Rosenheim, but is not a part of it.-Geography:...

and Mattsee, the Montpellier Psalter was shown for the first time after centuries in its region of origin.

Literature

• Hermann Dannheimer (Hrsg.), Die Bajuwaren - von Severin bis Tassilo 488 - 788; Katalog zur gemeinsamen Landesausstellung des Freistaates Bayern und des Landes Salzburg, Rosenheim/Bayern, Mattsee/Salzburg, 19. Mai bis 6. November 1988, 1st edition, Munich: Prähistor. Staatssammlung, 1988, 468 pages (in German)