Welcome to 2022! For Coffee With A Codex on Wednesday, January 12, we brought out Ms. Codex 1057, a ferial psalter. Ferial psalters are those that, in addition to the text of the 150 psalms, include other elements: antiphons, responses and other prayers, or with rubrics indicating the offices.
Ms. Codex 1057 was copied in the Tyrol region, probably in Trento, Italy, but by the 17th century it was at the abbey of Saint Walburga in Eichstätt, Germany. An entry for Saint Walburga has been added to the calendar in a later hand (there are several other additions to the calendar as well, in various hands) and a second note dated 1604 in the upper margin of folio 166v. The manuscript was used actively in that community well into the 17th century.
A few of the pages are decorated with marginal illustrations, such as these delightful dogs (which chase a rabbit into the next page) on fol. 16r.
There are also more unusual creatures, like these grotesques on fol. 182v.
Not ever section is noted in the text, but in a few places there are initials decorated with penwork and small illustrations, such the start of Psalm 81, verse 2 (“Exsultate Deo adjutori nostro ; jubilate Deo Jacob”) on fol. 132v, and the start of Psalm 97 (98) (“Cantate Domino canticum novum“) on fol. 156v.
There is so much more to Ms. Codex 1057 than can be mentioned in a brief blog post. Find out more by viewing the digitized version and reading the full catalog records on BiblioPhilly.
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The Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies 