Illuminating domestic dramas of the ever yday Middle Ages

The Luttrell Psalter: England on the Verge of the Black Death with Michelle P Brown at Arlington Arts on Tuesday, September 28

THE Luttrell Psalter is an illuminated psalter commissioned by wealthy landowner Sir Geoffrey Luttrell (12761345), lord of the manor of Irnham in Lincolnshire, written and illustrated on parchment circa 1320-1340 by anonymous scribes and artists. It is one of the best-known illuminated manuscripts to survive from the Middle Ages.

Depicting everyday scenes of rural life with vibrant colour and earthy wit, the Luttrell Psalter is a unique and vivid document of British culture in the 1320s.

Unlike other illuminated manuscripts, the Luttrell Psalter does not focus only on religious imagery, but instead portrays the domestic dramas of the day. Scenes of farming, archaic medical treatments, music and dance and even marital friction spill over the psalms and cover the margins of this celebrated book.

As we turn the pages of the book, we see corn being cut, a woman feeding chickens, food being cooked and eaten. There are wrestlers, hawkers, bear-baiters, dancers, musicians, throwing games, a mock bishop with a dog that jumps through a hoop – and a wife beating her husband with her distaff (a tool used in spinning).

The finest decoration is in the central section of the manuscript, painted by the most gifted of the artists. His clear talent for inventiveness and gentle humour is expressed in the so-called ‘grotesques’; hybrid monstrosities that may combine a human head, an animal/fish/bird body, and a plant tail.

The Luttrell Psalter measures 350 x 245 mm. It is written in Latin and is composed of 309 high-quality vellum leaves with flyleaves of paper. Most of the pages are decorated in red paint with details in gold, silver and blind. Most of the decorations around the margins are images of pure fantasy, figures of saints, and naturalistic motifs. Luttrell wanted the drawings to reflect the current devotional, cultural, political, economic, and dynastic aspirations that he and his family had in very turbulent political times. Search for the Psalter on the British Library website.

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Scenes of farming, archaic medical treatments, music and dance and even marital friction spill over the psalms and cover the margins of this celebrated book