Southampton Psalter

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The Southampton Psalter (Cambridge St John's College MS C.9) is an illuminated manuscript believed to be from ninth century Ireland. Though seemingly intended for liturgical use, as attested by the high grade illumination of the psalter, it was also used for study and contains numerous annotations in both Latin and Old Irish.

In the tradition of Irish psalters, the 150 psalms are divided into three groups of fifty, each headed by a full page miniature facing a text page with decorated initial and border. The figures in the miniatures are highly stylised and unrealistic in the style of Irish manuscripts at this time, and painted in a limited palette of yellow, purple and red.

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