MANUSCRIPT DESCRIPTION
HISTORY
OF RESEARCH
The
Theodore Psalter (British Museum Add. 19.352) remains one
of the most significant representations of the Byzantine manuscript
tradition, a masterpiece of art that
exceeds the span of medieval time and space. Experts consider the Psalter
a
watershed document because of its fixed and documented date and
authorship, attested to
in its colophon. The colophon reveals that Abbot Michael of the
Stoudios Monastery received the Psalter as gift from the scribe Theodore,
a priest in the same monastery.
The Stoudios Monastery, near the Byzantine capital Constantinople, was founded
circa 454 A.D. after the rules established by St. Basil the Great for Eastern
monasticism, later augmented by its abbot Theodore
the Studite (759-826), known also as Theodore of Stoudios. St.
Theodore promoted and developed the monastery as the Byzantine
center for
hymnography and manuscript
production and participated actively in the debates during the Iconoclastic
controversies.
The Theodore Psalter manuscript measures 23.1 x 19.8 cm, and the
textual block 10.6 x 15.2 cm. It consists of 208 folios, with wide
margins remaining beside
the major textual blocks, decorated with 440 marginal illustrations. The
folios are gathered into 26 quires of eight bifilos. The scribe
applied Greek miniscule,
characteristic of the 11th century, and emphasized the opening, the colophon,
and the title headings with gilded uncial. Of those 440 marginal illustrations,
269 connect to portions of the text through a system of red and blue elongated
marks.
The manuscript consists of the Book of Psalms (151 psalms), a poem
about the early life of David, a prayer for the Abbot, ten Biblical
odes, and a
colophon.
The odes consist of spiritual songs, two dedicated to Moses, a prayer of
Anna, the mother of prophet Samuel, one of the prophet Habbakuk, a prayer
of the
prophet Isaiah, a prayer of the prophet Jonah, a prayer from the prophet
Daniel, one
of the three young boys, one of the Virgin Mary for the Gospel of Luke,
and one of the prophet Zachariah. The Theodore Psalter presents
multiple levels
of meaning
determined by the manuscript's function, i.e., contemplation or liturgical.
Each page's organization reveals a complexity and diversity of text, illustrations,
annotations, alteration to the text or the image, and connecting marks
between text and marginal illustrations.
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HISTORY OF RESEARCH
Initially, scholars of textual criticism applied methodology focused on description
of the manuscript and attempted to find similarities between manuscripts. They
assumed that scribes used common sources to create manuscripts. In this manner,
scholars attempted to recreate a genealogical tree of all surviving manuscripts.
Kondakov assumed that 9th to 14th century manuscripts belonged to a single
recension. Tikkanen also assumed that scribes of marginal Psalters used an
exemplar for a series produced over five centuries. Der Nersessian, in her
monumental study of the Theodore Psalter, established the close relationship
and dependence between the 9th century Chludov Psalter and the two 11th century
Theodore and Barberini Psalters.
Upon closer examination, scholars noticed
differences in each manuscript. Kondakov distinguished between "aristocratic" and "monastic" Psalter
redactions, the latter using as prototype the glossed Psalters, developed
after Iconoclasm, and defined by marginal illustrations (Kondakov,
162-183). Mansetov
and Malkckij detected a liturgical dimension in the 9th century,
post-Iconoclastic Chludov Psalter through liturgical apparatus in
its margins (Malickij, quoted
in Strunk, 186).
Carrigan called the Chludov Psalter marginal illustration
program a "visual polemic" against the Iconoclasts (Carrigan).
Weitzmann noticed the borrowing by marginal Psalters of illustrations
from Gospel Lectionaries,
Homilies, and the Menologion (Weitzmann, 248). Anderson noticed another
layer of illustrations with "moral dimension" in the abundant
images of saints (Anderson, 550-568). 
However,
Tikkanen, Cutler, and Barber emphasized the visual and verbal components
of the Theodore Psalter, and determined the primacy of the visual
over the verbal (Barber, "Readings," 4). However, the innovation
of the Theodore Psalter remains the "irruption" of
liturgical images of saints, associated with each saint's day (Maries,
261-72).
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