The Macclesfield Psalter

Physical Description

Description and Contents

Parchment, iii modern parchment flyleaves + ii modern paper flyleaves + 252 fols. + iii modern parchment flyleaves, 170 x 108 mm (105 x 62 mm), 16 long lines, ruled in brown ink, catchwords.

The text was written in iron-gall ink by a single scribe who may have used a special recipe. The ink contains an unusually high amount of zinc - twice as much as iron - as well as high amounts of calcium, potassium and manganese.

Ornamental initial D with crowned youth (Psalm 45)

The initial extends into a three-sided bar border with a bas-de-page scene of a man frightened by a giant flat fish. The fish appears to be a skate, a local delicacy, caught off the Norfolk coast.

Related content: The Macclesfield Psalter