The Luttrell Psalter, an illuminated manuscript painted…

The Luttrell Psalter, an illuminated manuscript painted in England, is distinguished by the quality of its line and by the vividness of its naturally observed figures and animals in the page margins.

Commissioned by Sir Geoffrey Luttrell (1276-1345), lord of the manor of Irnham in Lincolnshire, the psalter is written and illustrated on parchment circa 1320–1340 in England by anonymous scribes and artists.

Along with the psalms (beginning on folio 13 recto), the Luttrell Psalter contains a calendar (1 r), canticles (259 verso), the Mass (283 v) and an antiphon for the dead (295 r).

The pages vary in their degree of illumination, but many are richly covered with both decorated text and marginal pictures of saints and Bible stories, and scenes of rural life.

It is considered one of the richest sources for visual depictions of everyday rural life in medieval England.

The Psalter was acquired by the British Museum in 1929 for £31,500 from Mary Angela Noyes, wife of the poet Alfred Noyes, with the assistance of an interest-free loan from the American millionaire and art collector John Pierpont Morgan.

It is at present in the collection of the British Library in London, since the separation of the Library from the British Museum.