Manuscripts

Dublin, University College, MS Franciscan A 1 Psalter of St Caimín

  • Latin, Irish
  • s. xiex-xiiin
  • Irish manuscripts
Fragmentary Irish manuscript containing verses from Psalm 118, the so-called Beati. It is not known if the original manuscript was a Psalter containing all or most of the psalms.
Identifiers
Shelfmark
A 1
Title
Psalter of St Caimín
Type
psalters
Psalter
Provenance and related aspects
Language
Latin Secondary: Irish
Date
s. xiex-xiiin
Late 11th / early 12th century
Hands, scribes
Hands indexed:
Main hand (semi-uncial)

Anonymous. Esposito: “The text of the Psalm is written in long lines in a large and beautiful semi-uncial Irish hand, [note 12: Compared with the beautiful rotund hands of such early MSS. as the Books of Lindisfarne and Kells, the writing of our fragments appears degraded and betrays at once its late origin. The same thing is to be said of the ornamental initials] the ordinary letters being nearly a centimetre in height, and the capitals sometimes double that”.

Hand 2 (minuscule) According to Esposito, “the pointed Irish minuscules of the prefaces and marginal scholia [...] were evidently written at the same time as the text, and probably by the same hand”.
Annotator 1

The memorandum in the lower margin of f. 2r, printed and translated by Esposito and printed in the catalogue description, is in Mícheál Ó Cléirigh’s hand.

Mícheál Ó CléirighÓ Cléirigh (Mícheál)
(d. 1643)
O'Clery (Michael)
Irish scholar, historian and scribe.
See more
Annotator 2

A note has been added at the bottom of f. 1r, Ex libris Conventus de Dunnagall, which Esposito suggests is “possibly in [John] Colgan's handwriting”.

Additions
Irish glosses
Codicological information
Material
Vellum
The list below has been collated from the table of contents, if available on this page,Progress in this area is being made piecemeal. Full and partial tables of contents are available for a small number of manuscripts. and incoming annotations for individual texts (again, if available).Whenever catalogue entries about texts are annotated with information about particular manuscript witnesses, these manuscripts can be queried for the texts that are linked to them.

Sources

Primary sources This section typically includes references to diplomatic editions, facsimiles and photographic reproductions, notably digital image archives, of at least a major portion of the manuscript. For editions of individual texts, see their separate entries.

[dig. img.] “University College Dublin”, Anne-Marie OʼBrien, and Pádraig Ó Macháin, Irish Script on Screen (ISOS) – Meamrám Páipéar Ríomhaire, Online: School of Celtic Studies, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1999–present. URL: <https://www.isos.dias.ie/collection/ucd.html>.

Secondary sources (select)

McNamara, Martin, “Psalter text and Psalter study in the early Irish Church (A.D. 600-1200)”, in: Martin McNamara, The Psalms in the early Irish Church, 165, Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000. 19–142.  
Reprint.
78–82
Esposito, Mario, “On the so-called Psalter of Saint Caimin”, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 32 C (1913): 78–88.  
comments: includes a reproduction of fol. 3b / page 6
Internet Archive: <link>
Kenney, James F., The sources for the early history of Ireland: an introduction and guide. Volume 1: ecclesiastical, Revised ed., Records of Civilization: Sources and Studies, 11, New York: Octagon, 1966.  
Chapters: I. History in Ireland; II. Ireland in the ancient world (to about A.D. 700); III. The Irish church in the ‘Celtic’ period; IV. The monastic churches, their founders and traditions: the primitive foundations; V. The monastic churches: churches of the sixth to ninth centuries; VI. The expansion of Irish Christianity (seventh to twelfth century); VII. Religious literature and ecclesiastical culture (seventh to twelfth century); VIII. The reform movement of the twelfth century.
comments: Reprints: Records of Civilization: Sources and Studies. New York: Columbia University Press, 1929; First, revised reprint in 1966, with addenda and corrections by Ludwig Bieler; Records of Civilization 11. Shannon: Irish University Press, 1968; Records of Civilization 11. Dublin: Ó Táilliúir, 1979; Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1993.
646–647 (§ 479) [id. 479.]
Contributors
Dennis Groenewegen
Page created
May 2011, last updated: November 2022