The Macclesfield Psalter

The Macclesfield Master

Artists

The Macclesfield Master designed the overall decorative programme and supplied most of the pictorial contents. Figures displaying a range of emotions and convincing depictions of the human body are characteristic of his style. He painted the full-page miniatures of St Edmund of Bury and St Andrew; an image of Christ as Judge; all but one of the historiated initials; most of the busts and profiles inside other Psalm initials; most of the borders (including figural decoration) and almost all of the bas-de-page scenes.

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1
Detail of the gilded background of the initial under magnification (7.5x). Punched dots and scratches can be seen across the gold leaf. A loss of a small piece of gold leaf near the dog’s face reveals the light-coloured ground layer.
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2
Detail of the yellow hair of the figure in the upper border under magnification (7.5x).
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3
Detail of the wings of the angel playing a musical instrument under magnification (7.5x). The metallic shine of his wings is due to the presence of mosaic gold, identified by the high amounts of sulphur (S) and tin (Sn) detected by XRF (below).

Historiated initial C: Annunciation to the Shepherds, with a bas-de-page scene (Psalm 97)

The angel announces Christ’s birth to the shepherds in the historiated initial for Psalm 97, whose opening verses were interpreted as a prophecy of the Incarnation and sung at the feast of the Nativity. The Annunciation to the Shepherds was the standard subject-matter for Psalm 97 in the traditional English pictorial cycle, to which the Macclesfield Psalter conforms. The initial extends into a full bar border incorporating bearded hybrids, the head of a woman within a medallion, and an angel. A courting couple is depicted in the bas-de-page.   

This page showcases the use of gold and yellow pigments in this manuscript. The historiated initial as well as the borders have gilded backgrounds, where gold leaf was applied over a chalk ground and then burnished and decorated with punched dots (hotspot 1). Yellow, used sparingly across the manuscript, was obtained here in two different ways: the light hair of the figures contains a yellow dye (hotspot 2), while mosaic gold was used in the wings of the angel playing a musical instrument (hotspot 3).

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