Hand B
Artists
Hand B worked on the Psalter section of the manuscript, painting the eight historiated initials for Psalms 1, 26, 38, 52, 68, 80, 97 and 109 (quires 2-12). His figures are slender and elongated. His treatment of drapery is the least advanced in the manuscript, still relying on linear patterns to indicate folds, with minimal use of colour modelling for shades and highlights.
David praying and playing music (Psalm 80)
David prays to God in the upper part of the initial E. Below, he plays the psaltery, surrounded by bells, a fiddle and a harp. The musical theme is suggested by the opening verses of Psalm 80, written in gold on the right and continuing beneath the image, Exultate deo adiutori nostro, iubilate deo Jacob. Sumite psalmum et date tympanum, psalterium iocundum cum cythara (‘Rejoice to God our help: sing aloud to the God of Jacob. Take a psalm and bring hither the timbrel, the pleasant psaltery with the harp’). The initial was painted by Hand B.