The Eadwine Psalter or Eadwin Psalter is a heavily illuminated 12th-century psalter named after the scribe Eadwine, a monk of Christ Church, Canterbury, who was perhaps the "project manager" for the large and exceptional book. The manuscript belongs to Trinity College, Cambridge and is kept in the Wren Library. It contains the Book of Psalms in three languages: three versions in Latin, with Old English and Anglo-Norman translations, and has been called the most ambitious manuscript produced in England in the twelfth century. As far as the images are concerned, most of the book is an adapted copy, using a more contemporary style, of the Carolingian Utrecht Psalter, which was at Canterbury for a period in the Middle Ages. There is also a very famous full-page miniature showing Eadwine at work, which is highly unusual and possibly a self-portrait.
A typical page, with the start of Psalm 136/7 "By the rivers of Babylon.." ("Super flumina Babylonis...")
Detail from the prefatory cycle; the parable of Dives and Lazarus
The Nativity of Jesus on the recto of the British Library page
One of the illustrations in the Utrecht Psalter copied in the Eadwine Psalter. Psalm 63 (Vulg.), 64 (AV): "Exaudi, Deus...". Click on images to enlarge.
A psalter is a volume containing the Book of Psalms, often with other devotional material bound in as well, such as a liturgical calendar and litany of the Saints. Until the emergence of the book of hours in the Late Middle Ages, psalters were the books most widely owned by wealthy lay persons. They were commonly used for learning to read. Many Psalters were richly illuminated, and they include some of the most spectacular surviving examples of medieval book art.
Carolingian Psalter (facsimile)
Folio 15b of the Utrecht Psalter illustrates Psalm 27
The Mudil Psalter, the oldest complete psalter in the Coptic language (Coptic Museum, Egypt, Coptic Cairo).
Initials from the beginning of psalms in the St. Albans Psalter.