Glossing Psalmody in Late Medieval Devotion: The Influence of Psalter Glosses on a Late Medieval Prayer to the Five Wounds

Samira Lindstedt

doi:10.18290/rh24725.5s

Published : 2024-12-31

Vol. 72 No. 5 Zeszyt specjalny (2024)

Glossing Psalmody in Late Medieval Devotion: The Influence of Psalter Glosses on a Late Medieval Prayer to the Five Wounds

Samira Lindstedt

https://orcid.org/0009-0009-2954-0784

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18290/rh24725.5s

Abstract

Although the Latin Psalms prominently feature in the private prayers of late medieval devotional books, they remain little explored in comparison to their vernacular and liturgical equivalents. A common type of prayer found in such books, in which individual Latin Psalms are offered for devotional use framed by vernacular rubrics, suggests that there were conventional interpretations of individual Psalms that influenced their compilers’ selection of the Psalms and their audiences’ interpretative responses to them. In analyzing an example of such a prayer, an unprinted devotion to the Five Wounds of Christ, in the light of Psalter glosses, we can explore this understudied dimension of medieval engagements with the Psalter.

Keywords:

Book of Hours, Psalter, gloss, medieval English literature, Richard Rolle, Five Wounds of Christ, Biblia Communis, Passion meditation, Anglo-Norman

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