Westminster Psalter (BL Royal MS 2 A XXII)
Psalterium Westmonasteriense
Deus in nomine tuo salvum me fac et in virtute tua iudica me.
Our renderingSave me, O God, by your name, and vindicate me by your strength.
What it is
The Westminster Psalter (British Library Royal MS 2 A XXII) is the oldest surviving psalter used at Westminster Abbey, dating to around 1200 with tinted devotional drawings added around 1250. The five tinted additions include images of St Christopher and the Veronica face of Christ, placing the manuscript within the affective piety of the mid-thirteenth-century English court; an indirect connection to Henry III's patronage is suggested by a 1388 Westminster inventory reference to a now-lost psalter 'given by Henry III,' though the two manuscripts should not be conflated. Its liturgical contents follow the use of Westminster — psalms, canticles, litany, prayers, and Easter tables — making it an institutional text as much as a personal one. The Veronica image placed before the psalms reflects the medieval devotional convention of beginning prayer by contemplating the face of Christ.
Why it still matters
The practice of beginning a psalm-reading session with an image of Christ's face, as this psalter does with the Veronica, corresponds to the still-recommended spiritual discipline of entering prayer through a deliberate act of attention to God before speaking; a Christian today can observe the same practice with an icon or cross.
Kept alongside
Psalterium (Psalter for royal and court devotion)
Psalterium
The Latin Psalter — the 150 biblical Psalms with liturgical additions — was the primary daily prayer book of every medieval royal household chapel, used for the Divine Office and private devotion. Hungarian royal scriptorium production is attested under Béla III (1172–1196), who patronized manuscript production at Esztergom, and the Pray Codex's sacramentary component presupposes the Psalter's daily use. While no specific Arpad or Anjou royal psalter survives with a named owner, the Anjou court's documented Bolognese manuscript commissions make royal psalter-hours all but certain, and the psalter was the universal foundation of medieval Christian prayer life without exception. Weekly recitation of all 150 Psalms was the structural backbone of the Divine Office as practiced in every Hungarian royal chapel of this era.
Gospel Sequences (Four Evangelical Readings)
Passiones / Sequentiae Evangeliorum
The Gospel Sequences are four short selected readings — John 1:1–14 (the Prologue), Luke 1:26–38 (the Annunciation), Matthew 2:1–12 (the Magi), and Mark 16:14–20 (the Great Commission) — which open virtually every Book of Hours as the first devotional text after the calendar. They were read in this deliberate theological order: first the eternal mystery of the Incarnation, then the historical moment of the Annunciation, then the Nativity proclaimed to the nations, then the mission of the Church to the world. The sequence gave every prayer session a Christological foundation before the Hours of the Virgin and the Penitential Psalms commenced. For noble children learning Latin from the Book of Hours, these four passages were among the first complete scriptural texts committed to memory.
Seven Penitential Psalms with Litany of the Saints
Psalmi Poenitentiales cum Litaniis Sanctorum
The Seven Penitential Psalms — Psalms 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143 — together with the ensuing Litany of the Saints form a discrete devotional unit present in every Book of Hours associated with the Medici queens: Smith-Lesouëf 42, NAL 82, and MS. Douce 112. In Smith-Lesouëf 42 this section is introduced by a full-page miniature of King David at prayer, linking royal penitence to its scriptural archetype. The Litany that follows invokes God's mercy through the intercession of apostles, martyrs, confessors, and virgins, concluding with prayers for both the living and the dead. These texts served as the recognised penitential devotion for royal persons during periods of crisis, war, and personal bereavement.