PSALTER (PSALTERY). - This was the name given
(from ψαλτήριον, psalterium, a stringed musical
instrument, and hence, by analogy, the collection of hymns to
be sung to the "psaltery") to the book of the Bible containing
the Psalms (v.), which later became a liturgical book and a
manual of private devotion.
I. THE PSALTER IN THE WESTERN CHURCH
The psalter occupies a place of pre-eminence in the religious life of antiquity and of the Middle Ages and was soon extracted from the Bible to make of it a book of prayers, both liturgical and private, standing on its own. In antiquity and for a good part of the Middle Ages the psalter was almost the only manual of devotion of the laity (cf., for example, the characteristic passage of the letter of Paula and Eustochium to Marcella: PL 22, 491). It was also used as a teaching book for reading exercises (various psalters are bound together with the abecedarium), whence the term psalteratus, synonymous with litteratus. For clerics and monks the psalter was and still is the book of prayer par excellence. In the early Middle Ages clerics, before acceding to the Orders, had to learn it by heart; this explains the custom that became established among many of reciting it in its entirety, beyond the part reserved for the sacred office, once or twice a day. At Farfa and at Cluny the last hours of a dying person were accompanied by the recitation of the psalter; elsewhere it was sung or recited during the vigils over the bodies of the dead, especially of bishops and abbots. The partial or integral recitation of the psalter was prescribed by the Penitentials (cf., for example, those of Egbert of York [735-66], of Halitgar of Cambrai [817-31], of Burchard of Worms [1000-25]) in substitution for the severe corporal penances with which certain sins had to be atoned. The psalter was also used for the so-called sortes sanctorum, divinatory practices, prohibited by the Carolingian Capitularies and again by the Penitential of Burchard, which consisted in seeking the answer to any question whatsoever in the first verse of a psalm, opening the book at random.
1. Types of psalter
Its content will not be treated here (for which v. SALMI), but only the psalter as a book standing on its own, of which there are two great categories, namely biblical psalters and liturgical psalters, subdivided into various types.
A) The biblical psalters. - The most common type consists of the extract from the Bible with the 150 psalms (psalterium non feriatum) in one of the pre-Jerominian versions (the Milanese psalter used in the Ambrosian liturgy, the Gallican psalter in the old Gallican liturgy, the Spanish psalter in the Mozarabic, the Veronese psalter, the Roman psalter in the Roman: v. LATINE, VERSIONI DELLA BIBBIA) or in one of the three Jerominian versions: the Roman (384, a simple revision of the Roman psalter on the text of the Septuagint; it is debated whether it is the psalter still used in the basilica of St. Peter), the Gallican (ca. 389; used first in the Gauls, whence the name; it is the psalter of the Vulgate, a revision of the Roman psalter on the Hexaplar text for study purposes), the psalter "iuxta Hebraeos" (392-93, a version from the Hebrew text) with some rare musical or liturgical annotation (diapsalma, or Et = responsum), sometimes also with the critical signs: the asterisk or the obelus. Another type comprises the collectar psalters, in which each of the 150 psalms is followed by a collect inspired by its content, without any reference to liturgical cycles or feasts. With these psalters we go back to the origin of the sacred office (4th-6th centuries), when a soloist sang the psalm in the midst of the choir while those present listened in silence; when the psalm was finished, the choir sang the Gloria Patri, then, after a few minutes of silent prayer, the celebrant improvised or recited a collect. Of these collects, which later became private prayers but were still copied until the 13th century in psalters of monastic origin, there are three series dating back to the 5th-6th centuries: the Visita nos, African; the Domine apud quem, Mozarabic; and the Effice, Roman, according to Wilmart's classification (cf. A. Wilmart-L. Brou, The psalter collects from V-VIth sources [H. Bradsaw Society, 83], London 1949; review by H. de Sainte Marie in Eph. lit., 65 [1951], pp. 105-10; Chr. Mohrmann, A propos des collectes du psautier, in Vigiliae christianae, 6 [1952], pp. 1-19). Then follow the double, triple or quadruple psalters, which contained, for study purposes, on separate pages or columns, two or three of Jerome's versions, sometimes also the Greek text or a vernacular version, and the psalters with marginal or interlinear glosses, which, as is obvious, have nothing in common with the Commentaria, the Postillae and the Enarrationes in Psalmos. The psalters were often preceded by prefaces composed of letters of St. Jerome, Damasan verses, passages taken from other Fathers or ecclesiastical writers, collected by D. De Bruyne, in Préfaces de la Bible latine, Namur 1920. See, for example, the long preface placed before the double psalter, followed by biblical canticles and 21 hymns, known as the psalter of Ewrard, count of Friuli (cod. Reginensis lat. 11, mid-8th century) which comprises fully 20 folios (cf. A. Wilmart, Cod. Reginenses Latini, I, Vatican City 1937, p. 26).
B) The liturgical psalters. - The classic type of the liturgical psalter, the psalterium per ferias or psalterium feriale, is the one that contains the 150 psalms, distributed according to the various canonical hours, for each day of the week, and the Ordinarium divini Officii, that is, the invitatories, hymns, antiphons, chapters, responsories and collects. Alongside this perfect type there are others less complete. It is not rare to find manuscript psalters with invitatories, antiphons and collects noted in the margin, often with only the incipits; after the psalms generally follow the biblical canticles for Lauds and, if it is a monastic psalter, also for the third Nocturn, various hymns, the Te Deum, the Gloria in excelsis, the Apostles' and Athanasian creeds, the litanies of the Saints and the penitential psalms, etc. According to their content there are thus: 1) hymnal psalters, with a variable number of hymns for ferias and feasts; 2) psalters as books of Hours, with the private prayers recited after the office (v. LIBRI D'ORI); 3) diurnal psalters, with antiphons, chapters, hymns and collects of the day; 4) antiphonary psalters, with the parts to be sung; 5) ritual psalters with prayers and rubrics for the administration of the Sacraments. Besides the liturgical psalters, there came into fashion in the Middle Ages: the psalter of the Virgin (from the 12th century onward), a poetic or prose composition of 150 stanzas, and the psalter of St. Jerome, which comprised a certain number of verses taken from the psalms without any logical connection.
2. Criteria for dating and identification
Among liturgical manuscripts, psalters, generally antepigraphs, are those that present the most serious difficulties for their dating and for the identification of the Church to which they belonged. Besides the paleographic element, one must have recourse to any local elements inserted in the calendar, in the litanies of the Saints, in the hymns dedicated to certain saints, in the series of antiphons and biblical canticles, or in the Office of the Dead.
3. Decoration
The psalter was the object, like other liturgical books, of particular care on the part of copyists and illuminators, who produced a rich series of psalters prepared with the finest artistic taste, beginning with the psalters transcribed in beautiful uncial and semi-uncial letters on purple parchment (5th-7th centuries and the Carolingian era) down to those finely illuminated from the 16th century. Suffice it to recall the purple uncial psalter in silver and gold of St. Germanus of the 6th century (cf. Leroquais [v. bibl.], II, pp. 110-11); the Stuttgart psalter in uncial of the 8th century (A. Dold, in Röm. Quartalschrift, 1934); the psalter of the abbey of Hautvillers, known as the Utrecht Psalter, of the 9th century (cf. E. T. De Wald, The illustrations of the Utrecht Psalter, London-Leipzig 1932); the psalter of Egbert of Trier at Cividale, executed between 977 and 993 (cf. H. V. Sauerland-H. Haseloff, Der Psalter Erzbischof Egberts von Trier. Codex Gertendianus in Cividale, Trier 1901); the psalter of St. Louis of the 13th century (cf. Leroquais, II, pp. 101-105); the psalter of Charles VIII, ca. 1490 (Leroquais, II, pp. 57-58); the psalter of Paul III of 1542 (L. Dorez, Le psautier de Paul III, Paris 1909), etc. Even some of the early printed editions are notable for their harmonious layout. The most ornate parts of manuscript psalters are: 1) the calendar, where the figurations of the months and of the zodiac are often reproduced; 2) certain pages placed before the psalms and 3) the part reserved for the text of the latter. In the pages preceding the psalms, from the 8th century onward, David and Christ in majesty or even on the Cross stand out; David, with his musical instrument, sometimes accompanied by other psalmists playing with him. With the 12th century, the scenes relating to Christ take on greater development; with the 13th-14th centuries, the pages in question are decorated with entire cycles of scenes taken from the Old and New Testaments. To illustrate the text of the psalms, various systems were followed: each psalm is adorned with scenes referring to its content, or the psalter is divided into three or five books and, in the first case, psalms 1, 51, 101 are illuminated; in the second, psalms 1, 41, 72, 89, 106; at other times the first of each feria is adorned (1, 26, 38, 51, 52, 68, 80, 97, 101, 109), but the figure does not always refer to the content of the psalm. Besides the pages fully or partly illuminated, there is then a whole range of initial letters, large and small, and marginal friezes executed with rare skill and unbridled imagination.
Bibliography7 works
4. Weekly liturgical division of the psalter
In the weekly distribution of the psalter (Psalterium dispositum per hebdomadam), a distinction is made between the monastic course and the Roman course for the use of the secular clergy. The monastic course, ordered by St. Benedict in his monastic Rule (chaps. 8-18), indicates the psalms to be recited in one week, 12 at Matins (a number already sanctified by the first monks), beginning on Sunday with psalm 20 and ending with psalm 108 on Saturday; psalms 109-47 are reserved for Vespers, psalms 1-19 for Prime, for the Little Hours of Sunday as for Terce, Sext and None of Monday the 22 sections of psalm 118, and on the other days the so-called gradual psalms.
Other Western monastic courses trace back to St. Caesarius of Arles (around 502: Ordo psallendi) and to St. Columbanus (d. 615). The Roman course, ordered, it is said, by Pope Damasus (d. 384), likewise recites the psalter in one week, beginning at Matins on Sunday with psalm 1 and ending on Saturday with psalm 108; in the Sunday Matins the number of psalms was reduced by St. Gregory the Great (d. 604) to 12 + 3 + 3 (previously 14 + 6 + 6), and in the weekday Matins it was set at 12; the 22 sections of psalm 118 were repeated every day in the Little Hours; for Vespers psalms 109-47 were reserved. This order was also preserved in the reform of Pius V (d. 1572) down to Blessed Pius X, who, on 1 November 1911, ordered a new distribution of the psalms, assigning nine to Matins, respecting the ancient order of two great parts of psalms 1-108 at Matins and 109-44 at Vespers, assigning the others to the Little Hours and dividing the longer ones after the example of the Egyptian monks and of St. Benedict.
The liturgical text of the psalter up to St. Pius V was that of the Psalterium Romanum, which St. Pius V replaced with that of the Psalterium Gallicanum. Pius XIII introduced (14 March 1945) a new version made from the Hebrew text.
The name psalter is sometimes used to indicate the Rosary because of its 150 Hail Marys, as many as the psalms.
Bibliography6 works
II. LITURGICAL PSALTER IN THE ORIENTAL RITES
In the Byzantine rite the psalter is divided into twenty cathismata, and each cathisma into three staseis; each stasis may have three or more psalms and concludes with the Gloria Patri. Nine biblical canticles are added; thus already the Codex Alexandrinus of the 5th century, which, however, has fourteen of them. The psalter was the first Greek liturgical book to be printed: Venice, probably 1494.
In the Slavonic psalter the Athanasian Creed and other writings concerning the faith precede the psalms, and the last canticle is followed by prayers for the dying and for the dead; in other psalters, instead, there follow the so-called chosen psalms, to be added to the private reading of a cathisma. In Moscow as in Kiev another type of psalter was conceived and published, called Psaltir s posliedovaniem; besides the ordinary psalter it provides three supplements: the Horologion, the Troparia and kondakia of the whole year, the Office of Holy Communion and other acathisti.
The psalter is recited in continuous reading, at the rate of one cathisma at Vespers and two or three at Matins, once a week, twice during Lent (cf. E. Mercenier - F. Paris, La Prière des Eglises de rite byzantin, I, Chevetogne 1947, p. 14, note 2, pp. 207-209; H. Schneider, Die biblischen Oden..., in Biblica, 30 [1949], pp. 28-65, 239-72, 432-52, 479-500).
Among the illuminated psalters with marginal images, important ones are the Khludov psalter of the 9th century, the Vatican Barberini
Greek 372 of the 11th century, etc. (cf. N. Kondakov, Miniaturi... [in Russian], Moscow 1878), and the Litsevaja Psaltir of the year 1397 (reproduced, St. Petersburg 1890; see also J. Strzygowski, Die Miniaturen des serbischen Psalters der Königl. Hof-und Staatsbibliothek in München, Vienna 1906, and L. Mariès, L'irruption des Saints dans l'illustration du pautier byzantin, in Anal. Boll., 68 [1950], pp. 153-62). Among the fully illuminated psalters, the one in Paris from the 10th century is well known (cf. H. Buchthal, The Miniatures of the Paris Psalter, London 1938).
In the Armenian rite the psalter is divided into eight sections, called "canons"; each section comprises a biblical canticle. Each of the "canons" corresponds to one of the eight musical tones. Since one "canon" is recited each day in the Office of the Night, the reading of the psalter is completed in eight days. The cursus begins on the 1st Sunday of Lent, starting with the first tone. Each "canon" is divided into seven sections ending with the Gloria Patri. This system already existed at least from the 7th century. Many manuscripts and editions, however, add the Canticle of Daniel, the Magnificat, the Benedictus, the Nunc dimittis and the prayer of Manasseh (cf. F. C. Conybeare, Rituale Armenorum, Oxford 1905, p. 446).
In the West Syrian rite the psalter is today divided into twenty sections (= marmijātā) and sixty doxologies (= Gloria Patri). To these are always added three canticles: Moses (Exodus), Isaiah, Moses (Deut.), and often three others: Magnificat, Beatitudes, Gloria in excelsis; at the end the Nicene Creed is not infrequently found; sometimes, under Byzantine influence, the psalter has received yet other canticles. In ancient times one marmijā was recited in each Nocturn of the Office of the Night; for many centuries liturgical poems have taken its place, yet the psalter still had an edition in 1912 at Sharfa.
In the East Syrian rite the psalter is divided into twenty hullābē and each hullābē into two or more marmijātā; each of these comprises two or three psalms, with prayers intercalated. The cursus is recited assiduously in the Office of the Night. Catholic editions: Rome 1842, Mosul 1912. For the distribution of the psalms cf. A. J. Maclean, East Syrian daily Offices, London 1894, pp. 260-63.
In the Coptic rite the psalter has twenty cathismata and sixty doxologies (= Gloria Patri). To these are added eleven odes and then the canticle of Daniel, the Magnificat, the Benedictus, the Nunc dimittis and the Gloria in excelsis (this according to the Greek recension). Every liturgical hour begins with the recitation of twelve psalms. Editions by R. Tuki (v.) at Rome in 1744. Not infrequently the Ethiopian manuscripts add also the Canticle of Canticles (cf. S. Grébaut, Manuscrits ethiopiens appartenants à M. N. Bergey, in Rev. de l'Orient Chrét., 25 [1925-26], pp. 196-219). - See plates CVII-CVIII.
