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A Ninth-Century Irish Bog Psalter and Reading the Psalms As ‘Three Fifties’

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A Ninth-Century Irish Bog Psalter and Reading the Psalms As ‘Three Fifties’ A NINTH-CENTURY IRISH BOG PSALTER AND READING THE PSALMS AS ‘THREE FIFTIES’ Susan E. Gillingham In July 2006 the discovery of an early ninth century Psalter, still in its original binding, at Fadden More Bog, north Tipperary, was hailed by Patrick Wallace, Director of the National Museum of Ireland, as the greatest find ever to come from a European bog. The find has many parallels with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls: the chance sight- ing by a worker digging up peat moss to create commercial potting soil, who ‘saw something’ beyond the bucket of his bulldozer; the Psal- ter’s remarkable preservation, due to the low level of oxygen and to chemical substances in the soil which protected the vellum; its appar- ent deliberate concealment, perhaps to keep it safe from a Viking raid, indicated by the layer of camouflaging matting and a leather pouch; the recognition that this was a biblical text because of words exposed in the Latin (ualle lacrimarum, or ‘valley of tears’) which were quickly identified as coming from Ps. 83 (HV 84)1 and may be compared with the recognition of Isaiah in the Dead Sea Scrolls; and the long-term international conservation project which has ensued, working on how to separate the congealed mess of some hundred vellum pages without ruining them. Some five years later, the initial view of the significance of this find has been confirmed: in 2010 a progress report detailed the difficulties but also successes of the preservation, and was followed by a television documentary on what is now known as the ‘Faddon More Psalter’. Since June 2011 the Psalter has been on public display at the National Museum in Dublin.2 Although nowhere near as lavishly illustrated as its near contempo- rary the Book of Kells, the Bog Psalter’s exposed first page nevertheless 1 Two sets of abbreviations will be used throughout this paper. HV refers to the numbering of psalms in the Hebrew, and PG refers to the numbering in Psalterium Gallicanum, Jerome’s translation preserved in the Vulgate. The numbers of psalms when taken from the PG will be offered in italics to prevent confusion. 2 For the progress report see www.museum.ie/GetAttachment.aspx?id=432d9d81- 909c-4921 and for information on the documentary, www.thurles.info/2010/09/07/ faddan-more-psalter-on-rte-television. 374 susan e. gillingham reveals some illustration in its interlaced border and its figure of a bird (possibly an eagle). Similarly prominent decorations are evident after Pss. 50 (HV 51) and 100 (HV 101), as well as some discolored illustra- tions of initial letters to individual psalms. Such decorations suggest a provenance from a scriptorium, perhaps from one of the six monas- teries within some ten miles of Fadden More. St. Brendan, Birr, near the holy well Toberbrandy, closest to the site of the Psalter’s discovery, is a likely candidate. Bede, in his Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation (c. 731) describes how English monks travelled to Ireland to take advantage of the ‘new learning’ in Irish monastic schools, where the study of the Psalter was central. These monasteries near Fadden More would have been typical of such devotion to the Psalter, a topic which has been explored in detail and well documented by Martin McNamara.3 Hence it is not impossible that the ‘Fadden More Psalter’ could eventually throw further light on the way in which Latin texts were read and used in Ireland. One particular issue is the division of Psalters into ‘Three Fifties’, indicated in the Fadden More Psalter by the illuminations immedi- ately before Pss. 1, 51 and 101. It is well established that the ‘Three Fif- ties’ tradition, popularized in monastic rules such as those of Benedict and Columbanus, was a widespread Irish practice from as early as the fifth century.4 The ‘Rule of Ailbe’, dating from the seventh century, which gives special attention to the devotional use of Ps. 118, speaks, for example, of ‘one hundred genuflections . at the “Beati” at the beginning of the day . [and] thrice fifty (psalms) dearer than [other works]. .’ (McNamara 2000: 357). Another rule, ‘The Monastery of Tallaght’, from the eighth century, which also emphasizes the impor- tance of Ps. 118, similarly highlights the chanting of the hundred and fifty psalms daily, in three fifties (McNamara 2000: 358–359). The ‘Rule of Patrick’, also from a Céli Dé background, refers to the singing of the ‘Three Fifties’ (mainly as an act of penitence) every canonical hour.5 And in the Liber Hymnorum, an eleventh-century manuscript held at 3 See McNamara (2000 and 2006). He also draws attention to the Springmount Bog Psalms (wax tablets including portions of Pss. 30–32) dating from about the seventh century CE, which appear to have been used as school exercises for reading and writ- ing the psalms. The significance of just these two psalms is inevitably limited com- pared with the Fadden Psalter. 4 For example McNamara (2000: 357–59); Jeffery (2000), especially the discussion in ‘The Irish Office of the Three Fifites’, pp. 102–108; and Henry (1960: 23–40). 5 See O’Keefe, ‘Rule of Patrick’, p. 223, para. 12, quoted in Jeffery (2000: 105)..
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