e-print © IRSA
Herbert R. Broderick FSA
Canterbury Redivivus:
MS Junius 11 and
the Utrecht Psalter
Unlike that opulent and better-known example of late Anglo-
Saxon manuscript illumination, the tenth-century Benedictional
of St. Aethelwold (London, British Library Additional MS 49598)
1
,
the forty-eight modest sepia ink outline drawings accompany-
ing the four poems
2
in Old English to be found in MS Junius 11
(Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Junius 11)
3
of c. 1000, or shortly
before
4
, are not well known, even though the manuscript itself is
without doubt one of the most studied and written about works
of Anglo-Saxon art and literary culture.
5
It has been largely as
a monument of the Anglo-Saxon poetic tradition that the manu-
script has garnered the most attention, despite the fact that it is
the only one of the four major Anglo-Saxon poetic manuscripts
to be illustrated.
6
Familiarity with Junius 11 itself has been greatly enhanced
by the Bodleian Library’s exemplary digital online presentation
of the manuscript
7
, where, with the simple click of a mouse, one
can peruse the entire work, enlarge individual details, and, most
importantly, come away with an understanding that the manu-
script as a whole remains unfinished with many spaces awaiting
illustrations. This reality of numerous empty spaces leads to the
observation that the text was clearly written out first with spaces
to be filled in at a later point with accompanying drawings based
either on some kind of fully illustrated model or, alternatively,
based on other illustrated biblical manuscripts as the poems in
Junius 11 are not a Bible. These empty spaces are often oddly
no. 88
2023