This English manuscript was made in East Anglia in the mid-thirteenth-century. Technically, it is a Psalter-hours, since it contains the Office of the Dead, the Hours of the Virgin, and Collects.
The Carrow psalter features a miniature portraying the martyrdom of St. Thomas Beckett. Interestingly, after Henry VIII found Beckett guilty of treason in 1538, the illumination in the psalter wax covered by an added page glued on top of the original page in an effort to hide Beckett’s image. The manuscript is owned by the Walters Art Museum.
May you and yours have a very merry Christmas and/or holiday of your choice, and a fabulous 2013.
Merry Christmas
