Oxford Serbian Psalter

The Oxford Serbian Psalter is a manuscript psalter written on parchment in the late 14th century in Church Slavonic of the Serbian recension. It is well preserved, missing only one leaf, which contained Psalm 118:108–21,[1] and now it has 219 leaves.[2] Practically devoid of illuminations, it is written "in a hand which is clear and careful but not elegant".[1]

Not to be confused with Oxford Psalter.
Oxford Serbian Psalter
Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS e Mus. 184
TypePsalter
DateLate 14th century
Language(s)Church Slavonic of the Serbian recension
MaterialParchment
Size219 leaves
ScriptCyrillic
Illumination(s)none

The Oxford Serbian Psalter is a representative of the revised version of the Church Slavonic psalter text which came into use in the early 14th century.[1] Compared with the previous psalter texts, this version is a closer translation of the Greek original into Church Slavonic.[3] The text of the manuscript was corrected in a number of places, and some of the erased words are still partly legible. They have been shown to be readings of the older version. There are also five such readings which were left uncorrected. The scribe who wrote the manuscript also made the corrections. Some readings coincide with those of the Russian redaction of the psalter text.[1]

The Bodleian Library in Oxford received the Serbian psalter in 1688 from Thomas Smith, Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. It is unknown when and where Smith acquired the manuscript. He was an Anglican clergyman and one of the Non-Jurors, who sought at the end of the 17th century to unite the Anglican and the Eastern Orthodox Church.[4]

See also

Notes
  1. MacRobert 1994, pp. 111–113
  2. Cleminson 1998, p. 36
  3. MacRobert 1994, p. 118
  4. Cleminson 1998, pp. 28–29

References
  • Cleminson, Ralph M. (1998). "The Serbian Manuscript Heritage in the British Isles". Zbornik Matice srpske za književnost i jezik. Novi Sad: Matica srpska. 46 (1–3). ISSN 0543-1220.
  • MacRobert, Catherine Mary (1994). "The Textual Tradition of the Oxford Serbian Psalter MS e Mus.184". Polata Knigopisnaia: an Information Bulletin Devoted to the Study of Early Slavic Books, Texts and Literatures. Amsterdam: Slavisch Seminarium, University of Amsterdam. 25–26. ISSN 0165-1862.
  • MS. e Mus. 184 in the Catalogue of Medieval Manuscripts in Oxford Libraries
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