St. Albans Psalter - history of manuscripts used to translate the Psalms

The St Albans Psalter is a unique individual volume containing the psalms, bound together with some other material. Strictly speaking "psalter" means a copy of the psalms, but is often used to refer to books containing the psalms and other things, in the same way as a "bible" may contain the bible and other material e.g. maps.

The St Albans Psalter was not a new Latin translation of the psalms. The Latin text of the psalms is simply the standard text used in most of Western Europe, though not Rome,at the time. This is known as the Gallican text.

Jochen Bepler, Peter Kidd and Jane Geddes have published avery informative paper called The Albani Psalter. It includes the following explanation of the origins of the Gallican text.

From the fifth century three versions of the Psalms predominated. The version that is now known as the ‘Romanum’ was traditionally thought to be the work of St Jerome, but this is now doubted. He was certainly responsible for three versions of the Psalms, but the first only survives as snippets quoted in other works. After this he produced what is now known as the ‘Gallicanum’ version, which he based on Greek texts (which had them-selves been derived from Hebrew). And finally he produced a translation based directly on Hebrew manuscripts, the ‘Hebraicum’ version. The Romanum version of the Psalms was widely used in Europe until the ninthcentury, and continued in use in Italy until the sixteenth century; it is still used in thebasilicas of the Vatican and San Marco, Venice. It was also used in English churches until the late tenth or early eleventh century. The Gallicanum version of the Psalms became especially popular in Gaul (hence the name), and was adopted for liturgical use, superseding the Romanum version in most places from the ninth century onwards. This is the version that appears in the ‘Vulgate’ version of the whole Bible, found in mostmanuscript and printed Latin Bibles from the thirteenth to the twentieth century. The Hebraicum version of the Psalms never found very wide favour, because it was too different from the versions which were already very well known and well established, butit is occasionally found in manuscripts with double or triple versions laid out in parallel columns alongside one or both of the other versions for comparative purposes

Jerome translated what became known as the Gallican from the Greek Septuagint, which in turn was a translation from the Hebrew into Greek.

The scribes who produced the Albani psalms merely copied from other copies. There was no thought of producing a new translation.

I am not aware of the St Alban's psalter, the physical book, per se, being translated into English and still being used today. Miles Coverdale made a translation from the Latin Gallican text into English in the 1530s. In doing this he simply translated from Latin to English. Coverdale's translation can therefore be considered a translation from the text used in the St Alban's Psalter.

Coverdale's psalms were included in the first Book of Common Prayer, in 1549. The 1662 edition replaced all Scripture quotations with those in the King James Bible, with the exception of the psalms. It had been intended to replace the psalms too, but this was objected to because people knew the Coverdale versions, particularly important for congregational singing in an age of linmited literacy. Coverdale's are generally also thought more rhythmical.

Even today the psalms in the Book of Common Prayer are still Coverdale's, and are still used in the Church of England, most commonly at Evensong, though modern versions are authorised as an alternative.

There is no doubt that the KJV, produced by a team of scholars translating from the Hebrew, is much more accurate than the BCP translated by one man from a Latin translation of a Greek translation of the Hebrew.

In the days before football rivalry the English could boast that they chanted the exact words of the psalms whereas the Scots, by using metrical adaptations, were less Bibllical. The Scots on the other hand pointed out that their metrical versions were based on a much more acccurate translation.