description Stuttgart Psalter Overview
The Stuttgart Psalter is an extensively illustrated Carolingian manuscript of the Book of Psalms, produced in the early ninth century and preserved at the Württemberg State Library in Stuttgart. Its numerous illustrations accompany individual psalm passages with biblical, liturgical, military, agricultural, and everyday imagery. The manuscript is valuable both as a Christian devotional book and as visual evidence for clothing, tools, weapons, architecture, and social life in the Carolingian world.
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How extensively is the Stuttgart Psalter illustrated?
The manuscript contains more than 300 illustrations distributed alongside the psalm text. Rather than reserving pictures for a few opening pages, its artists repeatedly visualize phrases, metaphors, and events from individual psalms.
Why do historians use its pictures to study Carolingian daily life?
Its scenes show clothing, weapons, tools, musical instruments, farming, buildings, and ritual practices. These images were created to interpret biblical passages, so they are useful evidence but not neutral documentary snapshots.
Where and when was the Stuttgart Psalter produced?
It was made in the Carolingian world during the early 9th century, often associated with the monastery of Saint-Germain-des-Prés near Paris. The precise workshop attribution remains a scholarly reconstruction rather than a signed statement by its makers.
Where is the Stuttgart Psalter kept?
It is preserved at the Württembergische Landesbibliothek in Stuttgart under the shelf mark Cod. bibl. fol. 23. Its unusually dense visual program makes it one of the most frequently studied Carolingian psalters.
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