Purple and gold psalter
This Treasure is paired with: Bay Psalm Book (All that glitters)
The gold ink on this psalter, made brilliant on parchment dyed with the murex shell, is worthy of a book for an emperor. Charlemagne (742-814) owned several such manuscripts, but this one was made at Rheims and dates from some decades after his death. The beginning of Psalm 26(27) is displayed – Dominus illuminatio mea (‘The Lord is my light’) – from which the University of Oxford takes its motto.
This Treasure isn’t currently on display in the Weston Library.