Current Projects

Elizabeth Moore Hunt

(A Prince with the Arms of Ghent on an ass, in the Psalter "of Guy of Dampierre" (Royal Library of Belgium, MS 10607), fol. 110v.)

Digital Photography for The Count's (Im)Pious Prayers: The Psalter of Guy of Dampierre, Count of Flanders, 1278-1305 (KBR MS 10607)

Funded Projects, February 2014

Researcher: Elizabeth Moore Hunt
Department: Art Department

The “Psalter of Guy of Dampierre” (Royal Library of Belgium, MS 10607) is so called because of eleven shields bearing the heraldry of the Count of Flanders, Guy of Dampierre (r. 1278-1305), and over forty blazons attributable to contemporary Flemish nobles. Some of the shields are interspersed among the Flemish proverbs and animal fables pictured in the margins, for which the Dampierre Psalter is especially known. Given the repainted state of some shields, however, doubts have been expressed concerning the Count’s ownership of the psalter. My study compares the uses of heraldry and marginalia in the Dampierre Psalter to manuscripts by the same illuminators to those connected to Guy’s family, allowing for reassessment of the Count’s audience. In considering the body of illuminated manuscripts surrounding the psalter’s production, my study explores a broader framework for reception through the lenses of the Count’s historical moment and his family’s reaching influence.