Paris Psalter

The Paris Psalter is an important Old English Psalter, so called from the manuscript in which it survives, that presents the Psalms in two forms: a prose translation of the opening portion followed by a rendering in verse. Its scope is confined to the Psalms, translated from Latin, with the Latin Psalter serving both as its base text and as the predecessor translation on which it rests. In approach it thus pairs prose with verse, and it is classed as a fresh translation and poetic rendering rather than a gloss on an existing version. The traditional attribution of the work to Alfred is uncertain. As one of the earliest sustained efforts to put biblical material into the English vernacular, it belongs to the wider Anglo-Saxon tradition of psalter translation and glossing, in which the Psalms, central to the daily round of monastic prayer, were among the first books rendered for English readers.