Vespasian Psalter

The Vespasian Psalter Old English Gloss ranks among the earliest substantial surviving English translations of Scripture. Its scope is the Psalms, entered between the lines of an existing Latin Psalter manuscript, so that the Latin text serves both as its base text and as the predecessor translation from which the English was made. The gloss, written in the Mercian dialect of Old English, follows a very literal, word-for-word method, and belongs to the category of interlinear translation or gloss rather than free-standing vernacular Bible. Its distinctive character lies precisely in this dependence: the English words stand above the Latin as an aid to comprehension, not as a substitute for it. Such glossing reflects the central place of the Psalter in monastic prayer and instruction, and the manuscript remains of interest to historians of the English Bible and of the early English language alike.