The paper discusses the results of a study into almost 2000 corrections found in the Old English gloss to the fi rst 50 Psalms of the Eadwine Psalter, a post-Conquest manuscript produced in mid-twelfth century. It contains the three Latin versions of the Psalter translated by St. Jerome, each accompanied by a gloss: the Gallicanum – Latin, the Romanum – Old English, and the Hebraicum – Anglo-Norman. The exact purpose behind the production of this psalter, its role, as well as the reason for introducing extensive corrections to the Old English gloss remain unknown. By making the corrections the focal point of the study, the present paper builds a case for identifying Thomas Becket (or his associates) as the patron of the Eadwine Psalter, which seems to provide comprehensive answers to some baffl ing questions concerning this manuscript.

The paper presents the results of a study into lexical substitutions found in the Old English gloss to psalms 2-50 in the Eadwine Psalter. The major objectives to determine the possible sources of this manuscript, which clearly go beyond the traditional explanation that originally the gloss was derived from a Vespasian Psalter-type gloss, later revised by the corrector based on a Regius Psalter-type gloss. The analysis shows that the affiliation of the gloss is indeed highly complex for such a resource. Moreover, the paper shows that despite its numerous corrections, the Old English gloss to the Eadwine Psalter is in fact a valuable source of information on the twelfth-century scribal practice of the post-Conquest England.

The paper deals with a little-known translation of the Vulgate Psalter which was published anonymously in 1700 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye by the printer of the exiled court of King James VII of Scotland and II of England. The paper argues in favour of the originality of the translation in the face of the claim expressed in the literature that it represents a revision of an earlier English rendition made from the Vulgate published in 1610 as part of the Douay-Rheims Bible. The adduced data draw from history, life writing studies and linguistics, thereby offering multidisciplinary evidence in favour of the originality of the rendition.

It is the objective of this paper to analyse selected English Renaissance translations of the Book of Psalms in the light of their reception. In particular, I intend to illustrate how a strong preference for a familiar rendition over a new one (regardless of its quality and status) showed itself in the textual composition of the most important book of the Anglican Church – the Book of Common Prayer. Discussion of the Psalm translation selected for the five successive versions of the Book of Common Prayer against the backdrop of the emergence of new renditions of the Psalms leads on to formulating a desideratum for sound methodology which would express the level of similarities between texts in mathematical terms and in this way objectivise assessments of Psalter renditions. The paper offers a preliminary attempt at such methodology by applying the cosine distance method. The obtained results need to be verified on a larger corpus of data, but they are promising enough to consider this method an important step towards assessing Psalm translations.

Dmitriev-Mamonov is primarily known for his story that describes inhabitants of other planets. The story contains some controversial elements including an unflattering image of the clergy, heliocentrism, and the possibility of multiplicity of worlds. He also authored a Chronology and a free translation of part of the Psalter in which he included some of his theological views.

In this contribution, new light is thrown on a detail in the Ugaritic KTU 1.18 IV 20ff. The bird motive will be of crucial importance. The birds are designated as vultures and taken as a bad omen. The explanation can be supported by a rough parallel in the Coptic-Manichaean book of Psalms.