ABSTRACT
A group of manuscripts produced in northern France in the second half of the eighth and beginning of the ninth century has long been recognised as containing elements of script and decoration which draw on a diversity of Byzantine, Merovingian and insular sources, the latter influence deriving from Irish missionary activity in the area from the sixth century onwards. The Corbie Psalter (Amiens, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 18),' produced around the year 800, is an important member of the group, along with the Gellone Sacramentary (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale MS lat. 12048); Poitiers, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 17; the Stuttgart Psalter (Stuttgart, WLB: Bibl. fol. 23); a decorated text of St Augustine (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS lat. 12168) which Porcher considered was made in imitation of the style of an insular gospel book; and Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS lat. 13159, many of the initials of which were, in E. A. Lowe's words, 'manifestly copied from insular originals'.2 It is not clear whether the Corbie Psalter was produced at Corbie itself or at a neighbouring house.3 The monastery of Corbie was founded in the middle of the seventh century with monks from Luxeuil, one of St Columbanus's first foundations in Europe after he left Bangor, county Down. Corbie remained, Ganz has commented, 'an important stopping point for travellers to and from the British Isles, as the lives of the Irish saints confirm' ,4 while other Irish contacts with northern France were centred on the nearby monasteries of Péronne, founded by St Fursa in the seventh century, and St Riquier (Centula).5
