The Alexis Quire in the St Albans Psalter and the monastic community of St Albans

Examining the Alexis Quire as a discrete object produced at the St Albans monastery leads to a clearer understanding of the manuscript and its position within the St Albans Psalter. This study of a single booklet, or libellus, provides a close look at each of the individual components of the manuscript and questions why the various parts were brought together into such an unusual grouping. It examines the circumstances surrounding the production of the quire and the use of the quire before it was bound into the volume known as the St Albans Psalter and it attempts to uncover how the creators and contemporary viewers of the manuscript would have understood this unusual book. Rather than attempting to argue in favor of a single purpose for this manuscript and a single patron, or a single interpretation of its pictures and texts, I instead consider the book as an object intended for a number of viewers. As is often the case in the sphere of visual and literary arts during the medieval period, a number of ideas and meanings can be found in the Alexis Quire and the makers of this manuscript anticipated several different audiences. Contemporary theological developments, the concerns of lay viewers, and sophisticated comments on the role of performative art were brought together throughout the pages of the gathering, allowing it to reach many viewers, and to be understood on a number of levels.