Mirror in parchment - Michael Camille

The British Library's Luttrell Psalter is probably the best-known of all English illuminated manuscripts. Even before it was bought for the nation in 1929, social historians were using it to illustrate early-14th-century agrarian life in the Midlands. This book presents a detailed analysis and critique of the use of these illuminations as records of historical experience, and an examination of the relationship between them and the construction of time past.;The Luttrell Psalter was made in order to consolidate the social position of Sir Geoffrey Luttrell as Lord of Irnham at a time when his family was shaken by a scandalous charge of incest. By drawing on research on the village of Irnham as well as on Sir Geoffrey's manor itself - his tomb, his will and the urban illuminators he employed - the author seeks to show that, rather than serving as a perfect mirror in miniature of a feudal society, the Luttrell Psalter flaunts the cracks and contradictions in the social system of the time, and ultimately heralds that system's demise.