Wedding at Cana and Expulsion of the Moneychangers, in a Psalter
Medium: Ink and pigments on vellum
Used as a prayerbook as well as a book of hymns for church services, the psalter in the later middle ages was often produced with a calendar and additional prayers. Eventually it was combined with an abridged version of the breviary, the prayerbook used by monks, to form the special lay prayerbook, the book of hours. This psalter represents an important stage in this development as it took place in England. It is one of the earliest psalters to include the Hours of the Virgin, a special set of devotions taken from the breviary. Also it is the earliest of a line of richly decorated psalters which were probably made at Oxford, in the workshops by lay scribes and artists, an industry which grew out of book production for the university. The book originally began with a series of scenes, two to a page, within an elaborate border. These would have been devotional aids to the book's reader, helping them to contemplate the life of Christ. The main events of the gospels are depicted chronologically.
Here Jesus' first miracle, the transformation of water into wine at the wedding at Cana, is paired with his expulsion of the moneychangers from the Temple in Jerusalem. The painting technique and extensive use of gold and silver create a splendour. Silver is used for the knife on the table of the wedding feast and for the coins in the expulsion scene.