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 PSAUME

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PSAUME

took this revision in 383 at the request of Pope Damasus, and the text thus corrected was retained in use at Rome for many centuries afterwards. In 392, however, when at Bethlehem, the saint set about the same task much more seriously with the aid of the Hexapla. He produced what was almost a new version, and this being circulated in Gaul, through a copy sent to Tours in the sixth century, became com- mordy known as the "Psalterium Gallicanum", and in the end entirely supplanted the Roman. A pre- cious manuscript at the Vatican (Regin. 11), of the sixth or seventh century, contains the "Psalterium Gallicanum" upon the left-hand page, and a version made from the Hebrew upon each page facing it.

Initial Letter from the Psalter of St. Louis of France Biblioth^que Nationale. Paris

The Psalter proper is here followed, as nearly always in these liturgical books, by the principal canticles, e. g. the Canticle of the Three Cliildren, the Canticle of Closes etc. and, what is not so general a feature, though sometimes found, by a collection of hymns or Hymnarium. These last were more commonly written in a book apart. The oldest Psalter of the British Museum, which comes from St. Augustine's, Canterbury, and which was long supposed to have been one of the actual books brought by St. Augus- tine to England, also contained the Canticles with two or three hymns.

In other similar books we find the Gloria, Credo, Quicunque vult, and the Litany of the Saints; at the beginning usually stands a calendar. Manj' of the more ancient psalteria which sur\'ive, as for ex- ample the "Psalterium Aureum", of St. Gall and the "Utrecht Psalter", both of them probably of the ninth centurj-, are very richly illuminated or illus- trated — a fact which has probably had much to do with their preservation. A certain tradition tended to estabUsh itself at an early date with regard to the subjects and position of these embellishments. In particular the custom spread widely of dividing the whole Psalter into three parts containing fifty psalms each. Hence the first psalm, the fifty-first psalm, and the hundred and first psalm are usually intro- duced by a full-page miniature or by a richly-illumi- nated initial letter. Thus also in penitential codes and monastic documents of both England and Ireland during the early Middle Ages, it is common to find allusions to the recitation of "two fifties" or "three fifties", moaning two or three of the divisions of the Psalter. With regard to the Divine Office the recita- tion of the Psalms was in primitive times so arranged that the whole Psalter was gone through in the course of the Sunday and ferial Office each week. In many

psalteria marginal notes indicated which psalms be- longed to each day and hour. Less commonly the psalms were not arranged in their numerical order, but, ;is in a modern Bre\ iary, according to the order of their occurrence in the ferial Office. Both these classes of books were called psalteria feriala. In medieval cathedral chapters it was common to assign two or three psalms to each prebend for daily recita- tion, the psalms being so distributed that the iDishop and canons got through the whole Psalterium be- tween them. The repetition of the entire Psalter was, as many necrologies and monastic custumals show, a favourite form of suiTrage for the dead.

Bramb.^ch, Psalterium, Bibliograpbischer Ver^uch iiber die liturgischen Bucher des christ. Abeiitilander (Berlin. 1887); R.1HN-, Dos ■■ Psalterium Aureum" von Sand Gatlen (St. Gall, 187S): Wordsworth and Littlehales. The Old Service Booka of the English Church (London. 1905); Swainsos in Diet. Christ. Antiq.. s. v. Psalter; Beissel in Stimmen aus Maria-Loach i.Iulv, 1909). 28-41; Gasquet and Bishop, The Bosworth PsaUer (London. 1908): Birch. The Ulreeht Psalter (London, 1S76); Hardy, Utrecht Psalter Reports (London, 1872-74).

Herbert Thurston.

Psaume (also Psaulme, Preaume, Lat. Psalm^eus), XiCHMLAs, Btshop of Verdun, b. at Chaumont-sur- Aire in l.jlS; d. 10 August, 1575. Ha\'ing studied classics at the Norbertine Abbey of St. Paul at Verdun, of which his uncle Frangois Psaume was com- mendatory abbot, he completed a higher course of studies at the Universities of Paris, Orleans, and Poitiers; and then entered the Norbertine Abbey of St. Paul at Verdun. Ordained priest in 1540, he was sent to the University of Paris, where, after a brilUant defence of numerous theses, he w'on his doctorate of theology. But for the intrigues of Francois, Cardinal of Pisa, Psaume, who had already been made Abbot of St. Paul, \'erdun, would have been elected Abbot General of Prcmonfre, for his nomination had already been confirmed by Francis I, Iving of France. In 1546 he was chosen to rep- resent the Norbertine Order at the Council of Trent, but the Cardinal of Lorraine retained him and, with the pope's consent, resigned the Bishopric of Verdun in favour of Psaume, who was consecrated bishop, 26 August, 1548- In the following year he attended the Provincial Council of Trier, and in the same year he published its canons and decrees in his own dio- cese. He was also present at the General Council of Trent from May, 1.551, until its prorogation on 28 April, 1552, distinguishing himself by his eloquence and learning and by his zeal in defence of the doc- trine and the prerogatives of the Church. He was active in condemning certain abuses, especially those of the commenda (see Commendatory Abbot). On 2 January, 1552, he was charged by the papal legate with the editing of the canons of the council. In 1562 he returned to Trent, where the sessions of the council had been resumed. On both occasions Psaume kept a diary of all that passed at the various sessions; it was printed at Paris (1564-80), at Reims and at Verdun in the same year. Hugo, the annalist of the order, also edited it in two parts, but much was left out in the second part. Hugo's "Collectio" was edited by Le Plat in the fifth volume of his "Monumenta Cone. Tridentin." The parts omitted are supplied by Dollinger, "Ungedruckte Berichte u. Tagebiicher z. Geschichte d. Konzils v. Trient", II (Nordlingen, 1876), p. 172. Psaume was also requested by the Archbishops of Reims and Trier to co-ordinate French ecclesiastical legislation and make it agree with the canons and decrees of the Council of Trent. He wrote much in defence of the Catholic doctrine against the Calvinistic and Lu- theran heresies. To pro\nde a sound education for youth he gave financial assistance to the Jesuits in founding a college at Verdun. He is buried near the altar of the Blessed Sacrament in the cathedral of Verdun.