The request came in from Æsa feilinn Jossursdottir (known as Feilinn), “I want something Humanist for Simona’s Baroness scroll”. My usual go-to Humanist scribe, Bartolomeo Sanvito, has been excellently documented by Albina de la Mare and Laura Nuvoloni[1] and I keep track of those MS which have been digitized. I’ve always wanted to convince someone to try using the Carafa Hours, BAV Vatican Latina 9490[2], as a model, so that was my suggestion. This manuscript, one of a small number of Sanvito’s works in the style, emulates the Carolingian/Ottonian “gold and silver on purple parchment” manuscripts.
Once the model manuscript was chosen, it came time for a text. The model is a Book of Hours, but Simona has a Jewish persona, so something obviously Christian seemed inappropriate. There are, however, a large number of Psalms in an Hours, and since those came from the Hebrew Bible, we chose to use one of those as a source text. My plan was to take the Vulgate (Latin) and Douey-Rheims (translation of the Vulgate) texts, and reassemble them into the scroll, allowing us to reuse the Latin structure and maybe even some of the phrases, while writing an English text. Then we’d translate back into Latin our new pieces and have a nice text and translation for the Herald to read in court.
Psalm 1 was an option, but it would have required a lot of reworking.
Blessed is the man who hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the chair of pestilence.
But his will is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he shall meditate day and night.
And he shall be like a tree which is planted near the running waters, which shall bring forth its fruit, in due season.
And his leaf shall not fall off: and all whatsoever he shall do shall prosper.[3]
Psalm 2 was a much better option:
Why have the Gentiles raged, and the people devised vain things?
The kings of the earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord, and against his Christ[4].
Let us break their bonds asunder: and let us cast away their yoke from us.
He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh at them: and the Lord shall deride them[5].
It already has royal imagery and Simona is a deviser of things, we just needed to invert the negative language and rework divine kingship into the Tyger Throne. Here is the final text we worked out. We even had an extra stanza in case the scribe needed more text to fill the page. Domina Aelia Fortunata did the translation back into Latin, correcting for poetic forms where appropriate. As an inside joke, we kept one couplet unchanged from the original, so we credited Jerome of Stridon as one of the authors of the text.
[1] De la Mare, Albinia Catherine, Laura Nuvoloni, Anthony Hobson, Christopher De Hamel, Ellen Cooper Erdreich, Scott Dickerson, and Bartolomeo Sanvito. Bartolomeo Sanvito : The Life & Work of a Renaissance Scribe. Vol. 2. The Handwriting of the Italian Humanists ; Paris: Association nationale de bibliophilie, 2009.
[2] https://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Vat.lat.9490
[3] http://vulgate.org/ot/psalms_1.htm
[4] The Hebrew here translates to “annointed”, so Christ is an anachronism, but not a complete invention.
[5] http://vulgate.org/ot/psalms_2.htm