Bute Psalter
The Bute Psalter is a illuminated manuscript prayer book of psalms made around 1285, probably in England, for private devotional use. Its pages show Latin text in black columns with large historiated initials and flourishing in blue, red and gold, with figures in robes set inside framed letters and tendrils of foliage and grotesque creatures running down the margins. A designer could take from these the interplay of bold initial letterforms, rhythmic bracketed borders and compact framed figures set beside dense text blocks.
