St. Albans Psalter

St Albans Psalter, around 1120 to 1145, Dombibliothek, Hildesheim. Written at St Albans Abbey in England and closely tied to Christina of Markyate, an anchoress who became a prioress, it opens with 40 full-page miniatures and gives every psalm its own illuminated initial. This is the great S of Psalm 136 in the Latin numbering, "Super flumina Babylonis," by the rivers of Babylon. Inside the curves of the letter the exiled Israelites sit by the water in tiers, their harps hung up in the trees above them, while the S itself snakes down the page beside the text.