MINIATURIST, English
(active 12th century)

Meditations of St Anselm

12th century
Manuscript (Ms. Auct. D.2.6)
Bodleian Library, Oxford

The Meditations of St Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury (died 1109), became one of the great medieval texts of spiritual comfort. This twelfth-century copy was made for a monastery dedicated to St Peter. The miniature here (a detail of folio 169r) shows Christ giving the keys of Heaven to St Peter, who then, in turn, receives the souls of the faithful into Heaven.