The Morgan Library & Museum will present Sing a New Song: The Psalms in Medieval Art and Life, the first exhibition of its kind devoted to the importance of the Psalms throughout medieval art, prayer, and everyday life. On view from September 12, 2025, through January 4, 2026, Sing a New Song traces the impact of the Psalms on people in medieval Europe from the sixth to the sixteenth century, encompassing daily practices and performance, as well as the creation and illumination of Psalters (Books of Psalms). Drawing on five years of scholarly research, the exhibition and accompanying publication take the Psalms out of their established place in religious texts and paint a vibrant picture of the people who used them — men, women, and children — both religious and lay. Psalms are some of the most beloved texts in the Abrahamic traditions of the three monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. These sacred poems constitute the longest and most popular book in the Bible. They include expressions of lament and loss, petitions and confessions, as well as exclamations of joy and thanksgiving — universal themes that speak to what it means to be human. Included in this show are the varieties of books that aided in these devotions — Psalters, Breviaries, Missals, and Graduals, among others — some of which were exquisitely illuminated. The exhibition explores how the Psalms were used, both at church and at home; how they were illuminated; how they were performed; and how they appear at both the beginning and the end of life.

In the manuscript traditions of many cultures across Europe, North Africa, and West Asia, more copies of the Book of Psalms survive than any other type of text. The prayer book known as the Book of Hours was based on the Psalms and was a best-seller among laypeople in the fifteenth century. Through translations into Latin and the vernacular, the Psalms permeated the intellectual culture of medieval Europe. Children used Psalters to learn to read, patrons commissioned versions in their native languages, and theologians authored the most influential interpretive writings of the Middle Ages around the Psalms.

More than any other text, the Psalms informed the language of the liturgy, and the Psalter served effectively as the prayer book of the church. Priests, monks, and nuns were required to pray all 150 psalms weekly. Laypeople across Europe, imitating these practices, fueled a demand for Psalters. The exhibition highlights Psalters across varying cultures, including an extremely rare Hebrew Psalter from a Jewish community in Tuscany as well as one of the very first printed Hebrew Bibles. Psalms were also performed or sung by monks, clergy, and laypeople, using books such as Psalters, Breviaries, Antiphonaries, and Books of Hours, which were often commissioned by the wealthy and sumptuously illuminated. Women found new ways to engage with books thanks to the proliferation of texts in everyday languages. Wealthy women were known to commission their own Psalters and Books of Hours for personal use, as seen in the celebrated “Hours of Catherine of Cleves,” commissioned by the Duchess of Guelders in 1440.

The exhibition concludes with a moving example of the use of psalms as solace, seen through the Prayer Book of Sir Thomas More. Heavily annotated by the future saint, who kept it with him while incarcerated in the Tower of London in the months before his execution, the Prayer Book shaped More’s faith, inspired his writings, and offered him comfort. Additional highlights of the exhibition include a Winchester Bible leaf (England, ca. 1160–80) from the Morgan’s collection; Isaac ben Ovadiah’s “Books of Truth” (Psalms, Job, Proverbs); the Scenes from the Life of Saint Augustine of Hippo altarpiece, on loan from the Met Cloisters; and exemplary loans from the New York Public Library, including the “Tickhill Psalter.”

For more information contact Daniela Stigh at (212) 590-0310 or dstigh@themorgan.org.