The Luttrell Psalter Film

The Luttrell Psalter Film is a short film based on the famous images of medieval village life from the 14th c. Luttrell Psalter. The Psalter was made for Sir Geoffrey Luttrell of Irnham in Lincolnshire and the film was made to be shown at The Collection, Lincoln’s museum.
It is now also available on DVD.

A series of detailed images in the Psalter portray the significant events of the medieval agricultural year, from sowing to harvesting, including the odd domestic incident on the way, and these formed the basis for our short film. Our aim was to do on film what the original artist achieved on vellum through a keen observation of people and nature, an infinite attention to detail and a sense of humour!

We wanted to recreate the richness of the mediaeval landscape, including the wild flowers, insects, animals and birds, which would have been so abundant then, and were significant enough in the lives of people of the time to be recorded in detail in the Psalter.

The film includes a wealth of wildlife filming, which has mainly been done on Lincolnshire nature reserves, but where necessary further afield. For example, Nick Loven, director, (above) had to travel to the rorth west to film red squirrels (below).  We wanted to illustrate how deeply and intimately people's lives were connected to the landscape and the seasons.