Northian Psalter
The Northian Psalter is a canon of texts that are used for rituals, instruction, and discussion in the Ponthā religion. Until the collation of the Psalter as an edition around 1350 as the University Psalter (itself redacted by royal license as the Great Psalter of 1517), the Psalter was written down only partially and chiefly retained by memory and recitation.
The Psalter developed around a core group of 124 hymns now known as the Gales, some of which date to the middle of the Bronze Age and are the oldest text of the tradition. Other than the Gales, which as transmitted show very little original structure owing to erosion of their doctrinal meaning, the Psalter is divided into cogent chapters and verses, and it is generally thought that during the 14th century the Psalter had about 1,400 chapters and 20,000 or so verses. It was further truncated down to 800 chapters in the Great Psalter by excising what were deemed meaningless repetitions and doctrinally problematic texts.
The Priesthood was likewise organized around knowledge of the Psalter: an expert in the entire Psalter, both text and practice, had the title of a Plenary Priest, while one of only part of the Psalter was a Practicing Priest. While a Plenary Priest's title was a badge of honour as "priest of every god", it was not considered a rank above a Practicing Priest until the time of the Great Psalter, when the religion was consolidated by royal patronage and every priest was expected to aspire towards the same theology. In this later religious landscape, specialization became a form of defect and the mark of a lesser form (or training stage) of priesthood.