To Behold the Beauty of the Lord

‘To Behold the Beauty of the Lord’ Commentary by Frederica Law Turner Cite Share Show Bible Passage Christ reaches out to touch the face of a young man in the initial for Psalm 26 (27 in modern translations) in this highly decorated Gothic psalter. In French Psalters, this psalm is usually illustrated with King David pointing to his eyes, reflecting the opening words of the psalm, ‘Dominus illuminatio mea’ (‘The Lord is my light’). However, psalters made in the Mosan region of the southern Netherlands—like this one—expanded their response to the words of the psalm with a typological image of Christ healing the blind man, as told in Luke 18:35–43. Here, the man has clearly just been healed: his eyes are open and he is striding forwards towards Christ, his blind man’s staff held across his body. This is a tiny book designed to be held in the hand. Although it has lost its calendar, its litany contains saints who were venerated in Tournai, and its style suggests that it was written and illuminated in Liege (now in Belgium) around the turn of the fourteenth century. In spite of its small size, every folio teems with life. Each of the main liturgical divisions has a large historiated initial, many illustrating episodes from the Life of Christ. Saints stand beside the initials, while the borders are inhabited by a typical Gothic panoply of birds, beasts, and monsters: knights fight dragons or joust, hounds hunt hares and boars, men battle with swords and shields or play musical instruments. Two female saints watch from beside the Psalm 26 initial. The one above holds a martyr’s palm, but is otherwise anonymous. The one below holds a tower, the attribute of St Barbara of Nicomedia. According to legend, she was locked in a tower by her father to preserve her from the outside world. Nevertheless, she converted to Christianity, and had three windows installed in her bath house, to symbolize the Trinity. When her father discovered this, she was taken before the prefect of the province and tortured. However, her wounds miraculously healed each night. Eventually, she was beheaded by her own father. He was struck by lightning on his journey home—as a consequence Barbara became patron saint of armourers and engineers. Thus, Barbara embodies something of the Psalmist’s own sense of being shielded by God.