Taking Arms Against a Sea of Troubles

Taking Arms Against a Sea of Troubles Commentary by Frederica Law Turner Cite Share Show Bible Passage Psalm 26 (27 in modern numbering) is the first psalm in the group recited at Matins on a Tuesday in the Divine Office. In the large historiated initial D in the Ormesby Psalter—one of the most sumptuous of the East Anglian group of manuscripts—the prophet Samuel pours oil over the head of the kneeling David. Above, God descends from Heaven, carrying a blue shield emblazoned with a gold cross. This is the Anointing of David, as told in 1 Kings 16:1–13. According to the Old Testament, God commanded Samuel to go to Bethlehem, and to anoint one of the sons of Jesse, whom God has chosen to rule Israel in place of King Saul. On God’s instructions Samuel rejected each of Jesse’s sons, until only the youngest, David, was left. A knight in armour watches from the upright of the D initial. He could be the Philistine champion Goliath, whom David defeated shortly after his anointing: biblical figures often wore contemporary dress in medieval art. The coat of arms on the shield and tunic suggests a real individual, however. The arms are those of the Foliots of Gressenhall, major Norfolk landowners (there is silver under the gold on the diagonal ‘bend’). This phase of work on the Psalter was probably commissioned by John de Warenne, earl of Surrey and Sussex, to commemorate a betrothal between his ward, Richard Foliot, and an unknown girl from the Bardolf family—their coats of arms appear on many of the manuscript’s folios, alongside Warenne’s own arms. The words of the psalm, with its cry of encouragement for the beleaguered warrior, must have had a particular resonance for baronial families like the Warennes, Bardolfs, and Foliots, whose status was bound up with their right and duty to bear arms. The young Richard Foliot’s father, also Richard, died campaigning in Scotland, possibly at Bannockburn in 1314, shortly before this Psalter was illuminated for his heir.