The tumultuous world of ancient Israel collides with that of medieval Europe in a lavish 13th-century picture book now housed in the Pierpont Morgan Library, in New York, and used to illustrate the preceding article in this issue (see “David’s Threat to Nabal”). The conflicts of Abraham, Joshua and David are translated into furious cavalry charges reminiscent of 13th-century warfare: The Israelites wear chain mail armor, don great helms and bloody the flanks of their horses with pricked spurs. King David (photo below, top left scene) sits enthroned on the coronation chair of the French monarchy, an elaborate folding stool that still belongs to the royal abbey of St. Denis, outside of Paris. His fleur-de-lis scepter and ornate crown are the effects of a medieval ruler rather than a king of ancient Israel. Delicate Gothic architectural canopies frame more than 340 Old Testament scenes—from the Creation to the death of Sheba—illustrated on 46 parchment leaves.
The history of this picture book is as intriguing as its dazzling imagery. Dated on stylistic grounds to between 1240 and 1260, the manuscript is probably the product of a Paris workshop. The unsurpassed quality of the illumination, as well as the great expense incurred in terms of gold leaf and labor (seven illuminators are believed to have worked on the book), point to a grand patron: Louis IX, the French Crusader king who ruled from 1226 to 1270, is most often credited with commissioning the book.
The original manuscript lacked any accompanying text. It was a picture book, with each folio (manuscript page) decorated with two tiers of images, themselves often subdivided into two scenes, as shown in the folio at right. But today the margins of the folios are filled with three different sets of captions in three different scripts, written in three different eras, which help us trace the manuscript’s later, colorful history. The earliest captions, inscribed in Latin, are a mixture of biblical quotations and descriptive commentary on the pictures. The Latin script is in an Italian style common to Bolognese manuscripts of the early 14th century, suggesting that the manuscript had left the French court sometime after its production. Its whereabouts until the 17th century remain unknown: A colophon added to the first folio of the manuscript records that a Polish cardinal, Bernard Maciejowski, presented the manuscript to Shah Abbas the Great of Persia (ruled 1597–1628) as a diplomatic gift in 1608. A new set of inscriptions was soon added in Persian. They were probably dictated to a scribe of the Shah’s court by a Christian informer, who roughly summarized the Latin inscriptions and miniatures. In the 18th century, the book passed into the hands of a Persian Jew who added a third set of inscriptions, loosely based on the Persian text but written in a Judeo-Persian script-vernacular Persian written in Hebrew characters. (On the folio below, the Latin script appears above and below the image, the Persian script appears immediately to the left of the scenes, and the Judeo-Persian script is at far left.) The manuscript then passed through the hands of various collectors, lastly John Pierpont Morgan, who brought it to New York.
Many of the picture book’s themes, especially those concerning the military responsibilities of a king, accord well with the personal ideology of King Louis, who believed he had been selected by God to rule France. The responsibilities and virtues of divinely appointed monarchs are recurrent themes in the courtly art and literature of the period, and King David—commonly hailed as author of the Psalms as well as a warrior—provided the model par excellence for pious kingship and military prowess. David’s story is the subject of more than half of the manuscript.
First Samuel 24–26—recounting David’s encounter with Saul in the cave at Ein Gedi, Nabal’s death and then David’s meeting with Saul at Gibeah—is rarely illustrated in art. The inclusion of these colorful episodes might suggest that they carried special weight with the book’s original audience.
A medieval ruler would have read 1 Samuel 24–26 in a manner similar to that outlined by Peter J. Leithart in the preceding article: The Nabal story functioned as a prescription for restraint, urging the viewer to trust in divine justice when dealing with foolish adversaries.
Of the seven illuminators believed to have collaborated on the picture book, the most skillful plied his trade on 1 Samuel 24–26. 025Whoever the painter was, he was a master of his medium. His compositions frequently burst forth from their miniature Gothic framework, thus signaling events of great importance. On folio 33, depicting 1 Samuel 24, in which David steals a piece of Saul’s mantle while the king is relieving himself in a cave (see photo of illumination depicting King Saul caught with his pants down, in the previous article “David’s Threat to Nabal”), the landscape of Ein Gedi stretches uninterrupted across the entire lower register, indicating that the sequence of events takes place in a single environment. The painter shows remarkable sensitivity to natural phenomena: Saul holds his mantle to his face to avoid the stench.
The reverse of the same folio (see photos of illuminations depicting Nabal’s wife and the death of Nabal, in the previous article “David’s Threat to Nabal”) depicts David’s encounter with the inhospitable Nabal. Abigail is as important a protagonist in this sequence as her future husband, David. The Latin inscription accompanying the miniature states that Abigail “calmed [David’s] anger with incredible humanity and gentle words.” It’s not hard to imagine a medieval woman of high estate poring over the Nabal narrative, contemplating how the biblical noblewoman’s quick thinking averted disaster and resulted in an alliance with a more powerful lord.
David’s conflict with Saul resumes on folio 34 (see photo of illumination depicting Saul at Gibeah, in the previous article “David’s Threat to Nabal”), with David stealing Saul’s cup and spear (1 Samuel 26).
The illuminator perceived many thematic parallels between the events of 1 Samuel 24 and 26; the miniatures of the Ein Gedi and Gibeah events are thus essentially reflections of one another. In both, David bends down on one knee as he dupes Saul and afterward hails the king from a superior position. The illuminator has even introduced some parallels absent from the Bible. In 1 Samuel, David takes Saul’s spear only at Gibeah. David’s commander Abishai begs of David the opportunity “to strike [Saul] at once with the spear, right to the earth” (1 Samuel 26:8). When David refuses Abishai’s wish, the weapon is transformed into a symbol of restraint. But the manuscript illuminator has prematurely armed David with the spear at Ein Gedi, to enhance the thematic parallel to the Gibeah adventure.
What the illuminator omitted from his interpretation of 1 Samuel 24–26 is as telling as what is shown. By illustrating some parts of the biblical text and discarding others, the painter could construct uninterrupted sequences of stories with similar themes. For instance, the death of Samuel (1 Samuel 25:1), which should follow the Ein Gedi incident and immediately precede the Nabal story, is not illustrated, enabling the illustrator to emphasize his overarching theme in this part of the manuscript, namely the merits of forbearance and the good consequences of such conduct.
The message of 1 Samuel 24–26 as represented here encourages us to identify the manuscript as a ruler’s code of conduct, but in truth we don’t know exactly how the manuscript was first used. Size is an important clue: Originally each folio measured roughly 17 by 12 inches, a large format that evoked the authority of the era’s most sumptuous text Bibles, such as those displayed on the lecterns of wealthy monasteries. Yet this book is not a Bible in the strictest sense. It lacks text. Could images alone “teach” biblical history or doctrine in a manner similar to scripture? To be sure, the size of the picture book suggests an attempt to co-opt the authority of its textual counterparts, and if its imagery is any indication, its painters could be considered “interpreters” or “teachers” of biblical history. Yet the illuminators of this manuscript probably did not think of their work in such terms; rather, they were more concerned with telling a good story in pictures.
Certainly the book was most appreciated as a visual spectacle. The fervor and sincerity with which the illuminators captured their surroundings reflects an awakening interest in the physical world and a newfound appreciation of nature. For instance, the unusual miniature of the cave at Ein Gedi is a remarkable attempt to evoke simultaneously the realities of sight, smell and sound in a single image. Most impressive and bewildering, however, are the scenes of violence and gratuitous gore found throughout the manuscript. The illuminators culled the biblical text for any opportunity to depict human destruction, resulting in rare illustrations of the dismemberment of the Levite’s wife (Judges 19:29), Samuel hacking Agag to pieces (1 Samuel 15:31–32) and a comprehensive account of the fate of Saul’s body (1 Samuel 31:10–13). Scholars have traditionally explained the violence as stemming from the historical milieu of the Crusades; but they are equally well understood as new and macabre experiments by master storytellers attuned to the visceral sensibilities of their audience.
No doubt the picture book’s recurrent scenes of mounted knights engaged in bloody combat and the emphasis on courtly intrigue, betrayals and illicit liaisons engaged audiences in a manner similar to the courtly poetry and romances enjoyed by kings, queens and nobles. This is no coincidence: In 13th-century France the boundaries between sacred and profane literature were especially permeable. In this same period, the first translations of the Bible into vernacular French, the language of the court, were making sacred history available to a larger audience. The story of David was being told in the eloquent terms of courtly discourse. In word and image, the Old Testament ruler had joined the ranks of Arthur, Lancelot and Roland.
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On Exhibit
From October 27 to December 29, 2002, unbound leaves of the Pierpont Morgan Old Testament picture book will be on display at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. The exhibition, co-curated by William Noel of the Walters and Daniel Weiss of Johns Hopkins University, will surround the manuscript with objects and artifacts of the period, including a chain mail tunic (below) and a war hat (above) similar to those worn by David’s men in the picture book.
Contact: The Walters Art Museum 600 North Charles Street; Baltimore, MD (410) 547–9000; www.thewalters.org
The tumultuous world of ancient Israel collides with that of medieval Europe in a lavish 13th-century picture book now housed in the Pierpont Morgan Library, in New York, and used to illustrate the preceding article in this issue (see “David’s Threat to Nabal”). The conflicts of Abraham, Joshua and David are translated into furious cavalry charges reminiscent of 13th-century warfare: The Israelites wear chain mail armor, don great helms and bloody the flanks of their horses with pricked spurs. King David (photo below, top left scene) sits enthroned on the coronation chair of the French monarchy, an elaborate folding […]
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