In this Psalm, David prays that God will defend him against his enemies. Does nothing change? God is still expected to take sides.

While this is a very conventional Caroline minuscule script, there are one or two little mannerisms that seem to almost derive from calligraphic tricks used in Continental diplomas. In this section the N in the word IN is written in a horizontally elongated majuscule form, for no apparent reason. Note the use of punctuation marks. A simple dot performs the function of a comma while each section ends with a mark that resembles a semicolon, although its function is different. There are also occasional accent marks over letters.

The heading is written in rustic capitals with a very neat and elegant green decoration capital E. The letter, ligature or abbreviation ae appears at the end of the first paragraph in the word meae and at the end of the second paragraph in aequitatem. This does not appear on the abbreviations page as when I did that I didn't have a photograph of that particular section of text.

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The Harley Psalter, 11th century (British Library, Harley 603). All images by permission of the British Library. These images have been made available by the British Library through a Creative Commons licence.

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Medieval Writing
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