In a literal response to the opening words of the text, ‘Dominus illuminatio mea…’ (‘The Lord is my light…’), a tonsured cleric holds a lighted candle in his left hand in the top half of the D initial for Psalm 26 (Psalm 27 in modern translations) in the Cuerden Psalter. He extends his right hand towards a naked king—presumably David—standing in water. In the lower half of the initial, an angel holds a lighted candle, and defends a king—this time fully clothed—against a group of men armed with swords and axes. These represent the wicked who draw near in verse 2. Comic grotesques perch on the extensions of the initials: a grey stork pecks at the rear end of a blue biped with a human head, watched by a small white dog; another biped with a grey hood seems on the verge of falling off the edge of the border.

The Psalter from which this initial comes was made in England, probably in Oxford, in the 1260s or 70s. It is exceptionally richly decorated, with a preface of full-page miniatures and historiated initials for each psalm, as well as at the main liturgical division. We do not know for whom the manuscript was made: its name comes from Cuerden Hall, Lancashire, where it was in the early twentieth century. It was presumably commissioned by or for the unidentified layman and woman who kneel before the Virgin and Child in a miniature facing Psalm 1. The name of St Augustine is in gold in the calendar, suggesting an Augustinian connection, perhaps with the very wealthy Augustinian abbey of Oseney in Oxford, which was dedicated to the Virgin.  

In the Middle Ages, the daily recitation of the psalms was seen as the primary weapon in the bellum spirituale—the spiritual battle against evil—of monks and nuns, and as a defence against temptation for the laity who imitated monastic practices. Many of the psalms—including this one—have a distinctly martial tone, calling on God to protect the faithful or praising him for doing so. The initials for the ordinary psalms in this manuscript include images of armed conflict, as a reminder to the reader of the need to fight the good fight through reciting the psalms.