What is this?
The Morgan Bible is a medieval picture Bible that contains over 380 scenes from the Old Testament. The illuminated manuscript brings alive the biblical stories in a thirteenth-century French setting. Most of its stories are dedicated to kings or heroes, especially King David. Forty percent of the pages in this manuscript are dedicated to David, who was a king of the Israelites and who established Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. This page, folio13r, relates events from the Book of Judges. The protagonist in these events is Gideon; a historically timid yet praised judge who ruled over Israel. This page of the Morgan Picture Bible illustrates both triumph and defeat in battle in order to demonstrate the importance of religion in the Crusades.
In the upper left, Gideon and his companions arrive at the altar of Baal, a pagan god, and begin to shatter the altar as instructed by God. In the upper right, Gideon is guided by an angel to assemble an army with the golden trumpet.
In the lower half of the manuscript, Gideon relies only on three hundred men to defeat the Midianite army as they cry aloud: “the Sword of the Lord and Gideon.”
The thematic connection between the battles of the Old Testament and the Crusades in thirteenth-century France suggest that the people of France who viewed this manuscript used these biblical events to think about current events.