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Image 393 Perhaps the earliest of the manuscripts made for the Bohun family, probably for Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford from 1336. The decoration of folios 7-50v is still in the East Anglian tradition of the St Omer Psalter, perhaps 1340-61. But from folio 51 onwards (including the present image) the illumination is different, probably dating from the last quarter of the 14th century when the manuscript belonged to the bibliophile youngest son of Edward III, Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, who married Eleanor de Bohun in 1373. In its illumination this manuscript follows the customary formula for English Gothic psalters, with large historiated initials marking the main psalm divisions, albeit on some unusual subjects. Here, the scene representing psalm 97 is the happy aftermath of the Israelites crossing of the Red Sea. To the right, in the initial, Moses, identifiable by his horns, points with a rod to the red waters of the Red Sea, in which the bodies of the drowned Egyptians can be seen. To the left is a group of men fashionably dressed in late 14th-century costume and sporting golden gaiters. Behind them are the women of Israel, similarly dressed in contemporary fashion, and led by Miriam playing a timbrel (Exodus 15:20). In the border roundels are figures playing musical instruments in praise of the Lord (Psalm 97 [AV 98]: 5,6). The roundels and borders with their spiky leaves and spirited grotesques look very much to the East Anglian tradition of the first half of the 14th century: a man with animal hindquarters wields a sword against a large snail across the top of the page. The illuminator of the initial meanwhile experiments with spatial depth by perching the groups of Israelites on different levels of rocky ground. Marks and Morgan 1981, pp.84-5

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