Chapter 4 focuses on the dynamics whereby God rejects Saul as king, including the pressures on Saul, the mistakes he makes, the way David emerges on the scene as Saul’s potential replacement, and the relationships and dynamics in the royal family.

The complex interaction of different Christian systems created a series of uncertainties: about how to coordinate different ritual systems (e.g. baptism and the ritual year), about hierarchy (e.g. relation of the chain of command to status hierarchy), about the relation between the clerical elite and the monastic elite, and about the ritual status of heretics.

The coronation of Louis XIII is generally recognized as a turning point in the history of dynastic continuity. Just hours after his father Henri IV was assassinated, Louis was proclaimed king; this chapter describes, therefore, how Louis XIII’s coronation some weeks later was concerned, for the first time, with more than just marking his accession to the throne. Instead, a complex series of ceremonies reinforced the idea that, like David, Louis acted as an agent of the Holy Spirit. At a ceremony the day before the coronation, he received the sacrament of confirmation at Vespers of the Holy Spirit. During the coronation ceremony itself, he was anointed with oil brought down from heaven by the dove of the Holy Spirit and celebrated the Mass of the Holy Spirit. On the following day, he was inducted as a member and Grand Master of the Knights of the Order of the Holy Spirit. The fiery symbolism of the Holy Spirit found a vivid counterpart in the Phoenix, one of the emblems of the order, understood to reflect the perfect continuity between father and son, and a symbol (along with the flames of the Holy Spirit itself) that underpinned both Louis XIII’s and Louis XIV’s appearances as a fire demon or the sun itself.