Ornamental illuminated initial at the beginning of letter M
Pembroke Coll. MS 8, f. 223v
Dominicans of St Jacques Paris, Concordantiae Bibliorum
East Anglia, Bury St Edmunds?, ca 1320–1330

Image reproduced by kind permission of the Master and Fellows of Pembroke College

One of the most important scholars teaching at the University of Paris was the Dominican, Hugh of St Cher (ca 1200–1263), whose particular academic interest was in biblical commentary, notably his Postillae in Bibliam which contains commentaries on all the books. He initiated the compilation of a word concordance to the Bible which came to be associated with his name in printed editions from the sixteenth century onwards which revised and expanded the original thirteenth-century text. It is now thought that the work on this concordance was done by a team of friars at the Dominican convent of St Jacques at Paris, probably under the direction of Hugh but not written by him. The preface specifically describes the text as ‘concordantiae sancti Jacobi’ but does not mention his name. Hugh was prior there from 1233 to 1236 before becoming the provincial for France from 1236 to 1244. This manuscript is an English copy of the early fourteenth century from the Benedictine library of Bury St Edmunds. It is illuminated for each letter of the alphabet with ornamental initials containing foliage and grotesques with partial border extensions.