Ornamental illuminated initials at the beginning of the Preface and the letter A
St John’s Coll. MS C.1, f. 1r
Dominicans of St Jacques Paris, Concordantiae Bibliorum
Canterbury?, ca 1320–1330

Image reproduced by kind permission of the Master and Fellows of St John’s College

The St Jacques Dominican concordance formed the basis of most subsequent concordances to the Bible and is one of the most important contributions of the Dominicans to biblical scholarship. The text of the opening page is almost identical to that of the 1474 printed edition to be discussed later. The text opens with a preface explaining the referencing to the biblical passages which are cited by an abbreviation of the name of the book, its chapter and according to section divisions of the chapter indicated by the some or all of the letters a, b, c, d, e, f, g according to the length of the chapter. Thus the first entry for Aaron is Exod iiii c egredietur in occursum with c corresponding to Exodus chapter 4 verse 14 in the numeration of the verses which began in the sixteenth century. In some printed editions as late as the seventeenth century onwards (e.g. Sacrorum Bibliorum vulgatae editionis Concordantiae Hugonis Cardinalis Ordinis Prædicatorum, Lyons 1677) the verse number was added, but the reference to this passage is given as Exod 4 c 14 even though citing the verse number of course renders the c superfluous.