| In a composite French manuscript from the second half of the thirteenth century containing the Rule of St Benedict and Bernard's 'On Precept and Dispensation' there is a diminutive historiated initial D(omino abbati Columbensi) at the opening of the Preface of Bernard's treatise. Bernard is sitting at a desk on which is an open book in which he is writing with a pen in his right hand and a knife in his left. Close to his face is the beak of a white bird as if feeding him with the words he is writing down. In the iconography of the saints the dove was the attribute of the Evangelists and the Doctors of the Church into whose ear the Paraclete was speaking, Bernard being thus represented as a new Evangelist. The source may also be sought in William of St Thierry's description in the Vita Prima of Bernard's charisms which included those of wisdom and knowledge, which William drew from St Paul's famous reference to the gifts of the Spirit (VP 1, 8:42; PL185:252, referring to 1 Corinthians 12).
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