The English Cistercians recently acquired a manuscript, copied in about 1200, of the first Life of St Bernard. It is a good specimen of the way in which the Life was distributed through the Cistercian and other monateries of Europe in the decades following the saint's death and also shows the kind of difficulty which a small or newly-founded house may have had in setting up and mainlining taining its scriptorium. The codex is all the more valuable because it is headed by a miniature portrait of the saint executed probably when many who had seen him were still alive. The portrait from the first folio of the codex is repro- duced, a little larger than actual size, in this issue. If any are Interested in a more technical account of the MS.