This is part of a page from a copy of Moralia in Job. This is a series of lectures on the biblical book of Job written by St Gregory the Great (540-604). Professionally made books used decorative initials, such as the initial H on this fragment, to signal the main divisions of a text. There was usually a hierarchy of initials within any book to designate sections, chapters, paragraphs and other breaks. The initials were added either by the scribe or by a specialist, in spaces left blank by the scribe. The latter was increasingly the practice in the later Middle Ages. The important initials might be historiated (that is, with a figurative picture, istoire being the term for story) or decorated. The lesser initials were made of coloured letters on coloured or gold grounds, often with flourishing in ink of a contrasting colour. This is an inhabited initial, so called because it contains human and animal figures but no identifiable narrative scene. It depicts two huntsmen and dogs chasing a hare in the thicket of ornament. The man with the drawn bow and arrow is marvellously poised as he searches out his prey.