A consideration of the origin of a group of cuttings contained in a 19th-century album (Collegeville, Hill Monastic Manuscript Library, Bean MS 3), with an analysis is the relationship of the initials' figural subjects to the texts they introduced. The cuttings, a series of historiated and decorated initials, were taken from one of a pair of choir books made in northern France or Flanders for a house of Cistercian nuns in the 13th century.