Pierre Bercheure

(BERCHOIRE, BERSUIRE).

A learned French Benedictine, b. 1290 at St. Pierre du Chemin (Vendee); d. 1362 at Paris. He joined the Order of St. Benedict at Maillezais, later lived at Avignon for a period of twelve years with Cardinal Peter de Pratis, Bishop of Praeneste, and in 1354 was made prior of St. Eligius at Paris. He was an eloquent preacher and a voluminous homiletical writer. His most important work is the "Repertorium morale", for the use of preachers, a kind of Biblico-moral dictionary, in which the principal words of Scripture are arranged alphabetically and moral reflections attached thereto. It appeared some time before 1355 and was dedicated to Cardinal de Pratis. The "Repertorium" proved to be one of the most popular books of its kind and was frequently printed first at Cologne in 1477, and again at Nuremberg (1489), Lyons (1517), Paris (1521), Venice (1589), Antwerp (1609), etc. A French translation by Richard Leblanc appeared at Paris in 1584. Other works of Bercheure are: "Reductorium morale" to the Sacred Scriptures in thirty-four books, embracing all the books of the Bible , printed at Strasburg in 1474, Basle (1515), Lyons (1536); "Inductorium morale biblicum"; sixteen books on God and the world; and a French translation (the earliest) of Livy, made about 1350 at the request of King John the Good published at Paris in 1514 in three volumes. His "Inductorium morale biblicum", commentaries, discourses, letters, and other treatises, have never been printed. Editions of his collected works appeared at Lyons (1520), Venice (1583, 1631), Cologne (1650, 1669), etc..