We have seen Books of Hours and I provided a list of other illuminated manuscripts, most of which are liturgical and/ or devotional.  However, we will now be looking at allegories called Bestiaries.  In Bestiaries, an animal stands for jealousy, virginity, evil, aspects of love, depending on the subject of the masnuscripts.

So there are areas of illuminated manuscripts

• Books of Hours: Les Très Riches Heures, etc. (Flemish, 1415-1416);
• liturgical and devotional books, The Book of Kells, a gospel book (Insular art [British Isles], 800s);
• allegories, one of which depicts aspects of love.

We will concentrate on

• the Aberdeen Bestiary, (12th century), Insular art [Celtic, mostly]),
• the Ashmole Bestiary (12th and 13th century, English) and
• Richard de Fournival‘s “Bestiaire d’Amour” (Love Bestiary, 13th century, France).

We already have a post on the Phœnix (listed below) and a very short post on the Aberdeen Bestiary, the richest illuminated bestiary, and at the same time we will look at the history of printing and the history of books.  We know that illuminations became our illustrations, common in children’s literature.  We also know that medieval calligraphy gave us many of the fonts we still use, but there are other elements.

CLOSELY RELATED ARTICLES

From Bestiaries to… Harry Potter (29 October 2011)

The Phœnix: on the Importance of Symbols and Myths (2 February 2012)

The Dragon East & West (4 February 2012)

 

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© Micheline Walker

20 February 2013

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Ashmole Bestiary, The Unicorn

(Please click on the picture to enlarge it.)  

 

 

 Related articles

• Monsters By Email – A New Level of Bestiary (rpg-creatures.blogspot.com)
• The Book of Barely Imagined Beings (callumjhackett.com)
• From Bestiaries to… Harry Potter (michelinewalker.com)
• The Phœnix: on the Importance of Symbols and Myths (michelinewalker.com)
• The Dragon East & West (michelinewalker.com)
• The Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry (michelinewalker.com)
• Other Illuminated Manuscripts (michelinewalker.com)
• Books of Hours, a Rich Legacy (michelinewalker.com)