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Tag Archives: Medieval Bestiary

Animal Lore, or “Beasts override Genre”

30 Tuesday Sep 2014

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Beast Literature, Fables

≈ Comments Off on Animal Lore, or “Beasts override Genre”

Tags

Animal Lore, beast literature, Christianity, courtly love, Genre, Jan M. Ziolkowski, Legendary Animals, Love Bestiaries, Medieval Bestiary, Moral/Allegory

 
 
Physiologus Cambrai, vers 1270-1275 Douai, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 711, fol. 17

Physiologus, Adam nomme les animaux (Adam names the animals)
Cambrai, vers 1270-1275
Douai, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 711, fol. 17 (Photo credit: BnF) (click)

The Fable

One particular collection of fables, the Ysopet-Avionnet, was used in the schools of medieval France and continued to be published for centuries (see “The Cock and the Pearl,” La Fontaine cont’d). The word “Ysopet,”[1] was a diminutive for “a collection of fables by Ésope,” or Æsop. The term Ysopet, or Isopet, was first used to describe a collection of 102 fables by Marie de France (late 12th century), written in Anglo-Norman in octosyllabic couplets. As for the word Avionnet, it was derived from Avianus (c. 400 CE), the name of a Latin writer of fables whose fables belong to the Babrius (Greek) tradition and “identified as a pagan.” (See Avianus, Wikipedia – the free encyclopedia). The goal of fabulists was the Horatian “to inform or delight.” Horace advocated a mixture of both: information and pleasure.

Beast Literature and Christianity

Medieval Bestiaries
the Moral
legendary or mythical animals
St. Augustine
 

Bestiaries differ from fables in that they contain a Christian moral/ allegory, but like fables, they are a form of instruction. The fox is the devil, and the lamb, Christ, etc. However, Bestiaries closely resemble fables because both genres feature animals and are more or less a form of teaching. The presence of animals sets a distance between the reader and the teaching provided by a fable or a bestiary. The moral is instructive in both genres, but not directly. The animal functions as a buffer.

Moreover, as we have seen, the attributes of animals were defined by “universal popular consent.” Such was particularly the case with Medieval Bestiaries. Animals dwelling in fables and Bestiaires are neither zoological animals, nor humans in disguise. They are allegorical and most are zoomorphic, especially Christian Medieval Bestiaires. (See The Medieval Bestiary, David Badke, ed.)

Interestingly, Medieval Bestiaries feature a large number of legendary or mythical animals. The better-known are the Unicorn, the Dragon, the Griffin and the Phoenix, but Christian Medieval Bestiaries featured several other fantastical beasts, now mostly forgotten. It would be my opinion that Christianity had its prerogatives and that the relatively new Church needed several animals to exemplify human and sinful conduct.

Moreover, many Natural Historians were Christians. At any rate, the Bonnacon shown below was not exactly real and its manners were questionable.

img155

Kongelige Bibliotek, Gl. kgl. S. 1633 4º, Folio 10r

“A beast like a bull, that uses its dung as a weapon.” (F 10r) (Photo credit: The Medieval Bestiary)

St. Augustine and Truth

Allow me to quote Book 21, Chapter 5 of  Augustine of Hippo‘s City of God. Augustine of Hippo was St. Augustine and he writes “[t]hat There are Many Things Which Reason Cannot Account For, and Which are Nevertheless True.” Augustine of Hippo published his City of God in 426 CE. (See City of God, Wikipedia.)

This kind of truth is what I have grown to describe as “poetical” truth (my term).

Bestiaires d’amour

However, some Medieval Bestiaries were love Bestiaries and were therefore associated with courtly love and the very popular  Roman de la Rose. The Roman de la Rose, authored by Guillaume de Lorris (c. 1200 – c. 1240) and Jean the Meun(g) (c. 1240 – c. 1305), was allegorical:

“At various times in the poem, the “Rose” of the title is seen as the name of the lady, and as a symbol of female sexuality in general. Likewise, the other characters’ names function both as regular names and as abstractions illustrating the various factors that are involved in a love affair.” (See Roman de la Rose, Wikipedia.)

In my last post, I featured a lion belonging to a Bestiaire d’amour. It was breathing life into dead offspring. This is what a lady was to do to revive a man after lovemaking, or “petite mort.” Petite mort is an orgasm. The symbolism attached to Beasts dwelling in Love Bestiaries (Bestiaires d’amour) was, therefore, less Christian than the symbolism of animals inhabiting other Bestiaries. The most famous Love Bestiary is Richard de Fournival‘s (1201 – ?1260).

Bibliothèque Nationale de France, fr. 1951, Folio 18r

Bibliothèque Nationale de France, fr. 1951, Folio 18r (Richard de Fournival)

“‘le lyon [above] qui fait revivre ses lyonciaus’ – The lion revives its dead cubs. In the Bestiaire d’amour the man says that in the same way the woman can revive him from his love-death.” (fol. 18r) (Photo credit: BnF)

The courtly love traditional therefore incorporated animal lore, just as it included the lyrical poems of troubadours, trouvères, the Minnesingers, and lyric poets associated with movements such as trobadorismo or trovarismo. By the way, there were women troubadours: the Trobairitz.

Troubadours (Berlin) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Vilém9

William IX of Aquitaine portrayed as a knight, who first composed poetry on returning from the Crusade of 1101. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Animal Lore

Jan M. Ziolkowski writes that “beasts override genre.”[2] He does so on page 1 of his Introduction to Talking Animals). Professor Ziolkowski is perfectly right. In Medieval Bestiaries, beasts were mostly the same from genre to genre: fables, Medieval Bestiaries and the satirical Roman de Renart. Beasts even override paganism and Christianity as well as the Old and the New Testaments. After all, Christmas replaced the pagan Roman Saturnalia. There had to be a feast on the day of the longest night.

To return to “beast literature” (Ziolkowski, p. 1), “The Dog and its Reflection” is included in the Æsopic corpus (Perry Index 133)[3] and is also a fable told in Kalīlah wa Dimnah, and, according to one source, it is included in Le Livre des Lumières or Les Fables de Pilpay, philosophe indien, ou la conduite des rois (a 1698 edition [1644]), Æsop was a Levantin, i.e. from the Levant. With respect to fables, West meets East.

Kalīlah wa Dimnah is an Arabic rendition, by Persian scholar Ibn al-Muqaffa’, of the Sanskrit Panchatantra and Jean de La Fontaine, the author of Le Chien qui lâche sa proie pour l’ombre  (1.VI.17), read fables by Pilpay. Yet, the Christian Medieval Bestiary tells that dogs leave the prey they have caught for a prey they may not catch. It may be a mere shadow.

When I was assigned a course on best literature, I divided my material in the following the following genres, roughly speaking:

  • fables (Æsop and retellers),
  • beast epics (Reynard the Fox and fabliaux),
  • the Medieval Bestiaries (The Ashmole Bestiary, etc.),
  • and Natural Histories (The Physiologus, etc.), yet to be listed.

However, I had to mention mythological beasts, lycanthropes, and also discussed children’s literature.  Kenneth Grahame created a “reluctant dragon,” and the use of a toad as the protagonist of The Wind in the Willows made for an upside-down-world, a mundus inversus.

Moreover Æsop, who lived in Greece, was a “Levantin.” There is an Eastern tradition to Æsop’s fables even though, according to some sources, there never lived an Æsop. I was on sabbatical writing a book on Molière when I was assigned a course on Beast literature. I could not refuse to teach it. I therefore joined the International Reynard Society and gave a paper at the forthcoming meeting of the Society, in Hull, England.

A Dutch colleague steered me in the right direction, but the course nevertheless ended my career as a teacher. Would that I could have changed the course into animals in Charles Perrault’s Contes de ma mère l’Oye and Madame de Villeneuve’s La Belle et la Bête, but someone else was teaching a course on fairy tales. Beast literature includes fairy tales.

My  kindest regards to all of you. ♥

RELATED ARTICLES

  • The Fox by Universal Popular Consent (25 September 2014)
  • The Codex Manesse (20 September 2014)
  • Dogs a Long Time Ago (12 September 2014)
  • La Fontaine’s “The Dog that dropped the Substance for the Shadow” (10 September 2014)
  • “The Cock and the Pearl” La Fontaine cont’d (11 October 2013)
  • Le Roman de la Rose (8 March 2013)

Sources and Resources

  • Bibliothèque nationale de France
  • The Roman de la Rose is a Gutenberg project publication (EBook #16816) FR
  • an Internet Archive publication FR
  • a Medieval Skills publication: Roman de la Rose digitized EN ♥
  • The Ysopet-Avionnet is an Internet Archive publication Latin FR
  • Les Fables de Pilpay, philosophe indien, ou la conduite des rois [FR]
  • Les Fables de Pilpay, philosophe indien, ou la conduite des rois [http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5674720s] FR

—ooo—

[1] “Ysopet”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 29 sept. 2014
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/654299/Ysopet>.

[2] Jan M. Ziolkowski, Talking Animals: Medieval Latin Beast Poetry, 750 – 1150 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993), p. 1.

[3] Ben Edwin Perry (1892–1968) catalogued Æsop’s fables.

E, Dame Jolie & Douce Dame Jolie
Love song 13th-14th century
Chanson d’amour du Moyen-Âge.

Vilém9
 
© Micheline Walker
30 September 2014
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Dogs, a long time ago

12 Friday Sep 2014

Posted by michelinewalker in Beast Literature, Bestiaries

≈ 14 Comments

Tags

Aberdeen Bestiary, Aesop's Fables, Arany Zoltán, Ashmole Bestiary, David Badke, Dog - faithful & healer, Illuminated Manuscripts, Jan M. Ziolkowski, King Garamantes, Legendary Animals, Medieval Bestiary, The Physiologus

Bodleian Library, MS. Ashmole 1511, Folio 25r

Bodleian Library, MS. Ashmole 1511, Folio 25r (Ashmole Bestiary)

Three elegant dogs stand ready. F 25r (folio 25 recto)

Bestiaries

A bestiary is a compendium of beasts most of which have identical characteristics from bestiary to bestiary. In Europe, bestiaries are mostly a product of the Middle Ages, the 12th and 13th centuries in particular. Exceptionally beautiful are the Aberdeen Bestiary  MS 24)  and the Ashmole Bestiary (MS 1462 & MS 1511), both dating back to the late 12th and 13th century.

They are illuminated manuscripts and, in this regard, resemble books of hours. They therefore contain images complemented by superb calligraphy that could vary from bestiary to bestiary, some of which are ancestors to our “fonts.”

Bestiaries were usually transcribed by monks in a scriptorium, a recess in a wall, and were executed on vellum (calfskin) or parchment (calfskin, sheepskin or goatskin). Both the Aberdeen Bestiary (MS 24) and the Ashmole Bestiary MS 1462 (Bodleian Library, Oxford) were written and illuminated on parchment. However, the Ashmole Bestiary MS 1511 (Bodleian Library) was executed on vellum.

Real and Legendary Animals

Not all animals described in bestiaries are real animals. The authors of natural histories often relied on information obtained from individuals who had travelled to the Orient or elsewhere. Thus was born the unicorn. The rhinoceros is a real animal that has one horn, but the unicorn, the monocerus in Greece, is a both an anthropomorphic and zoomorphic animal.

Zoomorphic animals combine the features of several beasts and may be part human and part beast. Such is the case with centaurs and the minotaur. The lower half of a centaur is a horse, the upper, a man. The minotaur’s body is human, but its head is that of a bull.

The Physiologus: the main Source

The best-known “natural history” is the Physiologus (“The Naturalist”), written in Greek in the 2nd century BCE. Authorship of the Physiologus has not been determined, but it was translated into Latin in about 700 CE, our era. It was the main source of information for persons who wrote and illuminated bestiaries.

The Physiologus described an animal, told an anecdote about that animal and then gave the animal moral attributes (See Physiologus, Wikipedia). In the Medieval Bestiary, the anecdote for dogs was “The Dog and Its Reflection.” Natural histories, however, made animals allegorical rather than humans in disguise. The Physiologus is allegorical and emblematic, but in structure, it resembles the fable.

Professor Ziolkowski[i] writes that the

 fable consists of a narrative with a moral, Physiologus of nature observation with moralization.

The most famous copy of the Physiologus is the Bern Physiologus. 

Dogs

In the case of dogs, the Medieval Bestiary (http://bestiary.ca/) describes the animal, tells an anecdote, the “Dog and Its Reflection,” and then informs readers that the dog is the most loyal of animals. The dog may be able to kill but, as the lore goes, it is man’s best friends and therefore emblematic of loyalty. We learn as well that the dog licks wounds.

According to Pliny the Elder (23 BC – 25 August 79 BCE), one of many authors of natural histories, “[t]he domestic animal that is most faithful to man is the dog.” The iconography, images, tells a similar story, but also shows us many greyhounds, as do 20th-century fashion illustrators.

The Gallery

So here are some pictures of faithful dogs who lived in the Middle Ages. The dog featured at the very bottom of this post is about to avenge his master’s murder, but is also a healer. The bestiary in which it is depicted is housed at the Royal Library in Copenhagen. It is an illumination (enluminures) executed on the front page, the folio, of a Bestiary. The front of the folio (the page) is called recto vs verso, the back.

Koninklijke Bibliotheek, KB, KA 16, Folio 48v
Koninklijke Bibliotheek, KB, KA 16, Folio 48v
Koninklijke Bibliotheek, KB, KA 16, Folio 49r
Koninklijke Bibliotheek, KB, KA 16, Folio 49r
  1. A pair of dogs, possibly greyhounds? F 48v (verso: back)

  2. Two dogs, possibly greyhounds or other hunting dogs. F 49r (recto: front)

Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 6838B, Folio 12v
Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 6838B, Folio 12v
British Library, Royal MS 12 F. xiii, Folio 30v
British Library, Royal MS 12 F. xiii, Folio 30v
Morgan Library, MS M.81, Folio 28r
Morgan Library, MS M.81, Folio 28r
Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 6838B, Folio 12r
Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 6838B, Folio 12r
  1. A dog refuses to leave the side of its dead master. F 12v

  2. King Garamantes, captured by his enemies, is rescued by has pack of dogs. f 30v

  3. At the top, a dog attacks the man who killed his master, thus pointing out the guilty. At the bottom, the faithful dog refuses to leave the body of its dead master. f 28R

  4. King Garametes, captured by his enemies, is rescued by his dogs. f 12r

Bibliothèque nationale de France (Paris, FR)
Bodleian Library (Oxford, UK)
British Library (London, UK)
Morgan Library (New York, US)
Royal Library (Copenhagen, DK) 
 

This is the description given dogs in the Medieval Bestiary

“Dogs are unable to live without men. There are several kinds of dogs: those that guard their master’s property; those that are useful for hunting wild animals or birds; and those that watch over sheep. A dog cures its own wounds by licking, and a young dog bound to a patient cures internal wounds. A dog will always return to its vomit. When a dog is swimming across a river while holding meat in its mouth, if it sees its own reflection it will drop the meat it is carrying while trying to get the meat it sees in the reflection.

Several stories are told about the actions of dogs. King Garamantes, captured by his enemies, was rescued by his dogs. When a man was murdered and there were no witnesses to say who did it, the man’s dog pointed out the slayer in the crowd. Jason‘s dog was said to have refused to eat and died of hunger after his master’s death. A Roman dog accompanied his master to prison, and when the man was executed and his body thrown into the Tiber River, the dog tried to hold up the corpse.

A dog that crosses a hyena‘s shadow will lose its voice.

Hungry dogs are used to pull up the deadly mandrake plant.” David Badke[ii]

(“Jason” and “Tiber River” are links I have added)

img9256

Bodleian Library, MS. Douce 151, Folio 21v

King Garamantes is kidnapped by enemies; the king’s dogs find him and attack the kidnappers; the king leads his dogs home. F 21v

Kongelige Bibliotek, Gl. kgl. S. 1633 4º, Folio 18r

Kongelige Bibliotek, Gl. kgl. S. 1633 4º, Folio 18r

A dog mourning the murder of its master, and possibly pointing out the murderer. F 18r, or

A young dog bound to a patient cures internal wounds

RELATED ARTICLES

  • La Fontaine’s “The Dog that dropped the Substance for the Shadow” (10 September 2014)
  • Anthropomorphism and Zoomorphism (25 August 2013)

Sources and Resources

  • The Medieval Bestiary: site owned and maintained by David Badke[iii]
  • King Garamantes: scroll down to July 27th, 2014
  • King Garamantes rescued by dogs agefotostock.com
  • King Garamantes and his dogs, the British Library
  • Nothin’ but a Hound Dog, the British Library ♥
  • http://bestiary.ca/ (The Medieval Bestiary)
 
 

Kindest regards to all of you.

_________________________
 

[i] Jan M. Ziolkowski, Talking Animals: Medieval Latin Beast Poetry, 750 – 1150 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993), p. 34.

[ii] David Badke, The Medieval Bestiary (bestiary.ca) Web.

[iii] David Badke, The Medieval Bestiary (bestiary.ca) Web.

img9140

Arany Zoltán

img190

© Micheline Walker
12 September 2014
WordPress
 
 

Kongelige Bibliotek, Gl. kgl. S. 1633 4º, Folio 19r

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The Physiologus & Animals Depicted in Bestiaries

25 Monday Feb 2013

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Beasts

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Aberdeen Bestiary, Beasts, Bestiary, India, John Chrysostom, Medieval Bestiary, Middle age, Physiologus

The Physiologus

The Physiologus

Bestiaries: sources

For the complete lists of animals featured in the Physiologus, see Physiologus, Wikipedia.  For a shorter list of these animals as well as their attributes, go to Medieval Bestiary: http://bestiary.ca/manuscripts/manubeast1345.htm.

For pictures featured in the Physiologus, go to Medieval Bestiary, Gallery: http://bestiary.ca/beasts/beastgallery218.htm

To access manuscripts other than the Physiologus, click on tab labelled Manuscripts: Medieval Bestiary, Gallery: http://bestiary.ca/beasts/beastgallery218.htm

—ooo—

In a post dated 22 February, I indicated that writers and artists who produced the bestiaries of the Middle Ages used as their main source a book entitled The Physiologus (‘The Natural Scientist’).  “It consists of stories based on the ‘facts’ of natural science as accepted by someone called Physiologus (Latin: “Naturalist”), about whom nothing further , and from the compiler’s own religious ideas.”[i]

There is no doubt concerning the authenticity of our unknown “naturalist,” i.e. the person who compiled the texts contained in the Physiologus.  But there is some disagreement with respect to the authorship of the texts included in the Physiologus.  The Physiologus  “is ascribed to one or other of the 4th-century bishops Basil and Epiphanius.” Peter of Alexandria, Basil, John Chrysostom, Athanasius, Ambrose, and Jerome; even pre-Christian authors like Solomon and Aristotle were said to have written parts of it (Curley, p. xvi).  (See Medieval Bestiary)

However, for our purposes, we need simply know that “medieval bestiaries ultimately are derived from the Greek Physiologus.”[ii] but that India “may also be a source:” 

Some Indian influence is clear—for example, in the introduction of the elephant and of the Peridexion tree, actually called Indian in the Physiologus. India may also be the source of the story of the unicorn, which became very popular in the West.[iii]

 

The Popularity & Dissemination of the Physiologus

The Physiologus may not have been as popular as the Bible, but nearly so.  “It was translated into Latin (first in the 4th or 5th century), Ethiopian, Syriac, Arabic, Coptic, and Armenian. Early translations from the Greek also were made into Georgian and into Slavic languages.”[iv]  It was then translated into several other languages.  However, the symbolism  attached to these allegorical animals may have changed and new symbols may have been added as various manuscripts wound their way through translations and possible “editions” of some original Physiologus.  A thousand years elapsed between the publication of the Physiologus and that of the Aberdeen Bestiary. 

According to Britannica, The Physiologus would have “48 sections, each dealing with one creature, plant, or stone and each linked to a biblical text.”  As for animals featured in the Physiologus, they are listed in Wikipedia.  In its list, Wikipedia names the dragon and the unicorn, both of whom are “fantastic” animals, as are the griffin, the phœnix, and other animals .  (See Physiologus, Wikipedia and Medieval Bestiary)

sans-titre

Griffin couchant facing throne at Knossos (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Dragon, the Griffin, the Unicorn, and the Phoenix

In the Oxford Dictionary of Classical Myth & Religion, the Physiologus is described as “an exposition of the marvellous properties of some 50 animals, plants and stones, with a Christian interpretation of each.”[v]  In this statement, the key word is “marvellous.”  It matches the word used to describe the “fantastic” aspects of certain documents dating back to the French Middle Ages. Several mediavelists speak of the “merveilleux [marvellous] chrétien.”

Truth be told, among animals described in the Physiologus, some do not exist.  The dragon and the unicorn, who are listed in Wikipedia’s entry on the Physiologus, are legendary animals that I call “mythical animals.”  There are other mythical animals, two of whom are the afore-mentioned dragon and unicorn, but the Physiologus does not feature the phœnix, a mythical creature who was adopted as a symbol in Early Christianity.  Nor does it mention the griffin.  However, somehow I discovered the above fresco of the griffin while reading about the Physiologus. It is so lovely that I could not resist inserting it in this post. Although there are several mythical animals, the dragon, the griffin, the phœnix, and the unicorn are the more familiar. They are the four animals I call “mythical animals.”

Mythical vs Mythological Animals

Mythical animals may inhabit mythologies, east and west, but unlike the Minotaur of Greek mythology, they are legendary beasts who do not have a lineage.  In this regard, they differ from Greek mythology’s Minotaur who is the son of a bull and Phasiphaë, the daughter of Helios and the wife of Theseus, the mythical and mythological — Greek mythology — founder-king of Athens.  As for Pegasus, the winged horse, he is the offspring of Poseidon and Medusa.  However, among the fifty or so beast Physiologus depicts, there is a Centaur, a zoomorphic — half human, half horse — mythological animal as well as the Siren of Greek mythology.

 
(please click on the image to enlarge it)
A phœnix depicted in a book of mythological creatures by F. J. Bertuch (1747-1822)

A phœnix depicted in a book of mythological creatures by F. J. Bertuch* (1747-1822)

*F. J. Bertuch

(please click on the image to enlarge it)
Theseus fighting the Minotaur by Jean-Etienne Ramey, marble, 1826, Tuileries Gardens, Paris

Theseus fighting the Minotaur by Jean-Étienne Ramey, marble, 1826, Tuileries Gardens,* Paris

*Jean-Étienne Ramey

A Poetical Reality

The reality of these “fantastic” animals is poetical.  It is the reality that J. K. Rowling used when she wrote the Harry Potter series.  For instance, she featured the mythical phœnix, who is described in the Physiologus as an animal that rises from its own ashes and therefore represents Christ rising from the dead three days after his crucifixion.  Similarly, the legendary pelican kills its off springs and, three days later, revives them by feeding them her blood.[viii]  The author of the Physiologus may have borrowed from “pagan” sources, but his interpretation of the 50 animals, plants and stones is a Christian interpretation, which would suit medieval and Christian authors of bestiaries and artists depicting the fanciful animals bestiaries featured.

The animals featured in the Physiologus are in fact all the more “marvellous” and poetical in that they are zoomorphic, i.e. combining human and animal features, which is the case with the Centaur.  But mythical and mythological animals may also combine the features of several animals, which is the case with Pegasus, the winged horse.  However, whatever their appearance, these animals all stand for human beings or all symbolize human attributes.  They are not humans in disguise, but allegorical or animals depicting mankind.

Conclusion

I wanted to write on the Aberdeen Bestiary, but many of the animals featured in the Aberdeen Bestiary originate in the Physiologus, as does the symbolism attached to them.  It would appear that the “religious sections of the Physiologus (and of the bestiaries derived from the Physiologus) are concerned primarily with abstinence and chastity; they also warn against heresies.”[ix] 

However, what is most fascinating about these animals is that they are part of our world.  They are fanciful and the iconography attached to them, mostly delightful, but it could be that we actually need the phœnix.  If the phœnix rises from its ashes, we can also rise again, whatever ordeal has befallen us.  As for the pelicans who stretch maternal love to the point of reviving dead off springs by feeding them their blood, they are quintessential motherhood.  In other words, both the Physiologus and bestiaries it inspired tell our story, and that story is one we created.

The Physiologus is an “illuminated” manuscript.  Artists and scribes transformed it into a work of art.  Second-century artists may have used techniques that differ from the manner in which the Book of Kells and the Aberdeen Bestiary are illuminated, but the Lascaux Cave is a splendid testimonial to a motivation to “picture” our world and, in particular, the animals we require.  Several manuscripts of the Physiologus have survived.  The Bern Physiologus may well be the most notorious extant illuminated manuscript of the Physiologus.  For pictures, click on Bern Physiologus (Wikimedia commons) and Medieval Bestiary: http://bestiary.ca/manuscripts/manubeast1345.htm)

Angels have wings, yet we swear on the Bible.

Bellerophon riding Pegasus (1914)
Bellerophon riding Pegasus (1914)

‘Arrival to the Oxford market’: Anonymous (XIII century)

 
Main Source:  Medieval Bestiary: http://bestiary.ca/manuscripts/manubeast1345.htm
Photo credit: Wikipedia (all images)
 
[i] “bestiary”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 24 Feb. 2013
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/63117/bestiary>.
[ii] Ibid.
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] Ibid.
[v] “Physiologus”, Oxford Dictionary of Classical Myth & Religion (Oxford: Oxford Clarendon Press, 2003).
[vi] Ibid.
[vii] Donald Ray Schwartz, Noah’s Ark, An Annotated Encyclopedia of every Animal Species in the Hebrew Bible (Northvale, New Jersey: Jason Aronson Inc., 2000).
[viii] “Physiologus”, Oxford Dictionary of Classical Myth & Religion (Oxford: Oxford Clarendon Press, 2003)
[ix] Britannica, loc. cit.
The Unicorn in the Physiologus

The Unicorn in the Physiologus

(please click on the picture to enlarge it)

© Micheline Walker
24 February 2013
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The Aberdeen Bestiary

30 Sunday Oct 2011

Posted by michelinewalker in Beast Literature, Bestiaries, Illuminated Manuscripts

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Illuminated Manuscripts, Medieval Bestiary, Saint Isidore of Seville, Solinus

yale_det
The yale (F16v ). The yale is as large as a horse, is black, has an elephant’s tail and the jaws of a wild boar. Its horns are long and mobile: one can fold backwards while the other fights.
Photo credit: Aberdeen Bestiary Project
 
Part of text can be read online at Aberdeen Bestiary (Oxford, Bodleian)
 
 

The Aberdeen Bestiary (Aberdeen University Library, Univ Lib. MS 24) can be read online.  Just click on the link.  It is an illuminated (with pictures) bestiary.  The Aberdeen Bestiary is related to other bestiaries of the Middle Ages and especially the Ashmole Bestiary.  According to Wikipedia,

 [s]ome argue that the Aberdeen Bestiary might be the older of the two.

Among other animals, it features a Satyr, a Monoceros or Monocerus, and a pelican.

Other than The Physiologus, sources include:

  • Gaius Julius Solinus De mirabilibus mundi (The Wonders of the World) also known as Collectanea rerum memorabilium (Collection of Curiosities) and Polyhistor.  Solinus was a Latin grammarian who lived in the 4th century AD.
  • Saint Isidore of Seville’s (c. 560 – 4 April 636) Etymologiae.

—ooo—

© Micheline Walker
29 October 2011
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