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bestiary
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What is a bestiary?
A bestiary is a medieval literary genre featuring collections of stories associated with animals, plants, or even stones. These stories, based on accepted "facts" of natural science, served as Christian allegories, offering moral and religious instruction.
Bestiaries are derived from the Greek Physiologus, a text from before the 2nd century CE. The Physiologus consists of 48 sections, each dealing with one creature, plant, or stone and each linked to a biblical text. It was translated into many languages and influenced the development of the beast fable. Many medieval bestiaries were illustrated, influencing sculptures, carvings, frescoes, and paintings into the Renaissance period.
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When and where were bestiaries most popular?
Bestiaries, a medieval literary genre, were most popular in France and the Low Countries during the 13th century. These collections of stories, based on descriptions of animals, plants, or stones, served as Christian allegories for moral and religious instruction. Derived from the Greek Physiologus, bestiaries gained widespread popularity and circulated almost as widely as the Bible during the early Middle Ages. The Physiologus was translated into numerous languages, including Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Flemish and German, influencing various literary forms such as the beast fable and satiric beast epic.
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What types of animals are featured in bestiaries?
Bestiaries are a medieval literary genre featuring a collection of stories based on descriptions of animals, plants, or even stones. These stories presented Christian allegories for moral and religious instruction.
Bestiaries feature both real and imaginary animals. Some animals include the stag, snake, phoenix, pelican, hedgehog, and unicorn. The stories are frequently based on misconceptions about natural history. Many attributes that have become traditionally associated with real or mythical creatures derive from the bestiaries and have passed into folklore, influencing the development of allegory, symbolism, and imagery.
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How did bestiaries combine facts about animals with moral lessons?
Bestiaries, a popular literary genre in the European Middle Ages, combined animal descriptions with Christian allegories for moral and religious lessons. These collections used both real and imaginary animals, attributing certain qualities to them that served as moral instruction or warnings. Frequently based on misconceptions about the natural world, bestiaries assigned symbolic meanings to animals, like the phoenix representing rebirth or the pelican embodying parental love, to impart lessons on virtues, vices, and religious principles.
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Who used bestiaries and for what purposes?
Bestiaries were used throughout the European Middle Ages as a literary genre for instruction and admonition through Christian allegories. Derived from the Greek Physiologus, bestiaries contained stories based on descriptions of animals, plants, and even stones.
Illustrated manuscripts of bestiaries were popular, with the earliest known one dating back to the 9th century. The stories, though often based on misconceptions of natural history, served religious purposes, emphasizing abstinence, chastity, and warnings against heresies. Many attributes now associated with creatures, real or mythical, come from bestiaries, influencing folklore, literature, art, symbolism, and imagery.
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How have bestiaries influenced art and literature after the Middle Ages?
Bestiaries, medieval collections of animal stories with Christian allegories, have had a lasting impact on art and literature beyond the Middle Ages. Originating from the Greek Physiologus, these texts presented moral and religious lessons through descriptions of real and mythical creatures.
Bestiaries have influenced the development of allegory, symbolism, and imagery in art and literature. Illustrations from bestiaries have served as inspiration for various art forms, including sculptures, carvings in churches, frescoes, and paintings, continuing into the Renaissance period. The attributes associated with creatures in bestiaries, such as the phoenix's rebirth and the pelican's parental love, have become part of folklore and continue to appear in art and literature, often without recognition of their bestiary origins.
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bestiary, literary genre in the European Middle Ages consisting of a collection of stories, each based on a description of certain qualities of an animal, plant, or even stone. The stories presented Christian allegories for moral and religious instruction and admonition.
The numerous manuscripts of medieval bestiaries ultimately are derived from the Greek Physiologus, a text compiled by an unknown author before the middle of the 2nd century ad. It consists of stories based on the “facts” of natural science as accepted by someone called Physiologus (Latin: “Naturalist”), about whom nothing further is known, and from the compiler’s own religious ideas.
The Physiologus consists of 48 sections, each dealing with one creature, plant, or stone and each linked to a biblical text. It probably originated in Alexandria and, in some manuscripts, is ascribed to one or other of the 4th-century bishops Basil and Epiphanius, though it must be older. The stories may derive from popular fables about animals and plants. 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.
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The popularity of the Physiologus, which circulated in the early Middle Ages only less widely than the Bible, is clear from the existence of many early translations. 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.
Translations were made from Latin into Anglo-Saxon before 1000. In the 11th century an otherwise unknown Thetbaldus made a metrical Latin version of 13 sections of the Physiologus. This was translated, with alterations, in the only surviving Middle English Bestiary, dating from the 13th century. It, and other lost Middle English and Anglo-Norman versions, influenced the development of the beast fable. Early translations into Flemish and German influenced the satiric beast epic. Bestiaries were popular in France and the Low Countries in the 13th century, and a 14th-century French Bestiaire d’amour applied the allegory to love. An Italian translation of the Physiologus, known as the Bestiario toscano, was made in the 13th century.
Many of the medieval bestiaries were illustrated; the manuscript of the earliest known of these is from the 9th century. Illustrations accompanying other medieval manuscripts are often based on illustrations in the Physiologus, as are sculptures and carvings (especially in churches) and frescoes and paintings well into the Renaissance period.
The religious sections of the Physiologus (and of the bestiaries that were derived from it) are concerned primarily with abstinence and chastity; they also warn against heresies. The frequently abstruse stories to which these admonitions were added were often based on misconceptions about the facts of natural history: e.g., the stag is described as drowning its enemy, the snake, in its den; and the ichneumon as crawling into the jaws of the crocodile and then devouring its intestines. Many attributes that have become traditionally associated with real or mythical creatures derive from the bestiaries: e.g., the phoenix’s burning itself to be born again, the parental love of the pelican, and the hedgehog’s collecting its stores for the winter with its prickles. These have become part of folklore and have passed into literature and art, influencing the development of allegory, symbolism, and imagery, though their source in the bestiary may be frequently overlooked.
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