bestiary

bestiary , a type of medieval book that was widely popular, particularly from the 12th to 14th cent. The bestiary presumed to describe the animals of the world and to show what human traits they severally exemplify. The bestiaries are the source of a bewildering array of fabulous beasts and of many misconceptions of real ones. They were the artist's guide to animal symbolism in religious building, painting, and sculpture. Physiologus (the naturalist), an ancient work of the type, was probably the chief source of the bestiaries. A Middle English version is translated in J. L. Weston, The Chief Middle English Poets (1914). Variations of the genre remain popular. Modern authors who have written bestiaries include Lewis Carroll, James Thurber, T. H. White, and Jorge Luis Borges.

Bibliography: See W. Clark and M. McMunn, Beasts and Birds of the Middle Ages (1989).

bestiary. A type of medieval book in which accounts of real and imaginary creatures (and also plants and minerals) were used to point moral lessons. The first known illustrated examples date from the early 12th century and in the late 12th and early 13th centuries the bestiary was one of the most popular types of illuminated manuscript. It declined in popularity after the mid-13th century, but many of the exotic and fanciful creatures it had helped to make familiar, such as the unicorn, continued to be prevalent in medieval art, for example in the decoration of initials in manuscripts and later on misericords.