Translated around the 4th c. from a Greek original, the Latin Physiologus was a compilation of short, didactic animal stories designed to be read as Christian allegories. This early bestiary tradition was augmented during the 7th c. with material from Isidore's Etymologiae. The animal lore transmitted by the various different bestiary versions that developed subsequently comprises both real and fabulous creatures whose physical and symbolic attributes became part of the common fund of medieval perceptions of the natural world. Thus, the salamander has the power to extinguish fire; the lion resuscitates its stillborn cubs by breathing on them; the weasel conceives by the mouth and gives birth by the ear. The allegorical interpretations show considerably less imagination: the hedgehog is the devil and its spikes traps for the unwary; the phoenix rising from its own ashes represents Christ's resurrection; elephants who mate without lust by eating of the mandrake tree are the figural representations of Adam and Eve before the Fall.
The large number of surviving bestiary manuscripts and the text's wide influence on medieval art are sure indications of its popularity. The bestiary has been transmitted with a particularly rich tradition of illustration. One might conjecture that it could have served as a reading primer for aristocratic children. It was translated into French on several occasions. In the 13th c., Guillaume le Clerc's Bestiaire divin elaborates on the moral and exemplary dimensions of the text, while Richard de Fournival's Bestiaire d'amour draws courtly love into the bestiary tradition, transforming it, with humour, elegance, and irony, into a narrative of amorous conquest. In Brunetto Latini's Livres dou tresor, the bestiary is amplified into a discursive, encyclopaedic treatise which frequently attempts to rationalize inherited material.
In modern times Apollinaire wrote a playfully poetic Bestiaire.
[Ian Short]
