Strange beasts, mythological and real, depicted and described
on the pages of ancient bestiaries.
Photo: Public Domain

According to the legends of the Middle Ages, the phoenix rose from the ashes, dangerous dragons fought to the death with elephants, and the pelican tore out its chest to feed the chicks with blood. At least, this is how it is stated in the ancient bestiaries. /epochtimes.ru/

Bestiary or Bestarium vocabulum is a book about animals. Richly decorated pictures, shining with gold and silver, illustrated a collection of animals and birds, rare and ordinary, mythological, kind and dangerous. Popular in the twelfth century in North Africa, the Middle East, and especially Europe, these illustrated volumes not only contained observations and descriptions of the animal world, but also taught moral lessons to medieval readers.

Leopard from the Rochester Bestiary of the 13th century. Photo: Public Domain

According to David Badke's Medieval Bestiary, the Middle Ages was an extremely religious period, and in the Christian West it was believed that the animal kingdom and natural world created by God to instruct mankind. People felt themselves inside nature, but apart from it. “Animals do not have their inherent properties just by chance; God created them with such properties that they serve as an example of right behavior.

Certain creatures symbolized certain ideals: the king of animals, the lion, personified Jesus, the elephant was a model of moral behavior and purity, since it was believed that he mates only once - not for pleasure, but to produce offspring.

"Physiologist"

"Physiologist" (meaning "historian of nature" or "naturalist"), manuscript in Greek unknown author, dating from the 2nd to 4th centuries AD, was translated into Latin around 700, and then into many different languages ​​throughout Europe and the Middle East. The book revealed to the inhabitants of these regions strange and wonderful animals and legendary creatures, the meaning of these animals, and also presented moral lessons.

Goats, cats, rabbits, cows in the Aberdeen Bestiary of the 12th century. Photo: Public Domain

This ancient book tells about the animals from North Africa, as well as their imaginary traits and habits. Each animal is given a symbolic and moral interpretation.

The Physiologist is considered one of the most widely distributed and copied books after the Bible. Indeed, medieval ecclesiastical literature and art was heavily influenced by animal symbolism for a thousand years.

Unicorn (top) and bear (bottom). It was believed that the she-bear gives birth to shapeless offspring, which after that is formed into cubs due to the fact that she licks them with her tongue. Ashmole's Bestiary, early 13th century. Photo: Public Domain

Copies of translations

Many later bestiaries are based on translations of the Physiologus, but they have added additional interpretations, and these later manuscripts were not exclusively religious, but were descriptions of the world as it appeared at the time.

The Icelandic bestiary describes the local fauna - fewer elephants and more birds and seals - in order to convey to the people of this region a parting word pertaining to them. The whale and the mythical siren personified northern zone tundra. It is assumed that translators, when translating extensive bestiaries, excluded certain animals, as they had never seen or heard of strange creatures and were puzzled by what was written in the original.

Fantastic beasts, symbols of good and evil

Every animal, real or imagined, teaches a lesson through the language of symbolism. Animals represent both good and evil. The bestiaries say:

Lion is the king of the animals. Lions cover their tracks with their tails, sleep with open eyes and are afraid of white roosters.

The elephant, the most popular animal in bestiaries, was considered a chaste creature, as it mated only once to reproduce, which is in line with the medieval ideal. The elephant was thought not to have knee joints, he was depicted with a seat for a rider or a turret for warriors on his back.

An elephant with a tower on its back tramples a winged one green dragon. Around the 13th century. Photo: Public Domain

The mythical Griffon, with the wings and head of an eagle and the body of a lion, fiercely attacked and killed the horses.

Antelopes, or Antalops, with long horns, when entangled in the branches, screamed for help, becoming easy prey for hunters.

Whale, or tortoise-like aspidochelone - huge sea ​​monster with a back covered with greenery, so it was mistaken for an island in the sea. He lured sailors to drown them.

Aspidochelone lures unlucky sailors. Danish Bestiary, 1633. Photo: Public Domain

The boar was considered the wildest of all animals, and the dragon was seen as a dangerous, deadly enemy. This was associated with the Antichrist, he “is able to kill hunters with his formidable fangs; in addition, he personified the mortal sin of lust in polar opposition to the virtue of chastity. The wild boar is depraved and gluttonous beyond measure, feeding on the corpses of people and small children. At the same time, he personified strength and courage, as it is a powerful and fearless beast.

Dragons were considered natural enemies elephants, ruthlessly killing them. According to the ancients, the power of dragons was in their tails, not in their teeth or breath. They coil around the victim and choke her. They were believed to be afraid of the Peridexion tree, which could wreak havoc with its shadow. In addition, the dragons could not stand the roar of the panther and immediately hid.

Pigeons hide in the Peridexion tree from dangerous dragons. Oxford Bestiary, 1220. Photo: Public Domain

Bestiaries remain beautiful, ancient works of art and literature, demonstrating the beliefs and fears of the inhabitants of the Middle Ages, their views on the world. They also convey the richness and importance of cultural myths about wild animals and strange imaginary beasts.

Elephants are always depicted as smaller than they are; fleas are always large.
Jonathan Swift

We collect all conceivable and unthinkable creatures. We hunt werewolves in all parts of the world. Watching dragons from different countries. However, they have never talked about creatures from medieval bestiaries. Let's take a look at them exactly in the composition in which they were presented to inquisitive European bookworms.

mystical zoology

Here we say - "bestiary". And what is it? An ancient comic book about animals with ingenious lies from travelers and wise comments from clerics? Quite right. But there are several significant nuances here.

Virtue Pelican. Relief from Notre Dame des Neiges - the largest cemetery in Canada (Montreal).

The classic bestiaries were called bestiarum vocabulum, which literally means "A word about animals." However, their real content was very different, often not even related to animals. In the same book, there were descriptions of both fictional and real creatures. There were also texts about birds, stones, and even recipes for healing potions. Treatises on natural history usually accompanied by some instructive Christian parable. All names and titles necessarily had some sacred meaning. Thus, bestiaries were also dictionaries of the symbolic "language of animals."

It was believed that if the pelican could not find food for the chicks, then he tore his chest with his beak and fed the offspring with blood. It is logical that in the bestiaries this bird served as an allegory of Christ's self-sacrifice. The image of the pelican is endowed with a similar meaning in heraldry.

Page from the Rochester Bestiary (XIII century).

One more interesting feature bestiaries was that the illustrations were drawn by artists, most of whom had never seen such animals in their lives. Someone, of course, could say that he once met a basilisk at his house at night, but the monster's deadly gaze did not work because of the darkness. But this is a strong exaggeration - in most cases, the appearance of representatives of the magical fauna was recreated according to their vague textual description.

Over time, illustrators developed a certain canon. Images of animals were slightly "standardized", but it was no longer possible to get rid of the diversity of their appearance.

Saying the word "bestiary", we imagine a solid medieval tome in a cracked leather binding. Bestiaries of this kind appeared in the 12th century (France, England) and quickly gained popularity thanks to rich illustrations and interesting articles. However, in essence they were a compilation of ancient texts.

What were bestiaries made of? The original material was taken from the Greek collection " Physiologist» (author unknown, 2-3 century AD). This work, in turn, was based on earlier books. First of all - on Historia Animalium("History of Animals") by Aristotle, written by him during a visit to the island of Lesbos in 343 BC. Local fishermen regularly brought all kinds of marine life to the great scientist, which inspired him to create a zoological reference book.

The "Physiologist", although based on the treatises of Aristotle, Herodotus, Pliny the Elder, Solinus and Elian, was 100% Christian and very far from the truth. It was from him that the tradition of "zoological allegory" went. It was reported, for example, that cubs are born dead, and only on the third day the lion - another image of Christ - revives them with a breath in the nostrils (similarly, a person is born dead until he is baptized).

Beaver
Bonnacon
Amphisbaena

A significant contribution to the content of the bestiaries was made by major church figures - Archbishop Isidore of Seville and Bishop Ambros. From about the 13th century, moralizing became the main function of the Lay about Animals. No one paid attention to the veracity of the information presented, because the value of Christian parables does not lie in reliability at all. The vast majority of readers sincerely believed that somewhere in the south lives a unicorn, losing its will at the sight of a naked female breast.

But there was still a grain of truth in the bestiaries. The purely scientific observations found in these texts (for example, the study of the seasonal migration of birds) were lost among fictions and were only “discovered” hundreds of years later.

Wolf
Camel
Basilisk

Walk with monsters

About 50 medieval bestiaries have been preserved. The bestiary from the Scottish city of Aberdeen boasts the most advanced age (presumably the 12th century, perhaps even older), first mentioned in a book inventory of 1542.

Below is a brief description of the properties of some of the inhabitants of the bestiaries of the 12th-15th centuries (most of the books are available for study only to a limited circle of people, so this information is unknown to the general reader). You can judge the moral of these fables for yourself.

Viper
Hyena
Goose

Agate- a mineral with which you can search for pearls in the sea. You just need to tie this stone to a rope and lower it into the water. Agate is "attracted" to pearl shells, making it easier for divers to work.

Alerion- a bird like an eagle, only larger, bright fiery color and with razor-sharp wings. There are only two Alerions in the world - male and female. At the age of 66, they produce two eggs, and when the chicks hatch, the parents drown themselves in the sea. Their offspring are raised by other birds.

Amphisbaena- a two-headed snake, one head of which is normal, and the other grows from the tail. Can crawl in two directions. Eyes shine like lamps. Amphisbaena is not afraid of the cold and has healing properties.

Badger- a dirty animal that lives in mountain burrows. One badger digs by swallowing earth, while the other two hold a stick with their teeth. When the digger is full, he clings to this stick, and the rest of the badgers pull him out of the hole to empty.

Beaver- a creature whose genitals are used in medicine. If the beaver cannot escape the hunter, he bites off his testicles and throws them to his pursuers. If he has already lost his farm, then he only shows the hunters an empty ass, and they immediately lag behind him.

Goose
Caladrius
Cranes

Bonnacon- a beast like a bull, but its horns are not suitable for protection. Bonnacon should not be hunted. He is able to shoot a stream of excrement from under his tail, flying into the distance for a long distance and burning all life.

Diamond- if you keep it in the house, then the demons will not disturb you. You can destroy a diamond only by dissolving it in the blood of a goat.

Camel- drinks only dirty water, is able to endure thirst for 3 days and can live up to 100 years if he is not taken to another country where he will die from a change in air.

Basilisk- a cross between a rooster and a snake that grows from a rooster's egg. Likes warmth and dryness. He kills snakes with his smell, birds with his breath, and people with his eyes. Can only die from a stoat bite.

Wolf- if the wolf sees the man first, the man will lose his voice. If a person sees a wolf earlier, then the wolf will never attack. To scare away the wolf, you need to take off your clothes and beat stone on stone.

Viper- a snake that cannot be enchanted by music, as it presses one ear to the ground, and plugs the other with the tip of its tail. Has in his head gem carbuncle. The female becomes pregnant when the male puts his head in her mouth. She bites it off and swallows it. Having matured, the baby viper gnaws through the womb of the mother and gets out, thereby killing her. The bite of a viper is very poisonous - a person sweats blood from it and soon dies. Queen Cleopatra committed suicide by biting herself with a viper.

Crocodile swallows
a lion

Hyena- a bisexual creature that rips up graves and devours corpses. A stone is hidden in her eye - if you put it under your tongue, you can predict the future. A dog that steps on a hyena's shadow loses its voice.

geese- able to smell a person better than any other animals. It was the geese that saved Rome from the invasion of the Gauls.

Pearl- grows in rocks called oysters. Sometimes they open and absorb the light of the sun, stars and moon. From all this, pearls are formed, which, being dissolved in dew, treat any disease.

Cranes- fight with pygmies and fill their stomachs with sand to be more stable in flight. When the whole flock is asleep, the guard crane holds a stone in its paw. If he falls asleep, he will drop it and immediately wake up.

Hare- a very fast animal that can change its gender. In winter they eat snow and turn white.

goose- wild goose growing on trees. When the bird reaches sufficient size, it falls off the branch and falls. If the tree grows above the water, the goose swims away intact, and if above the ground, it breaks to death.

Bear
Leukrota Mandrake

Caladrius- a white bird, a harbinger of death. If she looks at your face, then you will recover, and if she turns her back, you will die.

Catoblepas- a four-legged bull, whose head is so heavy that he can only look at the ground. This makes his eyes bloodshot. Anyone who looks into them will die.

Crocodile- a monster that always cries bitterly after eating a person.

swallows- leave buildings just before they collapse.

a lion- the king of beasts. He sleeps with his eyes open, covers his tracks with his tail, is afraid of a white rooster, eats one day and drinks the next. When he falls ill, he devours a monkey as medicine. Male and female copulate not like animals, but like people - face to face.

Leukrota- a cross between a lioness and a hyena, having a horse's head and a wide mouth from ear to ear. Instead of separate teeth, a leukrota has a whole bone growing on each jaw.

Bat- an unclean bird with teeth, producing chicks not from eggs, but directly from its womb.

frogs- small water creatures. Individuals living on land die as soon as they get caught in the rain.

Mandrake- a healing root, similar in shape to a person and growing in the east, next to paradise. Shrieks when pulled out of the ground. Anyone who hears this cry dies or goes insane. Therefore, they dig up the mandrake in the following way - they tie a hungry dog ​​to it and beckon it from afar with a piece of meat. Elephants need to eat this root to get pregnant.

Monkey
Parrot
Parrot

Bear- a ferocious beast that sleeps so soundly in winter that it can be wounded to the point of blood, but it still will not wake up. Bear cubs are born as shapeless pieces of meat, but their mother licks them, giving them desired view. Male and female sleep separately in dens, digging a furrow between them.

Ants- insects that act in orderly rows and carry grain in their mouths (if one ant does not have grain, it will try to take it from another), which is then stored in reserve for the winter. Ethiopian ants look like dogs and dig sand, extracting gold from there.

Mouse- spontaneously arises in the earth, from humus, hence its name (mus).

A monkey- a creature that is also called simia, because it is very similar (English - similar) to a person. He carries his beloved cubs in his arms, and his unloved ones on his back. However, if a hunter pursues her, she leaves her beloved child to free her hands, and the unloved child is thus saved.

Elephant

Onager- a donkey screaming 12 times during the equinox. The leader of the herd bites off the genitals of young onagers so that they, having matured, do not compete with him.

Parrot- a bird that can be taught to speak humanly at a young age. The old one, however, too - for training it should be beaten on the head with an iron rod.

bees are the smallest birds. They develop from worms living in carrion (especially in the bodies of cattle).

Lynx- a spotted wolf whose urine hardens into a precious stone like a carbuncle. The lynx covers it with sand so that the man cannot find the treasure.

A lizard that is so cold that it can safely be on fire and even put it out. Its skin is used to make flame-retardant clothing.

Scorpion- a worm with a poisonous sting on its tail. It hurts a person anywhere, but not in the palm.

elephants- their legs are devoid of knees, therefore, having fallen to the ground, elephants can no longer rise. For the same reason, they sleep leaning against a tree. To catch an elephant, the hunter only needs to file the trunk.

Owl- a dirty bird that shits in its own nests and flies backwards.

Owl
Lizard
Boa

Boa - huge snake living in Italy. She needs livestock for food. She does not swallow the cows, but wraps them in rings and milks them, and sometimes takes away so much milk that the victims die.

Ferret- a dirty animal, conceived like a viper (through the head in the mouth) and born from the ears of the mother: the male comes out on the right, the female on the left.

Lizard- if she becomes blind from old age, she crawls out of the hole and looks at the sun, which quickly burns the veil before her eyes.

• In fact, "Physiologist" is not the title of the book. This collection was generally untitled. But since each story began with the phrase: "The physiologist claims that ..." (the physiologist was understood as some anonymous naturalist), this name was assigned to the entire text.
• Bestiary Dicta Chrysostomi(authorship is attributed to John Chrysostom, one of the greatest church fathers) is kept in the State Public Library in St. Petersburg.
• The myth of the fire salamander may have originated from real salamanders that lived in rotting tree trunks. If these logs were placed in a fire, then the lizards "magically" jumped out of the fire.

Real salamanders with a characteristic "fiery" color.

* * *

The ceremonial decoration of the bestiaries and the exquisite dedications preserved on the first pages testify that this reading was intended for the upper strata of the nobility and clergy. Only they were educated enough to appreciate the "animal" allegories he offered.

In our time, bestiaries have become publicly available. Completely different people were engaged in their creation: the crazy dwarf Toulouse-Lautrec, the blind genius Borges ... Many fantasy universes have their own bestiaries.

Fictional animals have not changed much, but their function is already different. Now they do not set the reader on the right path, but offer him cultural delicacies, solid building material for the humanitarian outlook and, in the end, solid intellectual entertainment.

In the Middle Ages, humanity still poorly imagined not only the people themselves, but also, most importantly, animals. The world then seemed large, flat and inhabited by monsters, giants and unknown strange creatures.

Bestiarum vocabulum (Word about animals) began to appear in the XII-XIII centuries. Inquisitive authors or, as they were also called, physiologists, at first described their travels (not far off, as it might seem, based on what they saw), connected either with war, or with religion (preachers), or with trade. The purpose of the authors did not include the goals of modern zoology or botany, bestiaries were rather treatises in which legends and reality were intertwined. The bestiaries included recipes for potions, descriptions of the properties of stones and minerals - also, often, invented. All this was not educational, but instructive and intimidating.

In all bestiaries to brief description one or another animal or monster was accompanied by an illustration that was drawn by the artist, who sometimes had never seen the animals in question. The brevity was explained by the fact that in the Middle Ages, firstly, the work of a writer was quite difficult - they wrote not with ballpoint pens, moreover, not in their native language, but in Latin. Secondly, brevity was encouraged, since valuable parchment was saved.

Many travelers recorded their adventures in chronicles, in which they also met, along with real historical events absolutely fantastic. For example, in the "Chronicle" of Albrik of the 13th century, it is reported that "on Sunday, after the feast of St. Remigius, an eclipse of the sun occurred, and on Thursday of the following week, they say, they saw a flying dragon."

Another chronicler, Matthew of Paris, like Albrik, never visited the East (although both described the East). He wrote a work on historiography based on the writings of a monk from Wendover and called The Great Chronicles. The author himself illustrated the first volume, depicting an elephant on the pages of the book. At the map of Palestine, Matthew depicted a camel. Europeans more or less knew this land, although in the descriptions there are also dragons devouring people and “sucking waves into themselves”. But the less known about the territories, the more rumors and legends about monsters arose around them. And more and more often they met in the stories of chroniclers, and from there they fell into bestiaries. Some travel books or those devoted to descriptions of a particular country were certainly accompanied by a list of monsters and animals living in these lands.

It is interesting that the chroniclers in their texts relied not so much on their personal impressions as on rumors, and only occasionally referred to other chroniclers, however, who wrote in the same way according to rumors.

A wonderful example of a rumored description is the book of John, Bishop of Sultanaiya, "The Book of the Knowledge of the World."

“They say,” the author writes, “that there [in the Caucasus] live one-eyed people who eat human meat, dogs, in which one half is dog and the other is human (...) And, as I heard from people worthy of trust, according to both sides of the mountains speak forty different languages, are at enmity with each other and dress differently.

One of the tasks of the bestiary was to divide animals into bad ones - servants of the devil, and good ones - symbolizing Christ. Animals were often described allegorically, and they must be perceived through the prism of Christianity. Bestiaries supported and observed morals (peculiarly, but, nevertheless), and therefore the reliability of these books was evaluated last.

Hence the unusual funny descriptions animals known to us. For example, a badger is a dirty animal that lives in mountain burrows. One badger digs by swallowing earth, while the other two hold a stick with their teeth. When the digger is filled to the brim, he clings to this stick, and the rest of the badgers pull him out of the hole to empty ...

Bestiary

Bonnacon- a beast like a bull, but its horns are not suitable for protection. Bonnacon should not be hunted. He is able to shoot a stream of excrement from under his tail, flying into the distance for a long distance and burning all life.

Diamond- if you keep it in the house, then the demons will not disturb you. You can destroy a diamond only by dissolving it in the blood of a goat.

Camel- drinks only dirty water, is able to endure thirst for 3 days and can live up to 100 years if he is not taken to another country where he will die from a change in air.

Basilisk- a cross between a rooster and a snake that grows from a rooster's egg. Likes warmth and dryness. He kills snakes with his smell, birds with his breath, and people with his eyes. Can only die from a stoat bite.

Wolf- if the wolf sees the man first, the man will lose his voice. If a person sees a wolf earlier, then the wolf will never attack. To scare away the wolf, you need to take off your clothes and beat stone on stone.

Viper- a snake that cannot be enchanted by music, as it presses one ear to the ground, and plugs the other with the tip of its tail. It has a carbuncle in its head. The female becomes pregnant when the male puts his head in her mouth. She bites it off and swallows it. Having matured, the baby viper gnaws through the womb of the mother and gets out, thereby killing her. The bite of a viper is very poisonous - a person sweats blood from it and soon dies. Queen Cleopatra committed suicide by biting herself with a viper.

Hyena- a bisexual creature that rips up graves and devours corpses. A stone is hidden in her eye - if you put it under your tongue, you can predict the future. A dog that steps on a hyena's shadow loses its voice.

geese- able to smell a person better than any other animals. It was the geese that saved Rome from the invasion of the Gauls.

Pearl- grows in rocks called oysters. Sometimes they open and absorb the light of the sun, stars and moon. From all this, pearls are formed, which, being dissolved in dew, treat any disease.

Cranes- fight with pygmies and fill their stomachs with sand to be more stable in flight. When the whole flock is asleep, the guard crane holds a stone in its paw. If he falls asleep, he will drop it and immediately wake up.

Hare- a very fast animal that can change its gender. In winter they eat snow and turn white.

goose- wild goose growing on trees. When the bird reaches sufficient size, it falls off the branch and falls. If the tree grows above the water, the goose swims away intact, and if above the ground, it breaks to death.

Caladrius- a white bird, a harbinger of death. If she looks at your face, then you will recover, and if she turns her back, you will die.

Catoblepas- a four-legged bull, whose head is so heavy that he can only look at the ground. This makes his eyes bloodshot. Anyone who looks into them will die.

Crocodile- a monster that always cries bitterly after eating a person.

swallows- leave buildings just before they collapse.

a lion- the king of beasts. He sleeps with his eyes open, covers his tracks with his tail, is afraid of a white rooster, eats one day and drinks the next. When he falls ill, he devours a monkey as medicine. Male and female copulate not like animals, but like people - face to face.

Leukrota- a cross between a lioness and a hyena, having a horse's head and a wide mouth from ear to ear. Instead of separate teeth, a leukrota has a whole bone growing on each jaw.

Bat- an unclean bird with teeth, producing chicks not from eggs, but directly from its womb.

frogs- small water creatures. Individuals living on land die as soon as they get caught in the rain.

Mandrake- a healing root, similar in shape to a person and growing in the east, next to paradise. Shrieks when pulled out of the ground. Anyone who hears this cry dies or goes insane. Therefore, they dig up the mandrake in the following way - they tie a hungry dog ​​to it and beckon it from afar with a piece of meat. Elephants need to eat this root to get pregnant.

Bear- a ferocious beast that sleeps so soundly in winter that it can be wounded to the point of blood, but it still will not wake up. Bear cubs are born as shapeless pieces of meat, but the mother licks them, giving them the desired look. Male and female sleep separately in dens, digging a furrow between them.

Ants- insects that act in orderly rows and carry grain in their mouths (if one ant does not have grain, it will try to take it from another), which they then put in reserve for the winter. Ethiopian ants look like dogs and dig sand, extracting gold from there.

Mouse- spontaneously arises in the earth, from humus, hence its name (mus).

A monkey- a creature that is also called simia, because it is very similar (English - similar) to a person. He carries his beloved cubs in his arms, and his unloved ones on his back. However, if a hunter pursues her, she leaves her beloved child to free her hands, and the unloved child is thus saved.

Onager- a donkey screaming 12 times during the equinox. The leader of the herd bites off the genitals of young onagers so that they, having matured, do not compete with him.

Parrot- a bird that can be taught to speak humanly at a young age. The old one, however, too - for training it should be beaten on the head with an iron rod.

bees are the smallest birds. They develop from worms living in carrion (especially in the bodies of cattle).

Lynx- a spotted wolf whose urine hardens into a precious stone like a carbuncle. The lynx covers it with sand so that the man cannot find the treasure.

Salamander- a lizard that is so cold that it can safely be on fire and even put it out. Its skin is used to make flame-retardant clothing.

Scorpion- a worm with a poisonous sting on its tail. It hurts a person anywhere, but not in the palm.

elephants- their legs are devoid of knees, therefore, having fallen to the ground, elephants can no longer rise. For the same reason, they sleep leaning against a tree. To catch an elephant, the hunter only needs to file the trunk.

Owl- a dirty bird that shits in its own nests and flies backwards.

Boa- a huge snake living in Italy. She needs livestock for food. She does not swallow the cows, but wraps them in rings and milks them, and sometimes takes away so much milk that the victims die.

Ferret- a dirty animal, conceived like a viper (through the head in the mouth) and born from the ears of the mother: the male comes out on the right, the female on the left.

Lizard- if she becomes blind from old age, then she crawls out of the hole and looks at the Sun, which quickly burns the veil before her eyes.

For a long period, history did not consider plots related to animals. All interesting stories about animals, seemed to historians empty and unnecessary. Covering entire studies with animals was considered nonsense. But this opinion is outdated. Scientists have noticed that an animal, considered in a certain context, helps to analyze different areas of history: social, legal, symbolic, religious, and others. The main role in understanding the image of the animal in history was played by medievalists. It is worth noting that the documents with which medievalists work. In these sources, scientists constantly meet the mention of animals. Animals can be seen in pictures, folk art, swearing. Also, animals are the decoration of churches.

The main sources about animals are bestiaries. Bestiary - a collection of articles about animals, which describe in detail all kinds of creatures, real and non-existent in reality. It can be attributed to a special medieval genre of literature. The bestiary can be divided into two parts. The first part described the physiology of the animal. In this part, the structure of the animal, its habits were described. The second part is theological. Here the significance of the animal in the Christian world is considered. But both parts of the description of animals are closely intertwined with each other. Bestiaries were especially popular in the XII-XIII centuries, various bestiaries appeared, the set of living beings was different for each author.

In bestiaries, the idea of ​​the beast appears not only as a natural, but also as a cultural phenomenon. Animals are used as symbols. Pictures of animals can be read like text. In the bestiaries there is an explanation of the animal. Such an explanation cannot be found, for example, in temples. There is only an image without text. Medieval people were constantly looking for the language of God. God has no language, but how he communicates with people. He communicates through symbols. In the language of things, therefore, animals are the things through which God speaks. In the language of God there is always an antithesis: good and evil, the righteous and the sinner. Medieval people noticed the same thing in animals. Each animal could be considered from the side of good and from the side of evil.

In my work, I want to understand what role animals played in medieval society. How did people understand animals? What is their place in the world? What did medieval people want to say, depicting various creatures in the decorations of temples, houses, their coats of arms.

The medieval bestiary makes it possible to understand how our ancestors thought about the world around us. Medieval man was always looking for a connection between the visible and the hidden. This refers mainly to what is in this world and what is in the other world. So animals in the Middle Ages are something different, not what they try to appear, thus, in bestiaries, two realities collide: one is visible. The other one is symbolic. So in the Middle Ages they often engaged in semiotics, that is, the unification different parts into one whole. So often medieval people depicted the devil using different parts of the body of different animals. To explain such images, of course, you need to understand the symbolic meaning of each. That is, medieval creators deviated from the usual, this deviation helped to show the clash of opposites. Always two different parts combined into a whole carry a different symbol.

So, for example, one of the most popular animals in the Middle Ages is a lion. Lions are found everywhere, in images, sculptures, weaving patterns. Especially popular are lions in church decoration. It can also be seen in the decor of books. The lion is the most common figure in medieval heraldry. An image of this predator can be found on 15% of the coats of arms. Even many hereditary rulers placed a lion on their coats of arms, the exception to the rule is the emperor and king of France. I all recognize the lion as the king of beasts. The authors of the bestiaries attribute to him the valiant qualities of a warrior.

Many saw in the lion the image of Christ. This was proven due to the physiology and habits of this animal.

1. Lions love to hunt on high ground. If he notices the pursuit, then he covers his tracks with his tail, he cannot be found. The same can be said about Christ. The devil tried to tempt him, but he did not give in.

2. Lions sleep with their eyes open. Likewise the Lord was killed in human form, but his divine essence was awake.

3. Lionesses give birth to cubs dead, and they remain dead for three days, until the lion father comes and revives them with his breath. God did exactly the same when he raised Jesus Christ on the third day.

4. Also in relation to people, lions are very patient, they will never attack first. Only a wound can anger this animal. That is, the lion is a noble animal.

5. Also, a lion never overeats. They take food and water on different days. And also if they feel like they ate a lot. Then carefully with their paws they take the meat out of the mouth.

All these features allowed medieval people to consider the lion the incarnation of Christ.

The name of the animal is interpreted as a derivative of the Greek word leon, which translates as "king". That is, even in its name power and strength are concentrated.

As with any animal, medieval people also see negative aspects in the lion. He is cruel, thirsty for blood, he is often angry. He does not use his powers for good. That is, sometimes a man's fight with a lion is seen as a fight with Satan. This can be traced in such stories about David or Samson. Often in the images of the devil, one feature of the lion is used - this is anger. Anger on medieval creations is depicted as a lying 8. The same position of the lips is depicted on canvases with lions or the devil.

But most often the image of a lion is associated with goodness. Thus, it was necessary to find an opposition to the king of beasts. That is, to make a bad lion who wants to take the place of a good one. The leopard became such a lion. He looks very much like a lion, only he does not have a mane, and he has a spotted color. He is the deposed king of beasts. His spots are the main indicator of his sinfulness. Each stain is a figure of sin. So in medieval art, the devil is often depicted as pockmarked, this is a reference to the sinful leopard.

If we continue to consider the cat family, then another kind animal is the panther. In the medieval world, the panther and the leopard are not identically equal. In medieval culture, these are different animals. The panther is black, there are no spots on it. This beast has no enemies except the dragon. The panther smells delicious, this smell scares away the dragon and he runs away from the smell of the panther. This is one of the main symbols of goodness, because the dragon was always considered by medieval people as the devil.

Dragon for Medieval man, this is an absolutely real animal. It is the largest among all snakes and other animals. In bestiaries, you can find various descriptions of dragons. On the one hand, it's easy big snake. On the other hand, it was described as a large flying lizard. main feature the dragon is what he lies in wait for. He waits for his prey, and then kills it. The devil does the same, he lies in wait for a person on the way to God. If we consider this animal from the point of view of literature, then many knights depicted with a shield on which a dragon was depicted were pagans.

It is interesting to note that many non-existent creatures are always noted in bestiaries: mermaids, unicorns, manticores and others. For modern man, it is obvious that these are mythological creatures, but medieval people did not critically comprehend many data, they used ancient authors as proven and reliable sources. Much of the information that got into the bestiaries was legends. different people. So, for example, the hunters spoke. That the she-bear gives birth to shapeless lumps. The authors had no reason not to believe them. After all, he himself had never met a bear.

So one of the features of the Middle Ages is the belief that the sea completely repeats the land. That everything in the world is parallel. On land there is a dog, in the sea there is its analogue - a shark. It is impossible to argue with the fact that there is a horse on land, and seahorses live in the water. This means that if all animals have their counterparts, then it is possible to find human counterparts in the sea. So, in 1554, a drawing of a fish-bishop was published, earlier this creature was mistaken for a monster. Some scientists suspect that these animals were walruses. But the most important thing in this theory about twins is that mythological creatures were the norm for medieval man. So mermaids or mermen are just water men and women.

But not only oral stories and theories, mythological plots also occupy a huge place. So, the inhabitants of the Nile, frightened by a Bedouin on a horse, mistook him for an unprecedented creature, which they called a centaur. This was noted in the parchments. This plot has long been forgotten, but the authors of the bestiaries took them seriously and described them in their writings.

Same way great importance had an ancient religion, when people worshiped various gods. So many of these gods had human and animal features. From these earlier religious beliefs, unusual creatures also appeared. For example, the winged Persian bull was subsequently described as a griffin.

Another reason for the appearance of unprecedented animals is etymology. Scholars of that period were passionate about translation, transcription, and interpretation. The Bible was written in several languages ​​and was constantly translated. But it often happened that one language could not provide analogues for any word. This resulted in language problems. For example, the basilisk appeared only because of the letter c that appeared in the word basil. These changes are inevitable as bestiaries have been translated and rewritten over the years.

Bestiaries had great value for the medieval man. After all, in any of his actions he saw a conversation with God. So, for example, in the Medieval period, hunting for a wild boar ceased. Now people wanted to catch a quiet deer instead of a wild boar.

The wild boar, an animal praised by ancient hunters and considered an honor to kill a wild boar, lost its appeal during the Medieval period. In bestiaries, this animal has collected six deadly sins: cruelty, anger, pride, lust, gluttony, envy and idleness. It also reminds of hell appearance animal: black hair, rearing collarbone, unpleasant smell, terrifying roar, protruding sharp fangs.

The deer is opposed to the boar. The deer is the animal of Christ. The deer becomes a pure chaste animal, and therefore takes the place of royal prey. Although in ancient times the deer occupied the place cowardly beast not worth wasting time on.

Thus, medieval culture turned the ritual of hunting in a completely new direction.

The church never welcomed hunting, but it was not able to completely eradicate it. But with the help of the interpretation of animals and symbols, the church was able to direct the hunt in a more peaceful direction. She made hunting less dangerous. A dangerous hunt for a boar or a bear was the wrong way, a Christian should not have gone on it. He had to choose a deer. Thus, the symbolization of animals helped to regulate this aspect.

In the Middle Ages, the attitude towards animals was ambivalent. On the one hand, the animal must be sharply different from a person. Man is created in the image and likeness of God, and the animal is an imperfect, impure creature. That is why animals appear so often in medieval images or writings. These are attempts to show the difference. There can be nothing in common between an animal and a human. That is why in the Middle Ages it was forbidden to dress up as an animal or imitate the behavior of an animal. It was also forbidden to honor animals. People were not supposed to have relationships with animals, ranging from attachment to a single animal, such as a horse or dog, to atrocities, such as witchcraft and bestiality.

But on the other hand, some medieval authors talk about the relationship of all living beings. They wondered whether Jesus Christ came to save all living beings, whether all animals are included in the definition of "all" and whether they are included at all. One of the proofs that animals also received salvation is the birth of Jesus Christ in a barn, next to the animals. At the end of the 13th century, questions about the future life of animals were also discussed: about the animals getting into heaven. Also discussed were earthly life animals: should animals fast, and can they be forced to work on Sunday. But the main question is whether an animal can be considered a creature morally responsible for its actions.

The interest in the moral responsibility of animals can be vividly illustrated by considering animal trials. These processes have been known since the middle of the 13th century, it is known that they were carried out for about three centuries.

In 1386, a pig was executed at Falaise in Normandy. She was dressed in human clothes. First, the animal was tied to a horse and dragged through the streets. A scaffold and a gallows were erected on the holed street. The pig was mutilated, half of its muzzle and meat from its thighs were cut off, and then hung by its hind legs. Due to the wounds, the animal quickly died. At the end, the corpse of the pig was once again dragged through the streets. The remains of the animal were burned. A little later, this event was immortalized on a panel in the church.

The pig was condemned to such a death because it was guilty of the death of a baby. She partially ate his face and legs. It was the same injuries that were inflicted on her. It is interesting to note that not the owner of the pig, not the parents who left the child, were not punished. It was believed that the punishment for the owner was the loss of a pig, and, consequently, income. Parents are punished by the loss of a child.

This is not an isolated case when an animal was executed. This was a common practice. An animal that committed a crime was first taken into custody, a little later a hearing was held and a verdict was announced, then it was executed. The animal even had a lawyer, but his function was rather formal, because he did not seek to justify the animal in any way.

It can also be concluded that the animals may have been tortured during their detention. For example, in 1457, it was recorded that, under torture, a pig confessed that it had killed a child and partially ate it, feeding its six piglets with its victim.

Processes and punishments were carried out not only on domestic animals, and not always in a single order. So forest mice, slugs or cockchafers could be punished. These punishments were usually handled by the church. So often different animals or insects were excommunicated, anathematized for damaging the crops. So in 1516, in the Wilnox region, the locust was asked to peacefully leave the vineyard within six days, otherwise the locust would be excommunicated. Such threats were made against many species: slugs, caterpillars.

These collective affairs left a lot of information in the archives, perhaps this was due to the fact that the church was involved in them.

Thus, it is possible to identify the typology of processes on animals, they can be divided into three types.

1. Individual cases against domestic animals, one individual. Usually it was killing or injuring a person. This case is a criminal offence. These things are never done by the church. This is a matter of secular power. Usually the delinquent individual went through all stages of the process, but if she managed to escape, then she was replaced by another. The only exception was that the sentence was not carried out.

2. Collective cases against large or small animals. It can be wolves or wild boars, as well as small rats or even insects. They were accused of either endangering people's safety or destroying crops. The church was engaged in these matters, usually it cursed, anathematized or excommunicated the whole species. This process was explained by the fact that God cursed the serpent, which became the instrument of the Devil.

3. These are crimes associated with bestiality. Little is known about this type, because after the verdict, documents related to this case were burned along with the criminals. Human and animal criminals were placed alive in one bag and burned alive.

Most often, pigs were involved in the courts. This can be explained in different ways. First, pigs were the most popular pet. Secondly, these animals had more free movement than others. In cities, they played the role of scavengers, so they could be seen everywhere. That is why, it was enough for them to simply cause damage and cause accidents. Thirdly, it is kinship with a person. For a medieval person, a pig is the closest animal. They believed that this animal is more similar anatomically to humans than others. And if a pig is similar to a person anatomically, most likely it is similar to him mentally.

All these processes served in the Middle Ages as an edification. This is a kind of ritual that demonstrates fair justice. This is a demonstration that even animals cannot escape the law. This action also shows the whole inquisitorial process.

In the Middle Ages, people looked for meaning in everything. The language of things - the language of meaning was considered a language with God. Bestiaries gave an interpretation to each animal, explained its meaning. On the one hand, it helped the church regulate social activities such as hunting. On the other hand, secular authorities could use animals as intimidation and demonstration of their justice. It is impossible not to consider the importance of church images, where different parts of the animal describe the devil.

We must not forget that, on the other hand, the animal has always been placed below man, because it was not created in the likeness of God. Therefore, any worship was accepted as a deviation from faith.

Bibliography

1. Pasturo M. Symbolic history European Middle Ages. St. Petersburg: Alexandria, 2012. 163p.

2. White T. Medieval bestiary. What did our ancestors think about the world around them. M.: Tsentropoligraf, 2013 183s.

Medieval bestiaries - collections of zoological articles that described various animals in prose and verse in detail, mainly for allegorical and moralizing purposes - were extremely popular works. They told stories not only about existing representatives of flora and fauna, but also about fantastic creatures. Most of these bestiaries were published in the 12th and 13th centuries, but they are still of interest today.

1. Yakul

In the 7th century, Isidore of Seville began to ambitious project. He decided to collect all the knowledge of mankind. The result of his work was the encyclopedia "Etymology". One of its sections was dedicated to animals, both known and rumored. So, he wrote about the animal mentioned by the Roman poet Lucan - the African flying snake yakul. According to Lucan, when the yakul hunts, he waits for prey in the crown of a tree. After the snake noticed a suitable victim, it rushed at it with an arrow from the branches. The yakul was also mentioned in the Aberdeen Bestiary.

2. Caladrius

The story of the snow-white bird Caladrius is in many bestiaries. In some ways, this bird looked like a goose with a swan's neck. Caladrius had incredible healing properties. This bird's droppings were claimed to be able to cure blindness when applied directly to a person's eyes. Pliny the Elder claimed that this bird (which he called the icterus) was especially good at treating people suffering from jaundice. The mythical bird was also able to predict whether the sick would recover. When a caladrius landed on the bed of a seriously ill person and looked away from him, this meant that the person would die. If a bird looked directly into a person's face, then it allegedly "pulled" the disease out of him, after which he flew away, and the patient was cured.

3. Bonacon

The bonacon was described by Pliny and was one of the main creatures in medieval bestiaries. Depicted as having the head of a bull on the body of a horse, the bonacon also featured horns that were bent back. This creature had a very unusual method of self-defense. When the bonacon was threatened, he threw manure at the enemy, which not only smelled terrible, but also burned everything he touched. To date, it has been suggested that the bonacon was in fact a large ungulate such as a bison, and it is possible that the whole story came about after the animal was frightened to such an extent that it lost control of its intestines.

4. Dipsa

Lucan says that the dipsa was one of 17 different types of snakes that were created when Perseus cut off the head of Medusa. Blood dripped from the severed head of Medusa, which Perseus took with him, thereby spreading snakes around the world. Dipsa appeared in the deserts of Libya. This snake had incredibly powerful venom, and the victims of its bite would gradually go insane with pain as their flesh slowly burned away. These snakes have been cursed endless thirst. Lucan claimed that when his friend was traveling in Libya, he came across a grave with a picture of a dipsa. Her fangs were sunk into the man's leg as a group of women poured water over him in an attempt to stop his agony. An inscription on the grave claimed that the man had been bitten while trying to steal the snake's eggs.

5. Amphisbaena

Amphisbaena - poisonous snake with a head at each end, allowing it to move easily in any direction. Later, wings, legs and horns were also added to her. The skin of this snake is rumored to be a powerful cure for various diseases, but Greek folklore claimed that if a pregnant woman stepped over a live amphisbaena, then she was almost guaranteed to have a miscarriage. Roman mythology claimed that if the amphisbaena was caught and wrapped around a cane, it would protect the owner of the cane from the attacks of any creatures. Isidore of Seville claimed that this snake's eyes glow in the dark like lanterns, and also wrote that it was the only snake that could hunt in the cold.

6. Leocrota

This horse-like Indian creature is pure nightmare incarnation. The half-deer-half-lion with the head of a horse had one terrifying feature: a mouth from ear to ear. At the same time, the mouth of the leocrota was not filled with teeth, but with a solid jagged bone plate. This animal allegedly skillfully imitated human speech and screamed at night to lure unsuspecting victims. Pliny claimed that the leocrota was a descendant of the Ethiopian lions and hyenas. She was born with the strength of a lion and the cunning of a hyena and hunted people in the wooded areas around the villages, relying on their curiosity.

7. Hydra

It has been claimed that hydras lived along the Nile River, where they prowled along the water in search of crocodiles. When this creature discovered a sleeping crocodile, it crawled into his mouth. It then gnawed its way through the entrails of the reptile and ate its internal organs, finally chewing its way out of the crocodile's belly. Isidore wrote about hydras as early as the seventh century. Depictions of hydras vary: some bestiaries describe them as birds, while others show hydras as snakes.

8. Muskalet

Muskalet was first described in a bestiary written by mysterious figure named Pierre de Beauvais. He claimed that he only translated texts, but no one could determine what kind of earlier works he translated. Among the animals in his bestiary there is a muskalet - strange creature that lives on trees. Pierre de Beauvais described him as having a body little hare, the nose of a mole, the ears of a weasel, and the tail and paws of a squirrel.

The muskalet is covered with the stiff bristles of a pig and has the teeth of a wild boar. The animal can jump from tree to tree and radiates so much heat that the leaves it touches dry up. The little creature burrows under the trees, where it kills everything it finds under the tree.

9. Monoceros

Monoceros is a bizarre variety of unicorn that has been found in all bestiaries from ancient times to the Middle Ages. It had the body of a horse and the familiar long horn of an ordinary unicorn, but this beast also had the legs of an elephant and the tail of a deer. Pliny endowed this creature with a boar's tail and a deer's head. The monoceros horn was said to have all the highly sought-after properties attributed to the unicorn horn. Monoceros had a less positive disposition than a unicorn: he killed any person he met on his way. Also, this kind of unicorn emitted a deafening roar that caused icy horror.

10 Salamander

Salamanders are very real, but the salamanders in medieval bestiaries were creatures that not only could live in fire, but also breathed fire themselves. St. Augustine first wrote that salamanders are the embodiment of the soul's resistance to hellfire, arguing that the salamander's power over fire was proof that something mundane could collide with the fires of hell and not be destroyed.

While the early salamanders of ancient Persia were symbols of divinity, the salamanders of the medieval world were not only flammable but also poisonous. A salamander that fell into a well could poison and kill an entire village.

Many people already know funny pictures from the “Suffering Middle Ages” series. Well, not many people know.