![]() The artist of one bestiary seems to have followed this trend, as their crocodile has long legs and looks more like a horse.īears and a crocodile (England, 2nd or 3rd quarter of the 13th century): Sloane MS 3544, f. Guillaume le Clerc, a Norman cleric and early compiler of the bestiary, described crocodiles as being shaped ‘somewhat like an ox’. In this manuscript there are two drawings of crocodiles, one with the hydrus and the other eating fish.Ī beaver with a man blowing a horn, a crocodile swallowing a hydrus, a crocodile eating fish, and a winged hyena (England, 1st quarter of the 13th century): Stowe MS 1067, ff. In the bestiary tradition, animal behaviours are seen as moral allegories in this case the crocodile’s mouth represents the mouth of Hell, while the hydrus is Christ, who enters through the gate of Hell to redeem lost souls. It then begins to eat its way out, killing the crocodile in the process. The text describes how, when a crocodile is asleep with its mouth open, the hydrus rolls in the mud to become slippery it slithers into the crocodile’s mouth before being swallowed. The crocodile is often accompanied by its enemy, a snake-like beast from the Nile, known as the hydrus. This manuscript, as well as two others described in this blogpost (Royal MS 12 C XIX and Harley MS 3244), is currently on display in the exhibition Book of Beasts at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.Ī crocodile in the ‘Rochester Bestiary’, 2nd quarter of the 13th century: Royal MS 12 F XIII, f. The British Library's bestiaries contain a huge variety of images of these creatures, by medieval artists who were compelled to use their imagination - after all, one rarely encountered a crocodile when fishing for eels in the Essex mud-flats in the 13th century!Ī fairly realistic depiction of a crocodile is found in this bestiary, which was in the library of Rochester Priory in the 14th century and may have been made there. Some of these creatures, like the unicorn or bonnacon, are no longer to be seen but one of the strangest beasts is still thriving (though please don’t get too close) - the crocodile. 10v)?įollow us on Twitter readers of our Blog may have noticed that animals are one of our favourite subjects, especially the weird and wonderful creatures that inhabit the Bestiary. 57v), or with the bear looking suspiciously like a medieval Winnie the Pooh ( Harley MS 3448, f. 57v), with a duck in an English bestiary ( Harley MS 3244, f. How about the beehives in an Italian herbal ( Sloane MS 4016, f. When it comes to bees, we are also spoilt for choice. 39v), and would have surely won the prize were it not for the magnificent illustration of the constellation 'Cygnus', made in 9th-century France ( Harley MS 647, f. 110r).įinally for our birds, how about a little swan-upmanship? This first swan with its noble beak is found in a 13th-century English bestiary ( Royal MS 12 C XIX, f. We couldn't resist showing you another peacock, this time alongside other birds, among them a hoopoe and a jay, in a cutting from a gospel lectionary of Pope Gregory XIII ( Add MS 21412, f. If you look carefully at the same border, you can also see a rather splendid peacock and a bear playing the bagpipes! ![]() 29r), at the beginning of the Annunciation. Talking of owls, this rather important looking specimen is found in the border of the Hours of the Earls of Ormond ( Harley MS 2887, f. 6r), and this rather fetching pair of owls (f. 4r), the pelican striking her breast to feed her young with the blood (f. We are particularly fond of the heron (f. 14r).Īnother manuscript we often look to for inspiration is Burney MS 97, made in Paris in the 1550s or 1560s. In a much later manuscript, known as the Hours of Dionora of Urbino ( Yates Thompson MS 7), is found this border at the beginning of the Hours of the Virgin, containing this rather realistic blue tit and bullfinch separated by a roundel of John the Baptist (f. An equally famous image in the same book is that of St Kevin, who kept so still that a blackbird nested in the palm of his hand (f. 9r) and the kingfishers and stork featured below (f. The margins of this late 12th or early 13th-century of the Topography of Ireland by Gerald of Wales are adorned with a number of illustrations, including the dive-bombing osprey (shown above, Royal MS 13 B VIII, f. In this blogpost, we thought we would delight you with a selection of the charming pictures of birds and bees found in manuscripts in the British Library's collections. Some of our favourite images are of elephants, while western European attempts to accurately depict crocodiles and camels always make us smile. As many of our readers are aware, medieval manuscripts are an invaluable source for illustrations of cats and dogs and knights fighting snails.
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