Bodley's Bestiary: Peacocks
Channel: Andrew Dunning
Date: 2020-09-11

How would medieval people have understood the peacocks at the University of Oxford's Harcourt Arboretum? Listen to a book of beasts from thirteenth-century England: Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Bodley 764, fol. 84v, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/inquire/p/d02f6925-3979-41f2-acab-787168b30381

Text (translated by Andrew Dunning):

The peacock’s name comes from the sound of its call; its flesh is so tough that it hardly suffers decay, and it is not easy to cook. Concerning it, someone once said: ‘Do you admire him whenever he spreads out his jewelled wings, and can you hand him over, hard-hearted man, to the cruel cook?’ [Martial 13.70]

Because Solomon carried a peacock from distant lands, and it has different colours in its feathers, it is a sign of the gentile people, coming to Christ from remote parts of the earth, who also shine brightly, adorned with the grace of many virtues.