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

What would medieval people have told you about their sheep and lambs? Listen to a book of beasts from thirteenth-century England: Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Bodley 764, fol. 34r: https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/inquire/p/3db2d676-b2ea-43d6-b194-1fc7b9d9b90f

Text (translated by Andrew Dunning):

The sheep is a soft wooly domestic animal, with a vulnerable body, a gentle spirit. Its Latin name, ‘ovis’ is derived from ‘oblations’, because when the ancients first began sacrificing, they did not kill cattle but sheep. Some people call them two-toothed, because some have two upper teeth along with eight others. The gentiles used to offer these especially in sacrifice.

When winter comes, the sheep grazes insatiably and tears at the grass voraciously, because it senses the coming sharpness of winter. It first stuffs itself with grass for food, since all the grass is destroyed by the freezing cold.

Sheep, as we said, represent innocent and simple people among Christians. Furthermore, at times the sheep also allegorically displays the mildness and patience of the Lord himself. A passage of Isaiah on the innocent Saviour’s death says, ‘as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.’ [Isaiah 53.7] In the Gospel, sheep are the faithful people: ‘The sheep hear his voice’. [John 10.3] And in a psalm: ‘Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet: sheep and oxen’.[ Psalm 8.6–7] Two sheep represent the peoples of the nations that a man nourishes, that is Christ, on which it is read in the prophet, ‘in those days a man shall nourish a young cow and two sheep; and because of the abundance of milk he shall eat butter’. [Isaiah 7.21–22]

Music: MusicLFiles, ‘Romantic Peace Trailer’ (CC BY)