Medieval birds in the Sherborne missal
By: Janet Backhouse.
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Published: 2001
Place of publication: Toronto
Language: eng
Number of pages: 64
Subjects: Catholic Church -- Liturgy -- Texts -- Illustrations.; Église catholique. -- Illustrations.; Sherborne missal -- Illustrations.; Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval -- England.; Birds in art -- History.; Église catholique -- Liturgie -- Textes -- Illustrations.; Enluminure médiévale -- Angleterre.; Oiseaux dans l'art -- Histoire -- Jusqu'à 1500.
Genres: Liturgie; Textes; Illustrations.
Description: "The Sherborne Missal, one of the most important surviving medieval English manuscripts, contains a wealth of marginal illustrations of wild birds, painted with skill and vivacity. Some of the birds are imaginary creations of the artist but the majority are evidently real birds, although not all of these can identified with certainty. All forty-eight are reproduced here and most are well observed and readily recognisable.

The majority are accompanied by their names, written out in middle English, offering an almost unparalleled source of vernacular bird names in common use during the generation after Chaucer wrote his Canterbury Tales." "This is the first time that all birds form the Sherborne Missal have been reproduced together in sequence and this beautifully illustrated book provides an insight into a fascinating aspect of England's natural history in the middle ages."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.