Title: Medieval bestiaries
First published: 1995
Description: Medieval Bestiaries: Text, Image, Ideology integrates the bestiary into the social history of art through an examination of twenty-eight manuscripts produced in England during the twelfth, thirteenth, and early fourteenth centuries.

The analysis of the reception of the bestiary by different types of readers - religious and lay, male and female - links selected bestiary entries to specific social, political, economic, and theological concerns of significance at the time that the manuscripts were produced and read. Special attention is devoted to bestiary characterizations of women and Jews. The first comprehensive analysis of text and images that takes both an iconographical and semiotic approach to the imagery, this study also takes into account the aesthetic dimension of these works. It challenges, moreover, the pervasive thesis that the bestiaries were collections of standard texts and images intended solely for religious contemplation.

By tracing their changing functions across the centuries and evaluating them in the broader context of medieval intellectual history, bestiaries are shown to be a dynamic genre.
Subjects: Anglo-Norman literature, Animals in art, Animals in literature, Bestiaries, English Illumination of books and manuscripts, English literature, History and criticism, Illumination of books and manuscripts, English, Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Illustrations, Latin literature, Medieval and modern, Manuscripts, Medieval, Medieval Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval Manuscripts, Medieval and modern Latin literature, English literature, history and criticism, middle english, 1100-1500, Latin literature, medieval and modern, history and criticism, Illumination of books and manuscripts, Anglo-norman literature, history and criticism, History
Places: England
Time periods: Middle English, 1100-1500
LC classification: PR275.B47 H37 1995