Having finished copying the fourth quire, I’m authoring the third update of my bestiary project. In this update, I briefly celebrate a minor milestone for having finished approximately one-third of writing all the text. This is followed by a brief look into the upcoming section of the exemplar manuscript, which covers many birds.
Bestiary progress
The video above showcases the 4th quire of my bestiary project. With exception of a few more required pages to cover the full entry on the bees, it concludes the text on all the mammals. With exception of whales and dolphins, which they considered fish and are thus covered later in the manuscript. The mammals comprise roughly one-third of the completed bestiary, which I consider an minor milestone!
In the next quire, I’ll get to start on the next one-third of the manuscript that covers many, many birds. This is because the family of texts that the exemplar manuscript belongs to, incorporated the ‘De Avibus‘ by Hugh of Fouilloy: a moral treatise on birds. A perfect fit for a text that lists all of the animals and then relates them to Christian moral theology.
… about one-fifth of the parchment ordered for this project is unusable…
Unfortunately, I determined about one-fifth of the parchment ordered for this project is unusable. Both unsuitable for writing and too thin to process them further myself, I instead cut down on the number of animals I will write about. Parts of the birds from De Avibus will be skipped, and the same might happen to fish and lizards (though much is dependant on how much leaves I have left).
If you are planning to create a manuscript from parchment yourself, take the advice that I learned of too late: visit the supplier to inspect the skins in person. Only buy whole skins and preferably cut them yourself. Despite the leftovers, it is quite possibly cheaper as there is a steep markup on pre-cut pieces of vellum.
Birds!
I’m looking forward to starting the section on birds! But before doing so, I must finish the chapter on the bees first. This one spans multiple pages and includes much Christian theology. The number of pages medieval authors dedicated to bees indicate their significance. Only the chapter on the dogs is longer, though those on the lion, the horse and the dove follow closely due to their own importance.
The stories about birds which made its way into the Ashmole and Aberdeen bestiary originate from ‘De Avibus‘. Its author, Hugh of Fouilloy, itself based these upon the texts on birds found in Isidore of Seville’s Etymoligiae which is “an etymological encyclopedia” from ca. 625 AD. This shows the origin of these texts oftentimes appear rooted in classical antuiqity.
The story that’s perhaps the most interesting, and simultaneously bizarre, is that of the Caladrius. This is a bird that, according to Roman mythology, lived in the king’s house. Were he to fall ill, the Caladrius would “take the sickness into itself” and then fly away. Doing so, it healed the king and then himself by “dispersing” the sickness.
The bird turning itself away represents Christ turning away from unrepentant sinners…
In Christian moralizations, such as those found in the various bestiaries, the Caladrius represents Christ who, being pure, is white without a trace of the blackness of sin. The bird turning itself away represents Christ turning away from unrepentant sinners and casting them off; those to whom he turns his face, he makes whole again.
Post-face
I decided to keep this update short, since I didn’t think a long rant about the issues I’ve faced lately would make for good reading. I’ve took the whole of march ‘off’ of this project, so I’d start afresh in april. This weekend will see the preparation of the fifth and sixth quire by investing time in pricking and ruling both.
I’m looking forward towards copying the entries on the birds, since they are some of my most favorite animals. The entries themselves, while numerous, are comparatively short so that there is quite some variation between them. Maybe I’ll even be able to finish them by the end of summer?
Finishing up, there’s a blog post upcoming in which I’ll cover the quire and folio signatures as found in the Aberdeen bestiary, as well as how I’ve adapted these for my own. This expands upon my earlier article dealing with quire signatures, catchwords and foliation.