Animals had been written about for centuries before the Christian era, but it was Christianity that took the stories and made them into religious allegories. The first known text to do this was the Physiologus, written in Greek in Alexandria in the second or third century CE. This collection of animal lore is explicitly Christian; it briefly describes an animal, and continues with an Christian allegorical interpretation. The Physiologus was a “bestseller” that was translated into most of the major languages of Europe and western Asia; it is said that it was the most widely-distributed book in Europe after the Bible. Many variations on the text appeared over the centuries. The original Physiologus text, describing less than 50 animals, continued to evolve, accumulating more beasts and additional moral interpretations. Around the seventh century, Isidore of Seville wrote his Etymologiae, an encyclopedia of which part was about animals, derived from the books of Classical authors such as Pliny the Elder. When thePhysiologus combined with the Etymologiae and other texts, the book known as the bestiary was born.
The bestiary, or “book of beasts”, is more than just an expansion of the Physiologus, though the two have much in common. The bestiary also describes a beast and uses that description as a basis for an allegorical teaching, but by including text from other sources it goes further; and while still not a “zoology textbook”, it is not only a religious text, but also a description of the world as it was known.
The bestiary manuscripts were usually illustrated, sometimes lavishly, as for example in the Harley Bestiary and the Aberdeen Bestiary; the pictures served as a “visual language” for the illiterate public, who knew the stories – preachers used them in sermons – and would remember the moral teaching when they saw the beast depicted. Bestiary images could be found everywhere. They appeared not only in bestiaries but in manuscripts of all kinds; in churches and monasteries, carved in stone both inside and out, and in wood on misericords and on other decorated furniture; painted on walls and worked into mosaics; and woven into tapestries. – David Badke, editor, The Medieval Bestiary Index
The lion has three natures: when a lion walking in the mountains sees that it is being hunted, it erases its tracks with its tail; it always sleeps with its eyes open; and its cubs are born dead and are brought to life on the third day when the mother breathes in their faces or the father roars over them. Some sources add more natures: a lion only kills out of great hunger; it will not attack a prostrate man; it allows captive men to depart; it is not easily angered; the lioness first has five cubs, then one less each year.
There are two kinds of lion: one is timid, has a short body and curly hair; the other has straight hair and a long body and is fierce. A lion’s strength is seen in its chest, its firmness in its head, and its courage in its forehead and tail.
Lions are frightened of the sight of hunters with spears, so they look at the ground when surrounded. They also fear the sound of creaking cart wheels, fire, and the sight of the white cock. A sick lion cures itself by eating an ape, eating on one day and drinking the next; if the meat does not digest properly the lion pulls it out of its stomach with its claws. Lions are harmed by scorpions and killed by snakes.
When a lion is hungry it treats other animals with anger, leaping on them as it does on the ass. A hunting lion makes a circle with its tail around other animals, which do not dare to cross the line and so become its prey. The roar of a lion is alone enough to make other animals weak with fear.
Lions do not like to eat the previous day’s prey, abandoning the remains of their last meal.
Unlike most animals, lions mate face to face. The lioness give birth to five cubs the first time, then four the next, and three the next, until after the birth of a single cub in the fifth year, they become sterile. Source: British Library, Royal MS 12 C. xix, Folio 6r
Search the Medieval Bestiary Index
Long form articles:
https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/best/hd_best.htm
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/76347/20-bizarre-beasts-ancient-bestiaries
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/medieval-bestiary-allegories
Book of Beasts: The Bestiary in the Medieval World
Published by J. Paul Getty Museum (2019)
Medieval Monsters
Damien Kempf, Maria L. Gilbert
Published by British Library Publishing, United Kingdom(2015)
Beasts and Birds of the Middle Ages. The Bestiary and Its Legacy
Clark, Willene B. And McMunn, Meradith T., Editor
Published by Univ. Of Pennsylvania, Phila. (1990)
The Mark of the Beast: The Medieval Bestiary in Art, Life, and Literature
Published by Routledge 2000-07-27 (2000)
Disappointingly Muddy 