Abstract
Animal literature in the Middle Ages is essentially typological in that each animal is matched with a specific virtue or vice. This type of literature must be understood in the context of the period's fascination with universal symbolism on the one hand, and the tendency to associate literature with lies on the other. In fact, in order to justify its recourse to animals, any literature which claimed to be didactic and sought to be endorsed by the medieval ecclesiastical discourse of authority had to subordinate the animal to a deeper conventional significance, usually of a theological nature. In the medieval typological discourse, perhaps best exemplified by the Bestiaries, the lion is the symbol of God or the King; the lamb that of Jesus Christ or the victim; the fox that of the Devil or evil preach-
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