The birds of English medieval manuscripts

Abstract

No broad study of the birds of medieval manuscripts has previously been made, and many of the casual references to them in accounts of particular manuscripts are incorrect. It is possible, by applying the experience of teaching zoology students, to say, more or less confidently, whether a given drawing is from nature or is a copy. In some 300 English manuscripts, from about 1100 to the introduction of printing, about fifty species of birds are fairly definitely identifiable, and another thirty are probable. Not all of these are mentioned in this paper, which deals only with some of the more important manuscripts. In some of these the birds confirm what has already been deduced about their artists or provenance, in some they suggest that views must be revised. While most of the drawings of birds in bestiaries are poor, many of those used as decoration, especially in the century 1250–1350, are good, suggesting a strong interest in natural history amongst the wealthy.