Abstract
El artículo examina algunos bóvidos maravillosos, aves notables y seres mitad humanos, mitad animales, como el hombre lobo, como una ilustración de ciertos cambios clave en la recepción de la fuente que tienen lugar en los escritos geográficos medievales. Estas criaturas se encuentran en un compendio francés medio titulado Los secretos de la historia natural, que por conveniencia llamamos aquí SNH. Esta obra anónima, probablemente compilada alrededor de 1380, existe en cuatro manuscritos ilustrados de lujo franceses realizados a mediados y a finales del siglo XV, así como en varios incunables y ediciones impresas antiguas. Aunque hay cientos de criaturas mencionadas en los setenta y tres capítulos de la SNH, tomados en gran parte de Historia Naturalis de Plinio y de Collectanea de Solinus, nos ocuparemos aquí solo de aquellos que no son plineanos y más “locales” en su origen como parte del modelo de cambios más grandes en la observación científica desde una dependencia exclusiva de la autoridad antigua para un mayor uso e incorporación de la cultura popular recibida de fuentes contemporáneas, a menudo nombradas. Las miniaturas de los cuatro manuscritos conocidos de la SNH ilustran algunos puntos en el argumento.
Highlights
The present paper examines some marvelous bovids, remarkable birds, and beings half human, half animal such as the werewolf as an illustration of certain key changes in source reception taking place in late medieval geographic writing. These creatures are found in a Middle French compendium titled by scholars the Secrets of Natural History, which for convenience here is called SNH
As the SNH is little known to students of exotic geography and natural history illustration, the purpose of these remarks is to introduce some of the remarkable creatures wholly or partially drawn from folklore to be found in its chapters
Though there are hundreds of creatures mentioned in the SNH’s seventy-three chapters, taken mainly from Pliny’s Historia naturalis and Solinus’ Collectanea, we will be concerned here only with those that are non-Plinean and more “local” in origin as part of the pattern of larger changes in scientific observation from a sole reliance on antique authority to a greater use and incorporation of personal experience and stories from popular or folk culture, received from contemporary, often named sources, such as a mysterious but “religious and prudent” friar Jean de Sara who spoke about the wonders of the naturally occurring petroleum by-product naphtha to the compiler of the SNH’s Latin original
Summary
The present paper examines some marvelous bovids, remarkable birds, and beings half human, half animal such as the werewolf as an illustration of certain key changes in source reception taking place in late medieval geographic writing. These creatures are found in a Middle French compendium titled by scholars the Secrets of Natural History, which for convenience here is called SNH. Though there are hundreds of creatures mentioned in the SNH’s seventy-three chapters, taken mainly from Pliny’s Historia naturalis and Solinus’ Collectanea, we will be concerned here only with those that are non-Plinean and more “local” in origin as part of the pattern of larger changes in scientific observation from a sole reliance on antique authority to a greater use and incorporation of personal experience and stories from popular or folk culture, received from contemporary, often named sources, such as a mysterious but “religious and prudent” friar Jean de Sara who spoke about the wonders of the naturally occurring petroleum by-product naphtha to the compiler of the SNH’s Latin original
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