Bestiary
the name given to a class of written books of great popularity in the Middle Ages, describing all the animals of creation, real or fabled, composed partly in prose, partly in verse, and generally illustrated by drawings.
But they were valuable for the moral BETEL allegories they contained, no less than as handbooks of zoölogical facts. The oldest Latin bestiaries had an early Greek original, the well known "Physiologus," under which name about 50 such allegories were grouped. The Greek text of this famous work is found only in manuscript. There are old Syriac, Armenian, Ethiopic, Arabic, Icelandic, and numerous Latin versions. Editions of the Latin have been issued-Mai, Heider, and Cahier. An Old High German version was made earlier than the 11th century; in the 12th century, versions in French were made by Philippe de Thaun and Guillaume, a priest of Normandy. The "Bestiary of Love" of Richard de Fournival was rather a parody upon the ealier form of such books.