"Hugh of Fouilloy's De avibus, written sometime after 1152, is a teaching text for monastic lay-brothers, using birds as the subjects of moral allegory. Copies were usually illustrated,and a standard program of miniatures can be followed, all or in part, through some forty-six of the seventy-eight extant manuscripts, produced mainly in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In England, the text was often incorporated directly into the Bestiary, with or without the typical Aviary illustrations. The Aviary's formal parallels to the Bestiary, and its similar patronage and currency, suggest that the Bestiary, too, may have been used as a teaching text for lay-brothers." - Clark, abstract

Includes black & white manuscript images.

Language: English