Birds and mammals abound in the visual arts of the later Middle Ages. But to treat them, as is generally done, under separate headings such as beasts, monsters, fable illustrations or hunting scenes would add little to what our study of the literature has already revealed. Critics disposed to doubt that the first striving towards naturalism can have appeared so early in English art might argue that it was the decorative value of the more brilliantly coloured native birds that appealed to the bestiary illustrators. Moreover in the best works, such as the Morgan bestiary and its British Museum variant, also in the Ashmole and Aberdeen bestiaries, some of the native English birds, including the stork and swan, appear in their natural colours. The elongated virgin in the unicorn group and the scaly, acanthustailed serra illustrate the native traits in the Oxford Laud bestiary. - [Abstract]

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ISBN: 978-0-429-26268-5