A few years ago a book by Mihai Coman was published in Bucharest under the title Bestiarul mitologic românesc [The Romanian Mythological Bestiary]. The use in the title of the term bestiary for the animals from the ancient, oral culture (ancestral origin) of Romanian speakers raises the question: “Basically, what is a bestiary”? In the present lecture, we understand bestiary as a Physiologus, from which parables about animals are primarily (but not exclusively) kept, the number of which is then multiplied. The decoding of the interpretations is then expanded and gradually shifts from the realm of the spiritual to areas of spiritual life: love, emblematics, etc. The interpretation is often omitted and then only the parable remains, enriched by information from other sources. One could claim (at the risk of gross simplification) that in the Physiologus the relationship appears signifying - signified as a symbol, while in the Bestiary the same relationship takes the form of an allegory. An often neglected fact should be remembered here: “Bestiarius” means “fighter with wild animals” in Latin, and this is obviously also the spiritual meaning of the bestiaries carved in the Romanesque churches. - [Author]

Language: German