Between 1121 and 1135 Philippe de Thaon wrote a bestiary, an allegorized treatise being in the long tradition of the Physiologus and the first dated to have been written in the Romance language, in which the author attaches a indicate the allegorical meaning of the properties of the animals it describes. In this work, composed of 37 chapters, preceded by a prologue and followed by an epilogue, the 28th is devoted to the pelican. What Philippe tells us about the etymology of the name of this bird, of its properties or 'natures', as he says, and of its 'significance' seemed so curious, that we propose here a commented reading of this chapter, while indicating the problems that we encountered there, and sometimes proposing solutions. Our contribution is articulated in three parts, like the text of Philippe: it will be successively the name, properties and 'significance' of the pelican. - [Author]

Language: French