The Physiologus was popular in the Middle Ages. Very popular. How popular? We can judge by the number of still existing manuscripts that include the text.

This update includes a large addition to the Physiologus encyclopedia article. That includes a lot of added manuscripts. When I started I had less than 100; now there are 264, and that is not likely to be all of them. Many more were lost over the centuries. It is said that the Physiologus was the most widely distributed text in the Middle Ages, after the Christian Bible. The text was translated into many languages, including Arabic, Armenian, Ethiopian, English, German, French, Syriac and a few Slavic languages, in several different versions, including verse. To show that diversity, I have added a page to the Bestiary Families article for the Physiologus manuscripts, categorized by version and language. Some of the manuscripts I could find little or no information about, but quite a few have facsimiles online. Some are illustrated, so the Physiologus encyclopedia article has a gallery of a few hundred images.

That the Physiologus was subject to a revival of interest starting in the 19th century is shown by the number of books, articles and dissertations on the Physiologus text that have been produced since then. The Physiologus has well over 300 bibliography items already with more waiting to be entered, and new ones keep appearing.

This update also includes additions to the encyclopedia article of Hugh of Fouilloy and his moralized book about birds, the De avibus or Aviary; several more manuscripts of all kinds; more bibliography items; and more images. Plus a bunch of corrections and a few cosmetic changes, just to keep things from getting stale.

Maybe we should look at some statistics!

10-Apr-200918-Nov-202213-Sep-20234-Mar-2024
Beasts141267431444
Manuscripts257425545885
Bibliography Items1521167118172066
Encyclopedia Articles0343941
Images1303474673488307