This update is mostly about manuscripts. I have corrected a few errors, added some information, and added a lot of images for two manuscripts. I have added content to the following sections: Added images from manuscripts Aberdeen University Library Univ. Lib. MS 24 (Aberdeen Bestiary) – 94 images British Library Sloane MS 278 – 62 […]

More of a complete rebuild than a simple update. After years of shameful neglect, I have spent the last couple of months redesigning and rebuilding the Medieval Bestiary website. The old site was using outdated web technologies, which made it difficult to update and maintain. I had been putting off the needed work – and […]

It’s not a large update, though there are a few hundred more images, mostly from the Bodleian Library. There are also more bibliography items, manuscript information, and other miscellaneous stuff. I am aware that some of the image pages don’t display very well. I have started using larger images, and they sometimes break my primitive […]

Bestiary.ca is now up to date, if such a phrase is meaningful for a site that deals only with stuff at least 500 years gone. There is a bit more of everything, but mostly pictures – about 300 new ones, some of them spectacular. The best overview of what pictures are here is to be […]

I updated the Bestiary site today. If you are wondering why I update so infrequently, well… it’s a lot of work! This update is mostly about images, with an addition of about 400 from various sources. I have decided to use whatever images I can get my hands on; previously I was only using public […]

Update January 12, 2022: Cooliris no longer exists, so no more Wall of Beasts. Imagine you are standing in front of a wall. If you look to your left or right, you can see that the wall stretches out far into the hazy distance. On the wall are arranged a series of pictures, all of […]

There is a new text available in the Digital Text Library: “The Fabulous Natural History of the Middle Ages” by Thomas Wright. This text was originally published as a chapter in The Archaeological Album; or, Museum of National Antiquities (pages 174-186), London: Chapman & Hall, 1845. The complete book is available on Google Books. This […]

A new text is available in the Digital Text Library: Jacob and the Mandrakes by James George Frazer, originally a paper read to and published by the British Academy in 1917. Frazer was a social anthropologist influential in the early stages of the modern studies of mythology and comparative religion, and is most famous for […]

The bestiary blog is now online (duh! like, you’re reading it, aren’t you?), though there are no articles in it yet, just the old “What’s new” data. Two articles are in preparation. There are also a couple of new digital texts available, and some other general updates.

It has been a long time since I have done a major update, and things have gotten a little ragged around the edges. This update fixes many broken links (other people will keep changing their sites!), adds a bunch more information on several of the beasts, and adds a few images, bibliography items, manuscripts, and […]