Wild World: Visual Representation of Animals in Manuscripts and Early Printed Books

Animals have always lived alongside humans, and the species which currently populate the planet evolved in step with us. Human interactions with the natural world have long inspired elements in mythology, folklore, and art. Visual depictions of animals have served to decorate and illustrate written texts from early manuscripts, through the dawn of the printed book, and up to the present day. These illustrations are charming for their unusual art styles, and unconventional ideas about animals that we are now more familiar with seeing in zoos or on television screens. However, much of the natural world which has inspired human creativity throughout the centuries is now at risk of being destroyed through human interference.

This exhibition showcases just some of the interesting examples of animal art that can be found in the manuscripts and early printed books held in the Special Collections of St John’s College Library, as well as presenting relevant facts about the animals themselves and the often sobering nature of their relationship to humans.

Curated by Ellie Capeling, Library Graduate Trainee 2019-2020.

Josephus. Fasciculus Temporum.

Illuminated letter T decorated with a peacock.
MS A.8. Vellum, 12th century AD.

 

This medieval manuscript is a copy of Josephus’ Antiquities, which is a history of the Jewish people. Translations of the text in Latin, like this one, circulated widely throughout medieval Europe. This peacock standing atop a fish is one of many illuminations in the manuscript, and many of these also include animals such as dogs, serpents, and other birds, as well as more fantastical dragons and grotesques. Illuminations served to decorate and beautify medieval manuscripts, and animals were a frequent motif. However, illuminated letters—like this T—also functioned as navigational devices, marking the start of a new chapter or section. Some illustrations were linked to the text, to prompt the reader to focus on a topic, but many were purely decorative.

Peacocks, more properly referred to as peafowl, are perfectly suited for decorating manuscripts. They are well-known for their colourful plumage in males, which is used for courtship displays. Admired for their beauty, peacocks have been kept as pets for thousands of years. Peafowl are omnivorous members of the pheasant family, and are one of the largest species of birds capable of flight. Three different species are respectively native to India and Sri Lanka, Java and Myanmar (Burma), and the African rainforests.

Psalter

Illuminated letter B featuring a drawing of a cat.

   Illuminated letter A featuring a drawing of a cat.

This Psalter is a good example of illuminated letters used as a navigational device. A Psalter is a copy of the Book of Psalms which often had other religious material bound with them—this manuscript also contains a calendar of saints and a cantica, a religious or narrative poem. Each psalm in this manuscript begins with its own illuminated initial. The three examples shown here are all decorated with cats, although the reader may find that difficult to tell. Cats have been a subject of art throughout history, with depictions of pet cats found in cave paintings, carvings, and famously in Ancient Egyptian art.

The domestic cat would have been a familiar sight to the scribes who crafted this manuscript. Cats had spread across most of Europe by the medieval period, but they were first domesticated from the North African wildcat around 10,000 years ago. As humans developed agriculture, growing settlements began to attract mice and rats which in turn began to attract wildcats. Their presence was encouraged by farmers for the purpose of pest control, and eventually these tamer cats also became domestic companions. Domestication is a permanent genetic change across an entire species that renders each individual animal friendlier towards humans. This is distinct from the process of taming a single animal. The science around domestication is still evolving and changing, but the first animal domesticated by humans was probably the dog—between 14,000 and 36,000 years ago, predating the dawn of agriculture.

Illuminated letter T featuring a drawing of two cats.
MS K.30. Vellum in vellum wrapper, 12th or 13th century AD.

Speculum Historiale Vincentii

A manuscript illustration of a dog hunting a stag.

A manuscript illustration of a dog hunting a rabbit.

A manuscript illustration of a dog hunting a rabbit.

A manuscript illustration of a dog hunting a rabbit.

A manuscript illustration of a dog hunting a boar.
MS B.21. Vellum bound in leather, early 14th century.

 

The Speculum Historiale, or the Mirror of History, is one part of the Speculum Maius (Great Mirror). Vincent of Beauvais, a Dominican friar, wrote the Speculum Maius in 1264. He intended for it to represent a compendium of all knowledge currently available at the time of his writing. The Speculum Historiale gave a history of the world up until the 13th century. The other parts were the Speculum Naturale (Mirror of Nature) and Speculum Doctrinale (Mirror of Doctrine).

This copy of the Speculum Historiale is therefore considerably more recent than the text itself. Throughout the manuscript, the pages are decorated with delightful borders that illustrate hunting scenes of dogs chasing game animals: a stag, a boar, and a handful of rabbits. After their domestication, continued selective breeding by humans produced different breeds of dogs suited to different tasks. Of the many dogs bred to assist in hunting, some were tailored for the pursuit of specific game, and the names of these breeds often reflect their history. The Otterhound, the Fox Terrier, and the Deerhound were all bred to hunt the animals they are named for.

Although it might be difficult to find a bright blue dog outside the pages of a book, the illustrations here are perhaps meant to depict a greyhound. The breed was developed in Britain, and used to hunt by royalty and nobility in the Middle Ages long before they became better known for racing.

Concordance

A humorous cartoon showing the funeral of a chicken.

A humorous cartoon showing the funeral of a chicken.
MS C.1. Vellum, late 13th or early 14th century.

 

Not all manuscript art is necessarily bright, colourful, or beautiful. As well as illuminated letters functioning as navigation aids, marginal art in manuscripts often served to comment on or satirise the text that they accompanied.

This Bible concordance (an index to the Bible) from Canterbury is decorated with grand gold initials and red ink drawings. In the same pen as the decorative art is this comical marginal drawing depicting a funeral procession for a dead chicken, with dogs acting as pallbearers and another with a book acting as priest, while a rabbit rings two bells. What do you think this strange scene could be critiquing about the text?

Cantica, Hymns, etc.

A medieval manuscript illustration of the Nativity.
MS K.21. Vellum, 14th century.

 

This manuscript contains a cantica bound with a collection of hymns and other religious writing, including a depiction of the Passion of Christ with many illustrations. This manuscript was likely part of a Psalter at one time. Most surviving illuminated manuscripts are religious in nature. As well as appearing for random decorative purposes, animals were often drawn as part of Christian stories in which they featured—one common example is of course the nativity scene, pictured above with an ass and ox peering at the baby Jesus from the bottom of the image.

There is something very slightly macabre about an ox drawn on vellum. Parchment is the catch-all term used to describe writing surfaces made of treated animal skin; when the word vellum is used, in the strictest sense it specifically means calf skin.

Horae (Rouen)

A medieval illustration of the Nativity.
MS N.2. Vellum, 15th century.

 

The nativity scene from this Book of Hours also depicts an ass and an ox watching over the child Christ, but they are not the only animals present on the page. The space outside of the text is full of illustrated birds and other natural objects to fill the space.

Books of Hours were for lay people, rather than ecclesiastical readers. They contained prayers which were to be read at set hours of the day, and often illustrations which were meant to complement these prayers.

Psalter (Irish)

A medieval Irish illustration of the Biblical David with a lion and sheep.
MS C.9. Vellum, 10th century.

 

Another example of animal inclusion in the illustration of religious stories comes from this Psalter, which was written in Latin and glossed in Irish. The illustration depicts the Biblical David accompanying a ram, and fighting off what is probably intended to be a lion. Like cattle, the skin of sheep could be used to produce parchment, along with goats.

Dating from the 10th century, this Psalter is the oldest manuscript currently held in St John’s College Library. However, the dating of manuscripts can be a complicated topic, unless the scribe has helpfully written down the date of completion. There may be historical clues within the text of a manuscript that mentions certain people or events; or outside of the text, if we know that the manuscript was written for a certain person at a certain time in their life. Handwriting styles change over time, and so looking at the writing itself can be one way to estimate the age of a manuscript, but handwriting of course varies between individual scribes and should be taken with caution. Art styles also change over time in a similar way, as you may be able to see from the manuscripts in this very exhibition. Language, too, evolves—think how different a Shakespeare play sounds compared to a Marvel movie. The end of the 10th century is simply the most educated guess at when this Psalter was made.

Psalter

 

A medieval illustration of Creation.
MS K.26. Vellum, late 13th or early 14th century.

 

A medieval illustration of Christ descending to the Apostles.

Another obvious place to find visual depictions of animals in medieval manuscript art is the story of Creation. This Psalter was probably written for Sir Thomas Holland, Duke of Surrey and third Earl of Kent. The manuscript features forty-six Biblical illustrations, one of which shows God creating birds, lions, dogs, ox and deer.

Another image from the Psalter provides a useful insight into animal art for purposes other than decoration. Animals have cultural associations for the humans that encounter them, and they have often been used as symbols of different concepts and ideas. In this image of Christ with the Apostles, a dove descends from the sky. White doves have traditionally been used as a symbol of the Holy Spirit, which the bird represents here. In some versions of the Flood narrative, a dove is the animal which signals to Noah that the waters have subsided.

Both doves and pigeons are members of the bird family Columbidae, and there is technically no difference between them; the distinction is purely semantic, and only exists in English. White doves are not their own species, but rather any colourless member of the pigeon family-- a fact that has not lessened their symbolic power.

Wace. Chrestien de Troyes, etc.

A medieval illustration of the Holy Spirit descending to the Apostles.A medieval illustration of the Holy Spirit descending to the Apostles.

Several different texts make up this manuscript which contains writings from Robert Wace and Chretien de Troyes, respectively famous for the Roman de Brut and various Arthurian romances. The first image accompanies the text of Wace’s la Conception, and once again shows the Holy Spirit descending on the Apostles in the form of a dove. Another similar image accompanies the Somme le Roy in the same manuscript, showing the popularity of the dove as a symbol.

A medieval illustration of the Beast from the Sea.
MS B.9. Vellum, 14th century. 

Not all of the animals used as religious symbols were real. Another illustration from this manuscript depicts the Beast from the Sea, as described in the Book of Revelation:

And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.

And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.

Revelation 13:1-2

Beasts whose bodies are comprised of several different animals combined are common both in mythology and medieval marginalia. Examples include the griffin and the basilisk, as well as mermaids and harpies when humans are one of the animals which comprise the creature. In Greek myth, the chimera was a lion, with an extra goat’s head sprouting from its body, and a snake for a tail. The word chimera has come to describe any mythical creature with body parts taken from an animal, and so could describe the Beast, which uses various predatory animals are used to represent something monstrous and demonic.

Even more recently, the chimera has lent its name to a scientific phenomenon. Chimeras are singular organisms made up of cells with more than one distinct genotype. Animal chimeras are produced when multiple fertilized eggs merge together in the womb. 

Kalendar. Isidre. Homilies, etc.

A drawing of a horned wolf, wearing a cowl, as the Antichrist. Medieval.
MS B.20. 12th century vellum bound in 16th century stamped leather.

 

Like the dove represents the sacred, real animals, not just mythical ones, could also be used to represent the demonic. This manuscript contains a calendar and collection of homilies bound with other religious writing, and also a marginal sketch of a horned wolf in a cowl. The sketch is likely to be the work of Stephen Batman (1542-1584), a clergyman and author, as other marginal scribbles in the manuscript have been identified as his hand. The text below the wolf reads ‘of Antichriste & his signes,’ written with the archaic long S.

Until they were hunted to extinction in the 15th century, wolves were once native to England, and they survived for longer in other parts of Britain and Ireland. The fictional tropes of the fairy tale Big Bad Wolf and horror-movie werewolf are a testament to the continuing poor reputation of the wolf in the West. To the people of the Middle Ages, wolves were both a pest who killed valuable livestock and a genuine danger to human life—documented attacks of wolves on humans are rare but nonetheless recorded. It would not have seemed like a great leap to associate wolves with the Antichrist, or use them as a symbol for evil like Batman does here.

The disappearance of wolves from Britain may have been a boon to historic communities, but it has had knock-on ecological consequences that persist today. There are no large predators left in the British Isles, which has resulted in the deer population spiralling rapidly out of control. When deer overrun an area, their grazing destroys young forests before they have a chance to grow, which has a devastating effect on biodiversity. In order to control the deer population, there have been controversial suggestions about reintroducing wolves to Britain, along with other large predators like lynx and bears.

Horae (Lady Margaret)

A medieval illustration of St. George atop a horse, slaying a dragon which a woman holds on a lead.
MS N.24. 15th century vellum with modern binding.

 

This illustration from a book of hours belonging to Lady Margaret Beaufort, foundress of St. John’s College, shows St. George, seated atop his horse, slaying a mythical dragon. The book is too old to have been written for Lady Margaret, but it contains an inscription by her:

“my good lady Shyrley pray for

me that gevythe yow thys booke

y hertely pray yow | Margaret |

modyr to the kynge”

The inscription is presumably addressed to Lady Anne Shirley, wife of Sir Ralph Shirley.

Horses are intrinsically linked to the figure of the knight. The word chivalry, which describes the code of bravery, honour and courtesy that the ideal knight should follow, is originally derived from the Old French chevalerie. The term was a general description of mounted soldiers before it came to be associated with a particular code of honour, and then the fairy tale image of rescuing fair maidens from dragons—although the maiden in this image is in no need of rescuing, as she is helping to catch the dragon. At one time in history, mounted soldiers made up the main strength of an army; horses have been used in warfare for centuries, only declining as manufactured weapons evolved rapidly during the twentieth century.

The History of the New World

A woodcut of a sloth taken from an early printed book.
B.4.25. Printed for A. Leyde in 1640.

 

The advent of the printing press in the 15th century led to the eventual decline of manuscripts and their illuminations. Early printed books were often still illustrated, but by woodcuts and copper plates which could be printed identically in numerous books. With the ‘discovery’ of the Americas and other ‘new’ countries, both natural histories and travel writing became popular topics for authors, and many of these books were printed with illustrations of strange creatures from the far-off lands that they described.

This book by Johannes de Laet, a director of the Dutch West India Company, was written originally in Dutch and then translated by the author into French. It describes the early European knowledge of the Americas. One of the animals described by Laet is the sloth, shown here in a woodcut with a frighteningly human face. Woodcuts were designs cut into planks of wood which could then be used to print images onto paper.

The three-toed sloth is native to Central and South America, and usually weighs around nine pounds (although the tree in the background of the woodcut suggests this individual is terrifyingly larger). Another species, the two-toed sloth, is found in the same area, but the woodcut clearly shows this animal has three toes. Although they have a brown coat, sloths often appear green, as they move so slowly that algae can begin to grow on their bodies. The human face and absurd size of this sloth can be explained by the fact that the artist had almost never certainly seen one, but it may be interesting to note that some evolutionary ancestors of the sloth could reach a similar size. The giant ground sloth is known to have grown to the size of an elephant before it became extinct around 12,000 years ago, around the time that the first humans reached the Americas. Megafauna, or large land animals, tend to disappear from the fossil record upon the arrival of humans in a new continent, so human activity is likely to be one of the major factors in their disappearance.

The Natural History of Norway

An illustration of a sea serpent from an early printed book.
E.4.28. Printed for A. Linde in London, 1755.

Not all of the information written down in early natural histories was strictly correct, and not all of the animals that they described were exactly real. This natural history of Norway was written by Erich Pontoppidan, a Danish-Norwegian author and bishop. The book is filled with drawings and descriptions of the flora and fauna of Norway—including, according to Pontoppidan, the kraken, and mermaid, and the sea serpent. Pontoppidan writes that he too was sceptical of the existence of sea serpents, but he was convinced by the eyewitness testimony of “hundreds,” of Norwegian sailors. In the text, he related different accounts from sailors who claimed to have seen sea serpents, theorising that the discrepancies in their descriptions could be the result of multiple species existing. The narratives all have the serpentine body of the sea serpent in common, as well as its vast length: different accounts describe sea serpents as being eight fathoms long, 600 feet, or “a whole ship-length.”

Legends of sea monsters were widespread around the world for most of human history. It is possible that sailors may really have seen strange, giant creatures which they could best describe only as a ‘sea serpent.’ The oarfish is a long, snake-like species of fish which can attain unverified lengths of up to 17 metres (56 feet). Though they favour tropical waters, their range is thought to be worldwide. Oarfish usually live at ocean depths of around 3,300 feet, making them elusive and mysterious even to modern science; however, their occasional habit of swimming closer to the surface or washing up on beaches may be the source of sea serpent legends. Interestingly, Pontoppidan’s account even describes sea serpents as living deep beneath the sea and only occasionally surfacing. Similarly, legends of the kraken may have been inspired by sightings of giant squid, and mermaids by—somewhat more inexplicably—sea cows.

Chronicle of Omens and Portents

A woodcut of a rhinoceros from an early printed book.
Kk.6.34. Published by Basileae in 1557.

The Prodigiorum ac ostentorum chronicon, or Chronicle of Omens and Portents, is a Latin text written by Konrad Lykosthenes which documents different omens. One of these omens is the rhinoceros. The woodcut which shows this omen was designed by Albrecht Durer, and appears in numerous other volumes from the 16th century besides Lykosthenes'. Durer had never seen a rhinoceros in person; he based his drawing on a description of a rhino sent as a gift from the King of Cambodia to Portugal (the animal later drowned in a shipwreck when the King of Portugal forwarded it to Pope Leo X). As the vast majority of Europeans at the time had never seen a rhinoceros either, Durer’s rhino was the most readily available reference and came to influence future depictions of the animal for the next two centuries.

There are several different species and subspecies of rhino, three of which—the Black, Javan, and Sumatran rhinoceros—are critically endangered. Of the white rhinoceros, while the Southern subspecies is in no immediate danger, there are only two Northern white rhinos left alive. Both are female—the last male, Sudan, died in 2018, which makes Fatu and Najin endlings, a term coined to describe animals which represent the last of their kind. They are both protected by armed guards around the clock, as poaching for their horns is one of the biggest risks for rhinos. It is hoped that in-vitro fertilisation might revive the Northern white rhinoceros before they are lost for good.

Other notable endlings have included Benjamin, the last thylacine who died of neglect in 1936, and Martha, the last passenger pigeon who died in 1914, but there have been countless others. The earth is currently experiencing an unusually large number of plant and animal extinctions spaced closely together—a mass extinction event. The most well-known extinction event is the K-Pg Extinction which wiped out the dinosaurs, popularly attributed to a catastrophic asteroid impact. Conversely, the ongoing Holocence extinction is largely caused by human activity. While rhinos are targeted by poachers, the greater threats for species worldwide are climate change and habitat loss.

History of Ethiopia

An early book illustration showing a hippo.
D.7.34. Published in 1681.

Hiob Ludolf, a scholar of Ethiopia, wrote his Historia Æthiopica (History of Ethiopia) to document the nature, politics, religion and arts of Ethiopia. One of the animals illustrated in the text is a hippopotamus. The illustration may seem needlessly ferocious, but this is not so inaccurate—hippos are well-known for their aggression. Males will fight viciously over both territory and females, but all hippos are extremely territorial and known to attack both boats and people. They have been responsible for more deaths in Africa than any other mammal, eclipsing large predators like lions and leopards. However, all animal attacks pale in comparison to the deaths caused by pathogens spread by animals; due to their role in the transmission of malaria, the biggest animal killer of humans worldwide is the mosquito.

Originally, the hippopotamus was found only in Africa, but a small population has recently become established in Colombia—the descendants of escaped pets kept by Pablo Escobar. However, the global population of hippos is declining as, like so many other thousands of species, they are threatened by continued habitat loss.

Purchas his pilgrims

A map of Greenland taken from a printed book. Panels at the edges describe the hunting of whales, walruses and bears.
H.6.26. Printed for Henrie Fetherstone in 1625.

Purchas his pilgrims was written by Samuel Purchas, who was a member of St John’s College. He published several volumes of reports by travellers about their journeys to foreign countries, although he was not necessarily always an accurate storyteller. This text, which records a few early voyages, was personally given to St John’s College Library by the author.

A drawing of a walrus from Purchas his pilgrims.

Two pages of the book are taken up by an extensive map of Greenland. The edges of the map are decorated with annotated illustrations explaining the processes of hunting whales, bears, and walruses which the explorer witnessed. In one illustration, a group of people are shown sailing to a shore where walruses are gathered and threatening them with spears, which will then presumably be used to kill them. Historically, walruses were hunted for their tusks, oil, skin and meat, but commercial hunting was outlawed after they were driven to extinction in some territories; now, the main threat facing walruses is global warming, which is slowly destroying the pack ice where they live and breed. Walruses primarily inhabit coasts near the Arctic circle, where they live in large social groups. Their tusks are actually enlarged canine teeth, and are grown by both male and female animals. One illustration from Purchas notes that a ‘Seamorce’ can grow as large as an ox; this is something of an understatement. Depending on the species, an ox may weigh around 1,500 to 2,000 lbs; bull walruses can weigh over 3,000.

A drawing of a whale from Purchas his pilgrims.

Another panel bordering the map depicts a poorly-drawn whale, which is described as “ordinarily about 60 foote long.” Whether or not this statement is accurate depends entirely on the species in question. Greenlandic waters are host to many species of whale; of these, humpback and sperm whales can measure up to 52 feet, although the latter have been reported to sometimes grow over sixty. However, another Greenland resident is the blue whale, which at maximum lengths of around 100 feet are the largest animals to ever have lived.

Other whales are drawn in the sea on the map, but the majority of the illustrations are devoted to the process of whaling. The drawings show a whale being struck by multiple harpoons until death, and then the body cut up to obtain its blubber. Most large species of whale have historically been targeted by whaling, which decimated their populations during its height in the twentieth century. The International Whaling Commission was established in 1946 with the goal of conserving whales, and it banned commercial whaling in 1986.

Since then, whales continue to be threatened by noise pollution, collisions with boats, and net entanglement. A few countries still practice whaling, including Greenland, where it is an important form of subsistence hunting for indigenous people. Nonetheless, whale stocks around the world have rebounded since the international ban. The success of the push to save the whales is proof that the damage human interference has inflicted on biodiversity can be stopped, and even reversed, as long as people are willing to change their behaviour for the benefit of the planet.