3-043-011 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

A Hunter and a Beaver; De Natura Avium; De Pastoribus et Ovibus; Bestiarium; Mirabilia Mundi; Philosophia Mundi; On the Soul, 1277 or after. The male beaver was highly sought after for his testicles, which had many medicinal uses. When pursued by hunters, the beaver would supposedly bite off his own testicles and throw them into the hunter's path. The hunter would give up and the beaver live to see another day. Additional info: A bestiary is a collection of stories about animals, birds, fish, plants, and even stones, whose properties were interpreted as reflections of the divine order of God. During the 1200s, curiosity about the natural world was so prevalent that the illustrated bestiary reached the height of its popularity. In addition to the main text of the bestiary, this manuscript contains five other studies of the natural world: treatises on birds, astronomy, the relation of the soul to the body, and a remarkable series of seven full-page miniatures illustrating the exotic peoples believed to inhabit the world. In the introduction, the author states, "What the mind of simple people would scarcely be able to capture with its mental eye, it can at least capture with its physical one."