Animal representation in Western medieval art is diverse in its artistic forms and animals depicted, whether real or imaginary. These medieval representations are influenced by Christianity: they are decorative and, at the same time, symbolic. In this period, animals can represent Creation, Good and Evil, God and the Devil. They were popular in churches, on stained glass windows, bas-reliefs, or paving stones, the only learning media for the illiterate who made up the majority of medieval society. Animals were sculpted on church capitals and ivory plaques, painted in manuscript illuminations and church frescoes, as well as in goldsmiths' and silversmiths' work, seals, tapestries, and stained-glass windows.

Animals in the Middle Ages The art of the Middle Ages was mainly religious, reflecting the relationship between God and man, created in His image. The animal often appears confronted or dominated by man, but a second current of thought stemming from Saint Paul and Aristotle, which developed from the 12th century onwards, includes animals and humans in the same community of living creatures.

During the Christian era, the Church's commitment to eradicating paganism led to a revival of symbolic art. The animal becomes an allegory: the dove, for example, represents peace.

God's creature, the animal, helps man interpret the world, in a symbolic role, particularly represented in bestiaries. From the 13th century onwards, encyclopedias began to appear, partly due to the translation of Aristotle's works. The animal had its place in these inventories, which gradually shed their moralizations, and some started to touch on practical aspects of animal husbandry.

Animals were an active part of life in the Middle Ages, as evidenced by the depictions of the months in books of hours, as well as tales, fables, and satires, such as the novel of Renart, the novel of Fauvel and the fables of Marie de France.

Religion

The Christian story of animals begins with their creation as described in Genesis. In the first Genesis account, God creates the animals as ornaments of the world before creating man and woman in his image. The fish of the sea and the birds of the air are made on the fifth day, followed by the beasts of the earth on the sixth day. In the second Genesis account, God destinies the animals to help man. Adam names the animals, establishing his superiority over them in the Christian vision.

In the Christian religion, animals are also important in these stories: The Garden of Eden Noah's Ark The Apocalypse Golden legend

Literature

When describing fauna, the medieval man attached more importance to allegory and animal symbolism than to observation. Knowledge was passed on through ancient authors. Around the 12th century, the first taxonomy appeared in English bestiaries, distinguishing between quadrupeds, birds, fish, and reptiles. Then, from the 13th century onwards, notions of science and natural history began to develop.

In bestiary descriptions, the distinction between familiar and wild, common and exotic, real and imaginary animals is not taken into account. The very existence of imaginary animals, particularly those that appear in the Bible such as dragons and unicorns, was not called into question until much later: Edward Topsell still includes them in his History of Four-Footed Beasts (1607). Moreover, certain animals such as the crocodile may have been familiar to ancient authors, seeing as the Physiologus source of bestiaries was written near Alexandria.

The list of animals known in the Middle Ages includes a number of hybrid beings such as mermaids, centaurs, and the Bonnacon, a bull-headed horse with ram's horns. The presence of chimeras, animal representations that can go beyond named species, became popular, as seen on the northern portal of Rouen Cathedral, where over a hundred creatures do not appear to correspond to a known species.

Society Representations of animals during the Middle Ages are also seen in hunting books, fables, and seals. Medieval seals were the medium on which many of the animals featured in medieval literature found their place. Birds, fish, mammals, and snakes populated these prints, as did the hybrid creatures mentioned above. Among these seals is that of Jean de Franquerue (12th century), which appears to feature a gargoyle, a man's head leaning against a horse's head and legs and an eagle's head, accompanied by a cinquefoil, on a field of crosses.Germain Demay, Inventaire des sceaux de la Flandre, recueillis dans les dépôts d'archives, musées et collections particulières du département du Nord [Inventory of the seals of Flanders, collected in the archives, museums and private collections of the Northern France department] (in French), Paris, 1873, p. 332 The seal of Philip III of Burgundy also features two lions supporting the Duke's shield. As we can see from these examples, it is possible to infer that animal iconography was available and widespread in medieval society. In addition to its symbolic function, it also played a role in identity, the seal being man's image, his image, the one that extends, emblematizes, and symbolizes him, the one that is both himself and the double of himself.Michel Pastoureau, "Les sceaux et la fonction sociale des images [Seals and the social function of images]", in: Jérôme Baschet et Jean-Claude Schmitt (org.), L'image, fonctions et usage des images dans l'Occident médiéval [The image, functions and use of images in the medieval West] (in French), Paris, Cahiers du Léopard d'or, vol. 5, 1996, pp. 275–308.

Evolution and influences of animal representations during the Middle Ages

Over the course of the Middle Ages, animal representation evolved from codified imagery derived from multiple influences to naturalistic representation, as illustrated by the life sketches made in the Visconti or Frederick II menagerie, such as Villard de Honnecourt's lion.

Most animal descriptions are based on the Physiologus, an ancient bestiary written in Greek in Alexandria in the 2nd or 3rd century, then translated into Latin in the 4th century. The West was also influenced by the Orient and dragons and griffins were grafted onto Western animals. Familiar animals are represented in particular through scenes of peasant life in 15th-century Books of Hours.

From the 9th century onwards, Muslim aniconism was respected for religious spaces, with rare exceptions, particularly Anatolian mosques. Figurative illustrations can be found in secular works, illuminated manuscripts, and ceramic art.

In Merovingian illumination, zoomorphic lettering appears. Fish and birds, for example, decorate the Gellone Sacramentary from the late 8th century.

Romanesque art Romanesque artists drew inspiration from ancient pagan motifs, reinterpreting them according to the current thinking of the time. The meaning becomes religious and moral, sometimes resulting in a modification of ancient forms.

In terms of meaning, the mermaid finds herself associated with lust. She retains her former appearance as a mermaid-bird with wings and talons, an image that Isidore of Seville justifies by saying that "love flies and claws". At the same time, the mermaid-fish motif appeared, the result of assimilation with tritons. It comes in two forms: single-tailed or bifid.

Cistercian art

An early work of Cistercian art, Étienne Harding's Bible consists of a first volume decorated with gilded initials and a second volume featuring illuminations. But with Saint Bernard, a more austere art form began to emerge. In 1140, he railed against cloister decorations, in particular, the carved bestiary: "But what do these ridiculous monsters, these horrible beauties and these beautiful horrors mean in your cloisters, where the monks do their reading? What's the point, in these places, of these foul apes, these ferocious lions, these chimerical centaurs, these half-human monsters, these variegated tigers, these soldiers who fight, and these hunters who give horn".Bernard de Clairveaux, Apologia, chapter XII, translation by Abbot Carpentier, 1866

The Statutes of Cîteaux (1150–1152) proclaim: "We forbid the making of sculptures or paintings in our churches or other places of the monastery because while one looks, one often neglects the usefulness of a good meditation and the discipline of religious gravity". Cistercian art was then characterized by pared-down decorations, possibly featuring stylized vegetation. Gold was banned from manuscripts, and a different color could only be used for initials. Before the Gothic explosion, figuration gradually made a comeback, as in the modillions of Flaran Abbey, the decorations of Silvacane, and the cloister of Valmagne Abbey. Henri Focillon wrote that "the Cistercians expelled from religious art what remained of pomp and mystery".

Posterity An early Renaissance painter, Hieronymus Bosch used animals and fantasy creatures in some of his works, particularly in The Garden of Delights.Triptych, c. 1505–1510, Prado Museum, Madrid The artist used animals to criticize the society in which he lived.

Animal symbology

Lion, king of the animals

In the Middle Ages, the lion's title as king of the beasts came from both the Bible and Greco-Roman heritage, as evidenced by scriptures, fables, encyclopedias, and bestiaries. The lion is usually identified by its tail and mane, and it is sometimes crowned as king. The lion is associated with medieval royalty through Richard I of England's nickname of Richard the Lionheart.

In the Old Testament, the lion is confronted by man on three occasions: killed with his bare hands by Samson, when a swarm of bees settles in his corpse; struck down by David to protect his father's sheep; and in the scene from Daniel in the lion's den.

Samson's fight against the lion is interpreted as Christ's victory over Satan. It is a scene often depicted in the Middle Ages, for example on church tympanums in bas-relief, carved on capitals, in illuminated manuscripts, or on the enameled altarpiece by Nicolas de Verdun created for Klosterneuburg Abbey. The scene of Samson gathering honey from the mouth of the dead lion appears on the Wiligelm-style carved doorframe of the Abbey of Nonantola, the lion thus becoming a Christ-like symbol.

The scene of David as a young shepherd features either a lion or a bear. The version with the lion appears, for example, on the Begon lantern in the treasury of the Abbey of Conques and is one of the fourteen full-page illustrations in the Psaultier de Paris, a 9th-century Byzantine manuscript.Folio 2v, French National Library, MS Grec 139Jean-Claude Fau, Conques – Abbatiale [Conques – The Abbey] (In French), Guide Bleu – Midi Pyrénées.

Daniel in the lion's den, sometimes simply entitled "Daniel among the lions", is a frequently depicted scene. It appears on a 6th-century Visigoth capital in the church of San Pedro de la Nave, in numerous Romanesque churches, and on the portal of the church of Saint-Trophime in Arles.