Editing Bestiary (section)

==Bestiary content==
The contents of medieval bestiaries were often obtained and created from combining older textual sources and accounts of animals, such as the ''[[Physiologus]]''.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Clark |first1=Willene B. |last2=McMunn | first2=Meradith T. |editor-last1=Clark|editor-first1=Willene B. |editor-last2=McMunn | editor-first2=Meradith T. | title=Beasts and Birds of the Middle Ages. The Bestiary and Its Legacy |publisher=Nation Books |date=2005 |pages=2–4 |chapter=Introduction |isbn=0-8122-8147-0}}</ref>

Medieval bestiaries contained detailed descriptions and illustrations of species native to Western Europe, exotic animals and what in modern times are considered to be imaginary animals. Descriptions of the animals included the physical characteristics associated with the creature, although these were often physiologically incorrect, along with the Christian morals that the animal represented. The description was then often accompanied by an artistic illustration of the animal as described in the bestiary. For example, in one bestiary the eagle is depicted in an illustration and is said to be the “king of birds.”<ref>{{Cite web |title=British Library |url=https://www.bl.uk/medieval-english-french-manuscripts/articles/beastly-tales-from-the-medieval-bestiary |access-date=2022-05-03 |website=www.bl.uk |archive-date=2022-02-16 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220216215828/https://www.bl.uk/medieval-english-french-manuscripts/articles/beastly-tales-from-the-medieval-bestiary/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Bestiaries were organized in different ways based upon the sources they drew upon.<ref>{{cite book
 | last = McCulloch
 | first = Florence
 | title = Mediaeval Latin and French Bestiaries
 | publisher = [[University of North Carolina Press]]
| location = Chapel Hill
 | date = 1962
 | page = 3
}}</ref> The descriptions could be organized by animal groupings, such as terrestrial and marine creatures, or presented in an alphabetical manner. However, the texts gave no distinction between existing and imaginary animals. Descriptions of creatures such as [[dragon]]s, [[unicorn]]s, [[basilisk]], [[griffin]] and [[caladrius]] were common in such works and found intermingled amongst accounts of [[bear]]s, [[Wild boar|boars]], [[deer]], [[lion]]s, and [[elephant]]s. In one source, the author explains how fables and bestiaries are closely linked to one another as “each chapter of a bestiary, each fable in a collection, has a text and has a meaning.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Henderson |first1=Arnold Clayton |title=Medieval Beasts and Modern Cages: The Making of Meaning in Fables and Bestiaries |journal=Publications of the Modern Language Association of America |date=January 1982 |volume=97 |issue=1 |pages=40–49 |doi=10.2307/462239 |jstor=462239 |s2cid=164019988 }}</ref>

This lack of separation has often been associated with the assumption that people during this time believed in what the modern period classifies as nonexistent or "[[imaginary creatures]]". However, this assumption is currently under debate, with various explanations being offered. Some scholars, such as [[Pamela Gravestock]], have written on the theory that medieval people did not actually think such creatures existed but instead focused on the belief in the importance of the Christian morals these creatures represented, and that the importance of the moral did not change regardless if the animal existed or not. The historian of science [[David C. Lindberg]] pointed out that medieval bestiaries were rich in symbolism and allegory, so as to teach moral lessons and entertain, rather than to convey knowledge of the natural world.<ref>{{cite book
 | last = Lindberg
 | first = David C.
 | author-link = David C. Lindberg
 | title = The Beginnings of Western Science
 | publisher = [[University of Chicago Press]]
 | location = Chicago
 | date = 1992
 | page = [https://archive.org/details/beginningsofwest00lind/page/354 354-356]
 | isbn = 0-226-48231-6
 | url = https://archive.org/details/beginningsofwest00lind/page/354
 }}</ref>