Embedded Files
VULTURES IN THE BESTIARY
Header
Among the many wildlife feature documentaries I happened to stumble upon as a child sweeping through TV channels, a surprising number of them starred an extremely unusual bird. In fact, seeing it for the first time on National Geographic left me questioning what kind of incredible monsters were crawling around just a few miles outside my window and how I could direct my life so that I would never ever come face-to-face with them.
So what was this animal so unsettling to my nine-year-old self?
If the site page's title didn't already tip you off, it's the vulture! Probably the most common species you'll encounter online is the grotesque-seeming turkey vulture, known for its signature fleshy, bald head (below, right). Likewise, this was the only variety of vulture I was familiar with for many years. That is, until I discovered the bearded vulture (below, left). For anyone who knows vultures only through popular media, where they're infamous as hunchbacked, unnerving cartoon villains, it may be a shock to learn there is such a proud, powerful vulture as the bearded vulture.
This stark contrast between two types of the same animal meant vultures have long had an extreme duality in my eyes. It was like two faces of a coin, but while the coin seems to land far more often on only one of those faces, there was always another side to the vulture not often addressed. And it seems my line of thinking touched on similar notes to the medieval scribes who wrote bestiary entries about this bird. In these medieval bestiaries, the vulture is seen mostly not as what may be expected β vile and detested β but rather as an animal which represents divine ideas. Many even go so far as to call the vulture a metaphor for the Virgin Mary or Jesus Christ.
Two Faces
Two Faces
Two Media
Two Media
Medieval bestiaries are awe-inspiring works which combine both thorough descriptions and beautiful illuminations of as many animals as could fit between their covers. Meshing together these two different media gave the creators of bestiaries the ability to express multiple different perspectives on the animals. Each medium tells its own story of the vulture.
I'll mainly be discussing the Aberdeen Bestiary, but other bestiaries, especially others from the Second Family of bestiaries, use the same primary source material and have similar descriptions.
WRITTEN TEXT
WRITTEN TEXT
The Aberdeen Bestiary's entry on vultures for the most part centers around the apparently established idea that female vultures were able to reproduce without the help of a male. Here's a reminder that bestiaries weren't exactly trying to be absolute scientific resources. Focus was placed more on the idea of an animal and what it represented morally and religiously.
Of course, vultures can't have chicks without two parents. Most animals can't. However, whether or not this "fact" was true wasn't the point of the bestiary. This idea, wrong or right, was important; it was vital to the central metaphor formed in the Aberdeen Bestiary and, according to the website The Medieval Bestiary, also in essentially every bestiary excerpt about vultures. Just as vulture mothers are said to be able to spontaneously become pregnant, the same is said about the Virgin Mary and her immaculate conception. Such a comparison could only be found in the strange world of bestiaries, but the comparison itself is incredibly intriguing when you consider how we think about vultures today.
Raptors, scavengers, carrion-eaters, omens of death β these are all thoughts and conceptions as that often come to mind along with vultures. So the fact that every bestiary compares them to the highly-revered Virgin Mary is astonishing to me. It opposes all of the widespread negative connotation we associate with the birds today: a symbol of death turned into a symbol of life. The vulture is presented as something to look toward to strengthen Christian faith. Since vultures are capable of conception without mating, readers are meant to think about Jesus' birth as just another natural part of the world planned by God.
VISUAL ILLUMINAtION
VISUAL ILLUMINAtION
Earlier in this page is the illumination found in the Aberdeen Bestiary's section for vultures. One of the first things that stand out is how the birds themselves are represented. It's very much unlike many real-life vultures, whose appearances usually include a narrow, bald head and drab feathers (although the bearded vulture shows this is not an absolute rule). Instead, the bestiary portrays its vultures as brightly-colored, imposing creatures with full plumage. While a more realistic representation would have been scientific, the option chosen by these artists lends to the divine nature of how these animals are represented, not in real life but in the bestiary.
In fact, the image appears to go even one step further by placing the vultures within a multicolored ring, which I interpret as resembling a halo. Considering how the text itself compares vultures not only to Mary but at times even to Jesus himself and describes how the vulture's ability to fly so high gives it a wide view of the world of man just like Christ, it seems likely to me the illumination was meant to reinforce this idea.
Although, another view of the ring could be that it is similar to a cage, preventing the vultures from escaping to the rest of the page, in which case, the image would be serving as a reminder of the domination of humans over animals. The introduction of the Aberdeen Bestiary, where Adam is depicted as having power over all the beasts, would support this.
This is an illumination sourced from the Bodleian Bestiary. What's most striking as I look at the image is its similarities to the illumination in the Aberdeen Bestiary. Both feature two vultures standing side-by-side with overlapping tail feathers. I see the trend as a visual representation of the two faces of the vulture. When observing specifically the Bodleian illumination and its depiction of the supposedly divine vultures feasting on carrion, it seems even more clear. While one view of this beast is repulsive, another is tied to heavenly themes.
Film isn't real. That's a simple enough statement, and everyone would agree it's true. The only problem with my situation is that my early view of the vulture as a villainous, eerie creature was shaped not just by TV and cartoons but especially by documentaries. Even documentaries, meant to closely match reality, portrayed vultures in this way. However, looking closer, they might have actually been doing their job perfectly well. After all, just watching the vulture go about its day ripping apart decaying flesh might make the average person uneasy. It's the transition from real life and realistic images to vibrant illustrations and descriptive language that allows for this bird's transformation into a holy symbol. Each medium and genre has its own characteristics and specialties which affect how it portrays its subjects. Film is often limited to exteriors. The medieval bestiary's combination of the media most complementary to a brighter view of animals gives us the chance to see an entirely different, and much more fascinating, side of the vulture.
Report abuse