Worksop Bestiary

A snake-like dragon slays an elephant in this illustration from the Worksop Bestiary.

The Worksop Bestiary is a 12th-century illuminated manuscript containing a bestiary and other medieval Latin texts on natural history, largely compiled from the Physiologus, the Imago mundi of Honorius Augustodunensis, the Etymologiae of St. Isidore of Seville, and an extract from the Book of Genesis. It also contains the text of a sermon on Saint Joseph, falsely ascribed to Saint Augustine.

The book is now in the Morgan Library & Museum, New York, as MS M. 81.[1] The book was presented to the Augustinian Worksop Priory Church of Saint Mary and Saint Cuthbert (now Worksop Priory), by Philip, the canon of Lincoln Cathedral, in 1187. Later owners of the manuscript include the dukes of Hamilton, the Prussian government, William Morris, and Richard Bennett of Manchester, from whom the Pierpont Morgan library acquired it in 1902.

The book consists of 120 pages, contains 106 miniature illuminations, and is written in a black letter minuscule book hand. The current binding dates to the nineteenth century.[1][2]

References

  1. 1 2 "Catalogue description of the Worksop Bestiary" (PDF). Catalogue description. The Pierpont Morgan Library. Retrieved February 2, 2013.
  2. ↑ Badke, David (January 15, 2011). "Morgan Library, MS M.81 (The Worksop Bestiary)". Retrieved February 2, 2013.


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