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The Medieval Bestiary: Animals in the Middle
Ages is an ongoing project started in
2002 with the intent of publishing a database
of information on the medieval bestiary or
"book of beasts" and more generally,
on the literature and art of animals in the
Middle Ages. The site covers both the mundane
animals of everyday life and the fantastic
animals said to live in distant lands.
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In Antwerp in 1588, Christopher Plantin printed
a book with the title Sancti Patris Nostri
Epiphanii, Episcopi Constantiae Cypri, ad
Physiologum. That book survived the turmoil
of the next 415 years, traveling from Antwerp
to Victoria, British Columbia. The book contains
texts about Saint Epiphanius and texts attributed
to him, along with notes and commentary by
the editor, Consalus Ponce de Leon. One of
the texts is the Physiologus, a set
of moralized animal stories which were the
basis of the medieval bestiary.
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The Fall of Princes by the Benedictine
monk John Lydgate (ca. 1370-1450) is a collection
of short cautionary tales describing how famous
and powerful people met their downfall. The
University of Victoria Lydgate manuscript
was written on paper and parchment in Middle
English in the late fifteenth century. The
site, begun as a Medieval Studies class project
in 1999, includes a full digital facsimile
of the manuscript and notes on the research
that has been done on the codicology and paleography
of this five hundred year old book.
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Published in 1802, Opinions of Several
Gentlemen of the Law, on the Subject of Negro
Servitude, in the Province of Nova Scotia
concerns the case of the slave Jack, who ran
away from his master James DeLancey of Annapolis,
Nova Scotia, and found freedom and employment
with William Woodin of Halifax. A series of
legal opinions solicited by DeLancey from
several famous English "gentlemen of
the law", the book is a record of the
attitudes toward slavery at the beginning
of the nineteenth century in the British colonies
that later became the Maritime Provinces of
Canada.
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The Bestiary of Anne Walshe (Copenhagen, Kongelige
Bibliotek Gl. kgl. Saml. 1633 4°) is a
Latin bestiary of English origin, produced
circa 1400-25. It is now in the Royal Library
in Copenhagen, Denmark, and has been made
available as an electronic facsimile. This
site, an expansion of a paper for a Medieval
Studies course (Spring 2001), provides commentary
on the codicology, text and illustrations
of this manuscript, with comparisons to other
bestiary manuscripts.
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Under the guidance of Dr. John Lutz, the students
in the University of Victoria course "History
481: Microhistory" (Spring 2002) produced
the first edition of the Victoria's Victoria
web site on the history of Victoria, British
Columbia during the reign of Queen Victoria
(1837-1900). This part of the site explores the practice
of medicine, pharmacy and dentistry in Victoria in the 1860s as revealed
by newspaper advertising and by the notebooks
of one of Victoria's most famous doctors,
Dr. J. S. Helmcken.
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