Asp/Viper=Dragon? Medieval art, Marginals, manuscripts, bestiaries

 

This awesome French guy's blog thingie:

https://www.laboiteverte.fr/category/savoir/

https://www.laboiteverte.fr/le-magnifique-manuscrit-du-bestiaire-daberdeen-en-haute-resolution/

Pointed to this most excellent bestiary from the middle ages:

https://www.abdn.ac.uk/bestiary/

Viper or Asp, but it has 2 legs and wings. WTH? So they must have really thought snakes and dragons were related... or the way things were described were as such, or something. See:

And their comments:

Text

The asp has a poisonous bite.

Illustration

The asp is avoiding the sound of a snake charmer by putting one ear to the ground and putting his tail in the other ear. The snake charmer is protecting himself with a shield and stick.

Comment

One annotation in margin: 'as' with stress marks above, referring to the initial for Aspis. The charmer's foot overlaps the frame and the initial, type 2.

And the translation of the page they have is fascinating:

If you are severe by nature, you should moderate your manner in consideration of your married state and set aside your harshness out of regard for your relationship. There is another issue. Do not, O men, seek out someone else's bed, do not plot another liaison. Adultery is a serious sin; it does harm to nature. In the beginning God made two beings, Adam and Eve, that is, man and wife; and he made the woman from the man, that is, from Adam's rib; and he ordered them both to exist in one body and to live in one spirit. Why separate the single body, why divide the single spirit? Adultery happens in nature. The eager embrace of the lamprey and the viper makes the point: it takes place not according to the law of the species but from the heat of lust. Learn, O men, that he who seeks to seduce another man's wife is to be compared with that snake with whom he seeks a relationship. Let him hurry off to the viper, which slithers into his bosom, not by the honest way of truth but the slimy route of inconstant love. He hurries to a woman who recovers her poison as the viper does. For they say that after the task of mating is over, the viper sucks up the poison that it had spat out beforehand. Of the asp The asp, aspis, is so called because it injects poisons with its bite, spreading them throughout the body. For the Greek word for poison is ios, and from this comes the word aspis, because

Google translate makes it funny as an innuendo tho:

Si habes naturalem rigorem, debes temperare eum contempla

translates not to "if you are severe by nature, you should moderate..." but to:

If you have a natural stiffness, you should consider controlling it

Next is crazy stuff about the Basalisk:

Text

Basilisk, only weasels can kill a basilisk. Regulus. Vipers.

Illustration

As indicated by the text, the male viper spits its seed into the female's mouth. The young gnaw their way out of their mother's side.

Comment

The illustration is pricked all over for pouncing. Initials type 2.

.

Pouncing is a method of copying images from one sheet of vellum to another by making a series of tiny prick marks around the required image. The image would be pricked straight through to a sheet below. This would become the template from which several copies could be made without further harm to the original. The pricked sheet would be sprinkled with a very fine dust like charcoal or pumice, which would trickle through the holes producing the required image below. It was a convenient way to duplicate images in a scriptorium where many similar copies of a book were required.

Pouncing detail above.

Three types of serpents, the details are fascinating, the crap they got mixed up is so weird... look at that "crocodile", looks like a damn cow. Look at the head on the tail, that's the limbless lizard thing which can move fwds or backwards they say:

Commentary

Scitalis has a glittering skin. The Anphivena has two heads, one at each end. The Ydrus lives in the Nile.

Illustration

Three pictures. The scitalis has a dog's head, wings and two feet. The anphivena is shown with two heads, wings and claws. The ydrus is killing a crocodile by crawling into its mouth and tearing it apart.

Comment

In the margin, beside the scitalis text is the sketch of a pointed reptile's wing. Anphivena are in fact limbless lizards, wormlike creatures with rounded head and tail and can move in two directions. This animal is pricked for pouncing. No animal attacks the crocodile in the manner described by the ydrus but the large Nile monitor lizard eats crocodile eggs, and the many types of Nilotic worm crawl in and out of the flesh of dead animals. The word 'ictrie' is written on the body of ydrus. This means icturus or jaundice yellow. Red 'S' and 'A' in the left margin are guides for the initial, type 2.

DRAGON vs ELEPHANT (probably African python they think):

Text

Serpents. Many are poisonous. The dragon is bigger than all snakes.

Illustration

The dragon strangles an elephant. The text says the dragon has a crest, small mouth and does not kill with its teeth but with its tail. The illustrator has added massive teeth and wings. The description applies to an African python which can kill deer if not actually elephants by strangulation. Initials type 2.