14-11-2023, 11:00 AM
The comparison to the bestiary tradition certainly isn't perfect, and let's not forget that is is considerably older than the VM. But it does show, I believe, the kind of mindset that could have led to the creation of the VM plants.
In the bestiary, even animals they should have known, like bears, are said to engage in absurd behaviors. These surely all stem from folk beliefs, but they are reimagined in such a way that they represent moral or biblical truths.
For many of the VM plants, our best efforts at interpreting them goes something like this: it's a viola, but the flowers are upside down. It's clearly x, but it's got a weird root. It would be y, but the flower is the wrong color. It would be z, but why are the leaves shaped like this?
So the resemblance to the bestiary tradition might be this: just like the bestiary "nudges" stories about animals to lay bare a higher truth behind them, the VM might try to do the same by "nudging" plant images.
(By the way, I have no doubt that the main selling point of bestiaries was that people like dragons and such. But it would not have become one of the essential medieval genres without the moral/religious recuperation of the material).
In the bestiary, even animals they should have known, like bears, are said to engage in absurd behaviors. These surely all stem from folk beliefs, but they are reimagined in such a way that they represent moral or biblical truths.
For many of the VM plants, our best efforts at interpreting them goes something like this: it's a viola, but the flowers are upside down. It's clearly x, but it's got a weird root. It would be y, but the flower is the wrong color. It would be z, but why are the leaves shaped like this?
So the resemblance to the bestiary tradition might be this: just like the bestiary "nudges" stories about animals to lay bare a higher truth behind them, the VM might try to do the same by "nudging" plant images.
(By the way, I have no doubt that the main selling point of bestiaries was that people like dragons and such. But it would not have become one of the essential medieval genres without the moral/religious recuperation of the material).