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insidiari solet, insidiatur pullis ut eos rapiat, et quos incautos reperit velocius
necat. Sic molles et voluptuosi teneros pullos rapiunt, quia simpliciores et
providos suis moribus aptant, et ad perversos usus protrahunt... Ecce
quomodo volucres, quae ratione carent, peritos homines, et ratione utentes,
per exempla perversae operationis sibi cavere docent23.
The chapters on both milvus and accipiter are missing from the early
Physiologus versions24. On the other hånd, they appear in the Bestiary
tradition25 where the sections devoted to them are usually drawn from
exegesis or result from a combination of different texts which would be
too long to classify here. We shall quote some examples in relation to
the milvus first. They will give us an idea of the variety of sources in the
Bestiary tradition.
The chapters on milvus mainly derive from Isidore and the Aviarium.
We should mention Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ms. Douce 88 II (s.c.
21662), f. 102r (ca 1300), since it stands as the only example among the
manuscripts analysed which, at the end of the Isidoran description,
adds ut rapiat et devoret. These are not the only sources to be
considered. London, British Library, Ms. Royal 12. F. XIII (ca 1230,
South-East England)26 draws its description entirely from Peter of
Cornwall’s Pantheologus'11. The text is as follows28:
2S PL 177, cols. 41-42.
24 Chapter 33 of Physiologus Leidensis (ed. byJ.P. Land in Analecta Syriaca, Leiden
1862-75, IV, p. 59), whose heading De milvo volucri would suggest the description of the
bird in question, in faet does not concem the milvus but the ibis. Compare this chapter
with De ibi in Physiologus Syrus seu Historia Animalium, ed. by O. G. Tychsen, Rostock
1795, p. 102. See also Dahlerup, p. 286 and M. Wellmann, ‘Der Physiologus. Eine
religionsgeschichdich-naturwissenschafdiche Untersuchung’, Philologus, Suppl. 22,
Heft 1, Leipzig 1930, p. 16.
25 The presence of chapters on milvus in Bestiaries has been overlooked. See for
instance Hermannsson, p. 10.
26 For further information on this manuscript see N. Morgan, Early Gothic Manu-
scripts, I: 1190-1250, Oxford 1982, p. 111.
27 We are here concemed only with the fourth part of Pantheologus which has been
handed down in the following manuscripts: Oxford, Bodleian Library, Lincoln College,
lat. 83 (13th cent, in; henceforth L) f. 69r, and London, British Library, Royal 7.C.XIV
(13th cent.; henceforth C) f. 71r. On Peter of Comwall (ob. 1221) see R. W. Hunt,
‘English Leamingin the LateTwelfth Century’, Essays in Medieval History, ed. by R. W.
Southern, London 1968, pp. 106-28; M. Lapidge & R. Sharpe, A Bibliography of Celtic-
Latin Literature 400-1200, Dublin 1985, pp. 28-30; P. Huli & R. Sharpe, ‘Peter of
Comwall and Launceston’, Cornish Studies 13, 1986, pp. 5-53.
28 I shall quote only the texts of unpublished works. Otherwise the edition of the work
from which the Bestiary derives will be given.