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Ms. Royal 12. F. XIII, f. 72r-v:
Miluus a mollide uolandi didtur. Inmobili enim penna super29 altitudinem
nubium fertur. Super30 terram respiciens ut cadauer aliquod uel aliquid tale
in predam rapiat. Auis rapacissima et domesticis auibus et pullis infesta.
Modulos uarios uoce formans. [ H]ec auis31 significat rapaces quorum lectio est
in celestibus uita in terrenis. Unde in Leuitico inter immundas aues que
comedi non debent reputatur. Contemplatiuum enim qui terrena cupit nemo
imitari debet32.
Another source to be talgen into account is Bartholomaeus Angli-
cus’s De proprietatibus rerum33 from which Cambridge, University
Library, Ms. Gg. 6. 5 (1574; 15th century) derives its chapter on the
milvus34. In the only French Bestiary35 including it, namely Pierre de
Beauvais’s work, the bird is still negatively connoted. After dwelling on
the filthiness of the milvus, the author States an allegorical correspon-
dence between escoffles, kites, and deable:
Cis oiseax est example de deable. Li rat et la caroigne c’on géte hors de la
maison as bones gens, nos sénéfie cels qui vivent en péchié et ne s’en voelent
retraire, ne le conseil croire de sainte Glise36.
The matter presented in the excursus seems to have had no influence
on our short chapter, the central message of which is thoroughly
positive. Nevertheless, the symbolism related to the bird is not firmly
established. As we deduce from the following passages milvus has in
faet been interpreted also in bonam partern. In the C lavis S. Melitonis
Codex Claromontanus we read:
29 C; semper (underpointed for deletion) L.
30 C; semper L.
31 [H]ec auis; et CL.
32 CL continue: ‘Hine Isaias ditit de reprobarione iudee vel menus perverse post alia:
Ibi congregati sunt milvi alter ad alterum’.
33 I refer to the edition published at Cologne, ca. 1471, LiberXII, f. 107v.
34 This manuscripthas been ascribed by M. R. James, The Bestiary, being a reproduction
in fult of the MS li.4.26 in the University Library, Cambridge, with supplementary plates from
other Manuscripts ofEnglish origin, and apreliminary study of the Latin Bestiary as current in
England, Roxburghe Club, Oxford 1928, p. 25, and McCulloch, p. 39, to the
fourth family of Bestiary where it stands as the only example.
35 Cf. McCulloch, pp. 135-36.
36 Cahier, IV, pp. 82-83.