medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
On Monday, May 22, 2006, at 4:31 pm, Nancy Spies wrote, seemingly
ignoring my earlier comment that not all basilisks are cockatrices.
> They are only basilisks if they have beaked bird heads. These look
> definitely like wyverns to me, and wyverns are all over,
> practically littering, in
> truth, medieval and Renaissance art of any ilk.
<snip>
To repeat, not all basilisks have beaks. Imaginary beasts that have
been called basilisks are surprisingly polymorphic. Cf. the essentially
mammalian (!) one here:
http://www.thais.it/speciali/CARPACCIO/E/001.html
or the essentially lizard-like, seemingly wingless, or barely winged,
one (the crested lizard type that underlies the naming of the actual
Basilisk Lizards [Basiliscus spp., in Iguanidae]) on the arms of the
north Italian family of Bonetto reproduced on this page:
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/blasonpiemon/Pagina2b.html
or this avian-reptilian mix on a capital at Autun, where no beak was
visible before restoration and even after restoration no lower mandible
can be seen:
http://tinyurl.com/zo7f6
That said, it is true that in the later Middle Ages 'basilisk' came to
be described in encyclopedias, etc. as the crested, beaked
avian-reptilian mix
also known as a 'cockatrice' and familiar from this example:
http://www.mondimedievali.net/Immaginario/image/basilisco01.jpg
(Aberdeen Bestiary)
if not from this more squamous (or feathered?) one on the cathedral of
Bitonto in Apulia:
http://www.mondimedievali.net/Immaginario/image/basilisco02.jpg
For this reason, and because most images of a 'basilisk' that people
have encountered are of cockatrices, many have come to believe that, to
be a basilisk, a creature must be of this type. Since the non-seahorses
under discussion are not cockatrices, it may then be prudent not to call
them basilisks. Besides, these do look like wyverns and that, in all
likelihood, is what their creator thought they were. Had I more
experience of English heraldic design ('wyvern' is an English word,
descended from a congener of 'viper', and the imaginary creature so
designated does not loom large in Mediterranean contexts), I probably
would have substituted 'wyverns' for the more generic 'basilisks' in my
earlier response.
Best again,
John Dillon
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