A bestiary ( Latin : bestiarium vocabulum ) is a compendium of beasts. Originating in the ancient world , bestiaries were made popular in the Middle Ages in illustrated volumes that described various animals and even rocks. The natural history and illustration of each beast was usually accompanied by a moral lesson. This reflected the belief that the world itself was the Word of God and that every living thing had its own special meaning. For example, the pelican , which was believed to tear open its breast to bring its young to life with its own blood, was a living representation of Jesus . Thus the bestiary is also a reference to the symbolic language of animals in Western Christian art and literature.
178-473: The bestiary — the medieval book of beasts — was among the most popular illuminated texts in northern Europe during the Middle Ages (about 500–1500). Medieval Christians understood every element of the world as a manifestation of God, and bestiaries largely focused on each animal's religious meaning. Much of what is in the bestiary came from the ancient Greeks and their philosophers. The earliest bestiary in
356-401: A Phoenician prince, was instructed by Apollo to follow a heifer and found a city wherever it laid down. Cadmus and his men followed the heifer and, when it laid down, Cadmus ordered his men to find a spring so he could sacrifice the heifer to Athena. His men found a spring, but it was guarded by a dragon, which had been placed there by the god Ares , and the dragon killed them. Cadmus killed
534-430: A Yeouiju which had fallen from heaven. Another explanation states they are hornless creatures resembling dragons who have been cursed and thus were unable to become dragons. By other accounts, an Imugi is a proto-dragon which must survive one thousand years in order to become a fully-fledged dragon. In either case, they are said to be large, benevolent, python -like creatures that live in water or caves, and their sighting
712-529: A black dragon who was born to a poor family in Shandong . When his mother saw him for the first time, she fainted and, when his father came home from the field and saw him, he hit him with a spade and cut off part of his tail. Li burst through the ceiling and flew away to the Black Dragon River in northeast China, where he became the god of that river. On the anniversary of his mother's death on
890-470: A brief resurgence between 815 and 842. The Carolingian Renaissance was a period of intellectual and cultural revival during the late 8th century and 9th century, mostly during the reigns of Charlemagne and Louis the Pious . There was an increase of literature , the arts , architecture , jurisprudence , liturgical and scriptural studies. The period also saw the development of Carolingian minuscule ,
1068-712: A century to convert only the aristocracy of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity with many still converting back to Paganism. After this, the common folk took a few hundred more years to convert to Christianity and their reasoning for converting was in large part due to the nobility. Originally, Anglo-Saxon leaders claimed divine descent while taking part in many rituals and practices for Paganism but after their conversion they in turn became spiritual leaders for Christianity in Britain. Soon Anglo-Saxons started to incorporate their old Pagan stories and figures into Christianity, such as
1246-621: A detailed description of the Leviathan, who is described as being so powerful that only Yahweh can overcome it. Job 41:19–21 states that the Leviathan exhales fire and smoke, making its identification as a mythical dragon clearly apparent. In some parts of the Old Testament, the Leviathan is historicized as a symbol for the nations that stand against Yahweh. Rahab, a synonym for "Leviathan", is used in several Biblical passages in reference to Egypt . Isaiah 30:7 declares: "For Egypt's help
1424-475: A different power, rank, and ability, so people began establishing temples across the countryside dedicated to these figures. Many traditional Chinese customs revolve around dragons. During various holidays, including the Spring Festival and Lantern Festival , villagers will construct an approximately sixteen-foot-long dragon from grass, cloth, bamboo strips, and paper, which they will parade through
1602-558: A ducal revolt; eventually Henry received absolution after dramatic public penance barefoot in Alpine snow and cloaked in a hairshirt (see Walk to Canossa ), though the revolt and conflict of investiture continued. Likewise, a similar controversy occurred in England between King Henry I and St. Anselm , Archbishop of Canterbury, over investiture and ecclesiastical revenues collected by the king during an episcopal vacancy. The English dispute
1780-533: A formal apology for the sacking of Constantinople in 1204; the apology was formally accepted by Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople . Many things that were stolen during this time: holy relics , riches, and many other items, are still held in various Western European cities, particularly Venice . From the 6th century onward most of the monasteries in the West were of the Benedictine Order . Owing to
1958-684: A general protective emblem. It seems to have originally been the attendant of the Underworld god Ninazu , but later became the attendant to the Hurrian storm-god Tishpak , as well as, later, Ninazu's son Ningishzida , the Babylonian national god Marduk , the scribal god Nabu , and the Assyrian national god Ashur. Scholars disagree regarding the appearance of Tiamat , the Babylonian goddess personifying primeval chaos, slain by Marduk in
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#17327803933502136-493: A head made of flint . Thunderstorms and earthquakes were thought to be caused by Apep's roar and solar eclipses were thought to be the result of Apep attacking Ra during the daytime. In some myths, Apep is slain by the god Set . Nehebkau is another giant serpent who guards the Duat and aided Ra in his battle against Apep. Nehebkau was so massive in some stories that the entire earth was believed to rest atop his coils. Denwen
2314-543: A hybridization of reptilian , mammalian , and avian features. The word dragon entered the English language in the early 13th century from Old French dragon , which, in turn, comes from Latin draco (genitive draconis ), meaning "huge serpent, dragon", from Ancient Greek δράκων , drákōn (genitive δράκοντος , drákontos ) "serpent". The Greek and Latin term referred to any great serpent, not necessarily mythological. The Greek word δράκων
2492-526: A kind of giant serpent that either possesses supernatural characteristics or is otherwise controlled by some supernatural power. The first mention of a "dragon" in ancient Greek literature occurs in the Iliad , in which Agamemnon is described as having a blue dragon motif on his sword belt and an emblem of a three-headed dragon on his breast plate. In lines 820–880 of the Theogony , a Greek poem written in
2670-460: A king could keep careful control of lands under the domain of his bishops. Kings would bestow bishoprics to members of noble families whose friendship he wished to secure. Furthermore, if a king left a bishopric vacant, then he collected the estates' revenues until a bishop was appointed, when in theory he was to repay the earnings. The infrequence of this repayment was an obvious source of dispute. The Church wanted to end this lay investiture because of
2848-465: A large number of Asian countries has been influenced by Chinese culture, such as Korea, Vietnam, Japan, and so on. Chinese tradition has always used the dragon totem as the national emblem, and the "Yellow Dragon flag" of the Qing dynasty has influenced the impression that China is a dragon in many European countries. The Korean dragon is in many ways similar in appearance to other East Asian dragons such as
3026-501: A literary novel called "The Bestiary" (Dial, 2007) that describes a lonely young man's efforts to track down the world's most complete bestiary. John Henry Fleming's Fearsome Creatures of Florida (Pocol Press, 2009) borrows from the medieval bestiary tradition to impart moral lessons about the environment. Caspar Henderson 's The Book of Barely Imagined Beings ( Granta 2012, University of Chicago Press 2013), subtitled "A 21st Century Bestiary", explores how humans imagine animals in
3204-656: A request from Rastislav , the king of Moravia who wanted missionaries that could minister to the Moravians in their own language. The two brothers spoke the Slavonic vernacular local for the region of Thessaloniki , still very close to the original Proto-Slavic, and translated the Bible and many of the prayer books. As in the later centuries the translations prepared by them were copied by speakers of other early Slavic dialects, different local variants evolved as recesions of
3382-532: A reward. The word "dragon" has come to be applied to the legendary creature in Chinese mythology , loong (traditional 龍, simplified 龙, Japanese simplified 竜, Pinyin lóng ), which is associated with good fortune, and many East Asian deities and demigods have dragons as their personal mounts or companions. Dragons were also identified with the Emperor of China , who, during later Chinese imperial history,
3560-467: A spiritual battle. In Ferdowsi's Shahnameh , the Iranian hero Rostam must slay an 80-meter-long dragon (which renders itself invisible to human sight) with the aid of his legendary horse, Rakhsh . As Rostam is sleeping, the dragon approaches; Rakhsh attempts to wake Rostam, but fails to alert him to the danger until Rostam sees the dragon. Rakhsh bites the dragon, while Rostam decapitates it. This
3738-996: A study which found that approximately 39 people in a hundred are afraid of snakes and notes that fear of snakes is especially prominent in children, even in areas where snakes are rare. The earliest attested dragons all resemble snakes or have snakelike attributes. Jones therefore concludes that dragons appear in nearly all cultures because humans have an innate fear of snakes and other animals that were major predators of humans' primate ancestors. Dragons are usually said to reside in "dark caves, deep pools, wild mountain reaches, sea bottoms, haunted forests", all places which would have been fraught with danger for early human ancestors. In her book The First Fossil Hunters: Dinosaurs, Mammoths, and Myth in Greek and Roman Times (2000), Adrienne Mayor argues that some stories of dragons may have been inspired by ancient discoveries of fossils belonging to dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals. She argues that
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#17327803933503916-402: A symbol of the compromise, lay authorities invested bishops with their secular authority symbolised by the lance, and ecclesiastical authorities invested bishops with their spiritual authority symbolised by the ring and the staff . The Crusades were a series of military conflicts conducted by Christian knights for the defense of Christians and for the expansion of Christian domains. Generally,
4094-599: A time of rapid environmental change. In July 2014, Jonathan Scott wrote The Blessed Book of Beasts , Eastern Christian Publications, featuring 101 animals from the various translations of the Bible, in keeping with the tradition of the bestiary found in the writings of the Saints, including Saint John Chrysostom . In today's world there is a discipline called cryptozoology which is the study of unknown species. This discipline can be linked to medieval bestiaries because in many cases
4272-558: A traitor named Firuz led the Franks into the city of Antioch in 1098. However, after less than a week, the might of an army numbering hundreds of thousands led by Kerbogah arrived and besieged the city. The crusaders reportedly had only 30,000 men and the Turks outnumbered them three to one; facing desertion and starvation, Bohemond was officially chosen to lead the crusader army in June 1098. On
4450-628: Is a giant serpent mentioned in the Pyramid Texts whose body was made of fire and who ignited a conflagration that nearly destroyed all the gods of the Egyptian pantheon. He was ultimately defeated by the Pharaoh , a victory which affirmed the Pharaoh's divine right to rule. The ouroboros was a well-known Egyptian symbol of a serpent swallowing its own tail. The precursor to the ouroboros
4628-532: Is also important to acknowledge that at this time, creating a manuscript would have been comparable to the modern expense of purchasing a laptop. Therefore only wealthy, influential individuals such as Charlemagne would have been capable of propelling this expansion of clerical education. The cracks and fissures in Christian unity which led to the East-West Schism started to become evident as early as
4806-650: Is an Attic red-figure kylix dated to c. 480–470 BC, showing a bedraggled Jason being disgorged from the dragon's open mouth as the Golden Fleece hangs in a tree behind him and Athena , the goddess of wisdom, stands watching. A fragment from Pherecydes of Athens states that Jason killed the dragon, but fragments from the Naupactica and from Herodorus state that he merely stole the Fleece and escaped. In Euripides's Medea , Medea boasts that she killed
4984-647: Is an accepted version of this page A dragon is a magical legendary creature that appears in the folklore of multiple cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in Western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted as winged, horned, and capable of breathing fire. Dragons in eastern cultures are usually depicted as wingless, four-legged, serpentine creatures with above-average intelligence. Commonalities between dragons' traits are often
5162-494: Is associated with good luck. Japanese dragon myths amalgamate native legends with imported stories about dragons from China. Like some other dragons, most Japanese dragons are water deities associated with rainfall and bodies of water, and are typically depicted as large, wingless, serpentine creatures with clawed feet. Gould writes (1896:248), the Japanese dragon is "invariably figured as possessing three claws". A story about
5340-574: Is careful to point out that not all stories of dragons and giants are inspired by fossils and notes that Scandinavia has many stories of dragons and sea monsters, but has long "been considered barren of large fossils." In one of her later books, she states that, "Many dragon images around the world were based on folk knowledge or exaggerations of living reptiles, such as Komodo dragons , Gila monsters , iguanas , alligators , or, in California, alligator lizards , though this still fails to account for
5518-467: Is described in the form of cattle: "You won the cows, hero, you won the Soma ,/You freed the seven streams to flow" ( Rigveda 1.32.12 ). In another Rigvedic legend, the three-headed serpent Viśvarūpa , the son of Tvaṣṭṛ , guards a wealth of cows and horses. Indra delivers Viśvarūpa to a god named Trita Āptya , who fights and kills him and sets his cattle free. Indra cuts off Viśvarūpa's heads and drives
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5696-487: Is fair to say that bestiaries and their contents gave fuel to the context behind the animals, whether real or myth, and their meanings. In modern times, artists such as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Saul Steinberg have produced their own bestiaries. Jorge Luis Borges wrote a contemporary bestiary of sorts, the Book of Imaginary Beings , which collects imaginary beasts from bestiaries and fiction. Nicholas Christopher wrote
5874-604: Is immortal, but Sophocles and Euripides both describe Heracles as killing him, although neither of them specifies how. Some suggest that the golden apple was not claimed through battle with Ladon at all but through Heracles charming the Hesperides. The mythographer Herodorus is the first to state that Heracles slew him using his famous club. Apollonius of Rhodes , in his epic poem, the Argonautica , describes Ladon as having been shot full of poisoned arrows dipped in
6052-505: Is most likely derived from the Greek verb δέρκομαι ( dérkomai ) meaning "I see", the aorist form of which is ἔδρακον ( édrakon ). This is thought to have referred to something with a "deadly glance", or unusually bright or "sharp" eyes, or because a snake's eyes appear to be always open; each eye actually sees through a big transparent scale in its eyelids, which are permanently shut. The Greek word probably derives from an Indo-European base * derḱ- meaning "to see";
6230-474: Is often shown playing with on kagamibuta . The shachihoko is a creature with the head of a dragon, a bushy tail, fishlike scales, and sometimes with fire emerging from its armpits. The fun has the head of a dragon, feathered wings, and the tail and claws of a bird. A white dragon was believed to reside in a pool in Yamashiro Province and, every fifty years, it would turn into a bird called
6408-588: Is one of the national symbols of Bhutan . In the Dzongkha language, Bhutan is known as Druk Yul "Land of Druk", and Bhutanese leaders are called Druk Gyalpo , "Thunder Dragon Kings". The druk was adopted as an emblem by the Drukpa Lineage , which originated in Tibet and later spread to Bhutan. The tale of a hero slaying a giant serpent occurs in almost all Indo-European mythology . In most stories,
6586-430: Is so named because he is the third man on earth, but a three-headed serpent named * Ng hi steals them. *Tritos pursues the serpent and is accompanied by *H a nér , whose name means "man". Together, the two heroes slay the serpent and rescue the cattle. The ancient Greek word usually translated as "dragon" (δράκων drákōn , genitive δράκοντοϛ drákontos ) could also mean "snake", but it usually refers to
6764-578: Is the third trial of Rostam's Seven Labors . Rostam is also credited with the slaughter of other dragons in the Shahnameh and in other Iranian oral traditions, notably in the myth of Babr-e-Bayan . In this tale, Rostam is still an adolescent and kills a dragon in the "Orient" (either India or China, depending on the source) by forcing it to swallow either ox hides filled with quicklime and stones or poisoned blades. The dragon swallows these foreign objects and its stomach bursts, after which Rostam flays
6942-575: Is traditionally said to have originated after the poet Qu Yuan committed suicide by drowning himself in the Miluo River and people raced out in boats hoping to save him. But most historians agree that the custom actually originated much earlier as a ritual to avert ill fortune. Starting during the Han dynasty and continuing until the Qing dynasty, the Chinese emperor gradually became closely identified with dragons, and emperors themselves claimed to be
7120-503: Is worthless and empty, therefore I have called her 'the silenced Rahab '." Similarly, Psalm 87:3 reads: "I reckon Rahab and Babylon as those that know me..." In Ezekiel 29:3–5 and Ezekiel 32:2–8, the pharaoh of Egypt is described as a "dragon" ( tannîn ). In the deuterocanonical story of Bel and the Dragon from the Book of Daniel , the prophet Daniel sees a dragon being worshipped by
7298-599: The Etymologiae ) and Saint Ambrose expanded the religious message with reference to passages from the Bible and the Septuagint . They and other authors freely expanded or modified pre-existing models, constantly refining the moral content without interest or access to much more detail regarding the factual content. Nevertheless, the often fanciful accounts of these beasts were widely read and generally believed to be true. A few observations found in bestiaries, such as
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7476-506: The Homeric Hymn to Apollo , the god Apollo uses his poisoned arrows to slay the serpent Python , who has been causing death and pestilence in the area around Delphi . Apollo then sets up his shrine there. The Roman poet Virgil in his poem Culex , lines 163–201 Appendix Vergiliana: Culex , describing a shepherd having a fight with a big constricting snake , calls it " serpens " and also " draco ", showing that in his time
7654-602: The Pistis Sophia , an early Gnostic text, describes "a great dragon whose tail is in its mouth". In medieval alchemy, the ouroboros became a typical western dragon with wings, legs, and a tail. A famous image of the dragon gnawing on its tail from the eleventh-century Codex Marcianus was copied in numerous works on alchemy. Ancient people across the Near East believed in creatures similar to what modern people call "dragons". These ancient people were unaware of
7832-1110: The mušḫuššu of ancient Mesopotamia ; Apep in Egyptian mythology ; Vṛtra in the Rigveda ; the Leviathan in the Hebrew Bible ; Grand'Goule in the Poitou region in France ; Python , Ladon , Wyvern and the Lernaean Hydra in Greek mythology ; Kulshedra in Albanian Mythology ; Unhcegila in Lakota mythology ; Quetzalcoatl in Aztec Culture ; Jörmungandr , Níðhöggr , and Fafnir in Norse mythology ;
8010-406: The samurai Minamoto no Mitsunaka tells that, while he was hunting in his own territory of Settsu , he dreamt under a tree and had a dream in which a beautiful woman appeared to him and begged him to save her land from a giant serpent which was defiling it. Mitsunaka agreed to help and the maiden gave him a magnificent horse. When he woke up, the seahorse was standing before him. He rode it to
8188-691: The Akkadian Period ( c. 2334 – 2154 BC) until the Neo-Babylonian Period (626 BC–539 BC). The dragon is usually shown with its mouth open. It may have been known as the (ūmu) nā’iru , which means "roaring weather beast", and may have been associated with the god Ishkur (Hadad). A slightly different lion-dragon with two horns and the tail of a scorpion appears in art from the Neo-Assyrian Period (911 BC–609 BC). A relief probably commissioned by Sennacherib shows
8366-645: The Battle of Manzikert . Emperor Alexius I asked for aid from Pope Urban II (1088–1099) for help against Islamic aggression. Urban II called upon the knights of Christendom in a speech made at the Council of Clermont on 27 November 1095, combining the idea of pilgrimage to the Holy Land with that of waging a holy war against the invading forces. In the First Crusade , after nine months of war of attrition,
8544-760: The Battle of the Ice and the Albigensian Crusade ). The Holy Land had been part of the Roman Empire, and thus Byzantine Empire, until the Islamic conquests of the seventh and eighth centuries. Thereafter, Christians had generally been permitted to visit the sacred places in the Holy Land until 1071, when the Seljuk Turks closed Christian pilgrimages and assailed the Byzantines, defeating them at
8722-572: The Byzantines , the crusaders sacked Constantinople and other parts of Asia Minor, rather than proceeding to the Holy Land, effectively establishing the Latin Empire of Constantinople in Greece and Asia Minor. This was effectively the last crusade sponsored by the papacy; later crusades were sponsored by individuals. Thus, though Jerusalem was held for nearly a century and other strongholds in
8900-620: The Chinese and Japanese dragons . It differs from the Chinese dragon in that it developed a longer beard. Very occasionally, a dragon may be depicted as carrying an orb known as the Yeouiju (여의주), the Korean name for the mythical Cintamani , in its claws or its mouth. It was said that whoever could wield the Yeouiju was blessed with the abilities of omnipotence and creation at will, and that only four-toed dragons (who had thumbs with which to hold
9078-731: The Church of Holy Wisdom and the Church of the Holy Apostles , and establishment of the Latin Empire as a seeming attempt to supplant the Orthodox Byzantine Empire in 1204 is viewed with some rancour to the present day. Many in the East saw the actions of the West as a prime determining factor in the weakening of Byzantium. This led to the Empire's eventual conquest and fall to Islam. In 2004, Pope John Paul II extended
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#17327803933509256-402: The Cyrillic script ; they then translated the Scripture and the liturgy into Slavonic. This Slavic dialect became the basis of Old Church Slavonic which later evolved into Church Slavonic which is the common liturgical language still used by the Russian Orthodox Church and other Slavic Orthodox Christians. The missionaries to the East and South Slavs had great success in part because they used
9434-423: The Dominican Order was begun by St. Dominic . The Investiture Controversy , or Lay investiture controversy, was the most significant conflict between secular and religious powers in medieval Europe . It began as a dispute in the 11th century between the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV , and Pope Gregory VII concerning who would appoint bishops ( investiture ). The end of lay investiture threatened to undercut
9612-401: The Greek East and Latin West by the 600s had become dangerous and practically ceased. Two basic problems – the nature of the primacy of the bishop of Rome and the theological implications of adding a clause to the Nicene Creed , known as the filioque clause – were involved. These doctrinal issues were first openly discussed in Photius's patriarchate. By the fifth century, Christendom
9790-423: The Hebrew Bible , in the Book of Psalms , Psalm 74 , Psalm 74:13–14, the sea-dragon Leviathan , is slain by Yahweh , god of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah , as part of the creation of the world. Isaiah describes Leviathan as a tanin ( תנין ), which is translated as "sea monster", "serpent", or "dragon". In Isaiah 27:1, Yahweh's destruction of Leviathan is foretold as part of his impending overhaul of
9968-408: The Levant was conquered by the Sunni Caliphate . The Early Middle Ages commenced when the last western Roman emperor was deposed in 476, to be followed by the barbarian king, Odoacer , to the coronation of Charlemagne as "Emperor of the Romans" by Pope Leo III in Rome on Christmas Day, 800. The year 476, however, is a rather artificial division. In the East, Roman imperial rule continued through
10146-469: The Queen Mary Psalter ( British Library Ms. Royal 2B, vii) and the Isabella Psalter (State Library, Munich ), contain full Bestiary cycles. The bestiary in the Queen Mary Psalter is found in the "marginal" decorations that occupy about the bottom quarter of the page, and are unusually extensive and coherent in this work. In fact the bestiary has been expanded beyond the source in the Norman bestiary of Guillaume le Clerc to ninety animals. Some are placed in
10324-526: The Sanskrit root दृश् ( dr̥ś- ) also means "to see". Draconic creatures appear in virtually all cultures around the globe and the earliest attested reports of draconic creatures resemble giant snakes. Draconic creatures are first described in the mythologies of the ancient Near East and appear in ancient Mesopotamian art and literature. Stories about storm-gods slaying giant serpents occur throughout nearly all Near Eastern and Indo-European mythologies. Famous prototypical draconic creatures include
10502-470: The Second Council of Lyon ) and in 1439 (by the Council of Basel ), but in each case the eastern hierarchs who consented to the unions were repudiated by the Orthodox as a whole, though reconciliation was achieved between the West and what are now called the " Eastern Rite Catholic Churches ." More recently, in 1965 the mutual excommunications were rescinded by the Pope and the Patriarch of Constantinople, though schism remains. Both groups are descended from
10680-453: The Slavic peoples , translating the Bible and liturgy into Slavonic . In the ninth and tenth centuries Christianity made great inroads into central and eastern Europe. The evangelisation, or Christianisation, of the Slavs was strongly supported by one of Byzantium's most learned churchmen of the Eastern Roman Empire (also called Byzantine Empire) Patriarch Photius . The Byzantine emperor Michael III chose Cyril and Methodius in response to
10858-484: The Sumiyoshi temple, where he prayed for eight days. Then he confronted the serpent and slew it with an arrow. It was believed that dragons could be appeased or exorcised with metal. Nitta Yoshisada is said to have hurled a famous sword into the sea at Sagami to appease the dragon-god of the sea and Ki no Tsurayuki threw a metal mirror into the sea at Sumiyoshi for the same purpose. Japanese Buddhism has also adapted dragons by subjecting them to Buddhist law ;
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#173278039335011036-425: The Third Crusade , famous for the battles between Richard the Lionheart and Saladin . The Fourth Crusade , begun by Innocent III in 1202, intended to retake the Holy Land but was soon subverted by Venetians who used the forces to sack the Christian city of Zara . Innocent excommunicated the Venetians and crusaders. Eventually the crusaders arrived in Constantinople, but due to strife which arose between them and
11214-420: The fall of the Western Roman Empire ( c. 476 ). The end of the period is variously defined - depending on the context, events such as the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman Empire in 1453, Christopher Columbus 's first voyage to the Americas in 1492, or the Protestant Reformation in 1517 are sometimes used. In Christianity's ancient Pentarchy , five patriarchies held special eminence:
11392-433: The fourth century . Cultural, political, and linguistic differences were often mixed with the theological, leading to schism. The transfer of the Roman capital to Constantinople inevitably brought mistrust, rivalry, and even jealousy to the relations of the two great sees, Rome and Constantinople. It was easy for Rome to be jealous of Constantinople at a time when it was rapidly losing its political prominence. Estrangement
11570-406: The migration of birds, were discounted by the natural philosophers of later centuries, only to be rediscovered in the modern scientific era. Medieval bestiaries are remarkably similar in sequence of the animals of which they treat. Bestiaries were particularly popular in England and France around the 12th century and were mainly compilations of earlier texts. The Aberdeen Bestiary is one of
11748-463: The sees of Rome , Constantinople , Jerusalem , Antioch , and Alexandria . The prestige of most of these sees depended in part on their apostolic founders , or in the case of Byzantium/Constantinople, that it was the new seat of the continuing Eastern Roman , or Byzantine Empire. These bishops considered themselves the successors of those apostles. In addition, all five cities were early centres of Christianity , they lost their importance after
11926-457: The Babylonian creation epic Enûma Eliš . She was traditionally regarded by scholars as having had the form of a giant serpent, but several scholars have pointed out that this shape "cannot be imputed to Tiamat with certainty" and she seems to have at least sometimes been regarded as anthropomorphic. Nonetheless, in some texts, she seems to be described with horns, a tail, and a hide that no weapon can penetrate, all features which suggest she
12104-430: The Babylonians. Daniel makes "cakes of pitch, fat, and hair"; the dragon eats them and bursts open. Azhi Dahaka (Avestan Great Snake) is a dragon or demonic figure in the texts and mythology of Zoroastrian Persia, where he is one of the subordinates of Angra Mainyu. Alternate names include Azi Dahak, Dahaka, and Dahak. Aži (nominative ažiš) is the Avestan word for "serpent" or "dragon. The Avestan term Aži Dahāka and
12282-487: The Chinese lunar calendar, Old Li returns home, causing it to rain. He is still worshipped as a rain god. In China, a dragon is thought to have power over rain. Dragons and their associations with rain are the source of the Chinese customs of dragon dancing and dragon boat racing . Dragons are closely associated with rain and drought is thought to be caused by a dragon's laziness. Prayers invoking dragons to bring rain are common in Chinese texts. The Luxuriant Dew of
12460-422: The Church, in effect, was gradually abandoned in favour of supremacy of unlimited papal power over the entire Church. These ideas were finally given systematic expression in the West during the Gregorian Reform movement of the eleventh century. The Eastern churches viewed Rome's understanding of the nature of episcopal power as being in direct opposition to the Church's essentially conciliar structure and thus saw
12638-441: The Colchian dragon herself. In the final scene of the play, Medea also flies away on a chariot pulled by two dragons. In the most famous retelling of the story from Apollonius of Rhodes's Argonautica , Medea drugs the dragon to sleep, allowing Jason to steal the Fleece. Greek vase paintings show her feeding the dragon the sleeping drug in a liquid form from a phialē , or shallow cup. In the founding myth of Thebes , Cadmus ,
12816-491: The Crown Prince wore four-taloned dragon insignia. Korean folk mythology states that most dragons were originally Imugis (이무기), or lesser dragons, which were said to resemble gigantic serpents. There are a few different versions of Korean folklore that describe both what imugis are and how they aspire to become full-fledged dragons. Koreans thought that an Imugi could become a true dragon, yong or mireu , if it caught
12994-587: The Crusader leaders to command coherently that doomed the military campaign. In addition, the failure of the missionaries to convert the Mongols to Christianity thwarted the hope for a Tartar- Frank alliance. The Mongols later on converted to Islam. Islamic expansion into Europe would renew and remain a threat for centuries, culminating in the campaigns of Suleiman the Magnificent in the sixteenth century. On
13172-709: The Crusades refer to the campaigns in the Holy Land sponsored by the papacy against invading Muslim forces. There were other crusades against Islamic forces in southern Spain, southern Italy, and Sicily, as well as the campaigns of Teutonic knights against pagan strongholds in Eastern Europe (see Northern Crusades ). A few crusades such as the Fourth Crusade were waged within Christendom against groups that were considered heretical and schismatic (also see
13350-589: The Early Church, both acknowledge the apostolic succession of each other's bishops, and the validity of each other's sacraments . Though both acknowledge the primacy of the Bishop of Rome, Eastern Orthodoxy understands this as a primacy of honour with limited or no ecclesiastical authority in other dioceses. The Orthodox East perceived the Papacy as taking on monarchical characteristics that were not in line with
13528-535: The East-West Schism was actually the result of an extended period of estrangement between Latin and Greek Christendom over the nature of papal primacy and certain doctrinal matters like the filioque , but intensified by cultural and linguistic differences. The "official" schism in 1054 was the excommunication of Patriarch Michael Cerularius of Constantinople, followed by his excommunication of papal legates. Attempts at reconciliation were made in 1274 (by
13706-544: The Eastern Roman Emperor, the bishop of Rome, while maintaining nominal allegiance to the Eastern Emperor, was forced to negotiate delicate balances with the "barbarian rulers" of the former Western provinces. Although the greater number of Christians remained in the East, the developments in the West would set the stage for major developments in the Christian world during the later centuries. After
13884-689: The Frisians in what is now the Netherlands . Willibrord established a church in Utrecht . Much of Willibrord's work was wiped out when the pagan Radbod, king of the Frisians destroyed many Christian centres between 716 and 719. In 717, the English missionary Boniface was sent to aid Willibrord, re-establishing churches in Frisia and continuing to preach throughout the pagan lands of Germany. Boniface
14062-516: The Hydra's heads was immortal, so Heracles buried it under a heavy rock after cutting it off. For his Eleventh Labor, Heracles must procure a golden apple from the tree in the Garden of the Hesperides , which is guarded by an enormous serpent that never sleeps, which Pseudo-Apollodorus calls " Ladon ". In earlier depictions, Ladon is often shown with many heads. In Pseudo-Apollodorus's account, Ladon
14240-415: The Hydra, but, by the end of the sixth century BC, it was agreed that the clubbed or severed heads needed to be cauterized to prevent them from growing back. Heracles was aided in this task by his nephew Iolaus . During the battle, a giant crab crawled out of the marsh and pinched Heracles's foot, but he crushed it under his heel. Hera placed the crab in the sky as the constellation Cancer . One of
14418-547: The Iconoclast Council at Hieria, 754 ruled that the culture of holy portraits (see icon ) was not of a Christian origin and therefore heretical. The movement destroyed much of the Christian church's early artistic history, to the great loss of subsequent art and religious historians. The iconoclastic movement itself was later defined as heretical in 787 under the Seventh Ecumenical council , but enjoyed
14596-606: The Isaurian ordered the removal of an image of Jesus prominently placed over the Chalke gate, the ceremonial entrance to the Great Palace of Constantinople , and its replacement with a cross. This was followed by orders banning the pictorial representation of the family of Christ, subsequent Christian saints, and biblical scenes. In the West, Pope Gregory III held two synods at Rome and condemned Leo's actions. In Leo's realms,
14774-637: The Italian peninsula fell into warfare and turmoil due to the barbarian tribes, the Emperor Justinian I attempted to reassert imperial dominion in Italy from the East, against the Gothic aristocracy. The subsequent campaigns were more or less successful, and an Imperial Exarchate was established for Italy, but imperial influence was limited. The Lombards then invaded the weakened peninsula, and Rome
14952-478: The Japanese Buddhist deities Benten and Kwannon are often shown sitting or standing on the back of a dragon. Several Japanese sennin ("immortals") have taken dragons as their mounts. Bômô is said to have hurled his staff into a puddle of water, causing a dragon to come forth and let him ride it to heaven. The rakan Handaka is said to have been able to conjure a dragon out of a bowl, which he
15130-508: The Lord and Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father." The Eastern Church argued that the phrase had been added unilaterally and, therefore, illegitimately, since the East had never been consulted. In the final analysis, only another ecumenical council could introduce such an alteration. Indeed, the councils, which drew up the original Creed, had expressly forbidden any subtraction or addition to
15308-689: The Middle Persian azdahāg are the sources of the Middle Persian Manichaean demon of greed "Az", Old Armenian mythological figure Aždahak, Modern Persian 'aždehâ/aždahâ', Tajik Persian 'azhdahâ', Urdu 'azhdahā' (اژدها), as well as the Kurdish ejdîha (ئەژدیها). The name also migrated to Eastern Europe, assumed the form "azhdaja" and the meaning "dragon", "dragoness" or "water snake" in the Balkanic and Slavic languages. Despite
15486-570: The Muslim invasions of the seventh century, the Western (Latin) and Eastern (Greek) areas of Christianity began to take on distinctive shapes. Whereas in the East the Church maintained its strength, in the West the bishops of Rome (i.e., the Popes) were forced to adapt more quickly and flexibly to drastically changing circumstances. In particular whereas the bishops of the East maintained clear allegiance to
15664-518: The Near East would remain in Christian possession much longer, the crusades in the Holy Land ultimately failed to establish permanent Christian kingdoms. The Europeans' defeat can in no small part be attributed to the excellent martial prowess of the Mameluke and Turks, who both utilized agile mounted archers in open battle and Greek fire in siege defense. However, ultimately it was the inability of
15842-463: The Ogonchô, which had a call like the "howling of a wild dog". This event was believed to herald terrible famine. In the Japanese village of Okumura, near Edo , during times of drought, the villagers would make a dragon effigy out of straw, magnolia leaves, and bamboo and parade it through the village to attract rainfall. The Vietnamese dragon ( Vietnamese : rồng ) was a mythical creature that
16020-566: The Pagan god Woden becoming sixteenth in descent from 'Sceaf, Noah's son in the Bible. Later, under Archbishop Theodore , the Anglo-Saxons enjoyed a golden age of culture and scholarship. Soon, important English missionaries such as SS. Wilfrid , Willibrord , Lullus and Boniface would begin evangelising their Saxon relatives in Germany. The largely Christian Gallo-Roman inhabitants of Gaul (modern France) were overrun by Germanic Franks in
16198-603: The Renaissance was Johannes de Cuba 's Gart der Gesundheit which describes 122 birds and which was printed in 1485. The contents of medieval bestiaries were often obtained and created from combining older textual sources and accounts of animals, such as the Physiologus . Medieval bestiaries contained detailed descriptions and illustrations of species native to Western Europe, exotic animals and what in modern times are considered to be imaginary animals. Descriptions of
16376-490: The Roman priests did, or Greek . When king Rastislav of Moravia asked Byzantium for teachers who could minister to the Moravians in their own language, Byzantine emperor Michael III chose two brothers, Cyril and Methodius . As their mother was a Slav from the hinterlands of Thessaloniki, the two brothers had been raised speaking the local Slavonic vernacular. Once commissioned, they immediately set about creating an alphabet,
16554-587: The Scandinavian legends, as no such animals (historical or otherwise) have ever been found in this region." Robert Blust in The Origin of Dragons (2000) argues that, like many other creations of traditional cultures, dragons are largely explicable as products of a convergence of rational pre-scientific speculation about the world of real events. In this case, the event is the natural mechanism governing rainfall and drought, with particular attention paid to
16732-596: The Slavic peoples as part of their rightful mission field. When friction developed, the brothers, unwilling to be a cause of dissension among Christians, travelled to Rome to see the Pope, seeking an agreement that would avoid quarrelling between missionaries in the field. Constantine entered a monastery in Rome, taking the name Cyril, by which he is now remembered. However, he died only a few weeks thereafter. Dragon This
16910-537: The Spring and Autumn Annals , attributed to the Han dynasty scholar Dong Zhongshu , prescribes making clay figurines of dragons during a time of drought and having young men and boys pace and dance among the figurines in order to encourage the dragons to bring rain. Texts from the Qing dynasty advise hurling the bone of a tiger or dirty objects into the pool where the dragon lives; since dragons cannot stand tigers or dirt,
17088-800: The West, Christianity spread beyond the old borders of the Empire and into lands that had never been under Rome. Beginning in the fifth century, a unique culture developed around the Irish Sea consisting of what today would be called Wales and Ireland. In this environment, Christianity spread from Roman Britain to Ireland, especially aided by the missionary activity of St. Patrick with his first-order of 'patrician clergy', active missionary priests accompanying or following him, typically Britons or Irish ordained by him and his successors. Patrick had been captured into slavery in Ireland and, following his escape and later consecration as bishop, he returned to
17266-416: The ancestor of modern lower-case script, and the standardisation of Latin which had hitherto become varied and irregular (see Medieval Latin ). Reform was the creed of Charlemagne's Christianity. There was an emphasis on the differences of Christianity for the laity and Christianity for the nobility. At this time, religion and politics were deeply intertwined with one another. Charlemagne's belief in correcting
17444-474: The animals included the physical characteristics associated with the creature, although these were often physiologically incorrect, along with the Christian morals that the animal represented. The description was then often accompanied by an artistic illustration of the animal as described in the bestiary. For example, in one bestiary the eagle is depicted in an illustration and is said to be the “king of birds.” Bestiaries were organized in different ways based upon
17622-512: The author explains how fables and bestiaries are closely linked to one another as “each chapter of a bestiary, each fable in a collection, has a text and has a meaning. This lack of separation has often been associated with the assumption that people during this time believed in what the modern period classifies as nonexistent or " imaginary creatures ". However, this assumption is currently under debate, with various explanations being offered. Some scholars, such as Pamela Gravestock , have written on
17800-472: The best known of over 50 manuscript bestiaries surviving today. Much influence comes from the Renaissance era and the general Middle Ages, as well as modern times. The Renaissance has been said to have started around the 14th century in Italy. Bestiaries influenced early heraldry in the Middle Ages, giving ideas for charges and also for the artistic form. Bestiaries continue to give inspiration to coats of arms created in our time. Two illuminated Psalters ,
17978-480: The blood of the Hydra. In Pindar 's Fourth Pythian Ode , Aeëtes of Colchis tells the hero Jason that the Golden Fleece he is seeking is in a copse guarded by a dragon, "which surpassed in breadth and length a fifty-oared ship". Jason slays the dragon and makes off with the Golden Fleece together with his co-conspirator, Aeëtes's daughter, Medea . The earliest artistic representation of this story
18156-465: The cathedrals and formed their own institutions, the earliest being the University of Paris ( c . 1150), the University of Bologna (1088), and the University of Oxford (1096). Though by 800 western Europe was ruled entirely by Christian kings, central and eastern Europe remained areas of missionary activity. In the ninth century SS. Cyril and Methodius had extensive missionary activities among
18334-508: The cattle home for Trita. This same story is alluded to in the Younger Avesta , in which the hero Thraētaona , the son of Āthbya, slays the three-headed dragon Aži Dahāka and takes his two beautiful wives as spoils. Thraētaona's name (meaning "third grandson of the waters") indicates that Aži Dahāka, like Vṛtra, was seen as a blocker of waters and cause of drought. The Druk ( Dzongkha : འབྲུག་ ), also known as 'Thunder Dragon',
18512-460: The church can be during this time. Much of what is covered in the article talks about how the dragon that is mentioned in some of the bestiaries shows a glimpse of the religious significance in many of these tales. These bestiaries held much content in terms of religious significance. In almost every animal there is some way to connect it to a lesson from the church or a familiar religious story. With animals holding significance since ancient times, it
18690-545: The church's traditional relationship with the emperor. The final breach is often considered to have arisen after the capture and sacking of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204. Crusades against Christians in the East by Roman Catholic crusaders was not exclusive to the Mediterranean though (see also the Northern Crusades and the Battle of the Ice ). The sacking of Constantinople , especially
18868-471: The city as part of a dragon dance . The original purpose of this ritual was to bring good weather and a strong harvest, but now it is done mostly only for entertainment. During the Duanwu festival, several villages, or even a whole province, will hold a dragon boat race , in which people race across a body of water in boats carved to look like dragons, while a large audience watches on the banks. The custom
19046-521: The correct morals they should display. All of the animals presented in the bestiaries show some sort of lesson or meaning when presented. Much of the symbolism shown of animals. Much of what is proposed by the bestiaries mentions much of paganism because of the religious significance and time period of the medieval ages. One of the main 'animals' mentioned in some of the bestiaries is dragons, which hold much significance in terms of religion and meaning. The unnatural part of dragon's history shows how important
19224-678: The council of his consecration pressed him to accept the clause in order to secure their support. The controversy also involved Eastern and Western ecclesiastical jurisdictional rights in the Bulgarian church, as well as a doctrinal dispute over the Filioque ("and from the Son") clause. That had been added to the Nicene Creed by the Latin church, which was later the theological breaking point in
19402-580: The creature that he ran away. In Chinese legend, the culture hero Fu Hsi is said to have been crossing the Lo River , when he saw the lung ma , a Chinese horse-dragon with seven dots on its face, six on its back, eight on its left flank, and nine on its right flank. He was so moved by this apparition that, when he arrived home, he drew a picture of it, including the dots. He later used these dots as letters and invented Chinese writing , which he used to write his book I Ching . In another Chinese legend,
19580-508: The dragon from Beowulf ; and aži and az in ancient Persian mythology, closely related to another mythological figure, called Aži Dahaka or Zahhak . Nonetheless, scholars dispute where the idea of a dragon originates from, and a wide variety of hypotheses have been proposed. In his book An Instinct for Dragons (2000), anthropologist David E. Jones suggests a hypothesis that humans, like monkeys , have inherited instinctive reactions to snakes, large cats , and birds of prey . He cites
19758-487: The dragon and fashions a coat from its hide called the babr-e bayān . In some variants of the story, Rostam then remains unconscious for two days and nights, but is guarded by his steed Rakhsh . On reviving, he washes himself in a spring. In the Mandean tradition of the story, Rostam hides in a box, is swallowed by the dragon, and kills it from inside its belly. The king of China then gives Rostam his daughter in marriage as
19936-452: The dragon in revenge, either by smashing its head with a rock or using his sword. Following the advice of Athena, Cadmus tore out the dragon's teeth and planted them in the earth. An army of giant warriors (known as spartoi , which means "sown men") grew from the teeth like plants. Cadmus hurled stones into their midst, causing them to kill each other until only five were left. To make restitution for having killed Ares's dragon, Cadmus
20114-617: The dragon king of the West Sea. And King Munmu of Silla who, on his deathbed, wished to become a dragon of the East Sea in order to protect the kingdom. Dragon patterns were used exclusively by the royal family. The royal robe was also called the dragon robe (용포). In the Joseon dynasty , the royal insignia, featuring embroidered dragons, were attached to the robe's shoulders, the chest, and back. The King wore five-taloned dragon insignia while
20292-823: The dragon lore of northern India may have been inspired by "observations of oversized, extraordinary bones in the fossilbeds of the Siwalik Hills below the Himalayas " and that ancient Greek artistic depictions of the Monster of Troy may have been influenced by fossils of Samotherium , an extinct species of giraffe whose fossils are common in the Mediterranean region. In China, a region where fossils of large prehistoric animals are common, these remains are frequently identified as "dragon bones" and are commonly used in traditional Chinese medicine . Mayor, however,
20470-475: The dragon of the pool will cause heavy rain to drive the object out. Rainmaking rituals invoking dragons are still very common in many Chinese villages, where each village has its own god said to bring rain and many of these gods are dragons. The Chinese dragon kings are thought of as the inspiration for the Hindu myth of the naga. According to these stories, every body of water is ruled by a dragon king, each with
20648-413: The eagle. With animals being a part of religion before bestiaries and their lessons came out, they were influenced by past observations of meaning as well as older civilizations and their interpretations. As most of the students who read these bestiaries were monks and clerics, it is not impossible to say that there is a major religious significance within them. The bestiary was used to educate young men on
20826-557: The early 5th century. The native inhabitants were persecuted until the Frankish King, Clovis I converted from paganism to Roman Catholicism in 496. Clovis insisted that his fellow nobles follow suit, strengthening his newly established kingdom by uniting the faith of the rulers with that of the ruled. In 698, the Northumbrian Benedictine monk, Willibrord was commissioned by Pope Sergius I as bishop of
21004-452: The education system of the nobility was an example of this relationship between church and state. Illiteracy was a common problem among nobility as well. To address the problems of illiteracy among clergy and court scribes, Charlemagne founded schools and attracted the most learned men from all of Europe to his court, such as Theodulf , Paul the Deacon , Angilbert , Paulinus of Aquileia . It
21182-461: The emperor Qi are both described as being carried by two dragons, as are Huangdi, Zhuanxu , Yuqiang , and Roshou in various other texts. According to the Huainanzi , an evil black dragon once caused a destructive deluge, which was ended by the mother goddess Nüwa by slaying the dragon. A large number of ethnic myths about dragons are told throughout China. The Houhanshu , compiled in
21360-490: The existence of dinosaurs or similar creatures in the distant past. References to dragons of both benevolent and malevolent characters occur throughout ancient Mesopotamian literature. In Sumerian poetry , great kings are often compared to the ušumgal , a gigantic, serpentine monster. A draconic creature with the foreparts of a lion and the hind-legs, tail, and wings of a bird appears in Mesopotamian artwork from
21538-484: The fifth century BC by Fan Ye , reports a story belonging to the Ailaoyi people, which holds that a woman named Shayi who lived in the region around Mount Lao became pregnant with ten sons after being touched by a tree trunk floating in the water while fishing. She gave birth to the sons and the tree trunk turned into a dragon, who asked to see his sons. The woman showed them to him, but all of them ran away except for
21716-509: The first inquisitors to serve as papal agents to remove heresy . Heretics were seen as a menace to the Church and the first group dealt with by the inquisitors were the Cathars of southern France . Heresy had been seen as a recurring problem for the medieval Church since the burning of heretics at Orlèans in 1022. The main tool used by the inquisitors was interrogation that often featured the use of torture followed by having heretics burned at
21894-543: The form in which it was later popularized was an anonymous 2nd-century Greek volume called the Physiologus , which itself summarized ancient knowledge and wisdom about animals in the writings of classical authors such as Aristotle 's Historia Animalium and various works by Herodotus , Pliny the Elder , Solinus , Aelian and other naturalists. Following the Physiologus , Saint Isidore of Seville (Book XII of
22072-488: The fourteenth emperor of the Xia dynasty , was given a male and a female dragon as a reward for his obedience to the god of heaven, but could not train them, so he hired a dragon-trainer named Liulei, who had learned how to train dragons from Huanlong. One day, the female dragon died unexpectedly, so Liulei secretly chopped her up, cooked her meat, and served it to the king, who loved it so much that he demanded Liulei to serve him
22250-633: The future Slavic clergy into the Glagolitic alphabet and the biblical texts, where also the Early Cyrillic alphabet was developed in the late 9th century. Bulgaria was officially christianised in 864 and was recognised as a patriarchate by Constantinople in 927, the first one after the five original Patriarchates forming the Pentarchy from the late Roman Empire . The Serbs were accounted Christian as of about 870. Serbian patriarchate
22428-667: The gods Ashur , Sin , and Adad standing on its back. Another draconic creature with horns, the body and neck of a snake, the forelegs of a lion, and the hind-legs of a bird appears in Mesopotamian art from the Akkadian Period until the Hellenistic Period (323 BC–31 BC). This creature, known in Akkadian as the mušḫuššu , meaning "furious serpent", was used as a symbol for particular deities and also as
22606-428: The hero is some kind of thunder-god . In nearly every iteration of the story, the serpent is either multi-headed or "multiple" in some other way. Furthermore, in nearly every story, the serpent is always somehow associated with water. Bruce Lincoln has proposed that a Proto-Indo-European dragon-slaying myth can be reconstructed as follows: First, the sky gods give cattle to a man named *Tritos ("the third"), who
22784-437: The imperial legions left the isle, and the Roman elite followed. Some time later that century, various barbarian tribes went from raiding and pillaging the island to settling and invading. These tribes are referred to as the "Anglo-Saxons", predecessors of the English. They were entirely pagan, having never been part of the Empire, and although they experienced Christian influence from the surrounding peoples, they were converted by
22962-462: The incarnations of a divine dragon. Eventually, dragons were only allowed to appear on clothing, houses, and articles of everyday use belonging to the emperor and any commoner who possessed everyday items bearing the image of the dragon was ordered to be executed. After the last Chinese emperor was overthrown in 1911, this situation changed and now many ordinary Chinese people identify themselves as descendants of dragons. The impression of dragons in
23140-517: The isle that had enslaved him so that he could bring them the Gospel. Soon, Irish missionaries such as Columba and Columbanus spread this Christianity, with its distinctively Irish features, to Scotland and the Continent. One such feature was the system of private penitence, which replaced the former practice of penance as a public rite. Although southern Britain had been a Roman province, in 407
23318-543: The later Church Slavonic literary and liturgical language. Some of the disciples, namely Naum of Preslav , Clement of Ohrid , Saint Angelar , and Sava , returned to Bulgaria where they were welcomed by the Bulgarian Tsar Boris I who viewed the Slavonic liturgy as a way to counteract Greek influence in the country. In a short time the disciples of Cyril and Methodius managed to prepare and instruct
23496-578: The mission of St. Augustine sent by Pope Gregory the Great . The majority of the remaining British population converted from Christianity back to their Pagan roots. Contrary to popular belief, the conversion of Anglo-Saxons to Christianity was incredibly slow. The Anglo-Saxons had little interest in changing their religion and even initially looked down upon Christianity due to conquering the Christian British people decades earlier. It took almost
23674-424: The morning of 28 June, the crusader army, consisting of mostly dismounted knights and foot soldiers because most horses had died at that point, sallied out to attack the Turks, and broke the line of Kerbogah's army, allowing the crusaders to gain complete control of the Antioch and its surroundings. The Second Crusade occurred in 1145 when Edessa was retaken by Islamic forces. Jerusalem would be held until 1187 and
23852-446: The most famous Chinese dragons is Ying Long ("responding dragon"), who helped the Huangdi , the Yellow Emperor, defeat the tyrant Chiyou . The dragon Zhulong ("torch dragon") is a god "who composed the universe with his body." In the Shanhaijing , many mythic heroes are said to have been conceived after their mothers copulated with divine dragons, including Huangdi, Shennong , Emperor Yao , and Emperor Shun . The god Zhurong and
24030-434: The natural world. The significance shown between animals and religion started much before bestiaries came into play. In many ancient civilizations there are references to animals and their meaning within that specific religion or mythology that we know of today. These civilizations included Egypt and their gods with the faces of animals or Greece which had symbolic animals for their godly beings, an example being Zeus and
24208-424: The negative aspect of Aži Dahāka in mythology, dragons have been used on some banners of war throughout the history of Iranian peoples. The Azhdarchid group of pterosaurs are named from a Persian word for "dragon" that ultimately comes from Aži Dahāka. In Persian Sufi literature, Rumi writes in his Masnavi that the dragon symbolizes the sensual soul ( nafs ), greed and lust, that need to be mortified in
24386-572: The orbs) were both wise and powerful enough to wield these orbs, as opposed to the lesser, three-toed dragons. As with China, the number nine is significant and auspicious in Korea, and dragons were said to have 81 (9×9) scales on their backs, representing yang essence. Dragons in Korean mythology are primarily benevolent beings related to water and agriculture, often considered bringers of rain and clouds. Hence, many Korean dragons are said to have resided in rivers, lakes, oceans, or even deep mountain ponds. And human journeys to undersea realms, and especially
24564-435: The other hand, the crusades in southern Spain, southern Italy, and Sicily eventually led to the demise of Islamic power in the regions; the Teutonic knights expanded Christian domains in Eastern Europe, and the much less frequent crusades within Christendom, such as the Albigensian Crusade , achieved their goal of maintaining doctrinal unity. The Medieval Inquisition officially started in 1231, when Pope Gregory IX appointed
24742-420: The papacy was unable to enforce any of its claims. The East-West Schism , or Great Schism, separated the Church into Western (Latin) and Eastern (Greek) branches, i.e., Western Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. It was the first major division since certain groups in the East rejected the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon (see Oriental Orthodoxy ), and was far more significant. Though normally dated to 1054,
24920-423: The people's native language rather than Latin or Greek . In Great Moravia, Constantine and Methodius encountered Frankish missionaries from Germany, representing the western or Latin branch of the Church, and more particularly representing the Holy Roman Empire as founded by Charlemagne, and committed to linguistic, and cultural uniformity. They insisted on the use of the Latin liturgy, and they regarded Moravia and
25098-467: The period historians now call the Byzantine Empire . Even in the West, where imperial political control gradually declined, distinctly Roman culture continued long afterwards; thus historians today prefer to speak of a "transformation of the Roman world" rather than a "fall of the Roman Empire." The advent of the Early Middle Ages was a gradual and often localised process whereby, in the West, rural areas became power centres whilst urban areas declined. With
25276-425: The phenomenon of the rainbow. In Egyptian mythology , Apep or Apophis is a giant serpentine creature who resides in the Duat , the Egyptian Underworld. The Bremner-Rhind papyrus, written around 310 BC, preserves an account of a much older Egyptian tradition that the setting of the sun is caused by Ra descending to the Duat to battle Apep. In some accounts, Apep is as long as the height of eight men with
25454-456: The physician Ma Shih Huang is said to have healed a sick dragon. Another legend reports that a man once came to the healer Lo Chên-jen, telling him that he was a dragon and that he needed to be healed. After Lo Chên-jen healed the man, a dragon appeared to him and carried him to heaven. In the Shanhaijing , a classic mythography probably compiled mostly during the Han dynasty , various deities and demigods are associated with dragons. One of
25632-441: The potential corruption, not only from vacant sees but also from other practices such as simony . Thus, the Investiture Contest was part of the Church's attempt to reform the episcopate and provide better pastoral care . Pope Gregory VII issued the Dictatus Papae , which declared that the pope alone could appoint or depose bishops, or translate them to other sees. Henry IV's rejection of the decree lead to his excommunication and
25810-501: The power of the Empire and the ambitions of noblemen for the benefit of Church reform. Bishops collected revenues from estates attached to their bishopric. Noblemen who held lands (fiefdoms) hereditarily passed those lands on within their family. However, because bishops had no legitimate children, when a bishop died it was the king's right to appoint a successor. So, while a king had little recourse in preventing noblemen from acquiring powerful domains via inheritance and dynastic marriages,
25988-443: The primary builder of the Cistercians, they became the main force of technological diffusion in medieval Europe. By the end of the 12th century the Cistercian houses numbered 500, and at its height in the 15th century the order claimed to have close to 750 houses. Most of these were built in wilderness areas, and played a major part in bringing such isolated parts of Europe into economic cultivation. A third level of monastic reform
26166-399: The rearing of dragons. The Zuo zhuan , which was probably written during the Warring States period , describes a man named Dongfu, a descendant of Yangshu'an, who loved dragons and, because he could understand a dragon's will, he was able to tame them and raise them well. He served Emperor Shun, who gave him the family name Huanlong, meaning "dragon-raiser". In another story, Kong Jia ,
26344-400: The rest up the mountains. To this day, Vietnamese people often describe themselves as "Children of the dragon, grandchildren of the fairy" ( Con rồng cháu tiên ). In the Rigveda , the oldest of the four Vedas , Indra , the Vedic god of storms, battles Vṛtra , a giant serpent who represents drought. Indra kills Vṛtra using his vajra (thunderbolt) and clears the path for rain, which
26522-407: The same meal again. Since Liulei had no means of procuring more dragon meat, he fled the palace. One of the most famous dragon stories is about the Lord Ye Gao, who loved dragons obsessively, even though he had never seen one. He decorated his whole house with dragon motifs and, seeing this display of admiration, a real dragon came and visited Ye Gao, but the lord was so terrified at the sight of
26700-491: The second half of the 10th centuries through the early 12th . The next wave of monastic reform came with the Cistercian Movement . The first Cistercian abbey was founded in 1098, at Cîteaux Abbey . The keynote of Cistercian life was a return to a literal observance of the Benedictine rule , rejecting the developments of the Benedictines . The most striking feature in the reform was the return to manual labour, and especially to field-work. Inspired by Bernard of Clairvaux ,
26878-402: The seventh century BC by the Boeotian poet Hesiod , the Greek god Zeus battles the monster Typhon , who has one hundred serpent heads that breathe fire and make many frightening animal noises. Zeus scorches all of Typhon's heads with his lightning bolts and then hurls Typhon into Tartarus . In other Greek sources, Typhon is often depicted as a winged, fire-breathing serpent-like dragon. In
27056-476: The sources they drew upon. The descriptions could be organized by animal groupings, such as terrestrial and marine creatures, or presented in an alphabetical manner. However, the texts gave no distinction between existing and imaginary animals. Descriptions of creatures such as dragons , unicorns , basilisk , griffin and caladrius were common in such works and found intermingled amongst accounts of bears , boars , deer , lions , and elephants . In one source,
27234-520: The stake . After about a century this first medieval inquisition came to a conclusion. A new inquisition called the Spanish Inquisition was created by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in order to consolidate their rule. This new inquisition was separated from the Roman Church and the inquisition that came before it. At first it was primarily directed at Jews who converted to Christianity because many were suspicious that they did not actually convert to Christianity. Later it spread to targeting Muslims and
27412-399: The stricter adherence to a reformed Benedictine rule , the abbey of Cluny became the acknowledged leader of western monasticism from the later 10th century. Cluny created a large, federated order in which the administrators of subsidiary houses served as deputies of the abbot of Cluny and answered to him. The Cluniac spirit was a revitalising influence on the Norman church, at its height from
27590-476: The text to make correspondences with the psalm they are illustrating. Many decide to make their own bestiary with their own observations including knowledge from previous ones. These observations can be made in text form, as well as illustrated out. The Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci also made his own bestiary. A volucrary is a similar collection of the symbols of birds that is sometimes found in conjunction with bestiaries. The most widely known volucrary in
27768-480: The text. In addition to this ecclesiological issue, the Eastern Church also considered the filioque clause unacceptable on dogmatic grounds. Theologically, the Latin interpolation was unacceptable since it implied that the Spirit now had two sources of origin and procession, the Father and the Son, rather than the Father alone. In the 9th century AD, a controversy arose between Eastern (Byzantine, later Orthodox) and Western (Latin, later Roman Catholic) Christianity that
27946-473: The theory that medieval people did not actually think such creatures existed but instead focused on the belief in the importance of the Christian morals these creatures represented, and that the importance of the moral did not change regardless if the animal existed or not. The historian of science David C. Lindberg pointed out that medieval bestiaries were rich in symbolism and allegory, so as to teach moral lessons and entertain, rather than to convey knowledge of
28124-474: The two ecclesiologies as mutually antithetical. For them, specifically, Simon Peter's primacy could never be the exclusive prerogative of any one bishop. All bishops must, like St. Peter, confess Jesus as the Christ and, as such, all are Peter's successors. The churches of the East gave the Roman See, primacy but not supremacy. The Pope being the first among equals, but not infallible and not with absolute authority. The other major irritant to Eastern Christendom
28302-423: The two words were probably interchangeable. Hesiod also mentions that the hero Heracles slew the Lernaean Hydra , a multiple-headed serpent which dwelt in the swamps of Lerna . The name "Hydra" means "water snake" in Greek. According to the Bibliotheka of Pseudo-Apollodorus, the slaying of the Hydra was the second of the Twelve Labors of Heracles . Accounts disagree on which weapon Heracles used to slay
28480-414: The ultimate Great East-West Schism in the eleventh century. Photius did provide concession on the issue of jurisdictional rights concerning Bulgaria and the papal legates made do with his return of Bulgaria to Rome. This concession, however, was purely nominal, as Bulgaria's return to the Byzantine rite in 870 had already secured for it an autocephalous church. Without the consent of Boris I of Bulgaria ,
28658-412: The undersea palace of the Dragon King (용왕), are common in Korean folklore. In Korean myths, some kings who founded kingdoms were described as descendants of dragons because the dragon was a symbol of the monarch. Lady Aryeong , who was the first queen of Silla , is said to have been born from a cockatrice , while the grandmother of Taejo of Goryeo , founder of Goryeo , was reportedly the daughter of
28836-429: The universal order: בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא יִפְקֹד יְהוָה בְּחַרְבּוֹ הַקָּשָׁה וְהַגְּדוֹלָה וְהַחֲזָקָה, עַל לִוְיָתָן נָחָשׁ בָּרִחַ, וְעַל לִוְיָתָן, נָחָשׁ עֲקַלָּתוֹן; וְהָרַג אֶת-הַתַּנִּין, אֲשֶׁר בַּיָּם In that day the LORD will take His sharp, great, and mighty sword, and bring judgment on Leviathan the fleeing serpent — Leviathan the coiling serpent — and He will slay the dragon of the sea. Job 41:1–34 contains
29014-433: The unknown animals can be the same, as well as having meaning or significance behind them. The lists of monsters to be found in video games (such as NetHack , Dragon Quest , and Monster Hunter ), as well as some tabletop role-playing games such as Pathfinder , are often termed bestiaries. Christianity in the Middle Ages Christianity in the Middle Ages covers the history of Christianity from
29192-522: The various peoples of the Americas and Asia. The inquisitions in combination with the Albigensian Crusade were fairly successful in suppressing heresy. Modern western universities have their origins directly in the Medieval Church. They began as cathedral schools , and all students were considered clerics. This was a benefit as it placed the students under ecclesiastical jurisdiction and thus imparted certain legal immunities and protections. The cathedral schools eventually became partially detached from
29370-468: The youngest, who the dragon licked on the back and named Jiu Long, meaning "sitting back". The sons later elected him king and the descendants of the ten sons became the Ailaoyi people, who tattooed dragons on their backs in honor of their ancestor. The Miao people of southwest China have a story that a divine dragon created the first humans by breathing on monkeys that came to play in his cave. The Han people have many stories about Short-Tailed Old Li,
29548-435: Was also helped along by the German invasions in the West, which effectively weakened contacts. The rise of Islam with its conquest of most of the Mediterranean coastline (not to mention the arrival of the pagan Slavs in the Balkans at the same time) further intensified this separation by driving a physical wedge between the two worlds. The once homogenous unified world of the Mediterranean was fast vanishing. Communication between
29726-399: Was conceived as some form of dragoness. In the mythologies of the Ugarit region, specifically the Baal Cycle from the Ugaritic texts , the sea-dragon Lōtanu is described as "the twisting serpent / the powerful one with seven heads." In KTU 1.5 I 2–3, Lōtanu is slain by the storm-god Baal , but, in KTU 1.3 III 41–42, he is instead slain by the virgin warrior goddess Anat . In
29904-422: Was divided into a pentarchy of five sees with Rome accorded a primacy. The four Eastern sees of the pentarchy, considered this determined by canonical decision and did not entail hegemony of any one local church or patriarchate over the others. However, Rome began to interpret her primacy in terms of sovereignty, as a God-given right involving universal jurisdiction in the Church. The collegial and conciliar nature of
30082-439: Was essentially left to fend for itself. The failure of the East to send aid resulted in the popes themselves feeding the city with grain from papal estates, negotiating treaties, paying protection money to Lombard warlords, and, failing that, hiring soldiers to defend the city. Eventually the popes turned to others for support, especially the Franks. As the political boundaries of the Roman Empire diminished and then collapsed in
30260-415: Was killed by pagans in 754. Iconoclasm as a movement began within the Eastern Christian Byzantine church in the early 8th century, following a series of heavy military reverses against the Muslims . There was a Christian movement in the eighth and ninth centuries against the worship of imagery, caused by worry that the art might be idolatrous . Sometime between 726 and 730 the Byzantine Emperor Leo III
30438-425: Was often used as a deity symbol and was associated with royalty. Similar to other cultures, dragons in Vietnamese culture represent yang and godly beings associated with creation and life. In the creation myth of the Vietnamese people , they are descended from the dragon lord Lạc Long Quân and the fairy Âu Cơ , who bore 100 eggs. When they separated, Lạc Long Quân brought 50 children to the sea while Âu Cơ brought
30616-412: Was precipitated by the opposition of the Roman Pope John VIII to the appointment by the Byzantine emperor Michael III of Photius I to the position of patriarch of Constantinople. Photios was refused an apology by the pope for previous points of dispute between the East and West. Photius refused to accept the supremacy of the pope in Eastern matters or accept the filioque clause. The Latin delegation at
30794-402: Was provided by the establishment of the Mendicant orders . Commonly known as friars, mendicants live under a monastic rule with traditional vows of poverty, chastity and obedience , but they emphasise preaching, missionary activity, and education, in a secluded monastery. Beginning in the 12th century , the Franciscan order was instituted by the followers of Francis of Assisi , and thereafter
30972-422: Was recognised by Constantinople in 1346. The Baptism of Kiev in the 988 spread Christianity throughout Kievan Rus' , establishing Christianity in the predecessor state of Belarus , Russia and Ukraine . The much later Russian patriarchate was recognised by Constantinople in 1589. The missionaries to the Slavs had subsequent success in part because they used the people's native language rather than Latin as
31150-446: Was resolved by the Concordat of London, 1107, where the king renounced his claim to invest bishops but continued to require an oath of fealty from them upon their election. This was a partial model for the Concordat of Worms ( Pactum Calixtinum ), which resolved the Imperial investiture controversy with a compromise that allowed secular authorities some measure of control but granted the selection of bishops to their cathedral canons . As
31328-422: Was the "Many-Faced", a serpent with five heads, who, according to the Amduat , the oldest surviving Book of the Afterlife , was said to coil around the corpse of the sun god Ra protectively. The earliest surviving depiction of a "true" ouroboros comes from the gilded shrines in the tomb of Tutankhamun . In the early centuries AD, the ouroboros was adopted as a symbol by Gnostic Christians and chapter 136 of
31506-436: Was the Western use of the filioque clause—meaning "and the Son"—in the Nicene Creed . This too developed gradually and entered the Creed over time. The issue was the addition by the West of the Latin clause filioque to the Creed, as in "the Holy Spirit... who proceeds from the Father and the Son ," where the original Creed, sanctioned by the councils and still used today, by the Eastern Orthodox simply states "the Holy Spirit,
31684-562: Was the only one permitted to have dragons on his house, clothing, or personal articles. Archaeologist Zhōu Chong-Fa believes that the Chinese word for dragon is an onomatopoeia of the sound of thunder or lùhng in Cantonese . The Chinese dragon ( simplified Chinese : 龙 ; traditional Chinese : 龍 ; pinyin : lóng ) is the highest-ranking creature in the Chinese animal hierarchy. Its origins are vague, but its "ancestors can be found on Neolithic pottery as well as Bronze Age ritual vessels." A number of popular stories deal with
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