IDEOLOGY AND DIDACTICISM:

THE REPRESENTATION OF THE ANIMAL

KINGDOM IN MEDIEVAL LITERATURE

Carlos Valentini
Marcela Ristorto

Introduction
The starting point for this analysis is the idea of social imaginary, not
as something opposed to reality, but as a mechanism used to reproduce
the speech of those in power. Although the speech generated by the
social imaginary proposes rules of conduct, it is not based on rationality
but on man’s feelings and fears. This is why, as pointed out by Duby1,
Medievalist historians nowadays focus on discovering and penetrating the
system of values, beliefs and feelings of men and women of those times
for whom what was invisible deserved as much interest as what was
visible. Eco2 states that l’uomo medievale viveva effettivamente in un mondo
popolato di significati, rimandi, sovrasensi, manifestazioni di Dio nelle cose…
That is, the symbols referred to a reality that was higher, hidden and
sacred, which had to be discovered. Therefore, Hugues de Saint-Victor
explained that nuestro espíritu no puede alcanzar la verdad de las cosas invisibles
si no es educado por la consideración de las cosas visibles3.
The allegories in the bestiaries and the art of cathedrals must be
included within the ideological representations, resulting from the Chris-
tian Church and the men formed by it, because, as already pointed out,
the privileged field of expression of the imaginary is that of literary and
artistic productions. Duby4 states that such ideological representations pro-
vide security, at the time they deform reality —as they serve particular

1. Georges Duby, An 1000. An 2000 sur les traces de nos peurs, Les éditions Textuel, Paris, 1995, p. 9.
2. Umberto Eco, Arte e Bellezza nell’ Estetica Medievale, Bompiani, Milano, 1988, p. 68.
3.  Quoted by Jèssica Jaques Pi, La estética del románico y el gótico, La balsa de la Medusa, Madrid,
2003, p. 41-42.
4.  See Georges Duby, “Histoire sociale et idéologie des sociétés”, Faire de l’histoire, Nouveaux
problèmes, Jacques Le Goff, Pierre Nora (ed.), tome I, Gallimard, Paris, 1974.
272 Carlos Valentini - Marcela Ristorto

interests—, provide a simplified image of the reality of social organization,

and emphasize antagonisms: Good/ Evil, God/ Demonic Force.
From this point of view, the medieval ecclesiastical institution may be
considered —following Althusser5— as an ideological apparatus belonging
to the State, which exercises control through the use of ideology and
not thru violence, although Althusser states that les Appareils idéologiques
d’État fonctionnent de façon massivement prévalente à l’idéologie, mais tout en
fonctionnant secondairement à la répression, fût-elle à la limite, mais à la limite
seulement, très atténuée, dissimulée, voire symbolique6. This repression which
Althusser refers to is related to the intimidating function of art: monstrous
and demonic animals must terrorize men for the latter to adhere to the
divine precepts. Moreover, during the Middle Ages the Church was the
dominating ideological apparatus since, added to the religious functions,
it also concentrated school, informative and cultural functions. Thus, an
accurate idea may be deducted on the degree of constraint exercised
thru these literary and artistic productions.
From the 11th century, upon the millennium of Christ’s death, the
Church established in medieval society the idea of End time. As Duby7
points out, this created a general feeling of helplessness before the forces
of nature, since God’s wrath could become apparent thru several scourges.
Therefore, it was essential for humanity to ensure Amazing Grace. In or-
der to guarantee divine protection, clergymen had to instruct the average
mortal about the virtues to practice and the vices to avoid. This is why
bestiaries could be considered as means to impose rules of conduct and
discipline, if we consider Foucault8 analysis that le pouvoir disciplinaire est un
pouvoir qui […] a pour fonction majeure de “dresser” Medieval man’s behavior.

1. The productions of the Imaginary

From the perspective adopted in this paper, the imaginary is linked
to representations and symbolic and ideological systems which are ex-
pressed, in a privileged manner, in certain literary documents.
In different times, poetry has been considered as a mere representa-
tion of reality, that is, a mere copy of what exists. For this reason, veri-
similitude can be considered a criterion to value works of art. However,

5. Louis Althusser, Idéologie et appareils idéologiques d’État, La Pensée, Paris, 1970, p. 26-34.
6. Louis Althusser, Idéologie et appareils idéologiques…, p. 30-31.
7. Georges Duby, An 1000. An 2000…, p. 15.
8. Michel Foucault, Surveiller et punir. Naissance de la prison, Gallimard, Paris, 1975, p. 172.
 Ideology and Didacticism 273

beyond this intention of portraying reality, literature and the other arts
have always been linked to moral aspects and, therefore, to regulations
with an essentially pedagogical function.
The pedagogic function of medieval literature is closely linked
to symbolic language, which covers all and each aspect of man’s life.
Aesthetically, medieval symbolism poses a difference with old aesthetics,
where a work of art was considered as a copy of an appreciable and
intelligible model. On the contrary, in the Middle Ages art was con-
sidered as a sensitive form which reveals invisible forms, which refer to
the divine sphere.
As predecessors, bestiaries recognize Historia Naturalis, a compilation
of the scientific knowledge of the time —written by Pliny the Elder
in the 1st century— and Physiologus, of unknown artist and written in
Greek, circa the 2nd century (although this date is still subject to discus-
sion). The latter is made up of 49 chapters, which mostly describe real
and fantastic animals. It was at first considered heretical, but from the 4th
century, it was enriched with contributions by the Church Fathers, who
annotated and commented the work in the framework of Christian prin-
ciples. Finally, in the 7th century, Etymologiarum by Saint Isidore of Seville
incorporates new elements regarding the subject matter. This profusion
of texts dedicated to nature and, especially, to the animal kingdom gave
rise, from the 12th century, to the “beast books” or bestiaries.
At the time, these texts were considered natural history books and
their authors intended to give them scientific characteristics. But, as the
books had a moralizing tone, contained legends, and used the most un-
believable and fantastic animals created by the medieval man, they became
—as pointed out by Naughton9— de aquel dominio de lo maravilloso donde
se expresa el imaginario de una época. Therefore, as allegory was used as a
privileged expressive procedure, and as it tried to educate consciences
in the rules of Christian ecumenicalism, these intended scientific texts
became some of the most amazing pages in medieval literature. In them,
the allegoric value of the creatures analyzed outweighs the truthfulness
of the descriptions.
Animals always pose an exemplary role for man, since they symbol-
ize, with more or less accuracy, man’s inclinations; for example, evilness
is embodied by bears; prudence, by serpents. Above all, thanks to the

9. Virginia Naughton, Bestiario Medieval, Quadrata, Buenos Aires, 2005, p. 13.

274 Carlos Valentini - Marcela Ristorto

Biblical text, animals offer a wide range of symbols associated to human

values, from which medieval authors extract basically moralizing lessons.
The comparisons proposed are always brief, colorful and convincing and,
therefore, easy to memorize. Moreover, animal figures are said to be an
effective instrument of Christian spiritual education. For the Middle Ages,
animals became, therefore, a speaking image, an allegory.
Didactic literature was one of the mechanisms employed to achieve
adherence to the Christian ideal. The authors of the bestiaries described
the beasts and used that description as the basis for an allegorical lesson.
Thus, while some animals represented Christ, others symbolized Evil or
became a projection of man’s vices and defects.
One of the animals in the bestiaries which, from the literary view-
point, provides a relevant example of the symbolic dimension allocated
to them in the Middle Ages is the dragon. This was represented with
harmful connotations, since it was directly related to paganism and evil,
that is, to the devil and its work, as it was the fairest of all serpents.
This hybrid being could be said to constitute the maximum exponent
of animality, because its poor definition helps to contain all the other
beasts. This statement may be corroborated by the fact that the dragon
has been represented in multiple forms, with bat or eagle wings, crest,
bird legs, teeth and a dart-shaped tail.
Symbolically, the tail refers to the stunts the devil must develop to
deceive, that is, having lost his power, the devil can only deceive with
lies. Likewise, the fact that the dragon leaves its cave breathing deadly fire
leads to the belief that the devil rises from its abyss and transforms himself
into an angel of light, deceiving fools with false hopes of vainglory and
human pleasures. This symbolism, full of strongly negative connotations,
results in dragon descriptions presented as the unequivocal expression of
evil. Thus, in the moralizing treatises of bestiaries, the dragon becomes
the image of the devil, who lurks on the paths, tempting those who
make their way towards heaven with the brightness of pleasures, and kills
them when they are suffocated by sin, condemned to hell10.
The authors of the bestiaries also resort to the quotation of authority,
as a proof of the validity of their descriptions. Thus, several passages from
the Bible are quoted referring negatively to the dragon, as in Daniel 14,

10.  See Richard Barber, Bestiary. English version of the Bodleian Library, Oxford M.S. Bodley
764. Woodbridge, The Boydell Press, Oxford, 1999, p. 183-184 and Ignacio Malaxecheverría, Bestiario
Medieval, Siruela, Madrid, 2002, p. 223.
 Ideology and Didacticism 275

25: “I will worship the Lord my God; he is the living God. With your
permission, Your Majesty, without using either sword or club, I shall kill
this dragon”. Resorting to the Biblical text or to famous authors relates
to the educational value of the bestiaries and to their capacity to serve
as support of a certain religious “truth”, thus becoming useful instruments
to transmit certain ideological models.
In only one of the bestiaries analyzed, Le Bestiaire de Gervaise, the
dragon has certain positive features. When thirsty, the dragon seeks a
spring of drinking water, but before drinking, vomits onto a ditch to
free itself of poison. This action is presented as an example to follow
by men, that is:
Ensegre devons les dragons:
Quant a seinte Eglise venons (d)
La parole Deu escouter,
Ne devons pas oi nos porter
Covoitise ne avarice;
Purgier nos devons de tot vice
Per veraie confession (vv. 585-591)11

In this case, the dragon illustrates the transformations we must un-

dergo while walking on Earth on our way to eternal life.
Educational literature is not only represented in the bestiaries but
also in hagiography, which, in the 12th and 13th centuries found in the
Golden Legend a systematic expression. Jacobus de Voragine gathers in
these legends multiple miracles and intrepid martyrs amid the cruelest
tortures. Moreover, the devil shows thru each saint’s life, disguised under
a new shape, seeking to play a trick on God’s servants.
In St. George and the Dragon, the dragon is one of the devil’s ex-
pression. The saint, presented as a soldier-pilgrim, arrives in Silca, by a
lake “like a sea” which ambushed an infernal dragon. Unsuccessful efforts
were made by the locals to capture this pestiferous aquatic beast. Quite
the contrary, given the temerity and insolence of infernal creatures, the
dragon approached the walls, infesting the air and killing many. Thus,
the town inhabitants offered victims every day to sate the dragon’s de-
monic appetite and prevent all the community from dying. When the
king’s daughter is offered as a sacrifice, the damsel walks to the lake to

11.  Anonymous, Le Bestiaire de Gervaise, Paul Meyer (ed.), Romania, Paris, 1872, p. 420-443 in
David Badke, The Medieval Bestiary. Animals in the Middle Ages, Victoria (British Columbia), 2004, p. 28.
<http://bestiary.ca/etexts/meyer1872/meyer%20-%20le%20bestiaire%20de%20gervaise.pdf>.
276 Carlos Valentini - Marcela Ristorto

comply with her destiny, meets the pilgrim soldier, and begs him to flee
and escape from the dragon’s fury, but the valiant young man mounts
his horse “and drew out his sword and garnished him with the sign
of the cross, and rode hardily against the dragon which comes towards
him, and smote him with his spear and hurt him sore and threw him
to the ground”12. He sets foot on the ground and requests the young
lady to hold the reptile fearlessly, and the dragon gently follows her as
if it was “a meek beast and debonair”13, up to the town gates. From the
walls, the locals tremble and moan for what they see approaching, but
the Christian warrior calms them down with these words: “Ne doubt
ye no thing, without more, believe in God, Jesu Christ, and do ye to
be baptized and I shall slay the dragon”14. And, in fact, once the people
and the king are baptized, the saint unsheathed his sword and, like David
to Goliath, killed the dragon.
This hagiographic legend portrays the dragon as the incarnation of
evil, since it represents a symbol of pagans and heretics. Thus, the whole
story may be framed in the age-old clash between good and evil; the
fight of the Christian knight at God’s service. Furthermore, certain re-
curring symbols reinforce this moralizing message. Thus, the lake where
the dragon lives may be seen as a symbol of paganism and, in general,
of the dangers which the Christian Church must face: Saint Peter’s fragile
boat is barely supported on a tortuous sea which dazzles and entices
with the sun rays on the water, in the same way as the mirages and the
seductions the devil sows on the faithful’s path.
In other expressions of medieval imaginary, the dragon also works as
the embodiment of evil, as an expression of the hazards and dangers any
man must avoid in order to achieved salvation. And, in particular, for the
epics’ and the romans’ hero, the dragon represents one of the opponents
in his heroic journey which will eventually grant him honor and glory.
This is the case of Beowulf, one of the oldest epic poems of the
Germanic world (8th c.). This poem introduces the hero in the last stage
of his life, consolidated as the prince of the Geats, after the glory gained
during his youth, having faced Grendel and his mother, water monsters
presented as God’s enemies. The dragon represents the last test for the
hero and this bloody battle will kill both.

12. Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend or Lives of The Saints, trans. by William Caxton,
F. S. Ellis (ed.), Temple Classics, London, 1900, p. 184.
13. Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend..., p. 184.
14. Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend…, p. 184.
 Ideology and Didacticism 277

The hero’s last opponent is described as a flying beast, as it inhabits

a tomb in a cave “towering stone-mound / stood high in the fields on
a crag” by the sea, where he kept a treasure he had taken long ago.
Moreover, the serpent is mentioned as “the old dawn-scorcher”, “that
hateful burner”, “his poisonous breath”, “his winding tail”, “who seeks
the dead-mounds”, “smooth flame-snake”, “flies through the dark wrapped
round in fires” and seeks hidden treasures which, once discovered, moni-
tors only to feel his property, and which have been watched for “three
hundred years (winters)”. However, unlike other texts, the beast is not
demonized here, although it is defined as an “evil reptile”. Nevertheless,
it does mention that the wealth in the cave was out of the reach of
men because of a “spell”, embodied in the dragon and which only the
warrior appointed by God could defeat15.
The superficial Christian note that the author gives the poem is
worth mentioning. Although in several opportunities the poem refers to
the power of God, Creation, Cain and the Flood Myth, the text exudes
a deep pagan-Germanic spirit. According to Lerate (1974:16), substitu-
ting God by wyrd (fatum, destiny) would be enough to re-define several
passages of the poem. Anyway, old Anglo-Saxon epic fully illustrates the
dragon as the hero’s deadly enemy, representing the fight of good versus
evil as described in the bestiaries.
In The Song of Roland of the early 12th century, the dragon is
mentioned as part of an infernal fauna which beset Charlemagne in
dreams. Together with bears, leopards, serpents, vermin, demons, and about
thirty thousand griffins, the dragon symbolically represents the diabolic
hosts which leap on the French knits of the Carolingian rearguard. The
dragon’s image will also flutter on the banners accompanying the emir
Baligant, who flaunts his great power using the image of the serpent
with the images of Muhammad, Tarvus Trigaranus and Apollo, making
up the army of Evil in his fight against Christianity16.
Between the late 12th and early 13th century, the dragon appears
in the old-Germanic mythical sphere. Here, the primitive legends of the
Icelandic Eddas, later reintroduced by Snorri Sturlunson, arise in the
court circles typical of the 12th century. The first part of The Song of
the Nibelungs is centered on the valkyrie Brunhild and heroic Siegfried,

15. See Anonymous, Beowulf. A Dual-Language Edition, Howell D. Chickering (ed.), Anchor

Books, New York, 1989, p. 179-213.
16. See Anonymous, Chanson de Roland-Cantar de Roldán. El Roncesvalles navarro, Martín de
Riquer (ed.), Sirmio, Barcelona, 1983, p. 185, 235, 239.
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the embodiment of the pure warrior, faithful vassal and devout husband.
Through Hagen’s account, the song deals with the great deeds of the
young hero when he seized King Nibelung’s treasure and fierce dwarf
Alberich’s magic hat, and killed the dragon. Later, he bathed in his blood
and made a cornea of his skin, so he was protected against any weapon,
except in a small piece of his back, where a lime tree leaf stepped in,
becoming the reason for his death. Here, the animal is linked to magic,
which leads to man’s downfall17.
This hero’s noble behavior is far from bloody Sigurd’s behavior
in Völsunga Saga, which originates these legends. Here, the warrior kills
Fafnir, who was his father’s murderer, and who had the treasure that
God Loki had given him. Fafnir had become a dragon to guard the
gold. The beast is the representation of avarice and embodies the pagan
vices of remote times without God. Also, at the time the beast dies, it
curses Sigurd and all those who possess the gold snatched out of it. The
hero responds that it may continue rolling around in pain until Death
and Hell take it away. The animal’s diabolic feature as a representation
of human sins is here a precise literary expression18.
In the circle of romance, the dragon continued to have demoniac
connotations. Tristan and Iseult, in Gottfried von Strassburg’s version of the
early 13th century, presents the hero fighting against a dragon to achieve
Iseult’s hand in marriage. This is a wicked monster who has triggered
horrific misfortunes on the country, lives in a valley called Aferginân,
whose etymology may be linked to l’enfer guignant, that is, hell lying
in wait for its pray19. This is the reason why the poet’s expression is
adequate when calling the dragon “the devil’s son”. Here, Tristan must
fight against this appalling beast, which has already killed and expelled
countless knights, in order to achieve his goal. The hero eventually kills
the appalling dragon, who howls as loudly as if Heaven and Earth were
collapsing. As proof of his feat, Tristan cuts a piece of the dragon’s tongue.
But this gave off a fetid smell, which severs the young man’s strength
and consciousness. Tristan looks dead on the floor and is rescued by the
two Iseults and Brangaine. In turn, this heroic deed — which means
triumph, since Iseult is to become his uncle Mark’s wife — is at the
same time the beginning of the hero’s sorrow20.

17.  Anonymous, Cantar de los Nibelungos, Emilio Lorenzo (ed.), Swan, Madrid, 1980, Song III.
18.  Anonymous, Saga de los Volsungos, J. E. Díez Vera (ed.), Gredos, Madrid, 1998, p. 95-102.
19. Gottfried von Strassburg, Tristán e Isolda, Siruela, Madrid, 1987, note 40.
20. Gottfried von Strassburg, Tristan, Gottfried Weber (ed.), Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft,
Darmstadt, 1983, p. 115 s.
 Ideology and Didacticism 279

Conclusion
The dragon, which was the opponent of numerous heroes of An-
cient history (Apollo, Cadmus, Perseus), finds in the Biblical text and later
in medieval literary texts the most genuine expression of demonization.
Whether it is located in dark, underground, water or air caves, caverns or
tombs; whether it gives off fetid smells or poisonous vapors; whether it
resorts to evil arts and sinister powers, the dragon appears as a fearsome
enemy for medieval man. On the path to salvation, Christians must fight
against deceit and danger, avarice and other vices, even at the expense
of their own lives, as literary heroes do.
Medieval didacticism operated by clergymen resorted to the allegories
in the bestiaries and in the artistic representation of the animal kingdom
in order to symbolize the fight between God and demonic forces. Medie-
val poets, in turn, reproduced these images and emphasized antagonisms
through them (Good/Evil, virtue/sin, salvation/downfall, Heaven-Hell).
Animals, which carried a symbolic value, helped to illustrate a
battle on whose result mankind’s salvation depended, at the time they
contributed to reinforcing the internal cohesion of Christian ecumenism.