Recently I have been enjoying the quest for liontaurs in medieval manuscripts. Well, I've stumbled on a deep trove of online manuscripts in the National Library of France, that is, "Bibliothèque nationale de France." Here are the true leonine sagittaries I found in two manuscripts, and that's not even including the lions, bipedal lion-folk, centaurs, and other drolleries. Click the images below to embiggen.
The first two, on two adjacent pages, are from a prayer book, and are the only leonine sagittaries I found in the work. They are pretty nifty though. Note that they are holding bows in sagittary poses ... with the flora of the page margin as a sort of ammunition!
Title: Horae ad usum parisiensem [dites Heures de Jeanne de France]
Date: 1440-1460
Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits - NAL 3244
Pages: 40r, 40v
The next set come from book written in medieval French, and Google Translate tells me that the title is "The Book of the Hysterics of the Mirror of the World, from the creation, until after the dictatorship of Quintus Cincinnatus." I'd read a modern book with that title, for sure! Note that the illustrations are unfinished after about page 40. The last of the series are just the rough notes for a lady liontaur.
Title: « Le Livre des hystoires du Mirouer du monde », depuis la création, jusqu'après la dictature de Quintus Cincinnatus
Date: 1401-1500
Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits - Français 328
Pages: 16r (sitting king), 20v (standing sagittary on green hill), 25v (sagittary in a helmet and red shirt) and many more!
Well, a little poking around on the Internet sheds some light on this incredible book. Evidently, it is a part of a great encyclopedia, "Speculum Maius" or "Great Mirror," by Vincent of Beauvais, written around 1250, and constituting a decently full accounting of everything known to Europeans in the Middle Ages. The title of the book is more properly translated as "The Book of the Histories of the Mirror of the World" -- not Hysterics, thank you very much, Google Translate! Here's another link for further exploration. Of course, the wemics in the margins of this great work are more an insertion of the copyist who came 200 years later. No word on the presence of taurs of any sort in the original Mirror.
