Bestiary scenes staged an ontological struggle between the animal-villain and the bird-Christ

Evidence

Animals are popular fixtures in medieval art, often representing biblical figures in religious narratives, many of which focused on the death of Christ and the martyrdom of later Christians. The stereotype of Jews as devious killers is portrayed in bestiaries through the animals that symbolized them-the hyena, fox, and dog-and the Jewish cynocephalie, dog-headed monsters featured in both literature and art. Scenes in these bestiaries often show one of the animals (a Jew) attacking a bird (Christ). An analysis of such a scene should take into account three factors: the composition of the scene, the actors, and their positions relative to each other. The religious scholar Jacob Kinnard describes this as an “ontological dialectical” relationship. This opposition identifies the villain, the victim, and the broader religious narrative at work. The line between animal and monster is situated in a rich vocabulary reflecting a wide array of creatures: The Bestiary or book of beasts is also surprisingly coy about what constitutes a monstrum or belua or even a bestia as opposed to a mere animal. — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 213

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the analytical lens (ontological dialectical relationship) that reads composition, actors, and relative positions in any oppositional monster scene.