O bestiário medieval e a representação derrogatória do feminino: o exemplo do manuscrito de Cambridge

Abstract

In medieval culture, the bestiaries dealed with animals of the most diverse species and nature. The bestiaries used to reveal, in a simbolic and figurative manner, a religious pragmatics characterized by its doutrinary and moral purpose. This study aims to examine that in the formation of that edifying purpose elements and aspects of the medieval mentality and its misogynistic culture take shape in instances which identify a truly gender discourse. This kind of discourse in the bestiaries, as for example in the manuscript of Cambridge (MS II. 4.26), places in a strategical and ideological perspective the representation of the feminine image of many of the animals considered in the manuscript.