found: Britannica Academic Edition online, Feb. 10, 2014(bestiary: literary genre in the European Middle Ages consisting of a collection of stories, each based on a description of certain qualities of an animal, plant, or even stone. The stories presented Christian allegories for moral and religious instruction and admonition)
found: Cuddon, J.A. A dictionary of literary terms and literary theory, 1998:p. 80 (bestiary: a medieval didactic genre in prose in which the behavior of animals (used in symbolic types) points a moral. The prototype is very probably the Greek Physiologus (2nd-4th c. A.D.), a compendium of some fifty fabulous anecdotes; The period of greatest popularity for bestiaries in Europe was from the 12th to the 14th c., especially in French. The development and combination of story and moral in the bestiaries had some influence on the evolution of the exemplum and the fable)
found: The new Princeton encyclopedia of poetry and poetics, 1993:p. 135 (bestiary: a medieval compilation in verse or prose in which the supposed characteristics of real and imaginary animals (or plants or stones) are allegorized for the purpose of moral or religious instruction)
found: Merriam Webster online, May 6, 2015:bestiary (a medieval often illustrated work in verse or prose describing with an allegorical moralizing commentary the appearance and habits of real and fabled animals)
