Edward Topsell was an English cleric and author best remembered for his bestiary

Bestiary

A bestiary, or Bestiarum vocabulum is a compendium of beasts. Bestiaries were made popular in the Middle Ages in illustrated volumes that described various animals, birds and even rocks. The natural history and illustration of each beast was usually accompanied by a moral lesson...

.

Topsell attended Christ's College, Cambridge

Christ's College, Cambridge

Christ's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge.With a reputation for high academic standards, Christ's College averaged top place in the Tompkins Table from 1980-2000 . In 2011, Christ's was placed sixth.-College history:...

, earned his B.A. and probably an M.A. as well, before beginning a career in the Church of England

Church of England

The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...

. He served as the first rector

Rector

The word rector has a number of different meanings; it is widely used to refer to an academic, religious or political administrator...

 of East Hoathly, and subsequently became the perpetual curate

Perpetual curate

A Perpetual Curate was a clergyman of the Church of England officiating as parish priest in a small or sparsely peopled parish or districtAs noted below the term perpetual was not to be understood literally but was used to indicate he was not a curate but the parish priest and of higher...

 of St. Botolph's in Aldersgate

Aldersgate

Aldersgate was a gate in the London Wall in the City of London, which has given its name to a ward and Aldersgate Street, a road leading north from the site of the gate, towards Clerkenwell in the London Borough of Islington.-History:...

 (1604). He was the author of books on religious and moral themes, including The Reward of Religion (1596) and Time's Lamentation (1599), among others.

Topsell's The History of Four-footed Beasts (1607) and The History of Serpents (1608), both published by William Jaggard

William Jaggard

William Jaggard was an Elizabethan and Jacobean printer and publisher, best known for his connection with the texts of William Shakespeare, most notably the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays...

, were reprinted together as The History of Four-Footed Beasts and Serpents in 1658. An eleven-hundred-page treatise on zoology

Zoology

Zoology |zoölogy]]), is the branch of biology that relates to the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct...

, Topsell's work repeats ancient and fantastic legends about actual animals as well as reports of mythical animals. Topsell, not a naturalist himself, relied on earlier authorities, most notably the Historiae animalium

Historiae animalium (Gesner)

Historiae animalium published at Zurich in 1551-58 and 1587, is an encyclopedic work of "an inventory of renaissance zoology" by Conrad Gesner, a doctor and professor at the Carolinum, the precursor of the University of Zurich...

of the Swiss scholar Conrad Gessner

Conrad Gessner

Conrad Gessner was a Swiss naturalist and bibliographer. His five-volume Historiae animalium is considered the beginning of modern zoology, and the flowering plant genus Gesneria is named after him...

. "I would not have the Reader," Topsell writes, "... imagine I have ... related all that is ever said of these Beasts, but only [what] is said by many."http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1586.htm

Topsell's work is remembered chiefly for its detailed and vigorous illustrations, including the famous image known as Dürer's Rhinoceros

Dürer's Rhinoceros

Dürer's Rhinoceros is the name commonly given to a woodcut executed by German painter and printmaker Albrecht Dürer in 1515. The image was based on a written description and brief sketch by an unknown artist of an Indian rhinoceros that had arrived in Lisbon earlier that year. Dürer never saw the...

. The illustrations have been widely reproduced in many contexts, and Topsell's bestiary has been reprinted in various modern editions, usually in greatly reduced form.

Superstitions about actual animals

Topsell, repeating ancient legends, assigns exotic attributes to actual animals. He writes, for example, that:

• Weasels give birth through their ears.
• Lemming
  Lemming
  Lemmings are small rodents, usually found in or near the Arctic, in tundra biomes. They are subniveal animals, and together with voles and muskrats, they make up the subfamily Arvicolinae , which forms part of the largest mammal radiation by far, the superfamily Muroidea, which also includes rats,...
  
  s graze in the clouds.
• Elephants worship the sun
  Sun
  The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
  
   and the moon
  Moon
  The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...
  
   and become pregnant by chewing on mandrake
  Mandrake (plant)
  Mandrake is the common name for members of the plant genus Mandragora, particularly the species Mandragora officinarum, belonging to the nightshades family...
  
  .
• Apes are terrified of snails.

Of the procreation of mice, Topsell writes that it "is not only by copulation, but also nature worketh wonderfully in ingenduring them by earth."http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1586.htm

Fantastic animals

Relying on the authority of "sundry learned men," Topsell includes the Gorgon

Gorgon

In Greek mythology, the Gorgon was a terrifying female creature. The name derives from the Greek word gorgós, which means "dreadful." While descriptions of Gorgons vary across Greek literature, the term commonly refers to any of three sisters who had hair of living, venomous snakes, and a...

, the Sphinx

Sphinx

A sphinx is a mythical creature with a lion's body and a human head or a cat head.The sphinx, in Greek tradition, has the haunches of a lion, the wings of a great bird, and the face of a woman. She is mythicised as treacherous and merciless...

, the Manticore

Manticore

The manticore is a legendary creature similar to the Egyptian sphinx. It has the body of a red lion, a human head with three rows of sharp teeth , and a trumpet-like voice. Other aspects of the creature vary from story to story. It may be horned, winged, or both...

, the Lamia

Lamia (mythology)

In ancient Greek mythology, Lamia was a beautiful queen of Libya who became a child-eating daemon. Aristophanes claimed her name derived from the Greek word for gullet , referring to her habit of devouring children....

, the Winged Dragon

Dragon

A dragon is a legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of many cultures. There are two distinct cultural traditions of dragons: the European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Greek and Middle Eastern...

 and the Unicorn

Unicorn

The unicorn is a legendary animal from European folklore that resembles a white horse with a large, pointed, spiraling horn projecting from its forehead, and sometimes a goat's beard...

. He does, however, express skepticism regarding the Hydra.

External links

• Topsell's The History of Four-footed Beasts and Serpents Web site
• Topsell’s Beasts
• USL Rare Books: TOPSELL, Edward. The History of four-footed beasts and serpents
• Page at University of Reading
• 175 images from Topsell's book, The History of Four-Footed Beasts and Serpents, can be viewed at the University of Houston Digital Library