The Lion, King of Beasts

The story

The bestiary's lion opens with two intertwined legends, both illustrated here in a single gold-ground miniature: above, a lioness gives birth to cubs that lie dead for three days, until the father lion breathes into their faces and roars them back to life — read throughout the Middle Ages as a direct type of Christ's Resurrection, sealed in the tomb three days before rising. Below, a lion flees hunters across open ground, dragging its tail behind it to sweep away its own pawprints, erasing the trail before it can be followed — medieval commentators took this as Christ concealing his divine nature at the Incarnation, walking among men untraceable until he chose to be known. Made around 1230 for the Rochester priory, this is one of the most theologically dense pages in the bestiary tradition, two lion legends doing the work of a Gospel argument.