- Feb 2024
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Only the largepelican, squatting in the trees, can break the connection, a symbol ofbad audience, staring insolently, resolutely offstage. But she is beinggradually struck out, her colours fading as the original red and giltborders reassert themselves reprimandingly from beneath, themanuscript exacting a slow punishment for the sin of inattention.
Dennis Duncan completely misreads this image of Grosseteste and the Pelican which appears in the Lambeth Palace Library's MS 522 of The Castle of love. (for image see: https://hypothes.is/a/RzHLjsz8Ee6dZLOTV5h65Q)
Duncan identifies Grosseteste's pose with his hand raised and his index finger extended as "the classic gesture of the storyteller." In fact, the bishop is pointing directly up at the pelican which sits just on top of the frame of the illuminated scene. This pelican is elevated above and just beyond the scene of the image because it represents, as was common in the time period, the suffering of Christ.
Bestiaries of the age commonly depicted the "pelican in her piety" which was noted by Isidore of Seville in his Etymologies (Book 12, 7:26) from the 7th century, a text which heavily influenced many of these bestiaries. It was also thought at the time that the insatiable and rapacious pelican ate lizards and crocodiles (or lived off of them); as these were associated with snakes and by way of the story of the Garden of Eden the devil, they were also further associated with Christ and driving sin out of the world.
Thus the image is more appropriately read in its original context as Grosseteste giving a sermon about the suffering of Christ who is represented by a pelican floating above the scene being depicted.
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images.lambethpalacelibrary.org.uk images.lambethpalacelibrary.org.uk
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images.lambethpalacelibrary.org.uk images.lambethpalacelibrary.org.uk
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Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln (face rubbed), in mitre and red cope, with crosier, seated on left speaks to a seated group of five people, mostly women. Tree on right; large bird with long beak at top.
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