David Badke takes you on a trip into history with the Medieval Bestiary. This site is a part of The Medieval Academy of America‘s database, which holds several digital materials to study the middle ages.
The Bestiary itself was designed to gather information on the Medieval view of animals and digitize the results so it could become a resource for those interested in studying the Middle Ages, including scholars.
The author of the site, David Badke, created a database and a program to create the pages and upload them with the desired data. The main page has photos and clickable links to help navigate you around the magical digital bestiary. At the top of all main pages, there is an explanation of how to work through that section and if you ever get lost, you can hit the green home button at the top and be taken back to the main page.
Part of the database includes public domain scans of books that are either out of print or difficult to find. This provides access to beneficial resources that relate to the context of the time surrounding the animals.
My favorite part of the site is how easy it is to learn and just go down the rabbit hole of knowledge. I love learning about beasts and the different things we know about them. Being able to see how we use to view creatures and what that turns into today is absolutely amazing.
