These images come from the fabled manuscript, 'Liber Floridus' (Book of Flowers), a Medieval encyclopædia produced some 900 years ago by Lambert, Canon of St Omer, in the NE France/Flanders/Belgium region.



"For Lambert the encyclopedia is a heavenly meadow where the “flowers of literature” flourish together to attract faithful readers by their sweetness."

{Some of these page and detail images were spliced together from screenshots, but I didn't go to the trouble, in most instances, of generating very large images; click through to adequately enlarged versions. Mouseover above for approximated image titles}

'Liber Floridus'

'Liber Floridus'

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"A medieval encyclopedia has little in common with the modern form of encyclopedia that we know. [..]



Instead of an alphabetical order and rational classification, a medieval encyclopedia has an organic structure. Knowledge is embedded in the images showing the world – a so-called ‘world view’. [..]



Many of these encyclopedias were intended to be used as didactic tools in convent and cathedral schools and, later, in universities. The Liber Floridus was probably used for teaching at the chapter school. The few entries in the Liber Floridus which Lambert did not write himself are assumed to have been done by his pupils."