The Peterborough Bestiary manuscript, original of this luxury facsimile edition, was produced in around 1300 at Peterborough Abbey in Cambridge, England. The books known as bestiaries, of which The Peterborough Bestiary is a leading example, played a similar role for Europeans in the Middle Ages to that played by animal encyclopedias and TV nature documentaries today. The Peterborough Bestiary, an encyclopedic collation of medieval European animal knowledge, offers vital clues to deciphering the symbolic meanings employed by Europeans in the Middle Ages. The 104 lush illustrations also serve as an important resource for the study of medieval art and iconography.