The Honey-Makers

Half natural history, half literature: how the honey-bee actually works — tongue, wings, sting, swarm — and then three thousand years of what people have believed about her, from the Vedas to mead.

Home › In Christian and Mediæval Times › In Christian and Mediæval Times: Saint

In Christian and Mediæval Times: Saint

The Fathers of the Church, Saint Jerome, Saint Basil, Tertullian, and others got from the bee many and varied allegorical references to the life of the Christian, which were copied by their successors.

The Romans are said to have established the first extensive bee-industry on the Rhine, but the Germans were not slow to follow the lead thus given them. The outposts of colonization in Germany being the monasteries whose monks pursued agriculture and bee-keeping, it is not surprising that, living as they did with the bees, and closely observing their orderly and remarkable habits, they too drew many lessons from them, in addition to those they received from the Latin Fathers.

Read next

← In Christian and Mediæval TimesIn Christian and Mediæval Times: Honey →