In the medieval imagination, no animal loomed larger—figuratively and sometimes literally—than the lion. Lions roared from manuscript pages, guarded the thresholds of cathedrals, adorned royal seals, and stood side by side with knights in epic tales. But what did all these lions mean? Historian Nigel Harris offers a compelling interpretive framework by identifying five symbolic identities the lion assumed in Western medieval culture: The Threatening Lion, The Christian Lion, The Noble Lion, The Sinful Lion, and The Clement lion.
The Threatening Lion
For medieval people, the lion was above all a creature to be feared. Drawing on both Biblical and Classical sources, the Middle Ages inherited a vision of the lion as a violent, bloodthirsty animal, which represented chaos, destruction, and divine punishment. Even when lions appeared as symbols of strength or royalty, there was always a lingering sense of menace. In sermons, poetry, and religious art, the lion became a shorthand for the kind of danger that could not be easily contained. Whether stalking its prey or roaring in fury, it was a reminder of how quickly disaster could strike.
This imagery carried into the visual world of medieval Europe. Lions were carved into the portals of churches and cathedrals, standing guard at the edges of sacred space. They appeared in manuscript margins and on tomb effigies, often crouched or snarling, serving as symbols of both physical threat and spiritual peril. According to Harris, medieval culture absorbed ancient associations and reshaped them into a moral universe where lions embodied the forces that saints, kings, or Christ himself must overcome. The lion was more than an animal; it was a force to be reckoned with.
The Christian Lion
In medieval Christian symbolism, the lion held a uniquely dual role. It could stand for Christ or for the devil, depending on the context. This paradox was central to its power. Drawing on sources like the Physiologus and medieval bestiaries, writers interpreted certain lion behaviours as symbols of Christian doctrine. The lion was said to erase its tracks, sleep with its eyes open, and revive its young with a roar after three days. These traits were read as signs of Christ’s hidden divinity, divine vigilance, and resurrection. The lion, in this sense, was a majestic and sacred figure, representing both mystery and triumph.
At the same time, the lion could also embody spiritual danger. Its roar, its hunger, and its predatory nature were linked to the devil prowling for souls. Harris notes that this capacity to signify both salvation and peril was not seen as a contradiction. Instead, it was embraced as part of the lion’s theological richness. In sermons, church decoration, and devotional texts, the lion became a complex figure that pointed in multiple directions. Whether warning of temptation or declaring the victory of Christ, it carried a weight of meaning that few other animals could match.
The Noble Lion
By the High Middle Ages, the lion had become a potent symbol of legitimate authority and knightly virtue. Monarchs, emperors, and military leaders were frequently compared to lions, not only for their strength but for their supposed justice and nobility. Heraldry adopted the lion widely, and rulers such as Richard the Lionheart built personal and political identities around the image. In literature and courtly culture, the lion stood as a model of courage, often invoked to affirm the rightness of a ruler’s power or the honour of a knight’s cause.
Harris explains that this image of the lion as a noble figure was tied to ideas of moral leadership. Kings and crusaders were praised as lions of justice and peace, their power framed as righteous rather than tyrannical. In romances, the lion sometimes took on a more literal role, as in the tale of Yvain, where a lion rescued from a dragon becomes a devoted companion. In such stories, the lion reflects not only the knight’s strength but his moral recovery and inner transformation. The noble lion, whether on a battlefield or beside a hero in fiction, reinforced the idea that true power was defined by honour, courage, and restraint.
The Sinful Lion
In the later Middle Ages, the lion became a frequent figure in moral and didactic literature, especially as part of renewed efforts to educate lay audiences in Christian virtue. Following the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, there was a surge in vernacular preaching and basic religious instruction. Animals became useful teaching tools in this context, with the lion featuring prominently. Its wide range of symbolic possibilities allowed writers and preachers to use it in sermons, murals, and allegories to personify vice, especially pride, wrath and gluttony.
According to Harris, this shift marked a departure from earlier chivalric or Christ-like readings of the lion. When removed from aristocratic or martial contexts and applied to broader lay society, the lion’s strength and majesty were more likely to be seen as morally dangerous. What once signified noble pride or righteous fury in battle became deadly sins that corrupted the soul.
The Clement Lion
While most medieval representations of lions emphasized their power, danger, or symbolic grandeur, a quieter tradition imagined the lion as a figure of mercy. This image, though less common, offered an alternative model of strength defined by generosity and restraint. In late medieval allegory, the lion was sometimes shown sharing food, acting with compassion toward the weak, or exercising clemency as a ruler. These depictions reframed the lion not only as noble, but also as morally refined and capable of justice without cruelty.
Harris shows that this gentler lion appeared in religious and moral literature intended for instruction. In Ulrich von Lilienfeld’s 14th-century work Concordantiae caritatis, the lion’s sharing of food is linked to the Eucharist and divine grace. In Johannes Rothe’s Lob der Keuschheit, a lion spares and comforts a punished dog, offering an example of how the virtuous should respond to wrongdoers without scorn.
Harris also notes that these five versions of the lion do roughly correspond to different periods. He writes:
For pre-Christian societies, the lion seems to have constituted above all a dangerous existential threat. The early Christian centuries and early Middle Ages focused squarely on the lion as Christ, the devil, and to a lesser extent St. Mark. The high Middle Ages forged a particularly close bond between the lion and the chivalric world of the lay aristocracy. Starting already in the thirteenth century but continuing at least into the early sixteenth, the lion then took on the function of embodying certain sins, particularly pride and wrath, as part of those centuries’ concerted attempts to exhort laypeople to more moral and more Christian behavior. Finally, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries witnessed a renewed tendency to interpret the lion ad bonam partem, especially in attempts to highlight the important royal (and of course Christian) virtue of clemency.
Finally, Harris cautions that these categories are not fixed and one must remain open to complexity and interpretation. He concludes by explaining that “literary lions, like their real-life counterparts, ‘exhibit a remarkably wide range of behaviours,; resist typecasting, and must always retain an element of feline inscrutability and enigmatic mystery.”
The article, “The Lion in Medieval Western Europe: Toward an Interpretive History,” by Nigel Harris, is published in Traditio, Vol. 76 (2021). Click here to read it.
Nigel Harris is a Professor of German at the University of Birmingham, where he researches late-medieval didactic literature and the presentation of animals in literature.
Top Image: Albrecht Dürer painting this picture of a lion in 1494. Wikimedia Commons
Subscribe to Medievalverse
