A set of studies that offers a global vision of the literary representations of the animal and plant world in the brief narratives of the Middle Ages (fable, example, proverb, lais, etc.). The volume focuses in particular on Spanish literature, but it also includes other Romance languages and Latin literature.

The death of the king was always one of the most significant events in the history of a rule. He gave the impetus to various symbolic representations, to produce a rich literature and extensive iconography. This volume brings together a series of papers which dealing with historical, iconographic and literary aspects of the king's end of life: the legendary figure of Alexander the Great, the different stories about the death of Emperor Henry VII, the circumstances of the demise of French and Castilian kings or the paradigmatic cases of Boccaccio; thirteen contributions that illustrate the richness of this subject in the medieval imagination.

The publication presents the results of the interdisciplinary Freiburg Colloquium 2021 (Université de Fribourg, Switzerland) "Paradigms and Perspectives of Comparative Medieval Studies". The contributions explore the theoretical and methodological premises of historically orientated comparative research that focuses on the specific cultural conditions of the pre-modern period. The focus is on two central paradigms in current medievalist discourse: the materiality and mediality of medieval manuscript culture on the one hand and the central role of the Latin language as a supra-regional lingua franca and motor for exchange and innovation across linguistic and cultural borders on the other.