Changes

What the Roman period shows is that animals were now beginning to be seen not just as wonderment for the wealthy or powerful, but now animals were beginning to be shown in more public settings and displayed for their wonder and power. While clearly animals were often treated with cruelty, the period of Rome also began a process where people increasingly came into closer contact with wild animals and those that were very exotic.

In the Medieval period in Europe, menageries were once again popular among monarchs. Gifts of wild animals, such as the Abbasid Caliph sending an elephant to Charlemagne, occurred frequently. In effect, zoos (or really animal collections) became, once again, more private and the privy of royalty or very high sectors of society. In the reign of Elizabeth I, however, descendants of leopards that were once owned by Henry III (a gift from Fredrick II) were put in one of the first public animal displays (Figure 2). Elizabeth had moved the animals to what became known as the Lion Tower in the western entrance of the Tower of London.<ref>For more on Medieval in England and animal gifts and the lion enclosure in London, see: Sophie Page (ed.) (2010) <i>The unorthodox imagination in late medieval Britain</i>. UCL/Neale series on British history. Manchester ; New York : New York, Manchester University Press ; Distributed in the U.S. exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan, pg. 198.</ref>