Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives across disciplines 9781407311166, 9781407340869

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Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages Perspectives across disciplines

GARCÍA GARCÍA, WALKER VADILLO & CHICO PICAZA (Eds)

Edited by

Francisco de Asís García García Mónica Ann Walker Vadillo María Victoria Chico Picaza

ANIMALS AND OTHERNESS

B A R

BAR International Series 2500 2013

Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages Perspectives across disciplines Edited by

Francisco de Asís García García Mónica Ann Walker Vadillo María Victoria Chico Picaza

BAR International Series 2500 2013

ISBN 9781407311166 paperback ISBN 9781407340869 e-format DOI https://doi.org/10.30861/9781407311166 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

BAR

PUBLISHING

TABLE OF CONTENTS  List of Illustrations and Tables  

3

Preface: The MADNESS Continues  Alice Choyke

7

Acknowledgements  

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Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: An Overview from the Garden of Eden  Francisco de Asís García García, Mónica Ann Walker Vadillo and María Victoria Chico Picaza

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I.

ANIMALIA  EXTRANEA  ET  STUPENDA  AD  VIDENDUM. DESCRIBING CAIRO SULTAN’S MENAGERIE

NAMING EXOTIC BEASTS

IN

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FROM THE VITA  PAULI TO THE LEGENDA BREVIARII: REAL AND IMAGINARY ANIMALS AS A GUIDE TO

35

AND

Thierry Buquet II.

THE HERMIT IN THE DESERT

Laura Fenelli III.

ANIMALS AND OTHERNESS IN MAMLUK EGYPT AND SYRIA

49

Yehoshua Frenkel IV. AVICENNA’S PHILOSOPHY OF THE ANIMAL SOUL IN CONTEXT

63

David González Ginocchio V.

DOGS AND HUMAN RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOLIDARITY AND OTHERNESS IN THE LEGES BARBARORUM

75

Marco Iuffrida VI. DRACONCOPEDES, OR, THE FACES OF DEVILISH VIRGINS

85

Gerhard Jaritz VII. ANIMAL FABLES SET AMONG THE BIBLICAL CYCLE OF THE NAVE OF SAINT-SAVIN-SUR-GARTEMPE

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Delia Kottmann VIII. THE DRAGON’S SKULL: HOW CAN ZOOARCHAEOLOGISTS CONTRIBUTE TO OUR UNDERSTANDING OF OTHERNESS IN THE MIDDLE AGES?

109

Aleksander Pluskowski IX.

SNAKE  PERNICIOUS  AND  VENOMOUS. THE MALICIOUS BULGARIAN AND EARLY MODERN CHARMS

AND

DANGEROUS OTHER

IN

MEDIEVAL

125

LATE

133

Svetlana Tsonkova X.

AMBIGUOUS FIGURES MIDDLE AGES

OF

OTHERNESS: REDOUBTABLE BEASTS

IN

PRINCELY BADGES

OF THE

Olga Vassilieva-Codognet Editors and Contributors 

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1

2

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND TABLES 

FIGURES  Cover

Capital with the fable of The Fox and the Crow in the monastic church of St. Martin in Frómista (Palencia, Spain). Image: Francisco de Asís García.

I

Adam naming the animals. Detail of the ‘Creation Tapestry,’ Chapterhouse Museum in Girona (Spain). Image: Pere de Palol, El Tapís de la Creació de la catedral de Girona (Barcelona: Proa, 1986), 30, fig. 16.

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Florentine Painter (Pietro Nelli?), Saint Anthony, the centaur, the satyr. Florence, S. Maria al Sepolcro (Le Campora). Image: Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz.

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Florentine Painter (Pietro Nelli?), Saint Anthony and Saint Paul share the bread. Florence, S. Maria al Sepolcro (Le Campora). Image: Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz.

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Bartolo di Fredi (Workshop), Predella with stories of St. Anthony (The meeting with Agathon, Anthony’s journey). Berlin, Gemäldegalerie der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin. Image: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Gemäldegalerie. Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz (author: Jörg P. Anders).

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Bartolo di Fredi (Workshop), Predella with stories of St. Anthony (The burial of St. Paul, Agathon resumes human form). Berlin, Gemäldegalerie der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin. Image: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Gemäldegalerie. Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz (author: Jörg P. Anders).

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The Draconcopes in Johann Prüss the Older’s Hortus Sanitatis (Strasbourg, 1497). Krems/Donau (Austria), Library of the Institut für Realienkunde. Image: Institut für Realienkunde, Krems/Donau, Austria.

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The Draconcopes in Jacob van Maerlant’s Der naturen bloeme, Flanders, c. 1350. The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, cod. KA 16, fol. 124v. © The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek.

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A Draconcopes in the Concordantiae Caritatis, Lower Austria, c. 1350. Lilienfeld, library of the Cistercian house, cod. 151, fol. 2v. Image: Institut für Realienkunde, Krems/Donau, Austria.

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Change of the virgin-headed serpent during the Fall. Speculum humanae salvationis, Upper Austria (?), 1336. Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, cod. s. n. 2612, fol. 4r and 4v. Image: Institut für Realienkunde, Krems/Donau, Austria.

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Different bodies and faces of the devil: at the Temptation of Christ and the Fall of Adam and Eve. Biblia  pauperum, Vienna, 1330–1340. Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, cod. 1198, fol. 3v, detail. Image: Institut für Realienkunde, Krems/Donau, Austria.

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Female face and upper part of the body of the serpent. Paris, Notre Dame, portal of the Virgin, Fall of Adam and Eve, c. 1220. Image: Jebulon, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Temptation_Adam_Eva.jpg (accessed May 20, 2012).

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The crowned virgin-headed snake as the queen of hell. Eve and her followers seduced by the draconcopes, wall painting, Klerant (South Tyrol, Italy), filial church of St. Nicholas, c. 1480. Image: Institut für Realienkunde, Krems/Donau, Austria.

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6-8

Eve and the crowned virgin-headed snake. The Fall, wall painting, John of Kastav, 1490, detail. Hrastovlje (Slovenia), filial church of the Holy Trinity. Image: Institut für Realienkunde, Krems/Donau, Austria.

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The virgin-headed serpent with a female human upper part of the body and a tail. Lucas Cranach the Elder, The Fall, woodcut, c. 1523. Vienna, Grafische Sammlung Albertina. Image: http://www.zeno.org/Kunstwerke/B/ Cranach%20d.%20%C4.,%20Lucas:%20S%FCndenfall%20%5B2%5D (accessed May 20, 2012).

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A dragon-like serpent of the Fall. Seduction of Adam and Eve by the Serpent, manuscript illumination, Bible paraphrase, Salzburg (?), 1448. Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, cod. 2774, fol. 7v. Image: Institut für Realienkunde, Krems/Donau, Austria.

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The drachenkopff as a fire-spitting, predatory cat-like dragon with four legs in a manuscript of Konrad von Megenberg’s Buch  der  Natur (Heidelberg, cod. Pal. Germ. 300, fol. 204r), c. 1443–1451, coloured drawing, workshop of Diebold Lauber. Image: http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/ cpg300/0435 (accessed May 20, 2012).

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The virgin-headed scorpion in Heidelberg, cod. Pal. Germ. 300, fol. 211r. Image: http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/cpg300/0449 (accessed May 20, 2012).

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Draconcopedes, drawing, Isaac Horn, 2009 (a print of the drawing owned by the author of the contribution). Image: Gerhard Jaritz.

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View of the nave of Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe from West to East. Image: Francisco de Asís García.

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Diagram of the murals of the nave of Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe. Image: Éliane Vergnolle, L’art roman en France (Paris: Flammarion, 2003 [1994]), 179.

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Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe, nave. Aesop’s fable of the fox and the raven. Image: Delia Kottmann.

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Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe, nave. Noah’s drunkenness. Image: Francisco de Asís García.

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Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe, nave. Animal hanged on a tree, and some quadrupeds on the ground. Image: Francisco de Asís García.

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Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe, nave. Scene of a tree. Image: Delia Kottmann.

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Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe, nave. A human climbing on a tree with fruits. Image: Delia Kottmann.

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Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe, pillar of the third bay of the nave illustrating animals. Image: Francisco de Asís García.

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Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe, nave. Details of preparatory drawings in the scene of Noah’s drunkenness. Image: Delia Kottmann.

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Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe, nave. Detail of preparatory drawing at the left of the treetop of Figure 7-6. Image: Delia Kottmann.

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Plan showing the distribution of deposited horses at Elverton Street, London, UK (by permission of Alan Pipe and the Royal Archaeological Institute). Image: Robert Cowie and Alan Pipe, “A Late Medieval and Tudor Horse Burial Ground: Excavations at Elverton Street, Westminster,” Archaeological Journal 155 (1998): ill. 4.

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Plan showing the distribution of deposited horses in the cemetery at Marvelė, Lithuania (by permission of Mindaugas Bertašius). Image: Mindaugas Bertašius, Marvelė: ein Gräberfeld Mittellitauens 2, Ein Bestattungsplatz mit Pferdegräbern (Kaunas: Kaunas Technologijos Universitetas, 2009), 26.

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Excavated articulated dogs from medieval contexts in Kana, Hungary (by permission of Márta Daróczi-Szabó).

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Part of a mural showing the apocalyptic dragon from the Church of Our Lady in Karlštejn Castle, Czech Republic, completed before 1363 (by permission of Lukáš Kunst, Karlštejn Castle). Image: Karlštejn Castle, Czech Republic.

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The whale bones suspended behind the altar in St. Mary and St. Donato on Murano, Italy (by permission of Kathleen Walker-Meikle).

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The crocodile skull in Karlštejn castle, Czech Republic (by permission of Lukáš Kunst, Karlštejn Castle).

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Lion giving a fatal blow to a wolf. Jean Petit’s Justification du duc de Bourgogne, Pseudo-Jacquemart de Hesdin, Paris, 1408. Chantilly, Musée Condé, ms. 878, fol. 2 (detail). Image: Institut de recherche et d’histoire des textes, Paris.

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Clockwise from top left:  

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2a. Bernabò Visconti’s Leopardo galeato badge. Al-Faḍl ibn Sahl’s Liber judiciorum et consiliorum, Workshop of Giovanni Benedetto da Como, Lombardy, before 1385. Paris, BnF, ms. latin 7323, fol. 5 (detail). © Bibliothèque nationale de France. 2b. Sketch for a badge with the inscription ‘leon pardo in un giardino’ (‘leopard in a garden’). Drawing from Giovannino de’ Grassi’s sketch book, follower of Giovannino de’ Grassi, c. 1400. Bergamo, Biblioteca Civica Angelo Mai, ms. Cassaf. 1.21, fol. 17 (detail). Image: Das  Musterbuch  des  Giovannino  de  Grassi:  Biblioteca  Civica  Angelo  Mai,  Cassaf.  1.21, ed. G. O. Bravi (Lucerne: Faksimile Verlag, 1998). 2c. Emblematic cheetah in an Adoration of the Magi scene. Visconti Prayer book, Michelino da Besozzo, Milan, c. 1410–1420. New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, ms. M 944, fol. 6. Image: Prayer Book of Michelino da Besozzo, ed. Colin Eisler (New York: George Braziller, 1981). 2d. Sleeve with embroidered cheetah. Panel from a cassone, Northern Italy, second quarter of 15th century. London, Victoria & Albert Museum, inv. 8974-1863. Image: Olga Vassilieva-Codognet. 2e. Three cheetahs in front of their kennels. Giovannino de’ Grassi’s sketch book, Giovannino de’ Grassi, 1380–1398. Bergamo, Biblioteca Civica Angelo Mai, ms. Cassaf. 1.21, fol. 8 (detail). Image: Das  Musterbuch  des  Giovannino  de  Grassi:  Biblioteca  Civica  Angelo  Mai,  Cassaf.  1.21, ed. G. O. Bravi (Lucerne: Faksimile Verlag, 1998). 2f. Cheetah, possibly drawn from life. Giovannino de’ Grassi’s sketch book, follower of Giovannino de’ Grassi, c. 1400. Bergamo, Biblioteca Civica Angelo Mai, ms. Cassaf. 1.21, fol. 21v (detail). Image: Das  Musterbuch  des  Giovannino  de  Grassi:  Biblioteca  Civica  Angelo  Mai,  Cassaf.  1.21, ed. G. O. Bravi (Lucerne: Faksimile Verlag, 1998). 10-3

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Clockwise from top left:   3a. Duke Jean de Berry kneeling in prayer while wearing his usual bear-fur hat, together with his bears and swans embroidered coat. Lectionary, Pseudo-Jacquemart de Hesdin, Paris, c. 1400. Bourges, Bibliothèque Municipale, ms. 35, fol. 17v (detail). Image: Institut de recherche et d’histoire des textes, Paris. 3b. Duke Jean de Berry, in his usual bear-fur hat, seated under a canopy decorated with collared bears and swans. Miniature from the calendar (January) of the Très  Riches  Heures of Jean de Berry, Limbourg Brothers, Bourges, c. 1416. Chantilly, Musée Condé, ms. 65, fol. 1v (detail). Image: Institut de recherche et d’histoire des textes, Paris. 3c. Bear in the margin of a book belonging to Jean de Berry. Evangeliary, Pseudo-Jacquemart de Hesdin, Paris, 1405–1410. Bourges, Bibliothèque Municipale, ms. 48, fol. 1 (detail). Image: Institut de recherche et d’histoire des textes, Paris. 3d. Bear resting at the feet of Jean de Berry’s gisant. Marble, Jean de Cambrai, 1416-1438. Bourges, SaintÉtienne cathedral. Image: Olga Vassilieva-Codognet.

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Clockwise from top left: 

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4a. Boar vs. greyhound fight, allegorical representation of the real fight between Jean III de Brabant and Édouard de Bar. Inventaire  des  chartes  de  Brabant, Adrien van der Ee, 1438. Brussels, Archives générales du Royaume, Manuscrits divers 983, fol. 266 (detail). © Archives générales du Royaume de Belgique. 4b. Richard’s III white boar badge found at Bosworth Field in 2009. Gilt silver, England, late 15th century. Bosworth Battlefield Heritage Centre. Image: Bosworth Battlefield Heritage Centre. 4c. Richard III’s white boar badge as livery collar pendant. Effigy of Ralph Fitzherbert, alabaster, late 15th century. Norbury church. Image: Ning-ning. 10-5

Clockwise from top left: 

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5a. Embroidered wolves on the sleeve of Louis d’Orléans. Christine de Pizan’s Queen manuscript, Cité des Dames Master, Paris, 1410–1414. London, British Library, Harley ms. 4431, fol. 95 (detail). © The British Library Board. 5b. Emblematic bell-collared wolves in the opening miniature of a manuscript dedicated to Louis d’Orléans. Sallust’s De conjuratione Catilinae, Bedford Master, Paris, c. 1404–1407. Paris, BnF, ms. lat. 9684, fol. 1 (detail). © Bibliothèque nationale de France. 5c. Porcupine drawn from life and other animals. Giovannino de’ Grassi’s sketch book, Giovannino de’ Grassi, 1380–1398. Bergamo, Biblioteca Civica Angelo Mai, ms. Cassaf. 1.21, fol. 5 (detail). Image: Das  Musterbuch  des  Giovannino  de  Grassi:  Biblioteca  Civica  Angelo  Mai,  Cassaf.  1.21, ed. G. O. Bravi (Lucerne: Faksimile Verlag, 1998). 5d. Cannon with Louis XII’s porcupine badge. Bronze, 1498–1515. Paris, Musée de l’Armée. Image: PHGCOM. 5e. Foreground: Louis XII’s beehive badge; background: Louis XII’s porcupine badge. Jean Marot’s Le  Voyage de Gênes, Jean Bourdichon, c. 1508. Paris, BnF, ms. fr. 5091, fol. 15v (detail). © Bibliothèque nationale de France.

TABLES  10-1

Heraldic badges, 1370–1520.

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Lists of redoubtable beast badges, 1370–1520.

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PREFACE  THE MADNESS CONTINUES

introduce a modicum of multi-disciplinarity into the study of medieval animals as material culture and metaphor, it was decided to found the Medieval Animal Data-network (MAD) using as a start, animals appearing in the rich material in the REAL-online digital image archive at the Institut für Realienkunde des Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit (IMREAL), based in Krems, Austria and now part of Salzburg University. Thus, Dr. Ingrid Matschinegg at IMREAL became the third founding member of MAD, responsible for both concepts and placing them into the digitized format which is our current website. The server for the MAD website is now housed at the University of Salzburg in Austria.

As with their human companions in the medieval past, animals can only be experienced second-hand through the filter of available sources. Each type of source has its own inherent biases and agendas designed for very different audiences. The iron teeth of time also have a way upsetting the clarity of the information that modern researchers try to interpret. Thus the ‘reality’ of medieval animals remains forever out of the grasp of researchers. But does this really matter? The point of historical research is not really describing a moment in time but understanding patterns and processes. People and animals had multiple kinds of interactions in the past and people have always seen and understood those animals as extensions of the human persona whether the animals are being eaten, worn or transformed by human cognitive processes into metaphors for the human condition. The animality of animals is no longer of chief importance in their appearance in text and image but rather their patterned use within a given social context which the particular medieval audience would have immediately recognized. It is at this intersection that animals merge indivisibly into human material and conceptual culture.

Since that time, MAD has expanded to include partners from different parts of Europe. Besides the founding partnership of the Medieval Studies Department at the Central European University and IMREAL, other partners include the Departamento de Historia del Arte I (Medieval) at the Universidad Complutense, Madrid (Spain); the Department of Archaeology at the University of Reading (United Kingdom); Latviešu literatūras un kultūras katedra at Daugavpils University, Riga (Latvia) and finally the Faculty of Biology, ‘Alexandru Ioan Cuza’ University, Iasi (Romania). The idea is to involve collaborative institutions from across Europe to present as many different theoretical and culture historical perspectives on human-animal relations in the Middle Ages as possible. Visitors to the Medieval Animal Data-network website (http://www.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/mad/index.html) will also see that MAD is now officially linked to a number of excellent websites covering in much greater detail source fields from medieval literature to bestiaries or even special raw material studies.

The MAD data-network itself came into formal being in 2005 as the result of a collaboration between myself (Alice Choyke) and Gerhard Jaritz. The initial impulse for founding MAD (then the Medieval Animal Database, later Data-network) came from the realization that many pieces of useful data from a wide variety of sources could be found ‘hiding’ in the footnotes in the mix of dissertations that came across our respective desks at the Central European University in Budapest. From theses based on themes ranging from medieval philosophy to economic history to art history and archaeology, animals appeared as a constant if somewhat inconspicuous presence. The problem was that as soon as the theses were finished and defended, these bits of useful data tended to sink back into the obscurity of the archives they came from since they were rarely part of the direct topics of the dissertations, only pertinent sidelights. In order to ‘save’ this data and

In, more or less, the same time period, Aleks Pluskowski founded the conference series ‘Animals as Material Culture in the Middle Ages.’ Meetings were held in Cambridge (2005), Foggia (2006), Vienna (2007), Budapest (2008) and Madrid (2011). With the Madrid meeting it was decided to merge MAD and this conference as

7

Contradictory images of domestic pigs abound in MAD. On the one hand, their economic value becomes clear when they are mentioned in charter evidence. In one Hungarian entry from 1388 in the Zsigmondkori Oklevéltár (Sigismund period charter archive, covering the interval between 1387 and 1399) mention is made of the theft of cattle and twenty pigs from a serf called Nogy Péter in Nogymysey. 1 In a similarly benign way they appear in an image from REAL-online (image 000405)  of St. Bernard giving salt to domestic animals in a panel painting by Jörg Breu the Elder (1475–1537) from a church in Lower Austria. 2 Domestic pigs also make regular, positive appearances in images of St. Anthony (REALonline image 004898) whose order was allowed to keep pigs with bells within town walls. The fat from these pigs was used in creating a healing salve for which the order was famous. 3

they conceptually cover the same ground and have the same aim of intelligently applying multidisciplinary approaches to the study of medieval animals. The MAD digital data archive is organized according to type of source and animal. It is relatively easy now to type in the name of the animal and receive a list of all entries connected in some way to that animal. The intention of MAD was never to collect every piece of data pertaining to all animals found, mentioned, or displayed in medieval sources, but rather to present the rich variety of sources available to scholars and insure that any given entry is properly explained within its own disciplinary context. Too often, animal data is lifted from one discipline into another without proper regard to the context it appears in or any concern with the way scholars using that kind of source material process and publish that data. For example, there is a tendency to regard image data as somehow representing ‘reality’ – a concept fundamentally rejected by MAD as an unobtainable goal with little research potential. Reality always depends on context. Furthermore, MAD contends that a dragon or unicorn was just as ‘real’ for people living in the medieval past as an elephant or ostrich, animals we consider real but which for most people occupied similarly distant, exotic realms. We understand each animal to have many different realities depending on its meaning at a particular time and place – hence the emphasis on multi- as opposed to inter-disciplinarity – which while a laudable goal is much more difficult to achieve for most scholars. It requires both detailed understanding of how data is used and gathered in multiple fields and enough data of equal quality that can be integrated without serious bias between those fields.

Surprisingly, and rather ambiguously, pigs even appear in the fifteenth century Second Nuremberg Haggadah, a liturgical text for the Jewish Passover. 4 Here the pig appears as a building ornament at the beginning of the text, Mah  Nishtanah? (‘What makes this night different from all other nights?’), an introductory question to the story of the Exodus. The folio is decorated with two scenes. The one in the outer margin shows a man pouring the second cup of wine within an imaginary tower which is placed onto the back of a pig. What a swine is doing on the pages of a Jewish medieval manuscript is unclear although it cannot have had particularly positive connotations to the readers of the haggadah, and in this context may perhaps refer to avoiding excess drink. In the same way, another image from REAL-online (image 001533) is of a carving of the Juden-sau on a stone relief from 1500 in Wiener Neustadt. It is a direct negative reference to the Jewish taboo of eating pork turned on its head to show Jews sucking the

To date, two animals are particularly well represented in MAD: pigs and cats. Both species were chosen to focus on at various times because each one embodied many different features in the medieval imagination. Both have extremely negative and extremely positive images depending on the context they appear in. Even today, both pigs and cats evoke a variety of emotions depending whether we are enjoying a delicious meal of roast pig or complaining about a messy neighbor, dealing with a plague of mice, evoking images of a cozy hearth, or are affronted by someone’s (a woman usually…) mean spiritedness.

http://www.imareal.sbg.ac.at/animalwiki2/index.php/Stolen_ pigs_-_1388 (accessed February 18, 2013). 1

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http://tarvos.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/server/images/3000405.JPG (accessed February 18, 2013).

2

http://www.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/cgi-imareal/kleioc/0010/exec/ meltres/cat2use/%22kat9900%22/execterm/%22schwein%22/doe xec/%22yes%22/pocketin/%221%22/pocketout/%229999%22/jvo n/jvon/%221%22/jbis/%222000%22/minfo/%22full%22/dinfo/%2 2yes%22/ainfo/%22yes%22 (accessed February 18, 2013). 3

http://www.imareal.sbg.ac.at/animalwiki2/index.php/Pigs_in_ the_Second_Nuremberg_Haggadah (accessed February 18, 2013). 4

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teats of a huge sow.5 Another negative image from a 1513 votive painting from a parish church in Salzburg (image 000952), this time in a totally Christian context and with a positive moral story, shows a pig leaving a room after having bitten a child to death.6 The mother prays to the Virgin and the child is restored to life. Pigs, left to wander unattended, were certainly responsible for bites and dangerous injury, especially in densely builtin towns and cities.

a semi-upright position playing with a mouse. 9 This is a general image of cats and is connected with their particularly acute eyesight in a variety of sources. In fact, control of animal pests such as mice, which competed for the same grain supplies as people and which could cause serious losses, would have been a very important reason for keeping cats. MAD invites anyone interested in contributing data, both in the form of individual bodies of data and also individual kinds of animals in a corpus, to contact us through the website

Medieval people also had a distinctly ambiguous attitude towards cats. Cats could be companions as evidenced in a series of letters sent by Margherita di Dominco Bandini to her husband Francesco di Marco Datini in Florence dated to June 8, 1395.7 She worries that the new domestic cat of the family needed to be tied but then escaped when she was set free and needed to be kept in a chicken coop (presumably without the chickens). Conversely, another sermon, also from Northern Italy, portrays cats as demonic. 8 In a sermon delivered to the populace in 1427 in Siena, Bernardine of Siena mentions a sighting of a female cat appearing when the Devil makes his entrance. When people sought to take preventive action by throwing objects at these cats and breaking their legs it was the possessed woman who was later found with a broken leg!

http://www.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/mad/animalwiki.html.

This is one important way to move the datanetwork forward. In the future we intend to establish links with all the major animal oriented databases in Europe to create a web of understanding for human-animal connections in the medieval past.

Alice CHOYKE Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University – Budapest

In yet another view of the cat, there is a MAD entry showing the cruel (from a human perspective) but practical side of cats from the Lutrell Psalter (c. 1340, The British Library, Add. MS 42130, fol. 190). The image shows a tabby cat in

http://www.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/cgi-imareal/kleioc/0010/exec/ meltres/cat2use/%22kat9900%22/execterm/%22schwein%22/doe xec/%22yes%22/pocketin/%221%22/pocketout/%229999%22/jvo n/jvon/%221%22/jbis/%222000%22/minfo/%22full%22/dinfo/%2 2yes%22/ainfo/%22yes%22 (accessed February 18, 2013). 5

http://www.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/cgi-imareal/kleioc/0010/exec/ meltres/cat2use/%22kat9900%22/execterm/%22schwein%22/doe xec/%22yes%22/pocketin/%221%22/pocketout/%229999%22/jvo n/jvon/%221%22/jbis/%222000%22/minfo/%22full%22/dinfo/%2 2yes%22/ainfo/%22yes%22 (accessed February 18, 2013). 6

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http://www.imareal.sbg.ac.at/animalwiki2/index.php/Cats_and _other_animals_in_domestic_correspondence#Margherita_di_D omenico_Bandini.2C_wife_of_Francesco_di_Marco_Datini_to_h er_husband.2C_Florence.2C_June_8.2C_1395 (accessed February 18, 2013). 7

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http://www.imareal.sbg.ac.at/animalwiki2/index.php/Cats_and _other_animals_in_sermons#Bernardino_Busti.2C_Rosarium_ Sermonum_.28Strasbourg.2C_1496.29.2C_Sermon_16.2C_313 (accessed February 18, 2013). 8

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http://www.imareal.sbg.ac.at/animalwiki2/index.php/Domestic _cat_playing_with_a_mouse (accessed February 18, 2013). 9

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 

organization of the colloquium, as well as the attendees who made this event a success. The Faculty of Geography and History at Complutense University provided, with its facilities and support, a suitable framework for the successful development of this academic meeting. The Department of Art History I (Medieval) of Complutense University, at the time under the direction of Dr. Antonio Momplet Miguez, generously hosted it. This event was also the first scientific activity within the commemoration program of the 25th anniversary of the Medieval Art History Department. In recent years, the research and teaching activities of our department have been characterised by an international projection and openness to other humanistic disciplines, with the annual celebration of the congress on Medieval Art at Complutense University (Jornadas Complutenses de Arte Medieval), the organisation of numerous sessions at Leeds International Medieval Congress, the participation in the latest editions of Science Week in Madrid and the development of various research projects.

The editors of this volume would like to express their gratitude to the individuals and institutions that have made this project possible. Our acknowledgement is directed, firstly, to the authors of the various essays that make up this collection. These scholars have offered an enriching reflection on the role of animals in the discourse about otherness during the Middle Ages, and they have provided new and thoughtprovoking insights within this fascinating field. We sincerely appreciate their willingness to participate in this stimulating discussion, as well as their patience and understanding along the editorial process that now culminates in the publication of this book. Secondly, the anonymous academic reviewers who generously agreed to contribute with their time, engagement and valuable observations to enhance the already high scientific quality of the studies collected here. This publication has its origin in the colloquium Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages held at the Faculty of Geography and History at Complutense University in Madrid on the 7th and 8th of February, 2011. We would like to thank the members of the Medieval Animal Data-Network (MAD) project for their confidence in our ability to successfully organize this conference and subsequently prepare the publication of this volume. We would also like to thank the volunteers who helped in the

Finally, we would also like to acknowledge the members of our research group The medieval image:  space,  form  and  meaning, led by Dr. Matilde Azcárate Luxán, who enthusiastically joined the MAD project with the desire to deepen our knowledge of the animal world in the Middle Ages through an interdisciplinary dialogue.

The editors María Victoria CHICO PICAZA Francisco de Asís GARCÍA GARCÍA Mónica Ann WALKER VADILLO

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F. García, M.A. Walker and M.V. Chico: An Overview from the Garden of Eden

ANIMALS AND OTHERNESS IN THE MIDDLE AGES:   AN OVERVIEW FROM THE GARDEN OF EDEN Francisco de Asís GARCÍA GARCÍA

Mónica Ann WALKER VADILLO

María Victoria CHICO PICAZA

Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Universidad Complutense de Madrid University of Waterloo, Ontario (Canada)

Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Figure I. Adam naming the animals. Detail of the ‘Creation Tapestry,’ Chapterhouse Museum in Girona (Spain). 

The magnificent Romanesque embroidery known as the ‘Creation Tapestry,’ preserved in the Chapterhouse Museum of Girona (Spain),1 displays

within its complex iconographic program eight circular sections around the Christ-Logos. These segments compound a detailed cycle depicting the Creation of the World, and hence the title for which this textile is known. One of the scenes included among this cycle (Figure I) corresponds to the vocatio  animalium, i.e., the moment when Adam named the animals created by Yahweh (Genesis 2:19–20). 2 This passage, in which the

1 The academic literature on this late eleventh-century masterpiece of medieval textile art is extensive. The publications of Pere de Palol established the basis for the knowledge of the embroidery in many of its aspects – see his book El Tapís de la  Creació de la Catedral de Girona (Barcelona: Proa, 1986), where the previous bibliography on the piece is included. More recently, this work has been the subject of renewed interest by Manuel Castiñeiras, whose last monograph have offered elucidating indepth insights into the textile: Manuel Castiñeiras, El Tapiz de la  Creación (Girona: Catedral de Girona, 2011).

Besides the publications dealing in general with the ‘Creation Tapestry,’ some studies have examined in detail the iconographical aspects of this scene: Hilário Franco Jr., “Le 2

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Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  man confronts the animals for the first time in history, constitutes one of the main biblical accounts regarding human-animal relations, 3 and consequently one of the strongest symbolic referents for this matter during the Middle Ages. It represents thus a stimulating point of departure to immerse in the contributions that form part of this volume. Indeed, through its sources and visual features, the aforementioned scene of the ‘Creation Tapestry’ encapsulates many of the questions aroused by the title of the present book and explored throughout its ten chapters. In this sense, the white inscription accompanying this section of the embroidery is particularly appealing, as it clearly places us before the binomial ‘animals and otherness’: ADAM NON INVENIEBATUR SIMILEM SIBI. In accordance with the biblical narrative, this quotation, originating from a Hispanic version of the Old Latin translation of the Bible, prepares for the Creation of Eve (Genesis 2:21–22) – depicted facing Adam’s scene within the compositional scheme of the textile. But the inscription also places the question of alterity at the centre of human existence, and in particular at the core of its relation to the animal kingdom. It verbalizes the tension arising from Adam’s selfrecognition as radically different from the animals, although sharing at the same time the condition of ‘creatura’ with the rest of those living beings, which were formed, as man, from the earth. It is not surprising, then, that due to this closeness to mankind and, at the same time, to the severe conceptual separation that Christianity imposed

between human and non-human species, animals were continuously evoked in the Middle Ages. Taking into consideration this perspective, the animal otherness would serve as an oppositional device, whose repeated staging would help to define humanness and to reaffirm the central role of man in the medieval worldview.4 Adam’s task and its implication in medieval thinking are then particularly fruitful matters for reflection to explore the role of animals in the medieval conceptualization of alterity.5 In the Girona embroidery, the act of naming is emphasized by the gestures of Adam, who extends his finger pointing at the animals and opens ostensibly his mouth to visualise his speech. This prominence of the verbal execution of the task assigned by God echoes visually the relevance accorded by the Church Fathers – and later medieval theologians – to the faculty of naming, chiefly underlined when dealing with this biblical passage. Far from being a major theme in the exegesis of the Scriptures, a certain number of authors did take into account this event in their reflections about the status of man within the Creation and – what occupies us now – his relation to other creatures. 6 Beyond its epistemological consequences, applying names conditions the relationship to that which is named in a broader

Regarding this anthropocentric perception see Esther Cohen, “Animals in medieval perceptions. The image of the ubiquitous other,” in Animals and Human Society. Changing perspectives, eds. Aubrey Manning and James Serpell (London – New York: Routledge, 1994), 76; Michel Pastoureau, Une histoire symbolique  du Moyen Âge occidental (Paris: Seuil, 2004), 30–31.

4

pouvoir de la parole: Adam et les animaux dans la tapisserie de Gérone,” Médiévales 25 (1993): 113–128; Rebecca Swanson, “Broderie de la création ou broderie du salut? Propositions de lecture iconographique du «Tapís de Girona»,” Les  Cahiers  de  Saint‐Michel  de  Cuxa XLIII (2012): 95–100, esp. 95–97. For the iconography of this subject throughout the Middle Ages see Xenia Muratova, “«Adam donne leurs noms aux animaux». L’iconographie de la scène dans l’art du Moyen Âge: les manuscrits des bestiaires enluminés du XIIe et du XIIIe siècles,” Studi  Medievali, 3rd series, XVIII/2 (1977): 367–394; Henry Maguire, “Adam and the Animals: Allegory and the Literal Sense in Early Christian Art,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 41 (1987): 363–373; Maÿlis Outters, “La nomination des animaux par Adam dans l’Occident latin du XIIe au XVe siècle. Étude iconographique.” MA diss., Université de Versailles-SaintQuentin-en-Yvelines, 2006.

5 We are aware that this reflection on the binomial ‘animals and otherness’ should be expanded by taking into account cultural and religious frameworks other than the Latin Christian paradigm, to which the ‘Creation Tapestry’ and the material of many articles in this volume relate to. Fortunately, Y. Frenkel’s contribution helps to enrich this vision by means of its focus on a concrete period of medieval Islam, whilst both González Ginocchio’s observations on Avicena’s reception and the chapter of T. Buquet on westerner’s encounters with medieval Egypt enable cross-cultural approaches. The remaining essays cover a wide chronological and spatial span, from Late Antiquity to the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Era with a main focus in Western and Central Europe, although without forgetting the Mediterranean and Eastern areas as well.

3 Other Old Testament narratives featuring animals, such as Noah’s Ark, were not disconnected from the implications of Adam’s task in medieval thought and should also be considered in a broader context: Marianne Besseyre, “Les animaux de l’arche de Noé: un bestiaire exemplaire?,” Reinardus. Yearbook of the International Reynard Society 18 (2005): 16–17.

6 Among the main authorities, already referenced in the titles quoted in footnote 2, are Clement of Alexandria, Philo, Origen, Ambrose, Gregory of Nyssa, John Chrysostom, Augustine, Theodoret of Cyrus, Peter Comestor, Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas or Master Eckhart. See also the Patristic fragments quoted in Ellen Konowitz, “The Program of the Carrand Diptych,” Art Bulletin LXVI/3 (1984): 486–487.

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F. García, M.A. Walker and M.V. Chico: An Overview from the Garden of Eden sense and it has specific implications regarding animals. 7 With language being itself a means of power, the biblical passage was mainly regarded by the commentators as underlining the establishment of a hierarchy within Creation, where man, segregated from the rest, was granted the right to rule over the animal kingdom.8 Thus the passage in Genesis sealed an unbridgeable difference between animals and humans in terms of nature and power relations: differentiation and dominance/submission shaped the conceptions of fauna in this ideal relationship with nature. The tenet of being created in God’s image and likeness, unlike the rest of creatures, endorsed this differentiation. However, human-animal interactions in the Middle Ages proved to be much more polyhedric and they were far from being irreducible to monolithic patterns as we shall see throughout this book. Indeed, as M. Pastoureau has shown, this mainstream approach did not prevent alternative discourses on human-animal relations. A tendency favouring affinities also found a way in medieval Christian culture grounded in Aristotelian and Pauline ideas about certain biological and even spiritual links between the animal and human natures.9

the world.10 Similarly, for a learned elite trained in the meaning of words and the encyclopaedic culture, naming and description were primordial steps towards knowledge, as well as an indispensable tool to transmit an experience. Nominal issues concern also our scientific activity as medievalists in the field of zoohistory, as one of the main problems posed by sources deals with animal nomenclature. The first chapter of this volume has the problem of naming animals as one of its main arguments. Thierry  Buquet looks into the accounts of occidental travellers who visited late medieval Egypt to scrutinise their perception of exotic fauna and the ways by which this experience was reported to European audiences. Strange beasts living or being exhibited and sold in those lands, especially the Sultan’s menagerie in Cairo which concentrated the richest animal panoply, stroke foreign visitors and contributed to nourish the notion of an ‘Oriental otherness’ developed in the Western imaginary – itself one of the clearest paradigms of alterity constructed in the Latin Christendom. These European travellers became ‘new Adams’ when confronted with unfamiliar species that needed to be named and registered in their accounts. Among the different ways by which the naming task was solved, the use of Arabic zoonyms and their transliteration was suitable in the absence of a Latin or vernacular term, bringing in turn a mark of exoticism to the linguistic realm. Besides naming, description of these animals’ appearances also challenged the discursive abilities of the authors. They used as a reference better known zoological realities in their portrayals and, as a result, their amalgamated construction approximated the morphology of these unknown beasts to hybrid creatures. The mosaic of reactions towards these animals ranged from astonishment to visual pleasure leading to aesthetic judgements; they rarely inspired fear or danger when observed in princely spaces, where two mammals, the elephants and the giraffes,

Naming enabled Adam to acquire a conscience for the Creator’s work and interact with it, proceeding to an ordination of and dominion over

7 Sune Borkfelt, “What’s in a Name? – Consequences of Naming Non-Human Animals,” Animals 1 (2011): 116-125.

Muratova, “Adam donne,” 371, considers that this human dominion was especially emphasized in western iconographic examples of the scene, which paid attention to the hierarchical rapports between men and nature. This supremacy (explicitly underlined in Genesis 1:26) was connected in the medieval imaginary to the semiotics of power. The same author (ibid., 379), points out the choice of this scene as an iconic glorification of secular power in visual programs displayed in princely contexts. As many authors have remarked, the creation of earthly beasts and that of Adam itself are absent in the Genesis cycle of the Girona ‘Tapestry,’ in which the sixth day of Creation is exclusively featured by the naming scene; precisely the key passage in the exaltation of the sovereign condition of Adam. This choice accords well with the princely references in the embroidery’s imagery signalled by M. Castiñeiras in connection to the commission and political purposes of the piece. See Castiñeiras, El Tapiz de la Creación, 85–94, as well as the author’s Addendum which gathers new data found during the last restoration of the piece. 8

Meaningfully, Isidore of Seville opens his classification of living beings in the Etymologies (12.1.1) quoting the biblical imposition of names: ‘Adam was the first to confer names on all the animals, assigning a name to each one at the moment of its creation, according to the position in nature that it holds.’ Isidore of Seville, The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, trans. and ed. Stephen A. Barney et  al. (Cambridge – New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 247. Consequently, the naming scene also joined the Isidorian text in the illuminated bestiaires of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries (Muratova, “Adam donne,” 373). 10

9 Pastoureau, Une histoire symbolique, 31–32. On these ‘fraternal’ attitudes towards fauna see also Jacques Voisenet, Bêtes  et  Hommes dans le monde médiéval. Le bestiaire des clercs du Ve au XIIe  siècle (Turnhout : Brepols, 2000), 244–246.

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Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  for other contexts in the essays of this volume. This is particularly noticeable regarding the aulic sphere surveyed in Y. Frenkel’s chapter. The display of animals, their consideration as diplomatic gifts and material culture, their symbolic association to the ruler – who used them as an emblem and numismatic motif – or the human identification with animal names and qualities are only some examples. However, these analogies should not make us overlook the specificities of Islamic culture and their influence in the perception and conceptualisation of animals.

incarnated the essence of exotic marvels of Eastern African fauna. Indeed, as the author infers from the mentions and omissions of the accounts, both physically impressing quadrupeds were the animals that most attracted the interest of travellers. Unlike giraffes, elephants were famous in the West through zoological literature, as they appeared frequently in bestiaries and encyclopaedias. In addition, a tension emerges in travelogues between first-hand experience in front of the ‘other’ and previous knowledge inherited from established authorities. The expectations and cultural background of western visitors filtered their sensitive perceptions and increased the feeling of strangeness provoked by African species. The authors set a compromise in their compilations, rooting their experiences in literary references whose zoological observations they tried to verify.

The dialectic of human-animal interactions is approached in the chapters written by Laura Fenelli and Marco Iuffrida through different perspectives owing to the source material upon which they rely: hagiography and legislation. According to Christian authors, Adam lost his authority over the animals when he sinned, but holiness enhanced men and showed a way by which this edenic status could be recovered. 11 If saints, as privileged interlocutors to animals, present a singular case study to evaluate the Christian outlook of nature and its changing dimension throughout the Middle Ages, legal dispositions are a suitable source to explore the quotidian side of human-animal interactions in the Early Medieval period facing the scarceness of information. In her article, Laura  Fenelli studies the role of animals in a select group of texts that deal with the life of the first hermit, Saint Paul, and the journey that Saint Anthony undertook to find him in the desert. Through a meticulous analysis of the texts and the representation of the episodes involving the animal encounters as visual examples, L. Fenelli traces the notions of otherness that are present in these narratives and the way in which the relationship between Saint Anthony and the animals changed throughout the centuries. In the earliest textual samples, real animals are portrayed as adversaries when they invade Anthony’s orchard. L. Fenelli tells us that in this context, the animals enlighten the reader of the hermit’s miraculous power, since he was able to make himself understood by the animals who respected his request. In this way the boundary between the human and the feral, which was transgressed by the animals, was reestablished by the anchorite’s faith. On the second set of textual

T. Buquet’s article is not the only one in this volume to deal with medieval Egypt. Turning from the eyes of the occidental travellers to the ‘native’ voice of Syrian and Egyptian authors, Yehoshua  Frenkel examines the plural role of animals in the Mamluk Sultanate framed in the broader spectrum of medieval Islamic culture. A variety of references from multiple domains, gathered mainly through the exploration of chronicles and texts from other literary genres, enables the author to draw a well documented panorama of the multiple dimensions that fauna acquired in the Eastern Mediterranean world between the mid-thirteenth and early sixteenth centuries. As the author emphasises along the essay, the contemporary world vision embraced animals as creatures constantly intertwined  with the human sphere, not only in a practical level – as illustrated by trading regulations or other legal and religious dispositions – but also regarding ceremonial and symbolic constructions, whose study through fictional narratives proves to be a fruitful approach. Verbal human-animal communication constituted a topos frequently revisited in tales, breaking one of the conventional boundaries between humans and the rest of animal species. These narratives present, however, opposite views of fauna in their relation to humans. The sapiential role of beasts – whose edifying speeches serve to confirm the current value system – contrasts with the fear aroused by devouring and dangerous animals. The reader will ascertain that fauna during the Mamluk period also fulfilled a number of functions analogous to those observed

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Voisenet, Bêtes et Hommes, 228–229.

F. García, M.A. Walker and M.V. Chico: An Overview from the Garden of Eden animals. Different types of dogs and their specific duties are described in a list including more than thirty species, which were regarded as man’s best socius, and different fines were set according to the importance of their activity for their owners all through the European Early Middle Ages.

examples, Anthony, who thought himself the oldest hermit, is shown the error of his way by an angelic revelation and as punishment he has to search for Paul in the desert. In his journey he encounters different creatures: a centaur and a satyr, two monsters by definition, that function as narrative and spiritual guides. They are the remains of the Classical Pagan world and through their contact with Anthony they are saved. The raven, the she-wolf, and the lions are not monsters, but real animals that abandon their feral nature to feed and guide the hermit to the cave where Paul is dying and to help him dig his grave. In the last version of the texts that L. Fenelli studies, the animals are replaced by a monk whose many sins have been manifested through grotesque animal symptoms like antlers sprouting from his head, nails resembling those of a camel, and his whole body covered by hair. The boundary between human and animal natures is broken by the many sins of the monk, and he becomes a metaphor of human bestiality. His immorality has reduced him, a man, to an inferior and degraded state, but he is saved by the actions of the saint, who purifies him. All these encounters take place in the desert, a liminal space where miracles could happen. The presence of these animals, as examples of living contradictions, stands at the threshold of the boundary between what is familiar and known and what is unfamiliar and unknown, between what is human and what is feral otherness.

For medieval commentators, the ability to bestow a name according to each animal’s character and role within the Christian universe evidenced the rational nature of Adam. This value differentiated the human soul, immortal and destined for an afterlife, from the animals’ one, not included in the salvific agenda and deprived of reason and spiritual nature – which explains the fact that Adam didn’t find a being similem sibi until Eve’s creation. Medieval Christian thinkers noted this intellectual dimension also as the foundation of human rulership over Creation. 12 Similar considerations were exposed by some Islamic authors. As Y. Frenkel illustrates in the introduction of his contribution, Ibn Khaldūn, recognised the rational ability as one of the qualities that distinguished humans from animals, exalting humankind over all living beings. The idea of the animal soul is further investigated by David  González  Ginocchio. Considering that scientific observation can perfectly be completed through comparative psychology, historical observation and legal theories, the author focuses on Avicenna’s psychology of the animal. As a philosopher, Avicenna was an Aristotelian; as a physician and follower of Galenus, he was an expert in anatomy and physiology. Both Galenic and Aristotelian traditions are included in his doctrine, which had great historical relevance. In his paper, the author refers to Aristotelian and Cartesian animal paradigms on the basis that, in some points, Avicenna can be related to both. He shares many methodological and doctrinal postulates with Aristotle, such as the fact that animal and human lives are parts of a continuum. With Descartes, Avicenna shares the dualistic doctrine of body and soul as separate substances. The author develops the following main points: in Avicenna’s doctrine, animals are rational in a contextual sense, and they share many cognitive

On the other hand, Marco  Iuffrida’s article proposes that the Leges  Barbarorum should be considered the first catalogue of dogs in the world, filling the vacuum of the dog’s legal otherness in Roman law, and considering dogs as essential aids for human beings in daily life. This fact explains the attention drawn to dogs in relation to the consequences of damages caused or suffered by these animals. M. Iuffrida points out how in the thirteenth century the Roman jurist Accursius explained that dogs had not been considered a productive animal, neither in Rome nor among the Barbarians, due to their unpredictable temperament. However, given their importance in hunting and sheep farming, they subsequently earned a special protection. We can find dogs in almost every Barbarian law code, whether it is Visigothic, Burgundian, Frank, Alaman, Bavarian, Longobard or Frisian, issued during the fifth, sixth or the mid-seventh centuries, which dealt with instigation, stealing or biting damages from these

12 Voisenet, Bêtes et Hommes, 260, n22. See the commentaries of, among others, Origen and Augustine (Confessiones 13.23) quoted by Muratova, “Adam donne,” 382, who also notes that the enhancement of Adam’s rational nature led to depict him as a prophet, indicating thus his wisdom.

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Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  faculties with the human soul without reaching its higher cognitive functions due to the ‘imperfection’ of their body. However, the medieval philosopher underlines that the distinction between human and other animal beings lies in the level of willingness. The paper concludes that Avicenna’s doctrine historically developed according to the understanding that animals have a primitive rationality, but are unable to assume it and possess it reflexively. At this point, he comes to Descartes’ interpretation in which the difference between animal and human intellect is extensional. D. González Ginocchio points out that, for a better understanding of the differences between human beings and animals, we actually need to rethink human and animal consciousness, and Avicenna’s observations can be significantly helpful for that purpose.

– among which the dog examined in M. Iuffrida’s text, the exotic beasts absent in the embroidery but well represented in the studies of the volume, or the mythical and hybrid creatures like the dragon addressed by A. Pluskowski could be evoked – were susceptible to take part in constructions of alterity. Animal otherness also led to conceive the species according to wider categorisations, such as the antithetical articulation positive/negative – good/evil in a moral sense, or even divine/satanic in a theological perspective. Whilst never forgetting that their effective application was not exempt of ambiguities – even contradictions – in literature and the visual arts, the animal cast of the Girona embroidery’s scene presents renowned cases of symbolically connoted fauna in medieval culture.15 Set apart from the ‘domestic’ group in an upper register, a deer and an emphatically horned unicorn stand out. The Christological consideration of these two creatures throughout the Middle Ages is a widely known fact. 16 It is significant that both figures are grouped together close to the Christ-Logos image in the centre of the embroidery. Unlike them, a half-body figure identified as a bear17 is relegated behind Adam to the external margin in the scene’s design. As M. Pastoureau has masterfully developed in some essays, this creature was zealously fought during the Middle Ages by the Church, whose authorities confined it to the realm of the satanic bestiary fulfilling a well-known equation formulated by Augustine.18

The choice of the species depicted in the Girona embroidery enables us to reflect on other issues present in this volume. Some animals, grouped in front of Adam, inhabited the domestic sphere. Due to their long-term cohabitation with men, sheep, goats, cattle and horses were familiar fauna, which were commonly placed under human control and a constant presence in people’s daily life.13 But the scene also encompasses wild beasts and fabulous animals, bringing thus together species which integrate the familiar sphere of medieval men and the more distant creatures featuring the fantastic fauna that stimulated their imaginary, epitomised here by the unicorn.14 All this spectrum of creatures

15 Without sharing the sociological reading proposed by Franco, “Le pouvoir de la parole,” 120–125, it would be tempting to interpret the arrangement of the scene according to an allegorical topography of species which illustrate the values assigned to them. Michel Pastoureau has recognised a similar device regarding the choice and placement of beasts in the medieval iconography of Noah’s ark: Pastoureau, Une  histoire  symbolique, 59–60. This argument is further developed in Besseyre, “Les animaux de l’arche.”

‘The term “livestock” [pecus] is usually applied to those animals that are either suitable for food, such as sheep and swine, or that are suitable for use by humans, such as horses and oxen’ (Isidore, Etimologiae 12.1.5. Cited in Isidore of Seville, The Etymologies, 247). As noted before (see footnote 10), the classification and description of domestic species follow the naming of the animals by Adam in the first chapter of De  animalibus in Isidore’s Etymologies. Similarly, in the Girona embroidery Adam’s words are immediately directed to the domestic beings grouped in front of him, among which a horse, a goat, a ram and an ox (or cow) can be clearly distinguished. The two remaining quadrupeds integrating this group raise more difficulties in their zoological identification. Franco, “Le pouvoir de la parole,” 121, interprets their figures as dogs; Castiñeiras, El  Tapiz  de  la  Creación, 45, recognises in them a pair of wolves. 13

16 Taking into account an antagonism already pointed out by Pliny, deers were said to be ‘enemies to serpents’ allegorising the combat between Christ and Satan (we will see later how the demonic nature of the reptile is dealt with in other essays of this volume). On the Christological significance of the deer see Pastoureau, Une  histoire  symbolique, 75–76. The unicorn, for its part, also stood for Christ in medieval religious culture, as reflected in the sources quoted by Margaret B. Freeman, “The Unicorn in Ancient and Medieval Texts,” in The Unicorn Tapestries (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1976), 17–27.

It is needless to mention that our actual categorisation of fantastic or imaginary animals doesn’t correspond to medieval perceptions, as these beasts could be judged to be completely real despite not being directly experienced. For a critical discussion on the imaginary/real question see Pamela Gravestock, “Did Imaginary Animals Exist?” in The Mark of the Beast. The Medieval  Bestiary in Art, Life, and Literature, ed. Debra Hassig (New York – London: Garland Publishing, 1999), 119–139. 14

17

Palol, El Tapís, 98; Outters, “La nomination,” 33.

‘Et leo et ursus typum diaboli præferunt … In istis duabus bestiis  idem diabolus figuratus est.’ Saint Augustine, Sermones supposititii.  Sermo XXXVII. 4 (PL 39: 1819). 18

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F. García, M.A. Walker and M.V. Chico: An Overview from the Garden of Eden This suitability of animals to embody polarised values is explored in various essays of this book. Chapters VI and IX address in particular one of the actors who plays a central role in the events following the Creation: the serpent.19 The snake is also depicted in the Girona embroidery close to Adam’s scene, amid the aquatic beings created by God during the fifth day. Integrated within this context, it is difficult to envision the enmity that Yahweh would set later on between this creature and the woman’s descent (Genesis 3:15), grounding the negative connotations that would accompany the reptile from that moment onwards. Like other species, the snake was the object of polysemic and ambivalent regards in medieval literature. The serpent was actually considered to be an example of prudence and humility. 20 Nevertheless, this positive attitude remained marginal, whilst the serpent’s implication in the fall of mankind, in which its devilish nature was revealed (Apocalypse 12:9 and 20:2), projected over the reptile an ensemble of pejorative values. In this respect Gerhard Jaritz’s inquiry into the role of the draconcopedes  as a representative of otherness and closeness through the visual analysis of its depiction in Central European art is most enlightening. In visual representations, Eden’s serpent can be seen as an actual snake or as a serpent with either the head or the naked torso of a beautiful woman whose face sometimes has been described as virginal – it is this last type of serpent that is usually referred to as the Draconcopes. This hybridity was not necessarily based on textual sources, but it responded in a way to the devil’s ability to change his appearance at will. This iconography seems to have been especially relevant in the Late Medieval Period, and some of

the most important points that G. Jaritz makes in his study are not only regarding the meaning of this hybrid creature, but also its reception by the different strata of medieval society. Textual sources describing the draconcopes started to appear in the thirteenth century onwards in a variety of manuscripts like natural histories or typological texts, among others. Nevertheless, these devils with the faces of virgins did not only populate these manuscripts, sometimes associated with a more private space, but they could also made their appearance in a more public space as part of religious dramas or decorating the exterior or interior of a church. In this context, the highly seductive draconcopes usually functioned as a counter-image of the saintly Virgin Mary, leading mankind into sin as opposed to salvation. This contrast was emphasized in many didactic public images found in small village churches and in large town cathedrals. As such, its message was directed towards all levels of Christian society and it had an impact in daily life. The draconcopes was, after all, a warning against the seductive ‘other,’ the embodiment of the devil, and a daily presence in public spaces that could destroy all hope for salvation if one was not careful. This negative connotation that is usually attached to the serpent is made even more evident in the essay of Svetlana Tsonkova, who focuses on a different aspect related to this creature: the way in which it was characterized as a dangerous and malicious ‘other’ in Bulgarian verbal charms. S. Tsonkova starts her study by establishing the reality of the snake in the Bulgarian geography, stating the fact that only four types of snakes could be found in the region, and that none of them were actually deadly. Looking into the folkloric tradition of medieval Bulgaria next, S. Tsonkova gives the often contradictory image that the snake had in medieval society as a creature that could have positive and negative characteristics and roles. In this context, the snake could be a bringer of evil, but it could also be a protector of the house; it could be a devilish creature, but it could also be closely associated with fertility and the protection of crops; it was connected with the dead and sometimes it acted as a messenger between this world and the next, etc. These contradictory conceptual elements involving the snake could be seen in other traditions as well like the Lithuanian or the Finnish. Yet, if one takes into consideration the descriptions of the verbal charms that appear

19 On the dragon, father and ‘the biggest of all the serpents’ in the bestiary tradition, see the essay by A. Pluskowski in this volume.

Bestiaries echo the Gospel’s exhortation to be prudent as serpents (Mathew 10:16) quoted by the Physiologus: Florence McCulloch, Medieval  and  Latin  French  Bestiaries (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1960), 170. For some examples of a Christological and spiritual reading of the behaviour of serpents see The Book of Beasts. Being a Translation  from a Latin Bestiary of the Twelfth Century, trans. and ed. Terence H. White (London: W. S. Cowell, 1954), 187–188. An inscription in the lintel of the church of St. Andrew in Luz-Saint-Sauveur (France) praises the humility of the snake: [SPOLIAT S]ERPENS SE PELLE VETUSTA EST HUMILIS MULTUM. See Calvin B. Kendall, The Allegory of the Church. Romanesque Portals and their  Verse  Inscriptions (Toronto – Buffalo – London: University of Toronto Press, 1998), 236. 20

19

Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  in medieval manuscripts and metal amulets, the picture that emerges is a very different one. Many of these inscriptions were used as anti-snake charms (with an apotropaic function) and they were usually composed of a prayer and a list of names – mostly adjectives and negative epithets. The list of names describes the snake as a harmful, evil, and dangerous creature, despite being in itself an almost innocuous familiar presence in everyday life. These adjectives and epithets originated in the pre-Christian Slavic tradition and in the Christian tradition that influenced the Slavic countries via Byzantium. Through this lore, the snake is presented as the personification of evil, and as such it required an appropriate defense. By reciting these verbal charms, the user was able to define the snake in order to control it and place it in a new framework of meaning. In this way the snake was recognized as the ‘other,’ and with this recognition came the power to understand it, control it, and, ultimately, expel it. Therefore, it could be stated that just like Adam showed his power over the animals by means of the spoken word, it was believed that the invocation of the snake under different names was a powerful weapon against its physical and spiritual malevolence.21

sur-Gartempe. It is unknown whether the vocatio  animalium was depicted in the missing scene preceding the creation of Eve in the French abbey; in any case, this outstanding ensemble of Romanesque mural painting also provides interesting animal imagery in the form of animal fables, which are analysed by Delia  Kottmann. The author insists in some crucial aspects recently addressed in the field of medieval art studies: the role of marginal imagery in the construction of visual discourses, the topography of representations, and the intended audience and reception for the images. The usually disregarded animal scenes of Saint-Savin appear close to Noah’s drunkenness and other Genesis and Exodus passages, raising the problem of a ‘profane’ – and apparently disconnected – imagery integrated within a biblical narrative. These scenes are problematic not only because they interrupt visually the sequence from a narrative point of view, but also regarding their meaning with respect to the whole cycle. After reviewing past hypothesis about these animal fables, the author addresses their presence in the nave from the perspective of ‘marginal art,’ reflecting on the possible values that such a category of images could convey with regard to their potential spectators. As shown in her article, topography does not always determine the marginal character of an image. To expand the critical field in search of answers, D. Kottmann also considers some preparatory drawings discovered in the scene of Noah’s drunkenness in recent restorations. The praxis and sense of these drawings, published in this volume for the first time, are related to the role of the animal scenes, which could convey humorous connotations intended to engage the spectators. The author is inclined to consider the depiction of the fables in a moral perspective, given their proximity to biblical scenes communicating a moral lesson. Acting as a gloss, they would be appealing to the clergy of SaintSavin but also to lay viewers, as deduced from the appearance of similar animal tales in both monastic and secular-oriented contexts.23 With its

Despite the abysm between Adam and the animal kingdom that was opened in Genesis – widened by the commentaries of the Fathers of the Church and medieval theologians rejecting any confusion between their respective natures – it was common to attribute human qualities to animals and vice-versa.22 The Middle Ages inherited from Antiquity the taste for animal fables, whose legacy was preserved in monastic libraries and became increasingly popular in the last centuries of the medieval period. Mirroring human values and behaviour, animal fable narratives enabled to discern truths about human existence through the animal ‘other.’ Almost in the same years when the ‘Girona Tapestry’ was being embroidered, a team of painters executed the Old Testament cycle of the central nave of the monastic church of Saint-Savin-

23 As an example, the image in the cover of this volume, belonging to a Castilian Benedictine monastery and related to one of the fables discussed in Delia Kottmann’s essay, was likely directed – as a warning against Pride – to a not exclusively monastic audience. Indeed, it faced the laypeople that entered the church through its northern portal. See Serafín Moralejo, “Cluny y los orígenes del románico palentino: el contexto de San Martín de Frómista,” in Jornadas sobre el arte de 

For a reflection on the power of the word and its symbolic efficacy in casting out and controlling creatures see Franco, “Le pouvoir de la parole,” 117. 21

22 A procedure that can be also recognised in brief metaphorical biblical passages. See Jacques Voisenet, Bestiaire  chrétien.  L’imagerie  animale  des  auteurs  du  Haut  Moyen  Âge  (Ve‐XIe  s.) (Toulouse: Presses Universitaires du Mirail, 1994), 40–41.

20

F. García, M.A. Walker and M.V. Chico: An Overview from the Garden of Eden focus on this sort of imagery, this contribution opens new venues in the study of mural painting. Although recent considerations about the role of ornament have directed the attention of scholars to aspects usually neglected in this field, marginal wall painting imagery has not been explored in the same depth as in manuscript illumination or monumental sculpture. Moreover, the reflection on the margins in the art-historical discourse shares also a methodological framework with studies of otherness, as it concerns center-perifery dialectics.

giving place to the rise of hybrids and wild men as flourishing liminal creatures in the visual imagery. Moreover, onomastics or insignia enabled an appropriation of animal values by its owners. Even fearful beasts were deliberately chosen as personal emblems because of their particular symbolic content. Although sometimes highly pejoratively connoted in the medieval tradition, these beasts satisfied the representational interests of their holders. This trend is well reflected in the conceptualization of the aristocracy through animals addressed in the last chapter of this book. Her author, Olga  Vassilieva‐Codognet, offers a very interesting study of the symbolism that emerged during the Late Middle Ages in heraldic crests and badges among princely courts. After presenting an example of the emblematic use of animals in the illustration of contemporary power struggles in the early fifteenth-century Burgundian court, the author discusses the results of an extensive survey of nearly 900 different badges that appeared between 1370 and 1520 in the context of the development of coats of arms. Special attention is paid within the ensemble to the proportion and evolution of animal badges, particularly those featuring redoubtable beasts. The statistical conclusions drawn from this data enabled O. Vassilieva-Codognet to approach the consequences of choice and display of these emblematic beings in relation to traditional heraldic animals and consider the particular case of women’s badges. In order to explore more deeply the ties between the animal badges and their owners, the author closely examines four examples of very specific redoubtable beasts such as the leopard, the bear, the porcupine and the boar, chosen as emblems by Giangaleazzo Visconti, Jean de Berry, Richard III and Louis XII, respectively. O. Vassilieva-Codognet highlights the different origins of these badges – etymological, allegorical or historical – defining the relationship between animal and owner. Finally, she describes the metamorphosis of late medieval badges during the Early Modern Period through the cases included in the treaty written by Paolo Giovio, Dialogo dell’imprese militari e amorose (1555).  The imprese recorded in this work show how Renaissance culture brought new interests and preferences that displaced the value of redoubtableness in the creation of metaphorical personal emblems. 

The animal ‘typology’ played in fable narratives was the result of a projection of men’s concerns and aspirations in which animality was invaded by the extension of human nature beyond its own limits. The Middle Ages also witnessed the discursive appropriation of attitudes and values attributed to animals for didactic and propagandistic purposes, as they were relevant to a moral or political speech. 24 These directions represented instances where boundaries among humans and non-human species faded in the realm of metaphors. Authors like J. E. Salisbury have reflected on this phenomenon framing it in a diachronic perspective, whose turning point would take place in the twelfth century. 25 Although this approach has been questioned, 26 these ambiguities in looking at animals with respect to symbolic constructions seem to have been shaped especially in the Late Middle Ages. The rediscovery of Aristotle made possible the emergence of a new relationship between species, in which the distinct animal ‘other’ experimented a displacement towards a human inner alterity 27 las órdenes religiosas en Palencia (Palencia: Diputación Provincial, 1990), 21–22; José Luis Senra, “Rebellion, Reconciliation, and a Romanesque Church in León-Castile (c.1109–1120),” Speculum 87/2 (2012): 397–403. L’animal exemplaire au Moyen Âge.  Ve‐XVe siècles, dirs. Jacques Berlioz and Marie Anne Polo de Beaulieu (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 1999).

24

Joyce E. Salisbury, The Beast Within. Animals in the Middle Ages (New York – London: Routledge, 1994). As for the domain of the mental representations and ideologies, Jacques Voisenet also acknowledges a change in the twelfth century regarding the consideration and discursive use of animals: Voisenet, Bêtes  et Hommes, 5. 25

See, for example, David Salter, Holy  and  Noble  Beasts.  Encounters with Animals in Medieval Literature (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2001), 4–6. 26

Pierre-Olivier Dittmar, “Naissance de la bestialité. Une anthropologie du rapport homme-animal dans les années

1300,” L’Atelier  du  Centre  de  recherches  historiques 10 (2010), http://acrh.revues.org/3958 (accessed March 7, 2013).

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21

Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  Our introductory overview builds its discourse around a work of art produced in a cult milieu, whose imagery stages ideas rooted in an encyclopedic and monastic culture 28 and subsequently relates to a certain intellectual construction of the world. Similarly, many of the chapters referred to in these pages deal at great lengths with texts and works of art expressing a particular – manipulated and stereotyped – world vision, configuring a representational system in which ideals were privileged and concrete experiences overridden. 29 In this sense, the contribution of archeology is essential to test the virtual aspects of these constructions, facing them to the data offered by the material record – although susceptible itself to influence from conceptual culture. As with other sources 30 in which phenomena of cohabitation, ownership, trade or consumption emerge, reflections coming from the zooarcheological domain help thus to give nuances and rewrite our vision of how people interacted with animals in the Middle Ages. They enable us to confront ideology and concrete realities – realms where animal otherness indistinctly played an outstanding role – and in so doing, they enrich considerably a discourse which otherwise would be irretrievably partial.

of animals with examples encompassing most of Europe. Within his extensive research, he identifies a category of animal remains that was purposefully connected with constructions of otherness: the skeletal fragments from a range of species that were imported into Europe from exotic places. These fragments provided the basis of luxury artifacts and many of them were able to survive in museum collections and treasuries. These exotic animal bones could lose their zoological identity in a process of manufactured transformation for commercial, aesthetic or religious purposes. As such, these remains could become physical evidence of the monstrous that transgressed the elemental boundary set out in medieval intellectual thought. Yet, by their own monstrous nature, they could be deployed in churches to attract an attentive audience and focus their devotional activity. Furthermore, these animal bones could also become relics that inspired a sense of wonder in the viewer and, at the same time, be used as exempla representing the local history as a legitimized and important part of biblical chronology. In the case of the dragon, the physical existence of its remains confirmed its reality, a reality that had previously been established through the accounts of individuals that had travelled to the edge of the world and back, and the epic battles between saints and dragons narrated in hagiographical accounts. The materiality of the dragon’s remains was constructed through exotic animal bones (like those of mammoth, woolly rhino or whale). These bones, especially the whale’s, were mostly unknown by the majority of the population and they were conceptually malleable enough to reconfigure them as a fantastic ‘other.’

Aleksander Pluskowski briefly takes on a casestudy of the dragon after investigating the relevance of animal bones and the material practices associated with responses to other species. The author creates a beautiful mosaic of data gathered not only from zooarchaeological sources, but also through historical, literary and even art historical materials, to demonstrate how the understanding of animal bones can open up a new discourse of otherness and alterity in the Middle Ages. As A. Pluskowski explains, the concept of the ‘other’ has been partially constructed by definitions of the normative, and he takes upon himself to analyze his rich and varied material to present what the normative was in respect to the treatment, consumption, and afterlife

Animals were good to think about in medieval culture.31 This suitability for conceptualization led them to be deployed in constructions of otherness and due to this malleability animals were merged with other dimensions of the phenomenon of alterity, some of them as beneficiaries of greater historiographical success. The discourse about otherness in the Middle Ages in the specialized scholarship of the last decades has been

These kinds of referents are discussed in relation to the iconography and context of the embroidery in Castiñeiras, El  Tapiz de la Creación, 30–31, 62–68 and 76.

28

29 For an extensive reflection on this ideological animal imaginary weaved mainly by the clergy see the masterful study of Voisenet, Bêtes et Hommes.

31 Dan Sperber, “Pourquoi les animaux parfaits, les hybrides et les monstres sont-ils bons à penser symboliquement?” L’Homme 15/2 (1975): 5–34; Albert Classen, “The Epistemological Function of Monsters in the Middle Ages,” Lo Sguardo 9 (2012): 13–34.

Let’s remember the legal corpora surveyed by M. Iuffrida, the chronicles examined by Y. Frenkel or the experiences recorded in the travelogues of T. Buquet’s chapter.

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F. García, M.A. Walker and M.V. Chico: An Overview from the Garden of Eden primordially focused in religious, ethnic and cultural differences. The essays gathered in this collection provide insights from multiple specialising areas that will certainly contribute to expand our knowledge of alterity to other facets of medieval times, emphasizing how animals were engaged in the experience of the ‘other.’

Konowitz, Ellen. “The Program of the Carrand Diptych.” Art Bulletin LXVI/3 (1984): 484–488. Maguire, Henry. “Adam and the Animals: Allegory and the Literal Sense in Early Christian Art.” Dumbarton  Oaks  Papers 41 (1987): 363–373. McCulloch, Florence. Medieval  and  Latin  French  Bestiaries. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1960. Moralejo, Serafín. “Cluny y los orígenes del románico palentino: el contexto de San Martín de Frómista.” In Jornadas  sobre  el  arte  de  las  órdenes  religiosas  en  Palencia, 7–27. Palencia: Diputación Provincial, 1990. Muratova, Xenia. “«Adam donne leurs noms aux animaux». L’iconographie de la scène dans l’art du Moyen Âge: les manuscrits des bestiaires enluminés du XIIe et du XIIIe siècles.” Studi  Medievali, 3rd series, XVIII/2 (1977): 367–394. Outters, Maÿlis. “La nomination des animaux par Adam dans l’Occident latin du XIIe au XVe siècle. Étude iconographique.” MA diss., Université de Versailles-Saint-Quentin-enYvelines, 2006. Palol, Pere de. El Tapís de la Creació de la Catedral de  Girona. Barcelona: Proa, 1986. Pastoureau, Michel. Une  histoire  symbolique  du  Moyen Âge occidental. Paris: Seuil, 2004. Saint Augustine. Sermones  supposititii.  Sermo  XXXVII.  De  David  et  Isai  patre  suo,  et  de  Golia. In PL 39: 1818–1821. Saint Isidore.  The  Etymologies  of  Isidore  of  Seville. Translated and edited by Stephen A. Barney et  al. Cambridge – New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Salisbury, Joyce E. The Beast Within. Animals in the  Middle Ages. New York – London: Routledge, 1994. Salter, David. Holy and Noble Beasts. Encounters with  Animals in Medieval Literature. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2001. Senra, José Luis. “Rebellion, Reconciliation, and a Romanesque Church in León-Castile (c.1109– 1120).” Speculum 87/2 (2012): 376–412. Sperber, Dan. “Pourquoi les animaux parfaits, les hybrides et les monstres sont-ils bons à penser symboliquement?” L’Homme 15/2 (1975): 5–34. Swanson, Rebecca. “Broderie de la création ou broderie du salut? Propositions de lecture iconographique du «Tapís de Girona».” Les  Cahiers  de  Saint‐Michel  de  Cuxa XLIII (2012): 95–100.

Bibliography  Berlioz, Jacques and Marie Anne Polo de Beaulieu, dirs. L’animal  exemplaire  au  Moyen  Âge.  Ve‐XVe  siècles. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 1999. Besseyre, Marianne. “Les animaux de l’arche de Noé: un bestiaire exemplaire?” Reinardus.  Yearbook  of  the  International  Reynard  Society 18 (2005): 3–27. Borkfelt, Sune. “What’s in a Name? – Consequences of Naming Non-Human Animals.” Animals 1 (2011): 116–125. Castiñeiras, Manuel. El Tapiz de la Creación. Girona: Catedral de Girona, 2011. Classen, Albert. “The Epistemological Function of Monsters in the Middle Ages.” Lo  Sguardo 9 (2012): 13–34. Cohen, Esther. “Animals in medieval perceptions. The image of the ubiquitous other.” In Animals  and  Human  Society.  Changing  perspectives, edited by Aubrey Manning and James Serpell, 59–80. London – New York: Routledge, 1994. Dittmar, Pierre-Olivier. “Naissance de la bestialité. Une anthropologie du rapport homme-animal dans les années 1300.” L’Atelier  du  Centre  de  recherches  historiques 10 (2010). http://acrh.revues.org/3958. Franco Jr., Hilário. “Le pouvoir de la parole: Adam et les animaux dans la tapisserie de Gérone.” Médiévales 25 (1993): 113–128. Freeman, Margaret B. “The Unicorn in Ancient and Medieval Texts.” In The Unicorn Tapestries, 11– 31. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1976. Gravestock, Pamela. “Did Imaginary Animals Exist?” In The  Mark  of  the  Beast.  The  Medieval  Bestiary  in  Art,  Life,  and  Literature, edited by Debra Hassig, 119–139. New York – London: Garland Publishing, 1999. Kendall, Calvin B. The  Allegory  of  the  Church.  Romanesque  Portals  and  their  Verse  Inscriptions. Toronto – Buffalo – London: University of Toronto Press, 1998.

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Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  The  Book  of  Beasts. Being  a  Translation  from  a  Latin  Bestiary  of  the  Twelfth  Century. Translated and edited by Terence H. White. London: W. S. Cowell, 1954. Voisenet, Jacques. Bestiaire  chrétien.  L’imagerie  animale  des  auteurs  du  Haut  Moyen  Âge  (Ve‐XIe  s.). Toulouse: Presses Universitaires du Mirail, 1994. Voisenet, Jacques. Bêtes  et  Hommes  dans  le  monde  médiéval. Le bestiaire des clercs du Ve au XIIe siècle. Turnhout: Brepols, 2000.

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T. Buquet: Animalia extranea et stupenda ad vivendum… 

– I –  ANIMALIA EXTRANEA ET STUPENDA AD VIDENDUM.   DESCRIBING AND NAMING EXOTIC BEASTS IN CAIRO  SULTAN’S MENAGERIE  Thierry BUQUET CNRS, Institut français du Proche-Orient (Beirut, Lebanon) [email protected]

Abstract  The description of exotic animals (African or Asiatic beasts as seen in European medieval context) is an interesting paradigm of otherness, especially in the construction of the image of the oriental world. Zoological marvels coming from India or Ethiopia were not imaginary beasts, but real animals that could be observed in nature or in Egyptian menageries. The paper studies three aspects of the description of foreign animals (especially elephants, giraffes, and other big animals) by occidental pilgrims: 1. The difficulty of describing the unknown, whether in zoological terms (detailing the external features of the animals), or in more affective terms (surprise, marvel, emotion); 2. The problem of naming unknown animals, whence the adoption of Arabic zoonyms; 3. The choice of species in the menageries selected for description in the travel account. Keywords  Pilgrimage; exotic animals; description; menageries; medieval travelogues

Introduction:  encounters  with  exotic  animals  in  Egypt 

visiting Egypt for commercial or diplomatic reasons.

Research on exotic animals has often ignored an important source, the descriptions of voyages made by medieval travellers in the Late Middle Ages.1 These travelogues, which contain many notes on strange fauna, are not just collections of mirabilia meant to astonish the reader. They contain eyewitness accounts of animals seen in the wild or in cities of the Near East. This paper will mainly focus on Cairo, a city often described by travellers 2 headed for the Holy Land or those

Pilgrims had to pass through Egypt when new lines of navigation were established in the Mediterranean in the fourth century and after the fall of Acre in 1291. These constraints led to the creation of new travel routes in the Nile Valley and Sinai Desert, including visits to Alexandria and Cairo.3 The passage through Egypt aroused a new curiosity about the country, for which there are three main reasons. Curiosity about Egypt was natural for it was little known before the thirteenth century, except through written sources. Secondly,

Jean Richard, Les  récits  de  voyages  et  de  pèlerinages, vol. A-I.7, Typologie des sources du Moyen Âge occidental 38 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1981).

géographie  d’Égypte 23 (1950): 117–149; 24 (1951): 115–162; 26 (1954): 87–118.

1

Aryeh Graboïs, “La description de l’Égypte au XIVe siècle par les pèlerins et les voyageurs occidentaux,” Le  Moyen  Âge 109, no 3–4 (2003): 529–543, see 530–531. 3

Pierre Herman Dopp, “Le Caire vu par les voyageurs occidentaux au Moyen Âge.” Bulletin  de  la  Société  Royale  de 

2

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Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  late medieval pilgrims added their personal observations to the description of the holy sites, describing things that had no relation to the religious motivations of their voyage.4 And lastly, the profile of the pilgrim underwent a sociological change in the later Middle Ages. Mingling with the men of the Church, we now find ambassadors, merchants, men in search of adventure, and explorers.5 There are even a few spies sent out on reconnaissance missions in preparation for possible crusades. Among these travellers, we find scholars versed in ancient texts and encyclopaedias.

hunting, monkeys and exotic birds, but where elephants and giraffes were quite rare, and indeed mainly absent before the thirteenth century. 8 Arabian menageries were without equal in Europe. 9 The tradition is ancient and we have a ninth-century source that speaks of a menagerie in Cairo in a complex architectural compound, with spaces and cages devoted to each species: lions, cheetahs, panthers, giraffes, elephants and so on.10 The richness of the Cairo menagerie is confirmed by travellers, who saw large groups of animals, between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries, for example herds of several elephants or families of five or six giraffes, male, female and calves,11 or a pride of eight lions, as Antonio Reboldi da Cremona mentioned in 1327.12

During their Egyptian tour, the traveller might encounter exotic animals while crossing the Sinai Peninsula, the habitat of wild, sometimes menacing animals (lions, leopards, hyenas, jackals, etc.); or while descending the Nile either by boat or along the banks, where the real or imagined encounter with crocodiles became a commonplace of this type of travelogue.

Thus, the Sultan’s menagerie was the ideal place to encounter and observe in detail rare and spectacular exotic animals.

Exotic animals and otherness  In cities, travellers took note of all the animals sold at markets or led about on tethers or exhibited to the public: namely lions, panthers, cheetahs, elephants, giraffes, monkeys, ostriches, parrots, etc.

If animals inspire the symbolic imagination,13 exotic species undoubtedly inspired medieval mentality reflections on the oriental world. In the For the elephant, see Robert Delort, Les  éléphants  piliers  du  monde, Découvertes Gallimard. Histoires naturelles 93 (Paris: Gallimard, 1990). For the giraffe, see Thierry Buquet, “La  belle  captive. La girafe dans les ménageries princières au Moyen Âge,” in La bête captive au Moyen Âge et à l’époque moderne, eds. Corinne Beck and Fabrice Guizard-Duchamp (Amiens: Encrage, 2012), 65–90. 8

Animal handlers, sometimes sent by the Sultan, led beasts directly to the pilgrims so that they could observed them at leisure and admire the quality of the training of bears, elephants, lions and monkeys. These animal trainers or guardians were paid for their visit. Felix Fabri, for example, notes in 1483 that he tipped the men who took him to see a giraffe, as they expected remuneration for their service.6

9 The history of oriental menageries remains to be written. One exception is a paper by L. Keimer, which has to be emended and completed, especially for the medieval times: Louis Keimer, “Jardins zoologiques d’Égypte,” Cahiers  d’histoire  égyptienne 6/2 (1954): 81–159.

Maqrīzī, Description historique et topographique de l’Égypte (Livre  des admonitions et de l’observation pour l’histoire des quartiers et des  monuments)  3e‐4e  parties, ed. Paul Casanova, vol. 3, Mémoires publiés par les membres de l’Institut français d’archéologie orientale du Caire 3–4 (Le Caire: Institut français d’archéologie orientale, 1906), 219–221. 10

The best place to see exotic beasts was the Sultan’s menagerie, and the Sultan’s staff often arranged the visit. Westerners knew about European princely menageries, 7 where one could find lions, cheetahs, lynxes and falcons used for

Lionardo di Niccolò Frescobaldi, Georgio Gucci, and Simone Sigoli, Viaggi  in  Terra  Santa,  di  Lionardo  Frescobaldi  e  d’altri  del  secolo XIV, ed. Carlo Gargiolli (Florence: G. Barbera, 1862), 125– 126. 11

4 Aryeh Graboïs, Le pèlerin occidental en Terre sainte au Moyen Âge (Paris-Brussels: De Boeck et Larcier, 1998), 46. 5

12 Antonio Reboldi da Cremona, “Antonius de Cremona. Itinerarium  ad  Sepulcrum  Domini  (1327–1330),” ed. Reinhold Röhricht, Zeitschrift  des  Deutschen  Palästina‐Vereins 13 (1890): 163.

Ibid.

6 Felix Fabri, Voyage  en  Égypte, ed. J. Masson, Collection des voyageurs occidentaux en Égypte 14 (Le Caire: Institut français d’archéologie orientale, 1975), II, 422.

Dan Sperber, “Pourquoi les animaux parfaits, les hybrides et les monstres sont-ils bons à penser symboliquement ?” L’Homme 15/2 (1975): 5–34. 13

Gustave Loisel, Histoire des ménageries de l’Antiquité à nos jours, 3 vols. (Paris: O. Doin et fils, 1912). 7

26

T. Buquet: Animalia extranea et stupenda ad vivendum…  Middle Ages, the perception of the Orient was built on more than religious oppositions and the Crusades. Discovery of new landscapes, new people, new habits and beliefs by pilgrims, travellers or crusaders, brought new information about countries previously known only through biblical or encyclopaedic texts. Descriptions of native or imported animals in Egypt, Holy Land, India or Persia, added to new zoological knowledge about exotics beasts. In accounts of their travels, pilgrims were as interested in depicting everyday life, cities and landscapes, as they were fascinated by such ‘marvels’ as crocodiles, elephants, giraffes and ostriches.14

quite different from the sensationalist attitude of nineteenth-century writers and artists. Humbert de Dijon, visiting Egypt in 1329–1330, says of Cairo that In eadem etiam civitate sunt multa et diversa animilia  stupenda  et  extranea  ad  videndum  ut  puta  leopardi,  elephantes,  unicornia,  crocodilli,  girafili  et  similia,  de  quorum nominibus non valeo recordari.18 (In this same city, there are many diverse foreign animals, astonishing to see, such as leopards, elephants, unicorns, crocodiles, giraffes and other of similar kinds 19 whose names I could not remember).

Today we speak of these animals as ‘exotic,’ but this adjective was very rare in medieval times, and was almost never applied to animals before the sixteenth century.15 The word and the idea are modern concepts, too readily projected back on the Middle Ages. In medieval Latin texts, foreign animals are sometimes qualified as extranea (foreign), peregrinus (alien, foreign, roving), ultramarinae  (overseas), mirabilia (marvelling, wonderful), and stupenda (astonishing, amazing, surprising). Matthew Paris, describing presents brought by the Sultan of Egypt to Frederick II in 1228, speaks of marvellous animals, unseen and unknown to Europe (‘bestiis mirabilis, quas Occidens  non  vidit  aut  cognovit’). 16 The most frequent adjective is peregrinus, thus explaining that the animal is coming from far away (the noun peregrinatio means a voyage to a foreign land). In a tenth-century gloss on the grammarian Nonius (fourth century AD), peregrinus is given as a synonym for exoticus,17 from the Greek exotikos which refers to clothes, objects or products that are not Greek. The modern notion of ‘exoticism’ summons up ideas of otherness, unfamiliarity, strangeness, and marvels of the Orient. These ideas were not ignored in medieval times, but they were

14

The medieval attitude toward exotic animals was thus centred on surprise and foreignness, and the difficulty of describing and naming. We can see here that the perception and the description of exotics beasts is an interesting paradigm of otherness, whereas alterity is something difficult to describe and record, especially with exotic animals.

Naming  the  unknown:  the  otherness  of  foreign  zoonyms  During the thirteenth century encyclopaedists had access to new zoological material through the De  animalibus by Aristotle, translated from the Arabic into Latin by Michael Scot. They also gleaned zoological material from the writings of Avicenna and Averroes. But the Arabic names of the animals in these Latin translations caused problems. If the Latin translator was ignorant of Greek zoological knowledge, he had to make an approximate transliteration of the Arabic world. For example, we find in Thomas de Cantimpré’s Liber  de  natura  rerum, or in Albert the Great’s De  animalibus (which paraphrases Aristotle), several zoonyms, previously unknown in Latin or vernacular tradition: agothilez,  amraham,  carchates, 

Richard, Récits de voyages et de pélerinages, 64–66.

Liliane Bodson, ed., Les  animaux  exotiques  in  les  relations  internationales  :  espèces,  fonctions,  significations.  Journée  d’étude,  Université  de  Liège,  22  mars  1997, Colloques d’histoire des connaissances zoologiques 9 (Liège: Université de Liège, 1998), Introduction, v. 15

Humbert de Dijon, “Un pèlerinage dominicain inédit du XIVe siècle : le Liber de locis et condicionibus Terrae sanctae d’Humbert de Dijon, O.P.,” eds. Thomas Käppeli and Pierre Benoit, Revue  biblique 62 (1955): 520. 18

Matthew Paris, Historia  anglorum  in  Ex  rerum  Anglicarum  scriptoribus  saec.  XIII, ed. Felix Liebermann, Monumenta Germaniae historica, Scriptores 28 (Hanover, 1888), 402. 16

‘Similia’ should be a copyist error for ‘simia’ (monkey), if we consider that, in the same sentence, ‘stupenda’ is a correction of the editors on ‘stupida,’ as it is written in the unique manuscript.

19

John Henry Onions and Wallace Martin Lindsay, “The Nonius Glosses,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 9 (1898): 76. 17

27

Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  dariata,  fetix,  komor,  kyches,  kym,  linachus,  magnales, etc., which can be linked, sometimes with difficulty, to Arabic names. Albert the Great, for example, uses the zoonym ‘alfech’ (or derivatives like alfeht, fehit, etc.) several times to describe a kind of leopard or lynx.20 The Arabic gives al‐fahd, the cheetah, an animal without a specific name in European languages in Antiquity21 and the Middle Ages.22 Thomas de Cantimpré’s oraflus,23 on the other hand, which is derived from the Arabic zarāfa for giraffe, is not found in Latin translations of Aristotle, or in any other antique or medieval source. This could be a misunderstanding of an oral report by a witness unfamiliar with the Arabic language.

encounter problems of naming an unknown animal in their diaries. Fra Niccola da Poggibonsi tells us in 1350 that ‘I’ve seen many things, countless animals for which I had no name because there was as yet no translation.’26 In 1387, Giorgio Gucci says of the giraffe ‘as its name is new, it is something even more novel to see.’ 27 Three different situations arise with regard to exotic species. In the first the animal is recognized and named by its Latin or vernacular name. This is the case of the elephant and the crocodile, which are recognized by everyone, and known locally by their Arabic name, fīl (elephant) and timsāḥ (crocodile). In his Latin travelogue, Adorno uses the vernacular form coquatrices, explaining that Arabs called them themasa. 28 He had thus recognized the beast on the Nile and was able to equate the Arabic word with a well-known vernacular zoonym. In the second situation an unfamiliar animal is given its Arabic name. This is the case of the giraffe, often called zarāfa or seraffe, as in Arabic. A few Italian pilgrims give the name giraffa, apparently using directly the previously known Italian word. 29 In the third situation an unknown animal is described but is not named, especially when, as Poggibonsi notes, there is no interpretation or translation available. Lacking knowledge of Arabic, pilgrims, like Humbert de Dijon, could not record foreign names. Similarly, Foucher de Chartres, a historian of the first Crusade, described a wild goat, for which nobody knew or had never heard of its name.30  

The imported animal names bring a strange feeling of alterity in the Latin texts of the encyclopaedists. This otherness stems from the novelty of the new animals such as the giraffe, and the ‘barbarism’ of the approximate Latinization of Arabic names. New zoonyms also appear in the literature of the Crusades in the twelfth century. The word gazela, for example, appears in Latin around 1110 (Albert of Aix – or Aachen)24 and the Old French ‘gacele’ appears around 1195 (Ambroise);25 both are built on the Arabic ghazāl. Travellers are confronted with new zoological realities that amaze and confound them, and

Albert the Great, De  animalibus  libri  XXVI:  nach  der  Cölner  Urschrift, ed. Hermann Stadler, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters 15–16 (Münster: Aschendorff, 1916), 2, 2.25, p. 297; 2, 3.37, p. 303; 2, 4.56, p. 311; 8, 3.28, p. 678; 19, 8.39, p. 1352; 2, lib. 22, 15.3, p. 1449. 20

Exotics, Otherness and Scholarship  Many pilgrims had already read widely about Egypt and the animals of Africa, and when faced with elephants or crocodiles, they show their learning not only by recognizing and naming non-

21 Liliane Bodson, “Contribution à l’étude des critères d’appréciation de l’animal exotique dans la tradition grecque ancienne,” in Les animaux exotiques in les relations internationales :  espèces fonctions, significations. Journée d’étude, Université de Liège,  22  mars  1997, ed. Liliane Bodson, Colloques d’histoire des connaissances zoologiques 9 (Liège: Université de Liège, 1998), 143, n25.

Thierry Buquet, “Le guépard médiéval, ou comment reconnaître un animal sans nom,” Reinardus.  Yearbook  of  the  International Reynard Society 23 (2011): 12–47.

22

Fra Niccola da Poggibonsi, Libro  d’Oltremare, ed. B. Bagati, Pubblicazioni dello Studium Biblicum Franciscanum 2 (Jerusalem, 1945), 108.

26

23 Thomas de Cantimpré, Liber  de  natura  rerum, ed. Helmut Boese (Berlin – New York: W. de Gruyter, 1973), lib. IV, cap. 83, p. 156.

27

Frescobaldi, Gucci, and Sigoli, Viaggi in Terra Santa, 297–299.

Jean Adorno, Itinéraire d’Anselme Adorno en Terre Sainte (1470– 1471), eds. Jacques Heers and Georgette de Groer, Sources d’histoire médiévale 11 (Paris: CNRS éditions, 1978), 180–181.

28

‘…qui lingua Sarracenica gazela appellatur…’: Albert of Aachen, Historia  Ierosolimitana:  History  of  the  Journey  to  Jerusalem, ed. Susan B. Edgington, Oxford medieval texts (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007), 578–579. 24

29

Poggibonsi, Libro d’Oltremare, 108.

Foucher de Chartres, Fulcheri  Carnotensis.  Historia  Hierosolymitana,  1095–1127, ed. Heinrich Hagenmeyer (Heidelberg: Carl Winters Universitätsbuchhandlung, 1913), 778. 30

Ambroise, The History of the Holy War: Ambroise’s Estoire de la  Guerre  Sainte, eds. Marianne Ailes and Malcolm Barber (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2003), v. 10548. 25

28

T. Buquet: Animalia extranea et stupenda ad vivendum…  European animals known in literature and in encyclopaedias (for example, elephant and crocodile), but also by inserting into their accounts passages borrowed from authorities or travel books. In this case, the traveller might do extensive research and compilation when he returned home. Furthermore, he might note details of anatomy or behaviour that ancient authorities missed out or misconstrued.

travelogue tries to transmit the emotion and admiration felt by pilgrims in the desert, who are sure that they have seen a fabulous beast.35 Religious pilgrims also recognized animals they had read about in the Bible. For example, the fifteenth-century Franciscan monk Symon Simeonis shows his amazement in front of the elephants, saying, ‘because of their stature and excessive size, they seem to possess all the strength referred to in Holy Scripture.’36

One spectacular case of scholarly compilation is that of Jacques de Vitry. He gives a list of African animals, which he borrowed mostly from bestiaries, ranging from Isidore of Seville to Pliny. The passage describing a giraffe whose name was ‘chimera’31 and which was exhibited in public in Egypt, appears to be based on direct observation, but the text was in fact borrowed from Foucher de Chartres, who wrote a century earlier. 32 Foucher himself compiled from several authorities, and at the end of his description of the fauna of the Holy Land, Foucher admits that in order to complete his own descriptions, he personally selected extracts from the wise and expert Solinus (‘hoc autem, quod  dixi  tantillum,  a  Solino  exquisitore  sagacissimo  et  dictatore expertissimo, prout valui, excerpsi’).33

When faced with animals well known in bestiaries, pilgrims sometimes try to verify the legends about their fabled attributes. All classical and medieval texts say that the ostrich can digest metal, even if Albert the Great had already cast doubt on the assertion.37 At the end of the fifteenth century, a German traveller, Paul Walther von Guglingen, wanted to prove by personal experience the veracity of the legend. He notes: I have proven that the ostrich eats iron. In the presence of my companions, I gave it a rather large nail, about the size of a finger, and the bird swallowed it as soon as she had received it from my hand.38

Felix Fabri described finding a strange animal in the desert on September 20, 1483. It may have been an oryx or an antelope, but Fabri thought it was a unicorn. His long description of the animal is a complex amalgam of things seen and literary references related to the legends surrounding the unicorn, the monoceros and the rhinoceros. His text flits back and forth between first person narrative and extracts from his sources.34 Here, the meeting with an unknown exotic beast transforms the witness into a mixture of legend, marvel and scholar knowledge. Facing the unknown and the otherness, the erudite pilgrim has to certify his account with several sources chosen from the best authors, as if it were too incredible without solid reference. The apparition of the unicorn in the

Another legend seems to haunt pilgrims who carefully examine the elephant: does it have knees? Can it bend its legs and thus lie down and stand up without help? In 1384, Frescobaldi seems intent on confirming ancient legends that claim that because the elephant was unable to lie down, thus had to lean against a wall in order to rest. He reports that ‘it stood leaning on its flank, having moved to the side, because without joints in its knees, it could not raise itself to a standing position.’39 But Wilhelm von Boldensele, in 1336, had already contradicted this assertion:

35

Ibid., §25.

Symon Simeonis, Itinerarium  Symonis  Semeonis  ab  Hybernia  ad  Terram Sanctam, ed. Mario Esposito, Scriptores Latini Hiberniae 4 (Dublin: The Dublin Institute for advanced Studies, 1960), 82–83.

36

Jacques de Vitry, Histoire orientale, ed. Marie-Geneviève Grossel, Traductions des classiques du Moyen Âge 72 (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2005), 263.

31

32

Foucher de Chartres, Historia Hierosolymitana, 778.

33

Ibid., 784.

37 Albert the Great, De  animalibus  libri  XXVI, lib. 23, tract. 1, cap. 24, §102, p. 1510.

Paul Walther von Guglingen, Itinerarium in Terram sanctam et  ad  sanctam  Catharinam, ed. Matthias Sollweck, Bibliothek des Litterapischen. Vereins in Stuttgart 192 (Tübingen: Gedruckt für den Litterarischen Verein in Stuttgart, 1892), 241.

38

Jean Meyers, “Le ‘rhinocéros’ de Frère Félix Fabri. Autopsie d’un passage de l’Evagatorium (II, 7, fol. 39 B-40 A),” Rursus 3 (2008), http://rursus.revues.org/221. 34

39

29

Frescobaldi, Gucci, and Sigoli, Viaggi in Terra Santa, §84.

Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  Certain people say that the elephant cannot stand up again once he has fallen to the earth. This is not true. The elephant frolics, lies down and stands up like other beasts. At the command of his master, he welcomes visitors, lowers his head, kneels, and kisses the earth, because in this country lords are honoured in this way.40

of giraffes fascinates most pilgrims. In 1485, The Franciscan Francesco Suriano finds the animal ‘bello a vedere’ and ‘piacevole’ (agreeable), but thinks that, despite all, the animal is proud and vain. He admits, however, to finding a great pleasure looking at this incredible thing (‘e  tanto  allegra  la  natura humana guardandolo, che è cossa incredibile’).45 The most loving among the admirers of giraffes is Martin Baumgarten who, when visiting Cairo in 1507, described the giraffe as ‘the most beautiful animal we can ever see… which has eyes of a charming aspect, like those of a young girl’ (‘oculos  visu gratissimos et quasi virgineos’).46

And indeed, most observers like Brancacci, in the fifteenth century, insist on the ability of the pachyderm to lie down, rise alone, and bend his knees.41 For the medieval traveller, the novelty of animals stands at the intersection between what he did see (the otherness) and what he wanted to find or verify (legends and knowledge from ancient authorities). In medieval travelogues, the novelty of Oriental realities is often structured upon the basis of pre-existent elements given by encyclopaedias, thus preparing the reception of novelty by the pilgrim.42

One of the most surprising aspects of the descriptions of the menagerie is that none of the pilgrims seems to be frightened by the animals, even lions or panthers. There is one exception, Paul Walther von Guglingen, who was afraid of a lion, brought in the courtyard of the pilgrims’ hotel, playing and roaring horribly (‘adductus  est  leo  magnus,  qui  ludebat  in  curia  coram  dominis  peregrinis, et emisit horribiles rugitus’).47 On the other hand, travellers seem to be afraid of savage beasts while crossing mountains and deserts, where lions, jackals, wolves and panthers could attack them.48 They describe the ugliness and the dangerous nature of the crocodile along the Nile River, comparing this animal to the dragon.49 But in the Sultan’s menagerie, pilgrims show no sign of fear in front of tamed animals, which are surrounded by fences, cages or barriers and often hold with chains or strong leashes. For the most part, pilgrims only describe elephants and giraffes, the rarest and more spectacular specimen of this medieval zoo. They rarely say a word about dangerous animals like large felines. They were probably used to see such animals in European courts and menageries, and were not frightened at all by them in this context.

 

Emotion in front of the otherness  The traveller wants to share with the reader his emotions and reactions, both to heighten the narrative and to give it a personal tone. In the testimony of Humbert de Dijon who wrote ‘animalia  stupenda  et  extranea  ad  videndum,’ the diversity and strangeness of animals leaves the traveller stupefied. Giorgio Gucci explains that elephants, giraffes and other such animals are ‘marvellous for which is not used to see such beasts’ (‘mirabili  bestie  a  chi  uso  non  è  di  tali  bestie  vedare’). 43 In 1394 in Cairo Nicola de Martoni speaks of jaraffe (giraffes) that are marvellous to see (mirabilia ad videndum).44 The ‘feminine’ beauty

Danielle Régnier-Bohler, ed., Croisades  et  pèlerinages  :  récits,  chroniques et voyages en Terre sainte, XIIe‐XVIe siècle (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1997), 1009. 40

41 Felice Brancacci, “Diaro di Felice Brancacci, ambasciatore con Carlo Federighi al Cairo per il commune di Firenze (1422),” ed. Dante Catellacci, Archivo Storico Italiano 4th series VIII (1881): 178.

Fra Francesco Suriano, Il trattato di Terra Santa e dell’oriente di  Frate Francesco Suriano, ed. Girolamo Golubovitch (Milan, 1900), 234.

45

42 We use here remarks by Bernard Ribémont on geography and unknown countries and islands. Bernard Ribémont, “L’inconnu géographique des encyclopédies médiévales. Fermeture et étrangeté,” Cahiers  de  recherches  médiévales 3 (1997): §4, http://crm.revues.org/index2465.html. 43

Martin von Baumgarten, Peregrinatio  in  Ægyptum,  Arabiam,  Palaestinam  et  Syriam, ed. C. Donauer (Nuremberg: ex officina Gerlachiana, 1594), lib. I, cap. 28, p. 68. 46

47

Frescobaldi, Gucci and Sigoli, Viaggi in Terra Santa, 297.

Walther von Guglingen, Itinerarium, 229.

John Wilkinson, ed., Jerusalem  Pilgrims  before  the  Crusades (Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 2002), 36. 48

Nicola de Martoni, “Relation de pèlerinage de Nicolas de Martoni (1394–1395),” ed. Léon Le Grand, Revue de l’Orient Latin 3 (1895): 602.

44

49

30

Simeonis, Itinerarium, 66–67.

T. Buquet: Animalia extranea et stupenda ad vivendum…  Description 

Selecting elephants and giraffes 

In both text and image, the medieval description of the exotic animal relies on analogy and fitting together of parts. The most common technique is to describe the different anatomical parts of the animal, comparing each with a betterknown animal. This semantic and zoological puzzle leaves the reader with the impression of a marvel, if not a monster, that measures up to the image the West had made of the East in the Middle Ages. 50 The traveller used the jigsaw method in order to describe disconcerting animals. The wild goat described by Foucher de Chartres was a mix of goat, donkey, horse and ram.51 The elephant is sometimes compared to the pig for its skin, and according to Frescobaldi 52 and Brancacci, 53 it has ears like bat wings, or even like a dragon, in the words of Fra Niccolo di Poggibonsi.54 The giraffe can have the neck of a camel or even may resembles an ostrich, according to Simone Sigoli.55 Its horns are linked to those of goats or the antlers of deer. It has the hooves of a bull and the tail of a gazelle. Adorno describes the giraffe using comparisons with camel, stag, and ox. 56 Evoking this kind of zoological puzzle, Sigoli writes that the giraffe is a counterfeit thing to see (‘cosa  molto contrafatta’), that is to say a weird imitation, a forgery made by different pieces.57

Western travellers were very selective about the animals they discussed, despite the wide variety present in Cairo menageries. They were struck first by the two most spectacular animals, the elephant and the giraffe. The lions, panthers, and cheetahs, on the other hand, are almost never described. These species were well known and too common to merit any mention in the texts. In 1470, Adorno even says that the elephants are ‘kept at the court of the sultan, just like the lions at our courts,’ emphasizing the banality of the lion in order to underscore the rarity of the elephant. One of the very rare travellers to mention the sultan’s ‘eight lions’ is Antonio Reboldi of Cremona in 1327.58 He also mentions six elephants, which he both saw and touched, but the only animal he describes is the giraffe, which was unknown to him, and he names it zarāfa, from its Arabic zoonym. He refers to it because he knows nothing like it in the world: ‘In mondo non est ita similis bestia.’59 In the brief passages about Cairo’s menagerie, pilgrims limited themselves to the most spectacular animals as a matter of verbal economy. One of the most famous travellers at the end of the Middle Ages, Bernhard von Breydenbach, chose not to talk about the animals at all. He said that Arabs from the Sultan’s court showed to the Pilgrims diverse strange animals, but he refrained from talking about this for the sake of brevity:

Although this kind of jigsaw puzzle descriptions might fill the readers with a sense of marvel and strangeness, it was not necessarily the original purpose of the writers. Their descriptions are factual, quite precise and objective, and sometimes interspersed with legends, critically dismissed in the face of observation, as was noted earlier with the elephant and the ostrich.

Porro cum die illo in hospitio prefato essemus varie ad  nos  bestie  monstruose  adducebantur  per  mauros  de  castro  domini  Soldani  pro  spectaculo  de  quibus  brevitatis gratia supersedeo.60

The Dominican Friar Martin Roth, who wrote the itinerary for Breydenbach, may have shortened Breydenbach’s account. In either case, the fact remains that these zoological observations seem less important than descriptions of the voyage and the holy sites. When travellers decided to write a few sentences describing the Sultan’s menagerie, they focussed on the two biggest, most spectacular and rarest species: the elephant and the giraffe.

50 Gilbert Lascaut, Les  monstres  dans  l’art  occidental (Paris: Klinsieck, 1973), 220. 51

Foucher de Chartres, Historia Hierosolymitana, 778.

52

Frescobaldi, Gucci, and Sigoli, Viaggi in Terra Santa, 48.

53

Brancacci, “Diaro,” 178.

54

Poggibonsi, Libro d’Oltremare, 108.

Simone Sigoli, Viaggio ai Monte Sinai (1384), ed. Luigi Fiacchi, Biblioteca scelta di opere italiane antiche et moderne 427 (Milan, 1841), 102–103. 55

56

Adorno, Itinéraire, 192.

57

Sigoli, Viaggio ai Monte Sinai (1384), 103.

58

Reboldi da Cremona, Itinerarium, 163.

59

Ibid., 164.

Bernhard von Breydenbach, Les saintes pérégrinations de Bernard  de Breydenbach (1483). Extraits relatifs à l’Égypte suivant l’édition de  1490, ed. F. Larrivaz (Cairo, 1904), 14. 60

31

Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  giraffe, elicited not only fascination, but also great emotion, as Francesco Suriano admitted.61

The two beasts thus emerge as paragons of exoticism and zoological otherness, living symbols of the Orient fauna. The Elephant was already familiar from ancient history, encyclopaedic and biblical knowledge; the giraffe, on the other hand, was a true novelty, a wonder in the Lord’s Creation, without equal for its aspect and beauty.

This attraction may have been the first step in the construction of a symbol, which would grow at the Renaissance, and then reappear after the eighteenth century: the couple elephant-giraffe as a living emblem of Africa and its marvels.

 

Conclusion 

Bibliography 

Describing exotic beasts in medieval travelogues was part of the construction of the medieval image of the Orient. The otherness of true zoological marvels such as elephants and giraffes brought to the reader, through astonishing descriptions, sensations of strangeness and marvel. These literary effects where not only created from legendary monsters or exaggeration, but often from a scholarly approach. Pilgrims wanted to exhibit their knowledge and to support their accounts by quoting the Ancients. Thus, travelogues sometimes balance between scholarship and personal feelings, at the intersection between what pilgrims actually saw and what they wanted to verify. The novelty of Oriental realities is structured upon pre-existing knowledge; pilgrims were thus prepared to structure their reception of strange beasts. The otherness of such exotics animals like elephants, giraffes, ostriches is the result of a mixture of preexistent ideas and a sensitive approach. The animal is even too novel to observe objectively; the description relies upon details borrowed for other animals, giving the reader the image of a jigsaw puzzle. The otherness is both attenuated (various parts of foreign animals find resemblance in more common beasts) and exaggerated (the construction of the ‘puzzling creature’ brings the image of a monster). Naming new animals like the giraffe forced the pilgrims to use Arabic names, bringing otherness to the language and reinforcing the strangeness of the travelogue.

Sources  Albert of Aachen. Historia Ierosolimitana: History of  the  Journey  to  Jerusalem. Edited by Susan B. Edgington. Oxford medieval texts. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007. Albert the Great. De animalibus libri XXVI : nach der  Cölner  Urschrift. Edited by Hermann Stadler. 2 vols. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters 15–16. Münster: Aschendorff, 1916. Ambroise. The  History  of  the  Holy  War:  Ambroise’s  Estoire de la Guerre Sainte. Edited by Marianne Ailes and Malcolm Barber. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2003. Antonio Reboldi da Cremona. “Antonius de Cremona. Itinerarium  ad  Sepulcrum  Domini  (1327–1330).” Edited by Reinhold Röhricht. Zeitschrift  des  Deutschen  Palästina‐Vereins 13 (1890): 153–174. http://www.archive.org/details/zeitschriftdesd e13deut. Bernhard von Breydenbach. Les  saintes  pérégrinations de Bernard de Breydenbach (1483).  [Extraits  relatifs  à  l’Égypte  suivant  l’édition  de  1490]. Edited by F. Larrivaz. Cairo: Imprimerie Nationale, 1904. Felice Brancacci. “Diaro di Felice Brancacci, ambasciatore con Carlo Federighi al Cairo per il commune di Firenze (1422).” Edited by Dante Catellacci. Archivo  Storico  Italiano 4th Series, VIII (1881): 157–188 and 326–334. Felix Fabri. Voyage en Égypte. Edited by J. Masson. Collection des voyageurs occidentaux en Égypte 14. Cairo: Institut français d’archéologie orientale, 1975.

On the most interesting facets of medieval accounts on Egyptian menageries is the importance given to the description of elephants and giraffes. Pilgrims shortened their description of the other beasts in the menageries in order to give more space to these large varieties to the point of ignoring the more familiar exotic beasts known from European menageries. Encounters with the two true marvels of Creation, the elephant and the

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Suriano, Il trattato di Terra Santa, 234.

T. Buquet: Animalia extranea et stupenda ad vivendum…  Paul Walther von Guglingen. Itinerarium in Terram  sanctam  et  ad  sanctam  Catharinam. Edited by Matthias Sollweck. Bibliothek des Litterapischen. Vereins in Stuttgart 192. Tübingen: Gedruckt für den Litterarischen Verein in Stuttgart, 1892. http://www.archive.org/details/fratrispauliwal 01waltgoog. Régnier-Bohler, Danielle, ed. Croisades et pèlerinages:  récits, chroniques et voyages en Terre sainte, XIIe‐ XVIe siècle. Paris: Robert Laffont, 1997. Simone Sigoli. Viaggio ai Monte Sinai (1384). Edited by Luigi Fiacchi. Biblioteca scelta di opere italiane antiche et moderne 427. Milan, 1841. Symon Simeonis. Itinerarium  Symonis  Semeonis  ab  Hybernia  ad  Terram  Sanctam. Edited by Mario Esposito. Scriptores Latini Hiberniae 4. Dublin: The Dublin Institute for advanced Studies, 1960. Thomas de Cantimpré. Liber  de  natura  rerum. Edited by Helmut Boese. Berlin – New York: W. de Gruyter, 1973. Wilkinson, John, ed. Jerusalem  Pilgrims  before  the  Crusades. Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 2002.

Fra Francesco Suriano. Il  trattato  di  Terra  Santa  e  dell’oriente di Frate Francesco Suriano. Edited by Girolamo Golubovitch. Milan, 1900. Fra Nicola da Poggibonsi. Libro d’Oltremare. Edited by B. Bagati. Pubblicazioni dello Studium Biblicum Franciscanum 2. Jerusalem, 1945. Foucher de Chartres. Fulcheri  Carnotensis.  Historia  Hierosolymitana, 1095–1127. Edited by Heinrich Hagenmeyer. Heidelberg: Carl Winters Universitätsbuchhandlung, 1913. http://www.archive.org/details/historiahieroso l00foucuoft. Humbert de Dijon. “Un pèlerinage dominicain inédit du XIVe siècle: le Liber  de  locis  et  condicionibus  Terrae  sanctae d’Humbert de Dijon, O.P.” Edited by Thomas Käppeli and Pierre Benoit. Revue biblique 62 (1955): 513–540. Jacques de Vitry. Histoire  orientale. Edited by Marie-Geneviève Grossel. Traductions des classiques du Moyen Âge 72. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2005. Jean Adorno. Itinéraire  d’Anselme  Adorno  en  Terre  Sainte (1470–1471). Edited by Jacques Heers & Georgette de Groer. Sources d’histoire médiévale 11. Paris: CNRS éditions, 1978. Lionardo di Niccolò Frescobaldi, Georgio Gucci, and Simone Sigoli. Viaggi  in  Terra  Santa,  di  Lionardo  Frescobaldi  e  d’altri  del  secolo  XIV. Edited by Carlo Gargiolli. Florence: G. Barbera, 1862. Maqrīzī. Description  historique  et  topographique  de  l’Égypte (Livre des admonitions et de l’observation  pour l’histoire des quartiers et des monuments) 3e‐ 4e  parties. Edited by Paul Casanova. Vol. 3. Mémoires publiés par les membres de l’Institut français d’archéologie orientale du Caire 3–4. Cairo: Institut français d’archéologie orientale, 1906. http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5806744c. Martin von Baumgarten. Peregrinatio in Ægyptum,  Arabiam,  Palaestinam  et  Syriam. Edited by C. Donauer. Nuremberg: ex officina Gerlachiana, 1594. Matthew Paris. Historia  anglorum  in  Ex  rerum  Anglicarum  scriptoribus  saec.  XIII. Edited by Felix Liebermann. Monumenta Germaniae historica, Scriptores 28. Hanover, 1888. Nicola de Martoni. “Relation de pèlerinage de Nicolas de Martoni (1394–1395).” Edited by Léon Le Grand. Revue de l’Orient Latin 3 (1895): 566–669. http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k220817b.

Studies  Bodson, Liliane. “Contribution à l’étude des critères d’appréciation de l’animal exotique dans la tradition grecque ancienne.” In Les  animaux  exotiques dans les relations internationales : espèces  fonctions, significations. Journée d’étude, Université  de Liège, 22 mars 1997, edited by Liliane Bodson, 139–212. Colloques d’histoire des connaissances zoologiques 9. Liège: Université de Liège, 1998. Bodson, Liliane, ed. Les  animaux  exotiques  dans  les  relations  internationales:  espèces,  fonctions,  significations. Journée d’étude, Université de Liège,  22  mars  1997. Colloques d’histoire des connaissances zoologiques 9. Liège: Université de Liège, 1998. Buquet, Thierry. “Le guépard médiéval, ou comment reconnaître un animal sans nom.” Reinardus.  Yearbook  of  the  International  Reynard  Society 23 (2011): 12–47. http://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs00655131/fr/. Buquet, Thierry. “La belle captive. La girafe dans les ménageries princières au Moyen Âge.” In La  bête captive au Moyen Âge et à l’époque moderne, Edited by Corinne Beck and Fabrice GuizardDuchamp, 65–90. Amiens: Encrage, 2012.

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Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  Delort, Robert. Les  éléphants  piliers  du  monde. Découvertes Gallimard. Histoires naturelles 93. Paris: Gallimard, 1990. Dopp, Pierre Herman. “Le Caire vu par les voyageurs occidentaux au Moyen Âge.” Bulletin  de  la  Société  Royale  de  géographie  d’Égypte 23 (1950): 117–149; 24 (1951): 115–162; 26 (1954): 87–118. Graboïs, Aryeh. “La description de l’Égypte au XIVe siècle par les pèlerins et les voyageurs occidentaux.” Le  Moyen  Âge 109/3–4 (2003): 529–543. Graboïs, Aryeh. Le  pèlerin  occidental  en  Terre  sainte  au  Moyen  Âge. Paris-Brussels: De Boeck et Larcier, 1998. Keimer, Louis. “Jardins zoologiques d’Égypte.” Cahiers d’histoire égyptienne 6/2 (1954): 81–159. Lascaut, Gilbert. Les  monstres  dans  l’art  occidental. Paris: Klinsieck, 1973. Loisel, Gustave. Histoire  des  ménageries  de  l’Antiquité à nos jours. 3 vols. Paris: O. Doin et fils [etc.], 1912. http://www.archive.org/details/histoiredesmn a01loisuoft. Meyers, Jean. “Le ‘rhinocéros’ de Frère Félix Fabri. Autopsie d’un passage de l’Evagatorium (II, 7, fol. 39 B-40 A).” Rursus 3 (2008). http://rursus.revues.org/221. Onions, John Henry, and Wallace Martin Lindsay. “The Nonius Glosses.” Harvard  Studies  in  Classical Philology 9 (1898): 67–86. Ribémont, Bernard. “L’inconnu géographique des encyclopédies médiévales. Fermeture et étrangeté.” Cahiers  de  recherches  médiévales 3 (1997): 101–111. http://crm.revues.org/index2465.html. Richard, Jean. Les récits de voyages et de pèlerinages. Vol. A-I.7. Typologie des sources du Moyen Âge occidental 38. Turnhout: Brepols, 1981. Sperber, Dan. “Pourquoi les animaux parfaits, les hybrides et les monstres sont-ils bons à penser symboliquement ?” L’Homme 15/2 (1975): 5–34.

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L. Fenelli: From the Vita Pauli to the Legenda Breviarii… 

– II – FROM THE VITA PAULI TO THE LEGENDA BREVIARII:   REAL AND IMAGINARY ANIMALS AS A GUIDE TO THE HERMIT  IN THE DESERT  Laura FENELLI Università di Bologna – Alma Mater Studiorum Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck Institut [email protected] To Liliana and Lucio,   who both disappeared while I was writing these pages 

Abstract  In this contribution we shall analyse the role of some animal figures in a select group of texts, the Vita  Antonii composed by Athanasius, the Vita Pauli written by Jerome, and then some texts from the eleventh, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, which are based on the life of the first hermit Paul. This small group of texts will help us to reflect on the specific relationship between Anthony and some peculiar animals (real and imaginary) who guide him into the desert, in search of his old companion Paul. More specifically, by exploring how notions of ‘otherness’ are presented in these texts, which chart a trajectory that runs from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages, the following study will elucidate how the relationship between the hermit and animals changed through the centuries. Keywords  Saint Anthony; hermits; desert; centaur; deer

The theme of the hermit Saint Anthony’s relationship to the animal world is exceedingly complex and difficult to circumscribe within the confines of a single paper. This subject has assumed a multitude of forms, which helped to organize a large and legendary hagiographic corpus as well as a set of devotional practices that led to the anchorite’s canonization as the patron saint of animals of the Western Mediterranean.1

Here we shall analyse the role of some animal figures in a select group of texts, the Vita  Antonii composed by Athanasius in Greek during the midfourth century,2 the Vita Pauli, written by Jerome a few years later,3 and then some texts from the eleventh, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,

The Greek version is in Atanasius Alexandrinus Episcopus, “Vita et Conversatio S. P. N. Antonii,” in Patrologia Graeca, vol. XXVI, coll. 835–976. A good English translation is in Athanasius, Select  Works  and  Letters, eds. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, vol. 4 of Nicene  and  Post‐Nicene  Fathers, series 2 (New York: Christian Literature Publishing Company, 1924), 195–221. I will quote from this translation, from here VA, followed by the indication of the paragraph. 2

1 On the role of Saint Anthony as the patron of animals, see, mostly: Laura Fenelli, Dall’eremo alla stalla. Storia di sant’Antonio  abate  e  del  suo  culto (Rome – Bari: Laterza, 2011). On the late medieval devotion for the hermit see also: Christopher Wood, “The votive scenario,”  RES:  Anthropology  and  Aesthetics 59/60 (2011): 206–227. A good and succinct compendium on the hagiographical corpus is Dennis Dutschke, “The Translation of St. Antony from the Egyptian Desert to the Italian City,” Aevum 68 (1994): 499–549.

Jerome, “Life of Paul of Thebes,”  in Early  Christian  Lives, ed. Carolinne White (London: Penguin Books 1998), 71–84. I will quote from this translation, from here VP, followed by the indication of the paragraph.

3

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Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  not nigh this spot.’ And from that time forward, as though fearful of his command, they no more came near the place. 7

which are based on the life of the first hermit Paul. This small group of texts will help us to reflect on the specific relationship between Anthony and some peculiar animals (real and imaginary) that guide him into the desert, in search of his old companion Paul.4 More specifically, by exploring how notions of ‘otherness’ are presented in these texts, which chart a trajectory that runs from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages, the following paper will expound how the relationship between the hermit and animals changed through the centuries. The legends will be associated, in our discussion, to a small sample of late Trecento images.5

So as a result of the saint’s request the animals obeyed and stopped tormenting him, allowing the hermit to dedicate himself to his work. In other words, the boundary between the human and the feral, transgressed by the animals, was reestablished by the miraculous action of the saint. It is not clear how the interaction between the animals and the saint occurred, i.e., if God had endowed Anthony with the power to speak with animals or rather if they had prodigiously been given the ability to understand him. This is not an insignificant detail, because, as we will see, since Classical Antiquity, the power of speech (and, consequently, the capacity to understand human language) clearly marked the borders between what was considered human and what was considered feral.

In spite of what will happen from the thirteenth century onwards, when Anthony will be regarded as the patron saint of animals, there are only three passages in the first biography composed by Athanasius in which Anthony interacts with them.6 In each case, the animals are portrayed as the hermit’s adversaries, and they have the narrative role of enlightening the reader to the saint’s miraculous power. It is significant that our analysis starts with this text, for the Vita  Antonii was, in fact, a real Late Antiquity bestseller and, at the same time, a repository of hagiographic motifs destined to influence literary production on the lives of the saints for centuries to come.

We find a similar dynamic in a subsequent passage, again from the Athanasian biography. Throughout the narrative Anthony is almost always in the desert, where he is endlessly tormented by demons: during these encounters – which constitute the central theme of the anchorite’s recorded life – the devil takes the form of wild animals in what has been described, in modern terms, as the ‘Panzootic devil,’ i.e. a form of evil that manifests itself as different animals and hurls itself against the anchorite with unprecedented ferocity:8

In the first passage, Athanasius recounts that Anthony has an orchard, but unfortunately the frequent incursions of wild animals prevent him from reaping the fruits of his labour. The hermit, in turn, confronts one of them and calmly urges it not to bother him anymore:

But changes of form for evil are easy for the devil, so in the night they made such a din that the whole of that place seemed to be shaken by an earthquake, and the demons as if breaking the four walls of the dwelling seemed to enter through them, coming in the likeness of beasts and creeping things. And the place was on a sudden filled with the forms of lions, bears, leopards, bulls, serpents, asps, scorpions, and wolves, and each of them was moving according to his nature. The lion was roaring, wishing to attack, the bull seeming to toss with its horns, the

But after this, seeing again that people came, he cultivated a few pot-herbs, that he who came to him might have some slight solace after the labour of that hard journey. At first, however, the wild beasts in the desert, coming because of the water, often injured his seeds and husbandry. But he, gently laving hold of one of them, said to them all, ‘Why do you hurt me, when I hurt none of you? Depart, and in the name of the Lord come

On the theme of the animal guide, and the fundamental basis for this essay, see Carlo Donà, Per  le  vie  dell’altro  mondo.  L’animale guida e il mito del viaggio (Soveria Mannelli: Rubettino, 2003). 4

7

For a more critical discussion on the iconographical corpus, see Laura Fenelli, “Sant’Antonio abate. Parole, reliquie, immagini” (PhD diss., Università degli Studi, Bologna, 2006–2007). 5

6

VA, 50.

The definition of ‘panzootic devil’ comes from Pierre Boglioni, “Il santo e gli animali nell’Alto Medioevo,” in L’uomo di fronte al  mondo  animale  nell’Alto  Medioevo.  Atti  della  XXXI  settimana  di  studio  del  Centro  italiano  di  Studi  sull’Alto  Medioevo,  7–13  aprile  1983 (Spoleto: CISAM, 1985), 937–993. 8

On those cultual methamorphosis see: Fenelli, Dall’eremo.

36

L. Fenelli: From the Vita Pauli to the Legenda Breviarii…  serpent writhing but unable to approach, and the wolf as it rushed on was restrained; altogether the noises of the apparitions, with their angry ragings, were dreadful.9

also functioned as a sort of container of motifs which became hagiographical topoi, and Anthony’s quest and encounters will reappear, slightly later, in many other medieval legends, such as the story of Onophrius and Paphnutius, which replicates the essential passages of Jerome’s text.12 As stated by Elliot,

The saint’s third encounter with an animal presence in the Vita  Antonii was of fleeting terror, as the creature, probably a sort of centaur, half man half ass (and not horse, as expected), quickly appears and vanishes. The animal is clearly a demonic presence, since it disappears as soon as the hermit shows him the cross.10

the essential plot of these legends is a journey, a quest. The hero goes forth, finds a person who imparts knowledge (the story of his life), and who then usually dies. Although the traveller would like to remain in the enchanted spot, he may not do so but must return to the world with his acquired knowledge. (…) Without the account of Paphnutius’s adventures, we would never know of Onuphrius.13

The saint’s encounters with animals – be they real, as in the first case, or demonic, as in the second and third – is, in all the episodes narrated in the Vita  Antonii, a genuine confrontation in which only the anchorite’s faith, and his closeness to God, re-establishes a boundary between feral otherness and holy humanity, a boundary that the animals had dared to cross.

The motif that triggers the event – which has all the typical elements of a fable14 – is, as we have said, a divine revelation: a ninety year-old Anthony was enlightened by an angel of the existence of a hermit even older than himself. This revelation functioned as a reprimand for Anthony’s sin of pride, which he committed when he considered himself the first anchorite of the desert. He therefore decided to go on a journey, and during this trip, in which the meeting with Paul seems to be constantly postponed, the role of the animals stands in marked contradistinction to the Vita  Antonii. In Jerome’s text three figures, which occupy a position somewhere between

The relationship between the animal universe and the world of holy men is completely reversed if we look at a slightly later text where Anthony is once again the protagonist, the Life  of  Paul,  first  hermit, composed by Jerome in 374 or 375 during his first stay in the East. As it has already been pointed out several times,11 the real protagonist of the text is not so much Paul, a hermit whose historicity has been questioned since Antiquity, but rather Anthony, who, having been apprised of the hermit’s existence by an angel, sets out on a journey to meet his companion, then stays with the ascetic and finally follows his last wishes. Jerome’s text does not simply add a peculiar episode to Anthony’s first biography composed by Athanasius, but radically alters it. In the Vita  Antonii, Anthony is a solitary hermit who refuses human contact and individually fights the demons. In Jerome’s account he is a traveller, who faces the desert’s asperity in search of his old companion. Much like the Athanasian biography, Jerome’s text

9

On the Peregrinatio  Paphnutii  or the Vita  Onuphrii, see Alison Goddard Elliott, Roads  to  Paradise.  Reading  the  Lives  of  the  Early  Saints (Hanover – London: Brown, 1987), 51–58. The date of this text is still uncertain: if Amélineau’s [Émile Amélineau, “Voyage d’un moine égyptien dans le désert,” Recueil de travaux  relatifs  à  la  philologie  et  à  l’archéologie  égyptiennes  et  assyriennes 6 (1885): 166–194] attribution of the Coptic Vita  Onuphrii to the mid-fourth century is correct, then this little-known legend must be considered Jerome’s source, since the accepted date of composition for the Vita Pauli is 374–375. For a different date of the Vita  Onuphrii, which gives priority to the Vita  Pauli, see: William A. Oldfather, Studies  in  the  text  tradition  of  St.  Jerome’s  Vitae Patrum (Urbana: Indiana Illinois Press, 1943) and, mostly, the studies by Fagnoni, who is preparing the critical edition of the text: Anna Maria Fagnoni, “Una Vita greca di s. Onofrio mimetizzata. Osservazioni sulla composizione di BHG 23302330a,” Hagiographica. Rivista di agiografia e biografia della Società  internazionale per lo studio del Medio Evo Latino III (1996): 247–263; Id., “Volgarizzamenti italiani della Vita Onuphrii. Prime linee di ricerca,” in Studi  vari  di  lingua  e  letteratura  italiana  in  onore  di  Giuseppe Velli (Milan: Cisalpino 2000), 25–62. 12

VA, 9.

10

VA, 53

Pierre Leclerc, “Antoine et Paul: métamorphose d’un héros,” in Jérôme entre l’Occident et l’Orient (XVIe centenaire du départ de  saint  Jérôme  de  Rome  et  de  son  installation  à  Bethléem), ed. YvesMarie Duval (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1988), 257–265; Anton A. R. Bastiaensen, “Jérôme hagiographe,” in Hagiographies.  Histoire  internationale  de  la  littérature  hagiographique latine et vernaculaire en Occident des origines à 1550  (Turnhout: Brepols, 1994), 1: 97–123. 11

13

Elliott, Roads, 73–74.

On the notion of ‘hagiographic romance’ and its themes and motives, see again Elliott, Roads, esp. 59–64. 14

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Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  was frescoed in the early 1370s (Figure 2-1).18 The scene of Le Campora clearly shows that there is a sort of iconographical inertia in the medieval representation of the centaur encountered by the hermit in the desert: the painter follows in fact a classical iconography, with the monster half-horse and half-man and his face, bearded and surely human, is closer to the Ancient Greek figurative examples rather than to Jerome’s description.

human and feral, appear as guides: a centaur, a satyr and lastly a she-wolf. The three animals solve what Elliot calls ‘a natural question concerning the desert solitaries (…): “But how did he find his way across the unmapped wilderness”?’15 The centaur, the first creature Anthony encounters on his walk, is described in detail by Jerome according to the classical iconography:16 half-man half-horse, at first glance unable to speak clearly, with a hideous mouth, and spiky with bristles. In other words, a monster.17 It is significant to point out that according to Jerome’s description, it seems that the centaur’s head is not entirely human. Nevertheless, it manages to speak ‘softly,’ says Jerome, and using its right hand, which is clearly human in form, shows Anthony the road that leads to Paul, then disappears immediately. The episode of the encounter with the centaur had a huge success in the cycles devoted to Saint Anthony in medieval Europe: in Trecento Italy one of the most significant cases is the cycle of Le Campora, a Gerolamine convent close to Florence, where a chapel devoted to the Egyptian hermit

Ibid., 116. The author mistakenly says: ‘In the Vita  Pauli Anthony has two guides in the desert,’ since the guides are clearly three.

15

16 Jacqueline Leclercq-Marx, “Le centaure dans l’art préroman et roman. Sources d’inspiration et modes de transmission,” Les  Cahiers  de  Saint‐Michel  de  Cuxa 37 (2006): 33–42; see also Jacqueline Leclercq-Marx, “La sirène et l’(ono)centaure dans le Physiologus grec et latin et dans quelques Bestiaires. Le texte et l’image,” in Bestiaires  médiévaux.  Nouvelles  perspectives  sur  les  manuscrits  et  les  traditions  textuelles, ed. Baudouin Van den Abeele (Louvain-la-Neuve: Institut d’Études Médiévales de l’Université Catholique de Louvain, 2005), 169–192. On the role of centaurs throughout the centuries, see Elizabeth Atwood Lawrence, “The Centaur: Its History and Meaning in Human Culture,” The  Journal  of  Popular  Culture 27/4 (1994): 57–68. On the centaur and its body (and skin) as a living symbol of liminality, see Sébastien Douchet, “La peau du centaure à la frontière de l’humanité et de l’animalité,” Micrologus XIII (2005) (La pelle umana / The Human Skin): 285–312.

Figure  2‐1.  Florentine  Painter  (Pietro  Nelli?),  Saint  Anthony,  the  centaur, the satyr. Florence, S. Maria al Sepolcro (Le Campora). 

17 The literature on classical and medieval hybrids is quite abundant. See, for a methodological introduction, Pierre-Olivier Dittmar, “Naissance de la bestialité. Une anthropologie du rapport home-animal dans les années 1300” (PhD diss., École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, 2009–2010); Lorraine J. Daston and Katarine Park, Wonders  and  the  Order  of  Nature,  1150–1750 (New York: Zone book, 1998); David Williams, Deformed  discourse.  The  function  of  the  Monster  in  the  Mediaeval thought and Literature (Montreal – Kingston – London: McGil Queen’s University Press, 1996); Claude-Claire Kappler, Monstres, démons et merveilles à la fin du Moyen Age (Paris: Payot, 1980).

What did Jerome make of this monstrous being? It is not easy to understand the author’s point of view on this creature: in describing it, the

18 On this cycle see Laura Fenelli, “Il convento scomparso. Note sulla ricostruzione del complesso di S. Maria al Sepolcro (Le Campora),” Mitteilungen  des  Kunsthistorisches  Institutes  in  Florenz 55 (2013, in press).

38

L. Fenelli: From the Vita Pauli to the Legenda Breviarii…  biographer alternates between very realistic details – the shape of the body, the skin, the hideous mouth – and elements that imply doubt not only about the existence of the animal – ‘it is what poets’ imaginations have labelled a hyppocentaur’ – but also about its role, at the same time narrative and spiritual, as a guide to Anthony in the desert.19 In fact, Jerome included a gloss at the end of the episode which stresses his doubts without suggesting a solution: ‘But whether the devil took this shape to terrify him, or whether it be that the desert which is known to abound in monstrous animals engenders that kind of creature also, we cannot decide.’ As we shall see from the next apparition, Jerome’s position is actually very clear: postponing the argument is merely a literary device to gradually induce the reader to accept an element that only seems imaginary at first glance.

as viaticum for the anchorite during the trip. Only when confronted with the gift of food – a perfect narrative device, which resolves one of the hermit’s main problems in the desert, i.e. the provision of food in a hostile and uninhabited area – does Anthony stop and ask the satyr who he is. The answer clarifies the doubts of both the anchorite and the reader and, at the same time, justifies the inclusion of these incredible details in Jerome’s text:

The second encounter, with a satyr, is just as problematic, but this time the author’s opinion on the role of the apparition is very clear, thanks to the long dialogue that occurs between Anthony and the monstrous being.

The satyr, and therefore the centaur too, appear in the story of the Vita  Pauli as the ‘remains’ of a classical and above all pagan world, which, thanks to the evangelical actions of the desert hermits, shifts towards Christianity.22 Their monstrous bodies are proof of the desert’s hidden dangers to the hermit,23 and at the same time of the anchorite’s ability – through his presence alone – to convert to the word of Christ and to save every human being. Furthermore, the centaur and satyr’s connotation is not negative: one of their peculiar characteristics, which both share, is their prodigious capacity to use the human language, which makes them closer to humans rather than to animals.24

I am a mortal being and one of those inhabitants of the desert whom the Gentiles deluded by various forms of errors, worship under the name of Faunus, Satyrs, and Incubi. I am sent to represent my tribe. We pray you in our behalf to entreat the favour of your Lord and ours, who, we have learnt, came once to save the world, and whose sound has gone forth into all the earth.21

The hermit is still full of wonder at the encounter with the centaur, when in the midst of a rocky valley there appears before him ‘a mannkin with hooked snout, horned forehead and extremities like goats’ feet.’ It is the classic iconography of the satyr, half-man half-goat, an inhabitant of forests and rich woodland areas that populate the Dionysian world of pagan Antiquity: exactly in these terms is depicted by the anonymous painter of Le Campora (Figure 2-1), who has chosen to re-unite together in a single scene the first two encounters of the hermit in the deserted wilderness.20 Anthony is scared and confused by the monstrous being, but the animal, faced with the fear of his interlocutor, makes a sign of peace by offering him some dates that will serve

21

VP, 8.

On the role of these guide-animals, in Classical Antiquity and, later, Christianity, see the observations of Donà, Per le vie,  143–147. The author notes that the ‘oracular animal’ of Classical antiquity becomes, in Christian times, a ‘guide-animal,’ a docile instrument of the divine will. 22

23 On the desert as a reality which is both geographicalhistorical and symbolic, see: Jacques Le Goff, “Le désert-forêt dans l’Occident Médieval,” in Un  autre  Moyen  Âge (Paris: Gallimard, 1999), 495–510.

On the centaur’s role in the Vita Pauli see also Maike Van Der Lugt, Le  ver,  le  démon  et  la  vierge.  Les  théories  médiévales  de  la  génération extraordinaire (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2004), 196–198; for a critical bibliography, Dittmar, Naissance, 480–488. 19

24 On the use of articulated speech distinguishing men form animals and non-men, see John Block Friedman, The Monstrous  Races  in  Medieval  Art  and  Thought (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2000), 29. The book is mostly devoted to the monstrous and unusual races depicted in medieval art and literature and met by travellers outside of Mediterranean lands, but it is nonetheless useful to the topic discussed in this article because it reflects on the alien, yet real cultures existing beyond the boundaries of the European-known world from antiquity through the Middle Ages.

20 On satyrs in Classical literature and iconography: François Lissarague, “Les satyres et le monde animal,” in Proceedings  of  the  Third  Symposium  on  Ancient  Greek  and  related  pottery (Copenhagen – New York: Carlsberg Glyptotek and Thorvaldsens Museum, 1988), 335–351. Jerome’s description will be the basis for Isidore of Seville’s description: Isidore of Seville, The  Etymologies  of  Isidore  of  Seville (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 11.3.21.

39

Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  he catches sight of a she-wolf close by, panting due to a burning thirst and crawling towards the foot of the mountain. The she-wolf does not speak but shows the hermit the way that leads to a mountain cave, where Anthony will finally find Paul.27

Moreover, the satyr asks Saint Anthony to pray for him. This is crucial, for such a request proves, in Jerome’s opinion, that the satyr has a soul, which can be saved by the hermit’s prayers.25 This analysis should have clarified that we are not, as we often still read in the criticism, dealing with the simple inclusion of imaginary elements borrowed by Jerome from the marvels of Greek literature to embellish the story, but rather a precise theological reflection that, exemplified with the figurative clarity of the encounter between the man of God and the monstrous figure, firmly restores in the reader’s mind the profound meaning of the life experienced by the desert hermits. At the end of the episode, the voice of Jerome, author and narrator, is again expressed strongly with an excursus on an episode that is said to have actually occurred at the time of the Emperor Constantine:

The meeting of the hermits, their initial mistrust and subsequent embrace when they finally recognize each other as men of God, is well known and represents the linchpin of Jerome’s story. Its conclusion is also well known, and, as said, will become topical in the lives of other desert anchorites, starting with Onuphrius. Paul, who senses the end is near, gives Anthony precise instructions on his exequies, which are to be celebrated before Anthony can return to the civilized world, where he will divulge the exceptional experience of the first hermit. Other animals appear in the final section of the biography, which, as mentioned, have a clear function both spiritual – they are in fact helpers sent to fulfil the divine will – and narrative, in solving crucial points through their appearance. What did hermits eat in the desert? What happened to their bodies after death?

Let no one scruple to believe this incident; its truth is supported by what took place when Constantine was on the throne, a matter of which the whole world was witness. For a man of that kind [i.e. a satyr] was brought alive to Alexandria and shown as a wonderful sight to the people. Afterwards his lifeless body, to prevent its decay through the summer heat, was preserved in salt and brought to Antioch that the Emperor might see it.26

Jerome tells us that Paul lived in a sort of heavenly place with a running stream and several palm trees, but most importantly that it was the daily task of a raven to bring the hermit half bread. As has already been pointed out,28 this anecdote is based on a famous biblical passage from the Third Book of Kings (17:4–6) which states that ravens brought Elijah, often considered the Old Testament prototype of the anchorites, bread in the morning and flesh in the evening, helping him to satisfy his hunger. This would also happen to Christ who, during his long period in the desert, was assisted by angels as well as wild animals, as recounted by Mark (1:13): ‘And he was in the wilderness forty days tempted of Satan; And he was with the wild beasts; And the angels ministered unto him’

Anthony’s third encounter on his journey to meet Paul, as recounted by Jerome, is instead purely functional, and it introduces us to the second group of animals which appears in the biography: these beings are classified as real animals that, in their willingness to serve the man of God, nevertheless perform extremely important spiritual functions. As Anthony continues his journey in the solitude of the desert, he comes across nothing but the footprints of wild beasts and other traces of animals. An old man, he walks for two days in no specific direction. After a night spent praying, at the first uncertain light of dawn

27 It is important to stress, in this role of guide-animal, that a wolf, even when gendered feminine, had a positive or ambivalent designation in Classical Antiquity and later in Celtic mythology. This conception of the wolf changed in the Middle Ages when it became a symbol of the untamed nature, with a very negative connotation. See Paolo Galloni, Il  cervo  e  il  lupo.  Caccia  e  cultura  nobiliare  nel  Medioevo (Rome – Bari: Laterza, 1993), and Gherardo Ortalli, Lupi genti culture.  Uomo e ambiente  nel Medioevo (Turin: Einaudi, 1997).

25 For the debate on the monsters’ souls, see Kappler, Demons, 193–194, which quotes Saint Anthony’s encounter in the medieval version of John de Mandeville’s Travels. For Jerome’s thought on monsters, as proof of divine omnipotent will (a position which will reappear in Augustine), see Jerome, Epistula  LXXII  ad  vitalem, in Lettres, ed. and trans. Jerome Labourt, vol. IV (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1954), 15–16. 26

VP, 8.

28

40

Leclerc, Antoine et Paul, 260.

L. Fenelli: From the Vita Pauli to the Legenda Breviarii…  grave for Paul.29 Indeed, while Anthony frets over the lack of a hoe and wonders how he, being alone and ninety years old, will be able to bury his companion, two lions run to him with flowing manes. The two wild animals crouch at the feet of the corpse, roar as if they were crying and wag their tails before starting to dig into the earth with their paws. We shall not dwell on the presence of the lions – a genuine topos of the life of the desert hermits – and who appears here for the first time only to return again in the biographies of Onuphrius and Macarius, who buries a lioness he found dead, and then in that of Jerome himself.30

(Figure 2-2). The episode of the shared lunch, with the flying raven depicted in between the two hermits, bringing the bread in its beak, is one of the most frequent in the figurative cycles which recount through images the biography of the two hermits and is present in almost every hagiographical depiction devoted to Saint Anthony: the lunch, with its deep Eucharistic meaning is the occasion to recount, thanks to a powerful visual metaphor, the embryonic birth of proto-coenobitic community in the Egyptian desert. In the fresco presented here, a detail from the already mentioned Florentine cycle of Le Campora, the flying bird, perfectly in between the symmetrical representation of the two hermits (almost identical in their profiles, but different in their clothes, with Paul, wilder, wearing a tunic made of palm leaves instead of the real clothes of Anthony) is the real core of the scene.

The spread of the topical and ‘animalistic’ motifs of the Vita Pauli between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries was enormous, as the frequency with which this text was shortened, epitomized and popularized clearly shows. In thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Italy the Vita  Pauli was destined to unparalleled fame, first due to Jacopo da Varagine’s Latin text, which was significantly shorter than Jerome’s biography,31 then due to the Pisan Domenico Cavalca’s popularization, who opened his Vite  dei  Santi  Padri  with the lives of Anthony (translated by Athanasius, or rather from Evagrius’s Latin version), followed by the life of Paul, the first hermit, by Jerome. The centaur ‘who seemed half-man half-horse,’ the satyr ‘with horns on his forehead,’ and ‘goat-like feet,’ the thirsty she-wolf, the raven, which fluttered gracefully, and finally the two ‘extremely handsome’ lions, became clearly imprinted on the collective memory of the faithful thanks to the Pisan Dominican’s plain and elegant language.32 However, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries – the same centuries that witnessed the

29 On the symbolic role of lions in Christianity, who come to substitute the bear, see Michel Pastoureau, L’ours. Histoire d’un  roi  déchu (Paris: Seuil, 2007), 181–206, and Michel Pastoureau, “Pourquoi tant de lions dans l’Occident médiéval,” Micrologus VIII (2000) (Il mondo animale / The world of animals): 11–30. 30 On the animals which dig the saint’s or hero’s grave, see Donà, Per le vie, 126–147.

Figure  2‐2.  Florentine  Painter  (Pietro  Nelli?),  Saint  Anthony  and  Saint  Paul  share  the  bread.  Florence,  S.  Maria  al  Sepolcro  (Le Campora). 

31 Jacopo da Varagine, Legenda  aurea, ed. Gian Paolo Maggioni (Florence: SISMEL, 1998), 155–160.

Domenico Cavalca, Vite dei  Santi  Padri, ed. Carlo Delcorno (Florence: SISMEL, 2009), 1: 510–524. On Cavalca, see, with previous bibliography, Carlo Delcorno, La tradizione delle vite dei  santi  padri (Venice: Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, 2010) and the introduction of the critical above mentioned edition (pp. 3–464). 32

The role of the raven – a miraculous helper that abandons its feral nature to serve the hermit – is similar to the task of the last two animals to appear in Jerome’s text, a pair of lions whose job is to dig a

41

Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  comes down to his feet: in short, he is a man, but a wild man in whom the boundary between human nature and animal nature has been broken and mixed up by sin, which has made him deer-like, the prey animal par excellence of classical mythology.36 As such, Agathon constitutes a living metaphor for human bestiality, based on the premise that immorality reduces man to an inferior and degraded state, transforming him from a human into a beast. Agathon’s transformation into a ruminant hybrid is not casual, since the deer was, in the Middle Ages, considered both a victim of other’s appetites and its own iniquity, a symbol of unchecked sexuality and lubricity.37 The idea of this metamorphosis served not only as part of the author’s moralistic agenda, but reflected the fear of what was conceived as a psychological process to which all men, having been conceived in sin, where prone from birth.38 But, from another point of view, Agathon is the perfect mirror of Anthony for he is the very opposite of what Anthony hopes to accomplish in the desert. If Paul, the old, perfect hermit, is at one end of this spectrum, the one Anthony has to reach physically, through his journey, and ascetically, through spiritual ascendancy, Agathon, the sinner monk, is at the other end, for he represents the risks of succumbing to the temptations of life in the desert. Moreover, Agathon’s hybridity presents an opportunity for ritual purification: his encounter with Anthony allowed for the hermit’s ability to be revealed, since Anthony returned Agathon to his human form.

great notoriety of both the Bishop of Genoa’s Latin text and Cavalca’s popularization in Italian vernacular – there was another text in circulation, which we can define as both alternative and complementary: the Legenda  Breviarii, or Legend  of  Patras, named as such because of the obscure place where the story is set. The text is very complex, because its origin, author and date are still uncertain. It was almost certainly composed in the West, in a language now much removed from classical Latin; and it probably dates back to the tenth or eleventh century (i.e., the time of the oldest surviving manuscripts that conserve the legend).33 The text is clearly divided into two separate parts, which both have, as a protagonist, an Anthony who is deeply different from the hermit recounted by Athanasius. Here he is an abbot, who rules over a monastery in the otherwise unknown town of Patras. In the first part of the text, which is a cast of the Life  of  Frontonius  from the monastic collection known as Vitae  Patrum,34 the role of the animals is purely functional to reveal Anthony’s sanctity: the abbot has left his monastery, with some companions, looking for solitude in the desert and the starving monks are saved by a group of camels loaded with food that are miraculously sent by the king of Palestine. Much more poignant for our analysis is the second part of the text, where motifs surrounding the hermit’s ‘animal guide’ are altered and reworked, in imitation of Jerome’s biography. The story told in the Legend of Patras is roughly the same – Anthony’s journey to meet the old hermit, the shared meal, the burial of Paul – but the animals that appear are different. The centaur and satyr of Jerome’s account – remnants of a pagan past that in the tenth century slowly faded behind a growing interest in the verifiable world – have been replaced by a corrupted monk, Agathon, whose many sins have manifested grotesque symptoms: antlers sprout from the top of his head and his nails are transformed into those of a camel.35 He is completely covered with hair that

grow or change: the fabulous man-horse continued to exist only in the realm of myth, unaided by the quickening spirit of nature. Its exoticism owed nothing at all to a verifiable world, unlike that of the giraffe, which was both exotic and real’. Charles D. Cuttler, “Exotics in Post-Medieval European Art: Giraffes and Centaurs,” Artibus et Historiae 12/23 (1991): 176. 36 On the symbology of the deer see Galloni, Il cervo e il lupo, and Michel Pastoureau, Medioevo  simbolico  (Rome – Bari: Laterza 2005), 66–67. 37 Pastoureau, Medioevo  simbolico,  66–67. On the deer as guideanimal: Laurence Harf-Lancner, Morgana  e  Melusina.  La  nascita  delle fate nel Medioevo, trans. Silvia Vacca (Turin: Einaudi, 1989), 259–285. The ‘double’ nature and a constant ambiguity between positive and negative values is very common for all the animals, see Ortalli, Lupi  genti  culture.  On the ambivalence of animal symbology, see, again, Michel Pastoureau, Couleurs,  Images,  Symboles.  Études  d’histoire  et  d’anthropologie (Paris: Leopard d’or, 1989), 85–111.

33 Pieter Noordeloos and François Halkin, “Une histoire latine de S. Antoine. La ‘Légende de Patras’,” Analecta Bollandiana LXI (1943): 211–250. 34 Antonio Vaccari, “La leggenda di s. Frontonio,” Analecta  Bollandiana LXVII (1949): 318–323. 35 See what Cuttler writes on the gradual disappearance of centaurs in late medieval art (and on the growing presence of the giraffe): ‘The centaurs, however, became a victim of the growing interest in the actual that fed knowledge. It could not

Simona Cohen, Animals as disguised symbols in Renaissance Art  (Leiden – Boston: Brill, 2008), 204.

38

42

L. Fenelli: From the Vita Pauli to the Legenda Breviarii… 

Figure  2‐3.  Bartolo  di  Fredi  (Workshop),  Predella  with  stories  of  St.  Anthony  (The  meeting  with  Agathon,  Anthony’s  journey).  Berlin,  Gemäldegalerie der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin.

Figure  2‐4.  Bartolo  di  Fredi  (Workshop),  Predella  with  stories  of  St.  Anthony  (The  burial  of  St.  Paul,  Agathon  resumes  human  form).  Berlin, Gemäldegalerie der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin.

clothing, very different from the more civilized Anthony who wears common fabric clothing.39 The motif of the hairy or wild hermit, which is part of a long tradition in medieval hagiography,40 is even more evident in another text, already cited, which

It is significant to point out that the iconographical representation of Agathon deeply diverges from the textual tradition. As it happens in two small panels from a dismantled altarpiece (Figures 2-3 and 2-4), the wildness of Agathon is highly faded and he is usually ‘normalized,’ represented as a monk, with only the deer horns to visually symbolize his sins, in contrast to the figure of the Legenda  breviarii, which is connoted by a deep polysemy.

39 On the link between the hermit and the wild man see the example of John the Baptist (Le Goff, “Le désert- forêt,” 507). In the prologue of the Vita  Pauli, Paul is described as ‘subterraneo  specu  crinitum  calcaneo  tenus  hominem’ (‘a man living in underground cavern, covered with hair down to his heels’).

In the text, instead, the figure of Agathon embodies a variety of legendary and folk elements – the hairy hermit, sinner hermit, half-man halfanimal – elements that were already present in  nuce in Jerome’s text. In the Vita  Pauli, in fact, the hidden (or rather immobile) protagonist Paul is introduced as an almost frightening anchorite because of the length of his beard and his decision to dress in palm tree leaves woven into an item of

40 On the theme of wild-men in the Middle Ages, see Richard Bernheimer, Wild men in the Middle Ages: a study in art, sentiment,  and demonology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1952); The  Wild  Man:  Medieval  Myth  and  Symbolism, ed. Timothy Husband (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1980) and Charles Allyn Williams, Oriental affinities of the legend of the hairy  anchorite:  the  theme  of  the  hairy  solitary  in  its  early  forms;  with  reference to “Die Lügend von Sanct Johanne Chrysostomo” (reprinted  by  Luther  1537)  and  to  other  European  variants (Urbana: The University of Illinois, 1925) with the (very critical) review of Paul Peeters, Analecta Bollandiana XLVII (1929): 138–141.

43

Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  In this anthropocentric context,44 where the hermit is always the active protagonist, the animals appear somewhat ‘sensational’ because they allow the extraordinary virtues of the saint to be highlighted, and at the same time ‘angelic,’ in the etymological sense of the word, as they never act of their own initiative, but rather, are always driven by divine will. In the very end, the hermit, who seems to share with the animal a ‘wild life,’ has the power to transform nature, to change the beasts from harmful monsters to docile friends and even companions.

is directly inspired by Jerome: the Vita  Onuphrii. This text recounts the story of how Paphnutius, who in the Latin tradition is clearly a monk, meets and buries the old hermit Onuphrius, following the path already traced by Anthony in his quest of Paul. Onuphrius, moreover, is clearly represented as a naked man covered with long hair, who at first glance frightens the monk.41 This small but significant sample of texts allows us to propose a few hypotheses regarding the role of the animals – whether real or imaginary – as companions to the hermit in the lives of the desert anchorites. First of all, the animal and the hermit are both liminal beings that move along the subtle boundary between the civilized world and the wild world. From this point of view, an analysis of how ‘otherness’ is presented in these texts necessitates reflection not only on the boundaries between the human and the feral, but also on the differences and the boundaries between the civilized world of the monk and the wild asperity of the hermit.42 As Elliot has noted, ‘the goals of the ascetic life were alienation and separation – total estrangement from the values of classical and urban past – and the animal-like hermit attained to a superlative degree. He (or she) looked like an

Most of all, in the Vita Antonii, Vita  Pauli and Legend of  Patras the animals represent with immediate clarity the boundary itself. The animals and human-animal hybrids that populate the hagiographical texts we have analysed occupy an uncertain boundary or liminal space. According to medieval theologians, animals cannot exist without their bodies for they have no souls and are not included in God’s salvation plans. From this point of view they are pure flesh incarnated. But one of the most powerful statements we can deduce from the appearance of those monsters in the late-antique and medieval texts discussed here is that those monsters violated the taboo that separates the human from the animal in ways that suggests that they are more than pure flesh incarnated, that they, as the satyr in the Vita Pauli reveals, could have souls.45

animal and lived his life.’43 In all of the texts we have considered, the animals appear to be very close to the hermit at certain crucial points, but, at the same time, very distant: indeed it is the ascetic who always has the power to tame the untamed and thus to send away the animals that bother him while cultivating the orchard, or to use animals that are usually ferocious, such as lions, to assist with actions he would not have been able to complete otherwise.

In the Middle Ages, a fundamental polarity is not as it was in the Classical world between urbs and rus, city and countryside, but between culture

44

Ortalli, Lupi genti culture, 53.

See the theological debate in Luciano Cova, “Animali e renovatio  mundi. I perché di un’assenza,” Micrologus VIII (2000) (Il  mondo  animale / The  world  of  animals): 177–196, and Francis Wolff, “L’animal et le Dieu. Deux modèles pour l’homme. Remarques pouvant servir à comprendre l’invention de l’animal,” in L’animal  dans  l’antiquité, eds. Barbara Cassin and Jean-Louis Labarrière (Paris: VRIN, 1997), 157–180. Interesting, even if monolithic in her thesis, is the research of Joyce E. Salisbury, The Beast Within. Animals in Middle Ages (New York – London: Routledge, 2010). According to the author the Christian animal-man separation, based on Augustine, is a reaction to Classical paganism. For a discussion of the theological positions on animals, see also Animals on the Agenda.  Questions  about  animals  for  theology  and  ethics, eds. Andrew Linzey and Dorothy Yamamoto (Urbana – Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1998). 45

On the Peregrinatio  Paphnutii  or the Vita  Onuphrii, see Goddard Elliott, Roads to Paradise, 51–58. 41

On the notion of boundaries (and the way through which social and biological boundaries define our societies) see Eric S. Rabkin, “Vegetable, Animal, Human: The Perils and Powers of Transgressing Sociobiological Boundaries in Narrative,” in Sociobiology  and  the  Arts, eds. Jan Baptist Bedaux and Brett Cooke (Amsterdam – Atlanta: Edition Rodipi, 1999), 83–98. 42

On the liminal status of the hermit see Elliot, Roads to Paradise, 169–170. Poignant observations on the shared liminal space of the hermit and the animals also in Elisa Anti, Santi  e  animali  nell’Italia  Padana. Secoli  IV‐XII, prefaced by Paolo Golinelli (Bologna: CLUEB, 1998), with a different chronological and geographical focus. 43

44

L. Fenelli: From the Vita Pauli to the Legenda Breviarii…  and nature,46 and mostly between what is built, tame, civilized, inhabited (city, castle, village), and what is wild and savage (the sea and the forest in the West, the desert in the East), what is communal, and what is solitaire.47 The life of the truly solitary individual in the wilderness represents a complete rejection of the laws, structures, and institutions of the polis. In the context of Anthony’s biography, the desert is a liminal space, ‘betwixt and between,’48 where miracles could happen,49 especially the centaur and the satyr, half-animals half-men, but also the tamed raven, the docile lions and then, a few centuries later, the monk transformed into a deer. Through their condition as living contradictions and ‘guardians of limits,’50 these impossible creatures create in-between spaces, open unknown lands, and stand at the threshold, on the boundary between what is familiar and known and what is unfamiliar and unknown, between what is allowed and what is prohibited, what is human and what is feral. By breaking the boundary between humans and animals, they clearly show the faithful and the readers of those texts where that boundary should be positioned.

Animals  on  the  Agenda.  Questions  about  animals  for  theology  and  ethics, edited by Andrew Linzey and Dorothy Yamamoto. Urbana – Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1998. Anti, Elisa. Santi  e  animali  nell’Italia  Padana. Secoli  IV‐XII, prefaced by Paolo Golinelli. Bologna: CLUEB, 1998. Atanasius Alexandrinus Episcopus. “Vita et Conversatio S. P. N. Antonii.” In Patrologia  Graeca, vol. XXVI, coll. 835–976. Athanasius. Select  Works  and  Letters. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, vol. 4 of Nicene  and  Post‐Nicene  Fathers, series 2. New York: Christian Literature Publishing Company, 1924. Atwood Lawrence, Elizabeth. “The Centaur: Its History and Meaning in Human Culture,” The  Journal of Popular Culture 27/4 (1994): 57–68. Bastiaensen, Anton A. R. “Jérôme hagiographe.” In Hagiographies.  Histoire  internationale  de  la  littérature hagiographique latine et vernaculaire en  Occident  des  origines  à  1550, vol. I, 97–123. Turnhout: Brepols, 1994. Bernheimer, Richard. Wild men in the Middle Ages: a  study  in  art,  sentiment,  and  demonology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1952. Boglioni, Pierre. “Il santo e gli animali nell’Alto Medioevo.” In L’uomo  di  fronte  al  mondo  animale  nell’Alto  Medioevo. Atti  della  XXXI  settimana  di  studio  del  Centro  italiano  di  Studi  sull’Alto  Medioevo,  7–13  aprile  1983, 937–993. Spoleto: CISAM, 1985. Cohen, Simona. Animals  as  disguised  symbols  in  Renaissance Art. Leiden – Boston: Brill, 2008. Cova, Luciano. “Animali e renovatio mundi. I perché di un’assenza.” Micrologus VIII (2000) (Il mondo  animale / The world of animals): 177–196. Cuttler, Charles D. “Exotics in Post-Medieval European Art: Giraffes and Centaurs.” Artibus  et Historiae 12/23 (1991): 161–179. Daston, Lorraine J. and Katarine Park. Wonders and  the  Order  of  Nature,  1150–1750. New York: Zone book, 1998. Delcorno, Carlo. La  tradizione  delle  vite  dei  santi  padri. Venice: Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, 2010. Descola, Pierre. Par‐delà  nature  et  culture.  Paris: Gallimard, 2006. Dittmar, Pierre-Olivier. “Naissance de la bestialité. Une anthropologie du rapport home-animal dans les années 1300.” PhD diss., EHESS, Paris, 2009–2010.

Bibliography    Amélineau, Émile. “Voyage d’un moine égyptien dans le désert.” Recueil  de  travaux  relatifs  à  la  philologie  et  à  l’archéologie  égyptiennes  et  assyriennes 6 (1885): 166–194.

For the unsolved polarity between nature and culture, and the relative fragility of this opposition, see Pierre Descola, Par‐delà  nature et culture (Paris: Gallimard, 2006).

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47 Le Goff, “Le désert-forêt,” 23–33. For the listed dichotomies, see also Page duBois, Centaurs and Amazons. Women and the pre‐ history  of  the  great  chain  of  being  (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1987), 32. 48 It is a reference to Turner’s studies on rites of passages and liminality, the transitional state between two phases, when individuals were ‘betwixt and between’: they did not belong to the society that they previously were a part of and they were not yet reincorporated into that society. Liminality is defined like a limbo, a period characterized by humility, seclusion, tests, sexual ambiguity. See Victor Turner, “Betwixt and Between: The Liminal Period in Rites de Passage,” in Symposium on New  Approaches to the Study of Religion, ed. Melford E. Spiro (Seattle: American Ethnological Society, 1964), 4–20. See also Victor Turner, The forest of symbols. Aspects of Ndembu ritual (New York: Cornell University Press, 1962), 67. 49

Elliot, Roads, 173. See also pp. 204–209, on liminality.

50

duBois, Centaurs, 32.

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Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  Jerome. “Life of Paul of Thebes.” In Early Christian  Lives, edited by Carolinne White, 71–84. London: Penguin Books, 1998. Kappler, Claude-Claire. Monstres,  démons  et  merveilles  à  la  fin  du  Moyen  Age. Paris: Payot, 1980. Le Goff, Jacques. “Le désert-forêt dans l’Occident Médieval.” In Un  autre  Moyen  Âge, 495–510. Paris: Gallimard, 1999. Leclerc, Pierre. “Antoine et Paul: métamorphose d’un héros.” In Jérôme  entre  l’Occident  et  l’Orient (XVIe centenaire du départ de saint Jérôme  de Rome et de son installation à Bethléem), edited by Yves-Marie Duval, 257–265. Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1988. Leclercq-Marx, Jacqueline. “La sirène et l’(ono)centaure dans le Physiologus grec et latin et dans quelques Bestiaires. Le texte et l’image.” In Bestiaires  médiévaux.  Nouvelles  perspectives  sur  les  manuscrits  et  les  traditions  textuelles, edited by Baudouin Van den Abeele, 169–192. Louvain-la-Neuve: Institut d’Études Médiévales de l’Université Catholique de Louvain, 2005. Leclercq-Marx, Jacqueline. “Le centaure dans l’art préroman et roman. Sources d’inspiration et modes de transmission.” Les  cahiers  de  Saint‐ Michel de Cuxa 37 (2006): 33–42. Lissarague, François. “Les satyres et le monde animal.” In Proceedings  of the  Third Symposium  on  Ancient  Greek  and  related  pottery, 335–351. Copenhagen – New York: Carlsberg Glyptotek and Thorvaldsens Museum, 1988. Noordeloos, Pieter, and François Halkin. “Une histoire latine de S. Antoine. La ‘Légende de Patras’.” Analecta  Bollandiana LXI (1943): 211– 250. Oldfather, William A. Studies in the text tradition of  St.  Jerome’s  Vitae  Patrum. Urbana: Indiana Illinois Press, 1943. Ortalli, Gherardo. Lupi  genti  culture.  Uomo  e  ambiente nel Medioevo. Turin: Einaudi, 1997. Pastoureau, Michel. Couleurs,  Images,  Symboles.  Études  d’histoire  et  d’anthropologie. Paris: Leopard d’or, 1989. Pastoureau, Michel. “Pourquoi tant de lions dans l’Occident médiéval.” Micrologus VIII (2000) (Il  mondo animale / The world of animals): 11–30. Pastoureau, Michel. L’ours.  Histoire  d’un  roi  déchu. Paris: Seuil, 2007. Pastoureau, Michel. Medioevo  simbolico.  Rome – Bari: Laterza, 2005.

Domenico Cavalca. Vite dei  Santi  Padri, edited by Carlo Delcorno, 2 vols. Florence: SISMEL, 2009. Donà, Carlo. Per  le  vie  dell’altro  mondo.  L’animale  guida  e  il  mito  del  viaggio. Soveria Mannelli: Rubettino, 2003. Douchet, Sébastien. “La peau du centaure à la frontière de l’humanité et de l’animalité.” Micrologus  XIII (2005) (La  pelle  umana / The  Human Skin): 285–312. duBois, Page. Centaurs and Amazons. Women and the  pre‐history of the great chain of being. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1987. Dutschke, Dennis. “The Translation of St. Antony from the Egyptian Desert to the Italian City.” Aevum 68 (1994): 499–549. Fagnoni, Anna Maria. “Una Vita greca di s. Onofrio mimetizzata. Osservazioni sulla composizione di BHG 2330-2330a.” Hagiographica.  Rivista  di  agiografia  e  biografia  della Società internazionale per lo studio del Medio  Evo Latino III (1996): 247–263. Fagnoni, Anna Maria. “Volgarizzamenti italiani della Vita Onuphrii. Prime linee di ricerca.” In Studi vari di lingua e letteratura italiana in onore  di Giuseppe Velli, 25–62. Milan: Cisalpino, 2000. Fenelli, Laura. “Sant’Antonio abate. Parole, reliquie, immagini.” PhD diss., Università degli Studi, Bologna, 2006–2007. Fenelli, Laura. Dall’eremo  alla  stalla.  Storia  di  sant’Antonio  abate  e  del  suo  culto. Rome – Bari: Laterza, 2011. Friedman, John Block. The  Monstrous  Races  in  Medieval  Art  and  Thought. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2000. Galloni, Paolo. Il  cervo  e  il  lupo.  Caccia  e  cultura  nobiliare  nel  Medioevo. Rome – Bari: Laterza, 1993. Goddard Elliott, Alison. Roads  to  Paradise.  Reading  the Lives of the Early Saints. Hanover – London: Brown, 1987. Harf-Lancner, Laurence. Morgana  e  Melusina.  La  nascita  delle  fate  nel  Medioevo, translated by Silvia Vacca. Turin: Einaudi, 1989. Isidore of Seville. The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville. Translated and edited by Stephen A. Barney et  al. Cambridge – New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Jacopo da Varagine. Legenda aurea. Edited by Gian Paolo Maggioni. Florence: SISMEL, 1998. Jerome. Epistula LXXII ad Vitalem. In Lettres, edited and translated by Jerome Labourt, vol. IV. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1954.

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L. Fenelli: From the Vita Pauli to the Legenda Breviarii…  Peeters, Paul. “Review of Charles Allyn Williams, Oriental  affinities  of  the  legend  of  the  hairy  anchorite.” Analecta  Bollandiana XLVII (1929): 138–141. Rabkin, Eric S. “Vegetable, Animal, Human: The Perils and Powers of Transgressing Sociobiological Boundaries in Narrative.” In Sociobiology and the Arts, edited by Jan Baptist Bedaux and Brett Cooke, 83–98. Amsterdam – Atlanta: Edition Rodipi, 1999. Salisbury, Joyce E. The  Beast  Within.  Animals  in  Middle  Ages. New York – London: Routledge, 2010. The Wild Man: Medieval Myth and Symbolism, edited by Timothy Husband. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1980. Turner, Victor. The  forest  of  symbols.  Aspects  of  Ndembu  ritual.  New York: Cornell University Press, 1962. Turner, Victor. “Betwixt and Between: The Liminal Period in Rites de Passage.” In Symposium  on  New  Approaches  to  the  Study  of  Religion, edited by Melford E. Spiro, 4–20. Seattle: American Ethnological Society, 1964. Vaccari, Antonio, “La leggenda di s. Frontonio.” Analecta Bollandiana LXVII (1949): 318–323. Van Der Lugt, Maike. Le  ver,  le  démon  et  la  vierge.  Les  théories  médiévales  de  la  génération  extraordinaire. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2004. Williams, Charles Allyn. Oriental  affinities  of  the  legend of the hairy anchorite: the theme of the hairy  solitary  in  its  early  forms;  with  reference  to  “Die  Lügend von Sanct Johanne Chrysostomo” (reprinted  by  Luther  1537)  and  to  other  European  variants. Urbana: The University of Illinois, 1925. Williams, David. Deformed discourse. The function of  the  Monster  in  the  Mediaeval  thought  and  Literature. Montreal – Kingston – London: McGil Queen’s University Press, 1996. Wolff, Francis. “L’animal et le Dieu. Deux modèles pour l’homme. Remarques pouvant servir à comprendre l’invention de l’animal.” In L’animal  dans  l’antiquité, edited by Barbara Cassin and Jean-Louis Labarrière, 157–180. Paris: VRIN, 1997. Wood, Christopher. “The votive scenario.”  RES:  Anthropology  and  Aesthetics 59/60 (2011): 206– 227.

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Y. Frenkel: Animals and Otherness in Mamluk Egypt and Syria

– III – ANIMALS AND OTHERNESS IN MAMLUK EGYPT AND SYRIA  Yehoshua FRENKEL University of Haifa [email protected]

Abstract  Descriptions of animals and interactions between man and nature are a common topic in Islamic literature. A range of sources depict a holistic picture of universe and illustrate it by stories on mankind communication with the fauna and flora. Mamluk period (1250–1517) literature and other sources reflect the complex place of animals in society and in world view. The vision of the fauna was deeply rooted in contemporary world vision. It was believed that the universe is inhabited not only by human beings but also by mysterious creatures. Among the living things that encountered men and women were animals. The spectrum moves from deep fear to seeing the talking creatures as a source of knowledge and wisdom. The study of haunting account, capture of animals and their staging is an appropriate point of departure to acquire a better understanding of Mamluks’ outlook on fauna. This will be followed by an investigation of the animal presence in Mamluk crafts and objet d’art. The range is stretching between sculpturing of mighty lions to forbidding the backing of animals shaped dough. The third section will concentrate on animal stories, i.e. on stories that tell on talking beasts. This line of investigation will enable me to generalize on the role of animals in Mamluk period discourse, and particularly to concentrate on their opposing functions. On the one hand animals served as a source of wisdom that confirmed the belief system. Yet on the other hand animals were depicted as a force that is threatening society.   Keywords  Mamluk; Egypt; Syria; animals; Islamic Literature

type of white falcon is caught. Among the birds of prey this type of pale falcon is the fastest in response to its trainer and is very easily trained. Yet there is a defect in it, this weakness results from its nourishment. The hunter who catches the bird on the island feeds it with fishes, yet when its food changes the defect becomes visible. Persian, Turk, Indian, Byzantine and Arab experts in hunting with birds and animals, all agree that the pale falcon is the fastest bird of prey, the most gracious in its body and the most daring in its heart. He has the most enterprising temperament and it is very easy to lead him. He is climbing to the highest altitude in the air and no bird equals him in ascending speed or in distance. This species has a burning ardour and a combative enthusiasm that no other kind of falcon has. The colour of the [bird’s] coat changes according to region and habitat. The falcon’s

Introduction  The holistic picture of the universe is well noticeable in various genres of Islamic literature. Narratives of interaction between man and the natural world, including animals, are common topics already in accounts from the Middle Abbasid period (813–945). An example can be seen in The  Meadows  of  Gold, the opus magnum of the great Muslim historian and traveller Abu al-Ḥasan ‘Ali al-Mas‘ūdi (d. c. 345/956), who – among other topics – provides his readers with a thick description of the Caspian Sea islands. He reports of a carnivorous bird and the influence of climate on the colours and qualities of that bird of prey: There are in this sea, close to the shores of the province of Jurjan, additional islands where a

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Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  on the Festival of the Sacrifice (or the Greater ‘Īd; namely ‘Īd al-Adḥā), is perceived as a ritual that cements the relationships between Muslims and God.5

white feathers derive from the heavy snow in Armenia, the lands of the Khazars, Jurjan and the adjacent Turkish lands. A story has been transmitted from a Turkish khākān, a king to whom all other Turk rulers are subjected, who said: ‘When a falcon in our lands wants to quit the chirping of the fledgling, which he hatches in a nest, he ascends to the limits of the sky, where the air is very cold and thick, and brings down reptiles that are living there and are consumed by this falcon. It will not last long before the falcon’s fledgling will recover, this is because the fledgling is swallowing the prey speedily. Limbs of this prey will occasionally be discovered in the nests of this bird.’1

Classification of living creatures is a central issue in culture and society. 6 Animals are often arrayed into binary categories, such as licit versus forbidden, pure versus polluted, useful versus harmful. A quick survey of some chapters in Islamic canonical holy law (sharī‘a), which deal with fauna and with the treatment of animals, elucidates Muslims’ world view. The Sharī‘a classifies food into two categories: ḥalāl versus ḥarām, i.e. it distinguishes between animals whose flesh may be eaten and those animals whose flesh may not be eaten. This classification of animals can be seen also in medieval manuals of market inspection (ḥisba).

This presentation reflects a holistic idea of the environment. The place of man in nature and his position at the top of the evolutionary scale are plainly stated by the famous Mamluk jurist and historian Ibn Khaldūn:

The Egyptian jurist Ibn al-Ukhuwwa (d. 723/1329) provides the officials, who were in charge of enforcing the Sharī‘a in public spaces, with categories that they are supposed to observe.7 His guidebook includes a chapter on the inspection of the butchers, which opens with an edict:

We say that man is distinguished from the other living beings by certain qualities peculiar to him, namely: 1) The sciences and crafts which result from the ability to think which distinguishes man from other animals and exalts him as a thinking being over all creatures. 2 2) The need for restraining influence and strong authority, since man, alone of all animals, cannot exist without them. 3) Man’s efforts to make a living and his concern with the various ways of obtaining and acquiring the means [of life]. 4) Civilization. This means that human beings have to dwell in common and settle together in cities and hamlets for the comforts of companionship and for the satisfaction of human needs.3

Without [ritual] slaughtering no edible animal is allowed to be consumed as food. Fish and locusts are exempt. The slaughtering of an eatable animal by a Magian or by an Idolater does not satisfy the law for the Muslims, but the slaughtering by Jews satisfies the holy law.8

Regulating sale contracts, Ibn Ukhuwwa differentiates between clean and unclean animals (dogs or swine). He instructs that it is unlawful to sell reptiles or rats but it is lawful to sell muskrats.

Yet this visualization of the interaction between man and animal did not shape Islam as a civilization of vegetarianism. Islam does not ban the killing of animals and the consumption of their meat as food.4 Moreover, the offering of animals,

cows. Shams al-Dīn Yūsuf Ibn Qiz-Ughlu Sibṭ ibn al-Jawzī, Mirāt  al‐zamān  fi  ta’rīkh  al‐a‘yān, ed. Jinan al-Hamawondi (Baghdad, 1990), 4 (345–447/956–1056): 329 (417/1026).

1 Abu al-Ḥasan ‘Ali al-Mas‘ūdi, Murūj  al‐dhahab  wa‐ma‘ādin  al‐ jawhar, ed. Charles Pellat (Beirut, 1964), 1: 223 (§465–466); Aloys Sprenger, trans., el‐Masudi’s  historical  encyclopedia,  entitled  “Meadows  of  gold  and  mines  of  gems” (London: Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland, 1841), 422–424.

Hava Lazarus-Yafeh, “Muslim Festivals,” Numen 25/1 (1978): 56–57; Constant Hamès, “Le Sacrifice animal au regard des textes islamiques canoniques,” Archives  de  sciences  sociales  des  religions 43/101 (1998): 8–9. 5

Claude Lévi-Strauss, The Savage Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969).

6

Cf. ‘It should be known that Allah distinguished man from all other animals by an ability to think which Allah made the beginning of human perfection and the end of man’s noble superiority over existing things.’ ‘Abd al-Raḥman Ibn Khaldūn, al‐Muqaddima, trans. Franz Rosenthal (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967), 2: 411. 2

3

Ibn Khaldūn, al‐Muqaddima, 1: 84.

4

Yet, see the ban on slaughtering, on economic grounds, of

Louise Marlow,  Hierarchy and Egalitarianism in Islamic Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 167.

7

Muḥammad b. Muḥammad Ibn al-Ukhuwwa al-Qurashī, Kitab  ma‘ālim  al‐qurba  fī  aḥkām  al‐ḥisba, eds. Muhammad Mahmūd Sha‘ban and S. A. I. Al-Muti‘i (Cairo: 1976), 161 (chapter 16). English abstract by Reuben Levy, The Ma‘alim al‐qurba fi ahkam  al‐hisba (London: Luzac, 1938), 32. 8

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Y. Frenkel: Animals and Otherness in Mamluk Egypt and Syria This categorization is followed by a paragraph on domestic animals and wild animals. To sell cats and bees is lawful, as it is permissible to sell parrots, peacocks and singing birds. Dogs may not be bought for pets, but it is lawful to buy hunting dogs. Some animals may be eaten, yet others’ flesh is forbidden. The flesh of animals which eat dung is disapproved of. The tame cat, for example, is unlawful, while the wild cat is lawful, at least according to some jurists. A crossbreed of eatable and uneatable animals may not be eaten. The flesh of all creatures caught in the sea may be eaten. Frogs are unlawful. Similar is the case of waterserpents, yet some traditions say the opposite. The flesh of some animals is not decisively forbidden. It is not lawful to sell toy animals.9

and combat) manuals, 11 veterinary, and hippological texts 12 illuminate the importance of horses, mules, donkeys and camels in Mamluk society. The real and symbolic values of these and other animals are also visible in additional literary genres.

Following these introductory remarks I will move now to analyze accounts of animals in Mamluk chronicles. These reports reveal not only the practical dimensions, such as the daily use of working beasts and the consumption of animals’ meat, but also the symbolic roles of animals.10

See Ruth I. Meserve, “Early Turkic Contributions on Veterinary Medicine,” International  Journal  of  Central  Asian  Studies  1 (1996): 3; Housni Alkhateeb-Shehada, “Donkeys and Mules in Arabic Veterinary Sources from the Mamlūk Period (7th-10th/13th-16th Century),” Al‐Masāq 20/2 (2008): 207–214; id., “Arabic veterinary medicine and the Golden Rules for veterinarians,” in Animals and People in the Ottoman Empire, ed. Suraiya Faroqhi (Istanbul: Eren, 2010), 319.

1. Animals in Mamluk Sources 

Luitgard E. M. Mols, Mamluk metalwork fittings in their artistic  and architectural context (Delft: Eburon, 2006), 50, 75; George T. Scanlon, “Mamluk Sgraffiato Ware: The power of the New,” in Texts,  documents,  and  artefacts:  Islamic  studies  in  honour  of  D.S.  Richards, ed. Chase F. Robinson (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 309–316.

Archaeological findings and decorative art add knowledge to the role of animals in the Mamluk sultanate.13 Crafts and objets  d’art,14 coins and coin weights, 15 bear motifs of felines, 16 maned lions, 11 David Ayalon, “Notes on the Furusiyya exercises and games in the Mamluk sultanate,” in Studies  in  Islamic  History  and  Civilization, ed. Uriel Heyd. Scripta Hierosolymitana 9 (1961): 31– 62; Esin Atil, “Mamluk Painting in the Late Fifteenth Century,” Muqarnas 2 (1984): 159–163. 12

13

The world vision of Mamluk writers, who composed their works in Egypt and Syria during the years 1250–1517, was not at odds with the belief system of Abbasid-period writers. The reception of al-Mas‘ūdi’s and other early authors’ accounts of humankind’s communication with fauna and flora is well documented, although the unique character of the Mamluk sultanate certainly contributed to the development of a different cultural context.

Animal figures appear in works of art as early as the Umayyad period. On Fatimid Egypt see Taqī al-Dīn Aḥmad b. ‘Alī al-Maqrīzī (766–845/1364–1441), Kitāb al‐mawā‘iẓ  wal‐i‘tibār  bi‐dhikr  al‐khiṭaṭ  wal‐āthār, eds. Muḥammad Zaynahum and Madīḥah al-Sharqāwī (Cairo: Madbuli, 1998), 2: 181; and Alexis Pavlovskij, “Décoration des plafonds de la Chapelle Palatine,” Byzantinische  Zeitschrift 2/3 (1893): 368. During the days of Mamluk sultan al-Nāṣir Muḥammad this artistic style was transformed. Rachel Ward, “Brass, Gold and Silver from Mamluk Egypt: Metal Vessels Made for Sultan Al-Nasir Muhammad. A Memorial Lecture for Mark Zebrowski, Royal Asiatic Society on 9 May 2002,” Journal  of  the  Royal  Asiatic  Society 14/1 (2004): 62–63. 14

This sultanate was governed by a battalion of manumitted slaves, who were recruited outside the boundaries of the Abode of Islam and transferred to Cairo to be trained and to serve, as devoted Muslims, in the elite corps d’armée. During their preparation years these cavalry officers were acculturated in the new environment and civilization. Illustrated furusiyya (horsemanship

15 Warren C. Schultz and Haim Gitler, “A Mamluk Bronze Weight in the Israel Museum, With Further Comments on this Rare Metrological Species,” American Journal of  Numismatics 12 (2000): 205–210. 16 Silver dirhams of Baybars bear his coat of arms that includes the figure of a lion. Antoine-Isaac Silvestre de Sacy, trans., “Les Perles des Colliers – Histoire des monnoies, du scheikh Takyeddin Abou-Mohammed et Aboulabbas Ahmed alMakrizi, docteur très-savant, juris-consulte très-érudit, le plus excellent de son temps et la merveille de son siecle,” in Bibliothèque  des  arabisants  français.  Première  série.  T.  I (Cairo: Institut français d’archéologie orientale, 1905), 39. Lions (and also eagle sand fish) were minted on coins of other sultans, too, to the very end of the sultanate. James W. Allan, “Mamlūk Sultanic Heraldry and the Numismatic Evidence: A Reinterpretation,”  Journal  of  the  Royal  Asiatic  Society  102/2 (1970): 104–106. Cf. Lev Kapitaikin, “Note on a Glazed Bowl with a Medallion of a Feline from Khirbat Burin,” Atiqot 51 (2006): 215–219.

9 Ibn al-Ukhuwwa, Kitab  ma‘ālim  al‐qurba  fī  aḥkām  al‐ḥisba, 112; Levy, The Ma‘alim al‐qurba fi ahkam al‐hisba, 19 (English abstract).

In Andalusia, poets used various animals and birds to describe the size and performances of galleys and ships. Jalal Abd al-Ghani, “The Poet and Daughter of the Sea: Animated Ships in Andalusian Arabic Poetry,” Al‐Masāq 19/2 (2007): 124.

10

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Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  eagles and horses. 17 The Mamluk conventional depiction of these animals is also visible on emblems and blazons.18 These objects shed light on contemporaries’ mentalité and the importance of animals in society. They reflect the political symbolism of these creatures, as well as the qualities attributed to them. Animals were depicted as a representation of rulers’ personalities. In various historical accounts rulers were compared to animals that symbolize bravery (lions, cheetahs), power (elephants) and steadiness. The character of these animals was believed to be a true mirroring of the rulers’ qualities.

rat, jarbua (jumping mouse; Ar. Yarbū‘), agama lizard (amayṭar), had faded away, nevertheless the use of ‘aristocratic’ animal names, such as lion (asad), cheetah (fahd) and falcon (shāhīn) prevailed. The title Asad al-Dīn (the Lion of Islam) was not rare among army officers. Moreover, not only the Arab versions of these names were regularly employed, but also they were common in other Islamic languages such as Persian and Kurdish (Shir-Kuh: the mountain lion). Turkish names of beasts of prey and of birds were very common in the Mamluk onomasticon: Baybars (lion) and Sunqur (falcon) are only two examples.

Relating a Mamluk assault against a Mongol force (671/1273) a historian says: ‘The sultan [Baybars] proceeded, like a furious lion, and mounted an attack on the enemy camp.’ 19 The function of animals as symbols of power clarifies the ban on riding horses, which the Mamluk governors imposed on non-military elements and on non-Muslims in the territories under their control.20 On the other hand, the forbidding of the baking of dough in animal shape shows that some religious scholars were unhappy with this positive approach towards animals.21

Our survey of the ties between man and animal should also analyze the compassionate approach towards animals. This can be deduced from several pious endowments (awqāf) that were established during the Mamluk period. The deeds of these charities contain provisions concerning the care and nourishment of animals. 23 Edward William Lane reports in his account of Egypt in the early nineteenth century that the Chief Judge of Egypt in 1835 told him that the Mamluk Sultan alẒāhir Baybars established a pious endowment to provide food for stray cats. If the endowment was not producing enough revenue, the judge would contribute capital from his own funds. The Ottoman amīr Kutkhuda, for example, established in Egypt a pious endowment to distribute food each day to stray dogs and cats. Lane adds that the Egyptians show great respect to birds.24

Names and sobriquets of Mamluk officers provide another sort of evidence for the place occupied by animals in their contemporaries’ world vision. 22 Although centuries before the sultanate was overtaken by commanders of Turkish origin the ancient Arab practice of giving a new-born the name of disliked beasts, such as dog,

2. Royal Gifts and Tools  Maria Pia Pedani, “Mamluk Lions and Venetian Lions 12601261,” Electronic Journal of Oriental Studies 7/21 (2004): 4. 17

18 Allan, “Mamlūk Sultanic Heraldry,” 99; Robert Hillenbrand, “Mamlūk and Īlkhānid Bestiaries: Convention and Experiment,” Ars Orientalis 20 (1990): 152.

Hunting (shikār),25 games and equestrian sports were central leisure occupations among the Mamluk rulers. The study of hunting accounts and of reports about the capture of animals and their

Mufaḍḍal ibn Abī l-Faḍā’il [Moufazzal ibn Abil-Fazail], Histoire  des  sultans  mamlouks.  II, trans. and ed. Edgar Blochet, Patrologia orientalis 14/3 (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1920), 379.

23

19

Benjamin Arbel, “The Attitude of Orientals to Animals in Renaissance Eyes,” in Human  Beings  and  Other  Animals  in  Historical  Perspective, eds. Benjamin Arbel, Joseph Terkel and Sophia Menache (Jerusalem: Carmel, 2007), 277–292 [in Hebrew]; id., “The Attitude of Muslims to Animals: Renaissance Perceptions and Beyond,” in Animals  and  People, 57–74.

Li Guo, trans. and ed., Early Mamluk Syrian Historiography: al‐ Yunini’s  Dhayl  mir’at  al  zaman (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 1: 179–181; Norman A. Stillman and Carl F. Petry, eds., The  Cambridge  History  of  Egypt.  Volume  I:  Islamic  Egypt,  640–1517 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 209. 20

21 Ibn al-Ukhuwwa al-Qurashī classifies animals as either tradable or as animals that should not be bought or sold. See Ibn al-Ukhuwwa, Kitab ma‘ālim al‐qurba fī aḥkām al‐ḥisba, 112.

Edward William Lane, Manners  and  Customs  of  the  Modern  Egyptians  written  in  Egypt  during  the  years  1833–35  (London: John Murray, 1860), 287 and 290. 24

22 Cf. ‘Qaṭṭāl  al‐sab‘’ (fighter of lion) in Quṭb al-Dīn Mūsā b. Muḥammad al-Yunīni, Dhayl  mir’at  al‐zamān  [Sequel to the mirror of the time] in Li Guo, Early  Mamluk  Syrian  Historiography, 1: 123.

Scanlon, “Mamluk Sgraffiato Ware,” 309; Thomas T. Allsen, The Royal Hunt in Eurasian  History (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), 82–91. 25

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Y. Frenkel: Animals and Otherness in Mamluk Egypt and Syria stage-hunting is an appropriate point of departure for acquiring a better understanding of the Mamluks’ outlook on fauna.26 Reports on hunting and game were an important tool used by courtiers to depict the sultan as a brave hero. In a region with reduced forests and woodland the Mamluk sultans followed the ancient Bedouin traditions of wasteland field sports.27 Seated on horseback, they departed from their headquarters in Egypt’s and Syria’s urban centres to chase game in the deserts and wilderness.

lands, as well as their supremacy. Donating goods assisted sultans in their efforts to project an authoritative image. 31 Their prestige was also improved by receiving embassies.32 Animals often constituted visible items in ceremonial receptions and departures of delegations. Already the Book of Gifts, for example, tells that Queen Bertha of France sent ten gigantic dogs (‘which even lions are unable to beat’), seven falcons and seven hawks to the caliph al-Muktafi of Baghdad. 33 Another example is a report in Ayyubid sources according to which the Crusaders sent the ruler of Egypt al-Kāmil (in 631/1233–1234) a (polar?) bear. It had white hair ‘similar to the fur of lions’ and it used to swim in the sea, to hunt fishes and eat them. 34 Additional accounts illuminate the function of exotic mammals as gifts, which the Mamluk sultans used in order to enhance their prestige and to radiate an authoritarian image.35

The Mamluk huntsman often used trained animals, such as dogs and cheetahs, to pursue wild animals. This need induced sultans and governors to buy saluki dogs, falcons and other creatures. Due to their role as auxiliaries in a major court occupation these animals and birds were classified as permitted or lawful merchandise. Moreover, Muslim authors did not hesitate to attribute constructive values to these ‘unclean’ beings. Thus for example, although Muslim scholars depicted dogs as dirty creatures that scratch themselves on dunghills, nevertheless they found in them positive and praiseworthy features. These authors explain that the dog is forced to search for his food and by doing so he teaches man what poverty means.28

In Rajab 661 (May, 1263) a vessel, carrying an embassy that Bereke Khān, the ruler of the Golden Horde, had sent, docked at Alexandria’s seaport.36 Pleased with the communication it brought, Baybars, the sultan of Mamluk Egypt, dispatched a counter delegation to Bereke Khān’s ordu (camp;

In addition to their practical uses, significant gifts gain a symbolic value.29 The polysemic nature of these commodities explains their important role as diplomatic presents.30 Rulers used animal gifts to demonstrate what they considered to be royal generosity and their communication with remote

Muḥammad b. Aḥmad Ibn Iyās al-Ḥanafī (852–930/1448– 1524), Badā’i‘  al‐zuhūr  fi  waqā’i‘  al‐duhūr [Die Chronik des Ibn Ijas (The Amazing Flowers about the Events of the Times)] ed. M. Mustafa (repr. Cairo: Dar al-Kutub, 2008), 2: 343–344 (862/1457: ‘eighty horses one of them carrying a saddle decorated with precious stones’).

31

On this compare with Anthony Cutler, “Gifts and Gift Exchange as Aspects of the Byzantine, Arab, and Related Economies,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 55 (2001): 247–278, and id., “Significant Gifts: Patterns of Exchange in Late Antique, Byzantine, and Early Islamic Diplomacy,” Journal  of  Medieval  and Early Modern Studies 38/1 (2008): 79–103. 32

26 Karl Vilhelm Zettersteen, ed., Beiträge  zur  Geschichte  der  Mamlukensultane in den Jahren 690–741 der Higra nach Arabischen  Handschriften (Leiden: Brill, 1919), 129 (lines 20–24). 27 Maurice Lombard, “La chasse et les produits de la chasse dans le monde musulman (VIIIe-XIe siècle),” Annales: Économies,  Sociétés, Civilisations 24/3 (1969): 573.

33 al-Rashīd ibn al-Zubayr, al‐Dhakhā’ir  wa‐l‐tuḥaf, ed. Muḥammad Ḥamīdullāh (Kuwait: Da’irat al-maṭbu‘āt wa-lnashr, 1959), 48, n69.

28 Ibn Ghānim al-Makdisī, Revelation of the secrets of the birds and  flowers, trans. Irene Hoare and Darya Galy (London: Octagon Press, 1980), 59.

Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī, Ḥusn  al‐mukhādara  fi  ta’rīkh  miṣr  wal‐ qāhira, ed. Muhammad Abu al-Fadl Ibrahim (Cairo, 1968), 2: 294. 34

29 Abū Bakr b. ‘Abd Allāh b. Aybak Ibn al-Dawadārī, Kanz al‐ Durar wa‐jamī‘ al‐ghurar, vol. 9 al‐Durr al‐fākhir min sirat al‐malik  al‐al‐nāṣir, ed. H. R. Roemer (Fribourg – Cairo, 1960), 361, 372.

35 Dolores Carmen Morales Muñiz, “La fauna exótica en la Península Ibérica: apuntes para el estudio del coleccionismo animal en el Medievo hispánico,” Espacio, Tiempo, y Forma. Serie  III. Historia medieval 13 (2000): 244, 261–263 (thanks to the author for supplying me with this reference).

30  Fahmida Suleman, “Gifts and Gifts Giving,” in Medieval  Islamic Civilization. An Encyclopedia. Volume 1. A–K, eds. Josef W. Meri and Jere L. Bacharach (New York: Routledge, 2006), 295– 296; Jaroslav Folda,  Crusader art in the Holy Land: from the Third  Crusade  to  the  fall  of  Acre,  1187–1291  (Cambridge – New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 247 and 263.  

Reuven Amitai-Preiss, Mongols  and  Mamluks:  the  Mamluk‐ Īlkhānid  War,  1260–1281  (Cambridge – New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 82. 36

53

Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  palace) in southern Russia.37 Among the variety of presents it carried were savage beasts: an elephant, a giraffe, 38 monkeys, zebras, white horses, dromedaries and Egyptian donkeys.39 An embassy from Cairo carrying gifts, including an elephant and a giraffe, 40 to the ruler of eastern Turkey stopped in Damascus (741/May 1341). The locals rushed to examine the animals. While the delegation rested the elephant was paraded along the city’s streets.41 Al-Ashraf Qayitbāy dispatched (in 901/1495) an embassy to the Ottoman sultan Bayezid Yıldırım. It carried magnificent gifts including a lion, zebra and a red parrot.42

four-hundred heads of first-rate and excellent choice cattle.’ 46 And indeed from the Sudan, as well as from other African regions, animals were continuously sent as gifts to the sultan’s court in the citadel of Cairo.47 This diplomatic performance certainly was not an exclusive Mamluk practice. Pietro de Braino hired (in May–August, 1290) the falconer Johanes de Rayna to accompany him to the court of the Mongol emperor Arghun (1284–1291). It seems that Pietro planned to use the falconer’s skills in order to gain access to Arghun and possibly to secure a commercial agreement with the Il-Khan.48 Christian princes of various Balkan principalities sent presents (peşkeş) to the Ottoman sultan in Istanbul. They often consisted of animals: horses, falcons and hawks. The sultan in turn sent gifts to his vassals; among other items they might receive a horse with his harnesses and heron feathers.49

A European merchant presented the sultan alMalik al-Nāṣir (in 703/1303–1304) with expensive textiles and [hunting] birds.43 A mission arrived at Cairo (in 718/1318) bringing a gift of 419 falcons (sunqur). To this a Venetian man added 107 falcons. A contemporary Mamluk historian depicts this as an extraordinary event. 44 In a diplomatic accord signed between the Mamluk sultan Baybars and the Nubian king Shakanda (675/1276) 45 the latter stated: ‘I undertake to present every year three elephants, three giraffes, five female cheetahs, a hundred excellent chestnut steeds, and

Al-Ṣafadī, a minor Mamluk-period author, praises the sultan al-Malik al-Nāṣir b. Qalavūn (1309–1340). Glorifying his master throughout his historical book he acclaims the sultan for his collection of animals, and says: The horses of Egypt are the best on earth and the most excellent. Horses are collected all over the country and handed to the ruler of Egypt. Our

Johann Reinhold Forster, History of the Voyages and Discoveries  made in the North (London: G. G. J. and J. Robinson, 1786), 119.

37

On the visibility of these creatures in the streets of Mamluk Cairo and their impression of Europeans, see Malcolm Letts, trans., The  pilgrimage  of  Arnold  von  Harff  knight  from  Cologne  which he accomplished in the years 1496 to 1499 (London: Hakluyt Society, 1946), 119–120. 38

Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad al-Nuwayrī (677–733/1278–1333), Nihāyat  al‐arab  fi  funūn  al‐adab (Cairo: al-Hay’a al-miṣriyya al‘āmma, 1990), 30: 436; this text was published and translated by Étienne Quatremère, trans., Histoire  des  Sultans  Mamlouks  de  L’Egypte,  écrite  en  arabe  par  Taki‐Eddin‐Ahmed‐Makrizi (Paris: Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland, 1845), 1/2: 129–130; ibn Abī l-Faḍā’il, Histoire des sultans mamlouks. II, 400–401; Ibn al-Dawadārī, Kanz, 8: 185–186; Peter M. Holt, “The Coronation Oaths of the Nubian Kings,” Sudanic Africa 1 (1990): 5–9. 46

39 The fate of the Mamluk emissaries should not occupy us here. Mufaḍḍal ibn Abī l-Faḍā’il,  Histoire des sultans mamlouks, trans. and ed. Edgar Blochet, Patrologia  orientalis 12/3 (Paris: FirminDidot, 1916), 452–543, 455, 461; Ibn al-Dawadārī, Kanz, 8: 97, 100; it was not a single event, cf. Folda, Crusader art, 262. 40 Cf. the sending of a giraffe to Tamerlane in 806/1404. The animal was dressed by a yellow silk gown. The jurists of Damascus debated its origin, is it a hybrid of a cow and a camel, and questioned its flesh may be eaten. Shihāb al-Dīn Abū al-‘Abbās Aḥmad Ibn Ḥijji al-Ḥasbānī al-Dimashqī, Ta’rīkh  ibn ḥijji: ḥawādīth wa‐wafayāt 796–815/1393–1413, ed. Abū Yaḥyá ‘Abd Allāh Kundarī (Beirut: Dar al-Hazam, 2003), 612, 613.

47 Ḥasan b. Abī Muḥammad ‘Abd Allāh al-Hāshimī al-‘Abbāsī al-Ṣafadī (d. 1310), Nuzhat al‐mālik wal‐mamlūk fi mukhtaṣar sīrat  man waliya miṣr min al‐mulūk, ed. ‘Umar ‘Abd al-Salām Tadmurī (Sidon – Beirut: Maktaba al-‘Asriyya, 2003), 201 (AH 711, from Yemen; AH 712, from Sudan), 207 (AH 712, from Byzantium). 48 Nicola Di Cosmo, “Mongols and Merchants on the Black Sea Frontier in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries: Convergences and Conflicts,” in Mongols,  Turks  and  Others:  Eurasian  Nomads  and  the  Sedentary  World,  eds. Reuven Amitai and Michal Biran (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 400; cf. Lauren Arnold, Princely  gifts  and  papal  treasures:  the  Franciscan  mission  to  China  and its influence on the art of the West, 1250–1350 (San Francisco: Desiderata Press, 1999), 21, 34–35.

Taqī al-Dīn Abū Bakr b. Aḥmad Ibn Qāḍī Shuhba, Ta’rīkh, ed. ‘Adnān Darwīš (Damascus: Institut Francais de Damas, 1977), 1: 132. 41

42

Ibn Iyās al-Ḥanafī, Badā’i‘ al‐zuhūr, 3: 315–316.

43

Zettersteen, Beiträge zur Geschichte, 130 (line 1).

44

Ibn al-Dawadārī, Kanz, 9: 294.

Ernest Alfred Wallis Budge, The  Egyptian  Sudan:  its  History  and  Monuments (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1907), 2: 19–195; Djibril Tamsir Niane, ed., Africa from the Twelfth  to the Sixteenth Century (UNESCO, 1984), 403.

45

Maria Pia Pedani, “Sultans and Voivodas in the 16th century: Gifts and Insignia,” Uluslararası Sosyal Araştırmalar Dergisi / The  Journal of International Social Research 1/1 (2007): 196–200. 49

54

Y. Frenkel: Animals and Otherness in Mamluk Egypt and Syria lord al-Malik al-Nāṣir the son of the victorious sultan (al-Malik al-Manṣūr), the Sword of Faith and the World, Kalavūn amassed a considerable number of valuable horses of good breed. The sultan (no one equals him) handed them to his courtiers, entourage and servants.50 He, no other ruler equals him, collected huge numbers of horses, mules, Bactrian and other types of camels, Arab stallions, mares, draft horses, Roman, Tatar, Armenian and other stocks of horses including sporting horses. He also owned a great variety of mules. His royal ownership brand was impressed on thousands of horses, mules and camels. No one equals him. Add to it the unaccounted number of horses owned by his servants, courtiers and soldiers in Egypt and Syria. In Egypt there is a great variety of mules and donkeys. They are the finest, most skilful and speedy beasts of burden. Their value is the highest. A brisk donkey is sold for the price of 200 golden dinars. The cows of Egypt are the best in the world, so are also the fat sheep of that land. They are the bulkiest farm beasts; their meat is very tender and costly. So are also the goats of Egypt. Their yield of milk is unmatchable. They are pricey. The camels of Egypt are capable of enduring difficult situations with an even temper; they are the strongest beast of burden and can carry the heaviest loads for very long distances.51

Even the sultan came to see it. A second hippopotamus was observed (in 716/1316) near Qūṣ in Upper Egypt, it is said that its colour resembled that of dolphins.53 Ibn Iyās, a late Mamluk historian, found it important enough to provide his readers with a long account about a gigantic fish (whale?) that was discovered on the seacoast near Gaza. The sultan Qānṣawh al-Ghawrī (often spelled Qānṣūh al-Ghūrī) wrote to the town’s governor and ordered him to send the carcass to Cairo. Failing to comply with this royal instruction, the governor supplied the court with two ribs. The sultan put them on display at the citadel gate ‘where they remain to this very day.’54 This and other accounts demonstrate the symbolic value of imaginative memoria. In order to gain prestige the governing elite of the sultanate exhibited items that reflected power, exotics and mirabilia.55 Pictures of animals in ornamental friezes support this deduction.56 On the other hand, animals were also used for mockery and humiliation. An early example of this use can be seen in reports from Baghdad. During a power struggle that erupted in the Abbasid capital, the chief military commander al-Baṣaṣīrī arrested the minister Ra’īs al-Ru’asā’ Ibn al-Muslima. The prisoner was chained and a collar made out of camel’s skin was put around his neck. Sitting on a camel he was paraded to the gibbet. There he was dressed in an ox skin, and the animal’s horns were put on his head.57 Similar uses of animals can be deduced from numerous Mamluk period accounts that report the nailing of detainees to planks. The poor men were put on camels that traversed the cities’ streets.58

The exhibition of hunting trophies and the display of taxidermy elucidate the political value of successful hunting. To achieve this goal, Mamluk sultans exhibited esoteric and rare animals.52 This hypothesis is supported by reports of a ‘marvelous creature,’ i.e. a hippopotamus (furs  al‐baḥr in Arabic) that was observed in the Nile (in the year 702/January 1303). The governor of the lower Nile district of al-Manūfiyya hunted the hippopotamus and dismembered it. The anatomy of the creature is reported by several chroniclers. It is said that it had three stomachs: one contained pebbles and stones; the second contained fish and the third contained grass. Five camels carried the hippopotamus’ skin and head to the citadel of Cairo. There it was weighed and measured. The skin was stuffed with straw and put on display.

Zettersteen, Beiträge  zur  Geschichte, 109; Ibn al-Dawadārī, Kanz, 9: 80–81; al-Ṣafadī, Nuzhat al‐malik, 186, 187; Abū al-Fidā’ Ismā‘īl Ibn al-Kathīr, al‐Bidāya  wal‐nihāya, ed. ‘Abd Allah b. ‘Abd al-Muḥsin al-Turki (Cairo: Hajar, 1998), 18: 19. 53

54

Ibn Iyās al-Ḥanafī, Badā’i‘ al‐zuhūr, 4: 131.

55

Ibn al-Kathīr, al‐Bidāya wal‐nihāya, 18: 627.

Ernst Herzfeld, “Damascus: Studies in Architecture: II,” Ars  Islamica 10 (1943): 45. 56

50

Cf. Ibn al-Dawadārī, Kanz, 9: 357 (line 5).

51

al-Ṣafadī, Nuzhat al‐malik, 34.

Donald S. Richards, trans., The  Annals  of  the  Saljuq  Turks:  Selections  from  al‐Kāmil  fil‐ta’rīkh  of  ‘Izz  al‐Dīn  Ibn  al‐Athīr (London: Routledge – Curzon, 2002), 123. 57

Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn, “The Study of Byzantine Gardens: Some Questions and Observations from a Garden Historian,” in Byzantine Garden Culture, eds. Antony Littlewood, Henry Maguire, and Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn (Washington: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2002), 5.

52

58 ‘Alā’ al-Dīn ‘Alī ibn ‘Abd Allāh al-Bahā’ī al-Ghuzūlī, Maṭāli‘  al‐budūr  fi  manāzil  al‐surūr [The Rising of Full Moons in the Mansions of Joy] (Cairo, 1881), 2: 195 [new edition (Port Said, 2000), 514] (quoting Ibn Faḍl Allah al-‘Umarī).

55

Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  3. Encounters 

all the languages of animals. 61 Ibn Kathīr, who lived in Mamluk Damascus, narrates that Allah blessed Solomon with many abilities, including the power to command the winds, to understand the language of the birds and to talk with animals. It was said that the Muslim scholar who could decipher the ancient book that King Solomon had composed would be able to understand the languages of animals and birds.62 Another example of this belief in verbal communication between animals and men can be traced in stories about animals that prophesied the birth of the prophet Muḥammad and communicated in human tongues. 63 Stories about speaking animals are particularly observable in popular and wisdom writings, likewise in chronicles.64

So far I have addressed the presentation of animals in ‘realistic’ accounts. Now I will move to fictional narratives, which can be found in various Arabic literary genres. These animal stories rely upon the notion that animals have specific, predetermined characteristics. Indeed, we may argue that animal stories are multi-dimensional. The spectrum of encounters between man and animal is very wide. It moves from seeing these creatures as a source of knowledge and wisdom, at one extreme, to deep fear of them at the other.59 The reception of these tales points to their suiting the world construction of the contemporary Muslim public, military and civilians alike, the learned elite and the masses.

The image of animals among the learned classes of the Mamluk age is visible clearly in the Revelation  of  the  secrets  of  the  birds  and  flowers, a short book by ‘Abd al-Salām b. Aḥmad ‘Izz al-Dīn Ibn Ghānim al-Makdisī (or al-Muqaddasī, d. 1280), an author of mystical and edifying works. 65 He uses this tract to instruct his fellow Muslim brothers.66 It is set up as serial scenes of encounter between a man, the author, who states ‘I looked on the universe… and saw that all beings speak… and those who cannot express themselves through speech adopt silent language,’ and flowers, birds and animals.67 The camel approaches the man who wishes to learn constancy and patience and presents himself as an example, saying to him: ‘I brave the danger of the desert,’ ‘I take for my food what is there,’ ‘If I err my driver directs me.’ The horse says to him: ‘If you would seek out the path that leads to acts of glory, I will teach you, in my turn, the nature of eminence and how to make real use of efforts to gain success.’68

Stories that narrate natural mirabilis (Latin: plural mirabilia) certainly aim at demonstrating the power of the Almighty, the Creator of man and animal. This vision of fauna was deeply rooted in the traditional Islamic belief system. Mamluk contemporaries accepted stories about mysterious creatures (jinn), which inhabit the universe alongside the human beings as true. Yet, the role of the animals in these mirabilis stories is not merely to amuse the audiences but also to fortify the social order that the ruling echelons desired.60 Frequently these stories were used to encourage the believers to acknowledge the established interpretation of the religious traditions. The idea that man can take lessons from animals, or that beasts can play the role of a model was grounded in the perception of potential verbal communication between man and fauna. This belief derives from the Qur’ān. Several verses in the Holy Book (27:15–17) describe the gathering of animals in front of King Solomon. Muslim exegetes used these verses to elaborate on Solomon’s communication with animals and birds. Stories collected in the popular Islamic genre of ‘Legends of the Prophets’ tell that the angels taught Solomon

Jan Knappert, Islamic Legends: Histories of the heroes, saints, and  prophets of Islam (Leiden: Brill, 1985), 1: 130.

61

62

Ibid., 1: 4.

63

Ibid., 1: 11.

On a bird that said ‘O God help the emir Bakjam,’ see Ibn Ḥijji al-Dimashqī, Ta’rīkh ibn ḥijji, 744, 756. 64

59 Ibn al-Kathīr, al‐Bidāya wal‐nihāya, 18: 9 (on locusts in Syria in 701/June 1302).

65

Encyclopedia of Islam 2, 3: 772.

cf. Farīd al-Dīn ‘Aṭṭār (d. 1221), The  Conference  of  the  Birds, trans. Afham Darbandi and Dick Davis (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1984).

66

al-Ghuzūlī, Maṭāli  ‘al‐budūr  fi  manāzil  al‐surūr, 2: 183 [new edition, 502] (a donkey playing his pranks in Mamluk Cairo); and see narrations by the Damascene chronicler Ibn Ṣaṣra (fl. 1384–1397) in my article “Animism in Mamluk Narration” (forthcoming). 60

56

67

al-Makdisī, Revelation, 6.

68

Ibid., 60–62.

Y. Frenkel: Animals and Otherness in Mamluk Egypt and Syria stomach is full of the feast of his sword. The eagle said to the crow: is it not time that we are slaked from the blood flowing from these venesected necks? Why should we complain that we were created with zero knowledge, and each of us should not serve as the page of this sultan? The crow responded: I am proud, long before you, of being attached to this noble house. I served his brother al-Ashraf (the conqueror of Acre) and marked his roads, and he [al-Nāṣir] acknowledged my privileges. The crow did not cease from demonstrating his benevolence and refrained from disobedience.73

Stories about animals are highly noticeable in the One  thousand  and  One  Nights.69 The history of this composition will not occupy us here. It is sufficient to point that this collection was popular among Mamluk audiences. The acceptance of the idea that man is able to converse with animals opened the door for the belief that man can turned into animal and vice versa. The transformation of humans who were turned into animals is presented as either punishment or victimization. This scheme is particularly detectable in ‘The Donkey’ story. A trickster convinced a simpleton that Allah’s vengeance had transformed him into a donkey and that after three years Allah changed him back into a human being.70 Such was also the fate of a Baghdadi dervish whom an angry genie turns into an ape.71

Animal tales are prominent in stories about deliverance and miraculous escapes. An example of this can be seen in the following account. Heavy rain caused floods in Syria and a village was completely washed away by the water. Four people were rescued by a bull ‘that God had sent them.’ Two men succeeded to cling to his horns, a third man held the animal’s tail, with his daughter seated on her father’s shoulder.74

In some literary works, the voice of the animals broadcasts political messages. Describing the victory of the Mamluk army over the Mongols (Marj al-Suffar 702/April 1303) 72 a contemporary historian, who was motivated by his master’s political agenda, produced a text interweaving details and propaganda. To glorify the Mamluk achievement he uses speech by birds and beasts:

Animals’ and birds’ behaviour were often construed as signs or omens. Mamluk authors report on the appearance of animals in night visions. Oneirocritica  manuals provide guides to interpret these dreams. 75 Seeing lions in dreams was considered to be an assertion of authority and strong rule. If a man sees himself in a dream holding a lion cub, his wife will bear a son.76 The story of the deposed sultan al-Nāṣir illuminates this interpretation. The young sultan had been deposed and imprisoned in the city of Kark (Kerak in southern Jordan). During a hunting expedition he seized two cranes (karki); his entourage understood this as a clue to the immediate future. They said: ‘if the “I” at the end of the city name is omitted, Kark remains stable.’ That is to say, they interpreted the successful hunt as an omen that alNāṣir would be safe from his enemies.77

Wild beasts and birds of prey responded to this invitation, they enjoyed the flesh that will recover only at the Day of Resurrection. Each one of these species thanked the two armies and recalls this unforgettable day, admitting that their gratitude is not sufficient and it falls short of the achievements of the great sultan al-Malik alNāṣir. When the lion looked at his steadfastness and resoluteness, his self-image and bravery decreased. The lion learned that the sultan’s persistence and perseverance is stronger than his assault and advance. When the wolf looked at the sultan’s courage he deduced that his daring is merely a defeat. The hyena said: my tongue is too short to depict the bravery of this sultan, yet it is sufficient that I praise him as I walk, since my

Richard Foltz, Animals in Islamic  tradition and Muslim cultures (Oxford: Oneworld, 2006), 71–72.

69

N. J. Dawood, trans., Tales  from  the  Thousand  and  One  Nights (Harmondsworth – Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1954–1973), 77.

70

71

73

Ibn al-Dawadārī, Kanz, 9: 85–86.

74

al-Ṣafadī, Nuzhat al‐malik, 233.

Y. Frenkel, “Dream Accounts in the Chronicles of the Mamluk Period,” in Dreaming  Across  Boundaries:  The  Interpretation  of  Dreams  in  Islamic  Land,  ed. Louise Marlow (Cambridge: Ilex Foundation – Harvard University Press, 2008), 202–220. 75

Ibid., 270–271.

On this event see John A. Boyle “Dynastic and Political history of the Il-Khans,” in The Cambridge History of Iran. 5. The  Saljuq  and  Mongol  Periods  (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), 394; Anne F. Broadbridge, Kingship and Ideology in  the  Islamic  and  Mongol  Worlds  (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 87–93. 72

76 Muḥammad al-Damīrī, Ḥayāt  al‐ḥayawān  al‐kubrá (Cairo, 1901), 1: 5–23; Foltz, Animals, 63. 77

57

Ibn al-Dawadārī, Kanz, 9: 163.

Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  Devouring beasts were not rare. 78 Reports on animals disclose a deep anxiety. 79 Destruction of crops by voles generated fear of scarcity and hunger. 80 Field mice devoured wheat and barley seeds (659/1261) and attacked fields (697/1298). 81 An inscription on a cup discloses fear of rabies.82 The comparison between enemies of public order and wild beasts reflects an instinctive fear of fauna.83 A similar mood is revealed by an official report that informed the chief judge of hail in the shape of animals.84 These figures of lions, snakes, scorpions and other dangerous creatures instigated panic. This public mood was occasionally rendered into practical steps against dogs, such as the banishment (ikhrāj) and slaughter of hounds, 85 while the driving back of predators was viewed as a demonstration of miraculous power.86

is very wide. These conclusions are supported by countless short and long reports in all literary genres. By conceptualizing the role of animals this study aimed at supporting the thesis that Mamluk animal stories and accounts reflect a multifaceted attitude towards fauna. In the contemporary discourse they fulfilled opposing functions. On the one hand, animals served as a source of wisdom that confirmed the belief system. On the other hand, animals were depicted as threatening forces that endanger society.

Bibliography  Sources  ‘Abd al-Raḥman Ibn Khaldūn. al‐Muqaddima. Translated by Franz Rosenthal. 3 vols. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967. Abū al-Fidā’ Ismā‘īl Ibn al-Kathīr. al‐Bidāya  wal‐ nihāya. Edited by ‘Abd Allah b. ‘Abd alMuḥsin al-Turki. Cairo: Hajar, 1998. Abu al-Ḥasan ‘Ali al-Mas‘ūdi. Murūj al‐dhahab wa‐ ma‘ādin  al‐jawhar. Edited by Charles Pellat. Beirut, 1964. Abū Bakr b. ‘Abd Allāh b. Aybak Ibn al-Dawadārī. Kanz al‐Durar wa‐jamī‘ al‐ghurar. Vol. 9. al‐Durr  al‐fākhir min sirat al‐malik al‐nāṣir. Edited by H. R. Roemer (Fribourg – Cairo, 1960). ‘Alā’ al-Dīn ‘Alī ibn ‘Abd Allāh al-Bahā’ī alGhuzūlī.  Maṭāli‘  al‐budūr  fi  manāzil  al‐surūr [The Rising of Full Moons in the Mansions of Joy]. Cairo, 1881 [new edition, Port Said, 2000]. al-Rashīd ibn al-Zubayr. al‐Dhakhā’ir  wa‐l‐tuḥaf. Edited by Muḥammad Ḥamīdullāh. Kuwait: Da’irat al-maṭbu‘āt wa-l-nashr, 1959. Dawood, N. J., trans. Tales  from  the  Thousand  and  One  Nights. Harmondsworth – Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1954–1973. Farīd al-Dīn ‘Aṭṭār. The  Conference  of  the  Birds. Translated by Afham Darbandi and Dick Davis. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1984. Guo, Li, trans. and ed.  Early  Mamluk  Syrian  Historiography:  al‐Yunini’s  Dhayl  mir’at  al  zaman. 2 vols. Leiden: Brill, 1998. Ḥasan b. Abī Muḥammad ‘Abd Allāh al-Hāshimī al‘Abbāsī al-Ṣafadī. Nuzhat al‐mālik wal‐mamlūk fi  mukhtaṣar  sīrat  man  waliya  miṣr  min  al‐mulūk. Edited by ‘Umar ‘Abd al-Salām Tadmurī. Sidon – Beirut: Maktaba al-‘Asriyya, 2003.

Summary   Animals played an important role in the Mamluk sultanate. They appear ceaselessly in writings composed by Syrian and Egyptian medieval authors. The spectrum of their functions

Jean-Paul Roux, “Le combat d’animaux dans l’art et la mythologie irano-turcs,” Arts Asiatiques 36 (1981): 5–7.

78

79 See the report about an attack by wolves on Dunaysar (a city in Turkey, contemporary Kizil Tape in 589/1193) in [attributed to] ‘Imād al-Dīn Muḥammad al-Kātib al-Iṣfahānī (1125–1201), al‐Bustān  al‐jāmi‘  li‐jamī‘  tawārīkh  ahl  al‐zamān, ed. ‘Umar ‘Abd al-Salām Tadmurī (Sidon, 2002), 446. 80

Ibn Abī l-Faḍā’il, Histoire des sultans mamlouks. II, 443.

Ibn al-Dawadārī, Kanz, 8: 85; For simillar account see Ibn Ḥijji al-Dimashqī, Ta’rīkh  ibn  ḥijji, 342; Ibn Qāḍī Shuhba, Ta’rīkh, 4: 100.

81

82 ‘This blessed cup resists poison of serpent and scorpion’s prick and venom and protects from rabid dogs.’  Étienne Combe, Jean Sauvaget and Gaston Wiet, eds.,  Répertoire  Chronologique  d’Epigraphie  Arabe (Cairo: Institut français d’archéologie orientale, 1956), 14: 30 (5274) and 15: 81–82 (§5722). 83 Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad b. ‘Ali Ibn Ṭūlūn al-Ṣāliḥī 880– 953/1485–1536), Mufākahat  al‐khullān  fi  ḥawadith  al‐zamān  [The joyful stories of close friends concerning recent events] ed. Khalil al-Mansur (Beirut, 1998), 8. 84

Ibn al-Kathīr, al‐Bidāya wal‐nihāya, 18: 7 (AH 701).

On orders to drive out dogs from towns see for example the reports on measures against dogs that Tankiz, the governor of Damascus, took in 726/1326. Three years later (729/1329), he ordered to kill the dogs. The poor creatures were driven to the ditch outside the city walls and killed. Another governor is said to be fond of killing dogs. Ibn Qāḍī Shuhba, Ta’rīkh, 1: 149 (AH741), 270–271 (quotes al-‘Uthmānī, Safad), 416; Ibn alKathīr, al‐Bidāya wal‐nihāya, 18: 478 (AH 745/May 1345). 85

86

Ibn al-Kathīr, al‐Bidāya wal‐nihāya, 18: 63 (AH 705).

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D. González Ginocchio: Avicenna’s Philosophy of the Animal Soul…

– IV –  AVICENNA’S PHILOSOPHY OF THE ANIMAL SOUL IN CONTEXT  David GONZÁLEZ GINOCCHIO Universidad de Navarra [email protected]

Abstract  This paper examines Avicenna’s reliance on both philosophy and medicine to explain the animal soul. Avicenna’s psychology is still relevant to discuss the foundations of normative and intentional theories. Three main points of interest are reviewed: 1. His Neoplatonic-metaphysical account of the animal soul (underlining his similarities with the human soul, and thus disproving a purely materialistic theory of animal psychology); 2. His medical and physiological account of perception and his construction of an animal psychology (with a special emphasis on his account of perceptive intentions); 3. Some remarks about his influence in later authors.  Keywords  Avicenna; animal soul; animal rationality; internal senses; intentions

1. Avicenna on the Animal Soul*  

harmonize their findings. I will focus here on one instance of such harmonization, the medieval philosopher Ibn Sīnā (980–1037), Avicenna in the Latin West, who still provides a relevant source both for the classic and contemporary studies of animal psychology.   Avicenna is a great representative of the Aristotelian tradition, for which the roots of cognitive and desiderative self-relations can be found in the sensitive faculties of the soul, and yet do not replace rational self-knowledge, selfawareness, or the election of goods as ends in moral agency.   Thoroughly educated from a very young age, Avicenna was also a skilled physician with complex knowledge of anatomy and physiology (his Qānūn fī al‐ṭibb or Canon of Medicine would be a standard university manual in Europe until the sixteenth century), but also of music, mathematics, and law. As a physician, Avicenna was heir to the Galenic tradition, while as a philosopher he was well versed in the doctrines of Aristotle, al-Fārābī,

Philosophical scholarship has discovered a profound source of inspiration in biology, psychology and modern cognitive sciences. Studies surrounding our cognitive structures present an actual testing field for functional models that had mostly been a reflexive and in many cases hypothetical scrutiny. I do not believe this signals the dissolution of philosophical discourse; rather, the latter has provided the former with a growing sense of methodological awareness. Scientific observation can fruitfully be conjoined, for instance, with comparative and evolutionary psychology, historical observation, or with normative and legal theories, and in turn raise questions about the meaning of different behaviours and phenomena. Philosophy is still one of the great ways in which different theories can This paper is part of a larger research project on Duns Scotus’s metaphysics and epistemology. I appreciate the support from Asociación de Amigos de la Universidad de Navarra. I also wish to thank Profs. Luis Xavier López Farjeat and Mauricio Lecón for their comments and corrections.

*

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Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  doctrine of body and soul as separate substances. He claims that the soul exists independently from the body, and holds their union is an accidental relation (razi); furthermore, while the soul would loose all sensible features and cognitive faculties in the afterlife, it would still survive in a purely intellectual fashion.3 And yet, his conception of animals is extremely dissimilar to Descartes’, given as how the latter describes animals as machines which entirely lack rationality4 (Descartes shares this conception with many other thinkers of his time). In the following notes I will try to point out the following:  (1) Avicenna frames the animal soul in the global context of Neoplatonic cosmology, which features rationality as a necessary component. Animals are therefore ‘rational’ in a contextual sense. That is to say that animal souls also operate with rational, if not wholly self-conscious, drives. (2) For Avicenna, animals share many cognitive faculties with the human soul. It is their ‘imperfect’ body what prevents them from reaching the higher cognitive functions of humans. (3) Even as Avicenna recognizes the cognitive faculties of animals, his historical legacy would place the distinction between human beings and other animals in the faculty of willing. This is especially clear in John Duns Scotus’s distinction between the rational and natural potencies of the soul. I believe that it is precisely the accent on selfconsciousness and on the will as a rational potency (an analysis that extensionally excludes animals) the one that encouraged a comprehension that negated their status as agents, leading to mechanical explanations of animal behaviour.     2. The Physiological Account 

and the Neoplatonists. Both traditions play an important role in his psychology, while the centrality of psychology within his system is one of its most conspicuous features. Psychological theory extends from noetics down to faculty psychology and to physiological psychology; it connects smoothly with cosmology at one end and physiology at the other. It connects also with astronomy and with a celestial thaumaturgy at the cosmological end; with epistemology and methodology; with anthropology, in the original sense of the theory of the person; with political theory; with dynamics; with chemistry; and with anatomy and zoology and botany at the physiological end. […] Moreover, Ibn Sīnā seems to find the congruence of other parts of his thoughts with psychological theory to be a prime means of testing them.1  

My aim here is to present the double consideration that Avicenna employs concerning the animal soul, showing how both can be fruitfully articulated without dissolving philosophical phenomena into physiological explanations or vice versa (§§ 1–3). A derivative objective is to show the historical relevance of some of Avicenna’s doctrines (§ 4). This overview intends to briefly explore some of our main historical lines of understanding animals as similar and different to humans.  

Avicenna’s psychology is not only interesting, I believe, for historical reasons, but also as way to outline a systematic approach to the way we understand animal rationality. In this sense, I’d like to encompass this paper between two ‘paradigms,’ those of Aristotle and Descartes.2 Avicenna can easily be related to both: he shares with Aristotle many methodological and doctrinal postulates. For Aristotle, animals and human beings share life (psyche), which he calls a first perfection, and numerous second perfections, like growth, nutrition and mobility. Animal or sensible life is not something wholly different from human life: Aristotle sees them as parts of a continuum. With Descartes, Avicenna shares the dualistic

I will begin with Avicenna’s medical account of the human/animal soul, after which we will be able to point out their differences. I should note the epistemological status of medicine in Avicenna’s historical and philosophical context.5 Working 3 See Tariq Jaffer, “Bodies, Souls and Resurrection in Avicenna’s ar‐Risāla  al‐Aḍḥawīya  fī  amr  al‐ma‘ād,” in Before  and  after  Avicenna. Proceedings of the First Conference of the Avicenna Study  Group, ed. David C. Reisman (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 163–174.

Robert E. Hall, “Intellect, Soul and Body in Ibn Sīnā: Systematic Synthesis and Development of the Aristotelian, Neoplatonic and Gallenic Theories,” in Interpreting  Avicenna:  Science and Philosophy in Medieval Islam. Proceedings of the Second  Conference  of  the  Avicenna  Study  Group, ed. John McGinnis (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 63. 1

See María Isabel Gamboa, “El mecanicismo animal en la filosofía cartesiana,” in La mente animal, 63–75. 4

For the following, see Dimitri Gutas, “Medical Theory and Scientific Method in the Age of Avicenna,” in Before  and  after  Avicenna, 145–162. 5

See Luis Xavier López Farjeat, ed., La  mente  animal (Mexico: Los libros de Homero, 2008). 2

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D. González Ginocchio: Avicenna’s Philosophy of the Animal Soul… faculties, vital spirits or pneumata.’ That is why anatomy plays such an important role in Avicenna: even while it does not provide any scientific principles, it provides ‘proof’ for the whole system. If a physical or metaphysical axiom were in discord with medical reality, it would short-circuit the entire scheme.

within the Aristotelian arrangement of sciences, Avicenna regards medicine as a discipline within an ordained ‘system’ basically divided in theoretical, practical, and ‘technical’ disciplines. The theoretical sciences, Aristotle explains, deal with realities ‘whose fundamental principles do not admit of being other as they are,’ while practical sciences ‘apprehend things that do admit of being other than they are’ (Nich.  Eth. VI, 1). Theoretical sciences are physics, mathematics and metaphysics. Practical sciences are ethics, economy and politics. A further distinction can be made between practical  sciences, dealing with human action, and poietical  sciences (and arts), dealing with production. Arabic scholars, inheriting Aristotle’s distinction, had little room to consider medicine anything other than a practical or technical science. Avicenna would indeed begin by placing medicine as a corollary of the theoretical science of physics (along with astrology, alchemy, and the interpretation of dreams). Later on, he placed the distinction between primary and corollary sciences at the beginning of his scheme, so that theoretical and practical sciences are both primary, and all other sciences are corollaries or derivative. In this way, medicine is not a theoretical science at all, not even as derivative of physics. It is little more than an art, which takes its principles and knowledge from physics and other primary sciences. Avicenna was very strict in this regard. His Qānūn of Medicine begins:  

While Galen was not an Aristotelian, the vein of Avicenna’s psychology is distinctly so. Just like Aristotle, Avicenna regards vision  as the most important sense (it is the sense that shows us more differences).7 He also recognizes the existence of internal senses (though Aristotle does not refer to them by that name or even arranges them as his medieval readers would), that is, senses that are not in direct contact with exterior stimuli, but nevertheless order these stimuli  providing the medium for both animal behavior and human intellection (humans would not be able to do  anything or even know much more than the fact that they exist were it not for the internal senses). The first of these would be the common  sense  (aisthesis  koine), that rearranges the different impressions of vision, hearing, etc., to provide a unified content. The second interior sense is what Aristotle calls the fantastikon  power. Aristotle speaks also of memory (mnemoneutikon) and the dianoetikon sense, which some scholars would later name the estimative faculties. Aristotle speaks of them as activities, however, and their number and status as faculties became a very discussed point.8

The physician, in his capacity as physician, should act as follows: for some medical matters he must form only cognitive concepts (taṣawwur) of what they are and grant assent (taṣdīq) that they, in fact, exist, merely on the basis that they have been posited for his acceptance by the specialist of Physics [natural science], while for other medical matters he should provide demonstrative proofs in his discipline. He should accept on authority that whatever among the former set is like a first principle exists, because the first principles of particular sciences are taken as granted [in those sciences] and proven demonstratively only in other and prior sciences. [This continues] in this fashion until the first principles of all sciences are ultimately studied in the science of Metaphysics. (Qānūn I, 15–16)6

The Galenic tradition received Aristotle’s account  and tried to arrange it systematically according to the data provided by anatomical studies. Muslim medicine was not particularly fond of dissection, so many of Avicenna’s references come from Galen’s observations.

Metaphysics  I, 1. See Katherine Tachau, “Approaching Medieval Scholars’ Treatment of Cognition,” in Intellect  et  imagination  dans  la  philosophie  médiévale.  Actes  du  XIe  Congrès  International de Philosophie Médivévale de la S.I.E.P.M., eds. Maria Cândida Pacheco and José Francisco Meirinhos (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), 1: 1–34, esp. 21–26. 7

8 See Tachau, “Approaching Medieval Scholars’ Treatment of Cognition,” 15–16, and the classic study by Harry A. Wolfson, “The Internal Senses in Latin, Arabic, and Hebrew Philosophical Texts,” Harvard Theological Review 28/2 (1935): 69– 133. F. Rahman, in his translations of the Kitāb  al‐Najāt, concludes that Avicenna’s internal senses are all different functions of Aristotle’s phantasia: see Fazlur Rahman, ed., Avicenna’s  Psychology (London: Oxford University Press, 1952), 83.

The physician cannot discuss a series of given doctrines: ‘elements, temperaments, humours,

6

Quoted in Gutas, “Medical Theory,” 150.

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Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  imagination. The third ventricle houses the memory (hāfiẓa; dhākira, dhikr), which preserves the intentions perceived by the estimative faculty; Avicenna sometimes calls it also the ‘recollective’ faculty, al‐mutadakkira.

Nevertheless, Avicenna speaks in his Qānūn of the physician’s knowledge through perception (ḥiss) and anatomy (tashrī).9 The mature doctrine of the senses and their functions can be found in Avicenna’s psychology section (al‐Nafs) of his Book  of  the  Healing (Shifā’), especially in chapters I, 5 and in IV, 1–3.10 In these passages he distinguishes five internal senses. They are faculties that operate through the brain. The main distinction between them is that between apprehension and retention: three senses are apprehensive while two are retentive and preserve the perceptions of the others. Avicenna also divides these senses anatomically in the anterior, medium, and posterior ventricles of the brain. The ventricles are separated by the vermis and the nucleus  caudatus (names still used in modern anatomy). They regulate the movement of the pneuma (rū nafsānīya), the life spirit that moves the sensible objects between the parts of the brain.

The middle ventricle houses the most relevant interior faculties, the estimative  faculty  (wahmiyya) in its front half, and the compositive  imagination  (ashyā’  mutakhayyila) in the rear half. This compositive imagination is not to be confused with the one already mentioned: while the retentive  imagination in the first ventricle merely preserves the coordinated perception of the sensus communis, the compositive  imagination of the middle ventricle is able to combine and disassemble images taken from the retentive imagination ‘at will.’ To further complicate matters, the compositive  imagination is called cogitative faculty in human beings (mufakkira, fikra).11 In the psychology treatise not of the Shifā’ but of the similar Kitāb  al‐Najāt, Avicenna calls it rational  imagination  (mufakkirah; Latin: cogitatio). It is the most important faculty, for by arranging the images of the retentive imagination, the cogitative faculty permits the connection of the human soul with the Active Intellect. If our soul makes proper use of the corporeal images, it prepares itself to receive the emanation of a concept from the Active Intellect.

The first ventricle houses the apprehensive common  sense (ḥiss  al‐mushtarak) in the front half and the retentive imagination (khayāl, musawwira) in the rear half. The common sense is also called bantāsiyā  in the Shifā’ and fantāsiyāt  in al‐Najāt; it coordinates the impressions of the five exterior senses and provides a common object. This common object is then stored in the retentive

The animal faculty is unable to receive concepts from the Active Intellect. That is why it is not called cogitative  faculty but compositive imagination; its function remains wholly corporeal. This compositive imagination is not subjected in animals to reason, but to another faculty, also situated in the middle ventricle, in its rear half; Avicenna calls it the estimative  faculty  (qūwa  l‐wahmīyya, wahm,  and sometimes at‐ tawahhum; Latin: vis aestimativa),

Avicenna’s knowledge of Galenic anatomy was sometimes mediated by other Arabic physicians, like al-Rāzī and ‘Alī b. ‘Abbas Majūsī (see Enciclopaedia Iranica, 1: 837–838). From postGalenic anatomical studies Avicenna takes, for example, the female ovaries (quwwat at‐taṣawwur), as a potential explanation for the formation of “female semen.” See Emilie Savage-Smith, “Attitudes Towards Dissection in Medieval Islam,” Journal  of  the  History  of  Medicine  and  Allied  Sciences  50 (1995): 67–110. Later, in the twelfth century, al-Ghazālī would encourage anatomical knowledge and dissection, thus making way for many corrections in the Galenic-Avicennian medical doctrines; see Sulaiman Oataya, “Ibnul-Nafees Has Dissected the Human Body,” in Encyclopedia  of  the  Islamic  World, http://www.islamset.com/isc/nafis/index.html (accessed January 20, 2011). 9

which seems to be original with Ibn Sīnā in that he made it a separate faculty with cognitive objects of its own. The wahm  is one of the ‘internal senses,’ the faculties of the sensory part of the soul that lie beyond the external or special senses. The proper objects of the wahm, apprehended only by this faculty, are the ma‘ānī  (Latin, intentiones); they somehow accompany the special sensibles (colors, pitches and the like) or

10 For the metaphysical treatise of the Shifā’, the Ilāhiyyāt, I will be using Michael Marmura’s edition (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 2005). English translations of some passages of the psychological treatise, al‐Nafs, can be found in Fazlur Rahman, ed., Avicenna’s De anima. Being the Psychological Part of  Kitāb al-Shifā’ (London: Oxford University Press, 1959); and in John McGinnis and David C. Reisman, eds., Classical  Arabic  Philosophy.  An  Antology  of  Sources (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2007). Rahman had already translated and commented some key passages of the psychological parts of both the Healing  and the Salvation  in Rahman, Avicenna’s  Psychology.

The cogitative faculty serves for reasoning; however, this term relates to the Galenic diánoia, which for Plato and Aristotle is not a material faculty. 11

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D. González Ginocchio: Avicenna’s Philosophy of the Animal Soul… are contained in them, yet differ from them in kind. Standard instances are benevolence/ desirability and enmity/undesirability – like the intentio  of enmity found by the sheep in the wolf.12

solutions. It seems to me this reading is in accord with al‐Nafs IV, 1: What distinguishes perceiving forms from perceiving connotational attributes is the following. Form is something that both the internal and external senses perceive, but the external sense perceives it first and relays it to the internal sense. For example, the sheep perceives the form of the wolf – I mean its shape, pattern, and color. The internal senses of the sheep do  perceive it, but it is the external senses that perceive it first. The connotational attribute is something that the soul perceives from the sensible without the external senses first perceiving it, for example, the sheep’s perceiving the connotational attribute of enmity in the wolf or the connotational attribute off having to fear it and flee from it, without the external senses perceiving it at all. So, what perceives something about the wolf first is the external senses, and then the internal senses. [What the external senses perceive] should here be restricted to the term ‘form,’ whereas what the internal faculties – not the senses – perceive should here be restricted to the term ‘connotational attribute.’ (al‐Nafs IV, 1)15

Intentions are not something that can be known through the external senses, and yet are related sensible features (otherwise, the estimative faculty would be unnecessary or incorporeal). They have been called ‘connotational attributes’ or ‘instincts.’ Avicenna uses the term ma‘nā, which can also refer in general to any mental content. In the Qānūn he speaks of them as related to beliefs and opinions that are not strictly rational, such as when we perceive a friendly face. This rises the obvious question of the reality of the estimative’s intentions. Dag Nikolaus Hasse13 believes they are an objective reality, that is, the ‘hostility’ of the wolf is an objective, inherent feature of the wolf, that could exist even in the absence of an observer (and vice versa, an observer could realize its existence even while not being in a direct subject-object relation, as in the possible case of a little girl that acknowledges the sympathy between a sheep and its shepherd). On the contrary, they could be interpreted as merely mental constructions with no objective reality: this would apparently make justice to the fact that intentions seem to be always apprehended as singular features bound to a concrete object. A middle ground of understanding has been set forth by Luis Xavier López Farjeat and Jorge Morales,14 who argue that certain sensible features of things provoke certain relational intentions. Interpreting intentions in an overtly objective ontological sense would lead to the uselesness of the estimative faculty, for intentions would be exterior sensible features and thus would not be any different to other sensible features apprehended by the exterior senses; on the other side, interpreting estimations as a pure result of mental activity would turn them either in arbitrarily subjective dispositions or in their being only generated through experience. Avicenna denies both 12

Avicenna is here both affirming the acting capacity of the external and internal faculties, while clearly distinguishing the form apprehended by the external senses from the ma‘ānī  of the interior faculties. ‘Danger’ cannot be seen or heard: the sheep can only see the form of the wolf and hear and smell it. It is the action of the estimative faculty the one that provides these sensations with an intention. As this intention is a discernment over the sensible features of an object, Avicenna sometimes calls it az‐zānna, the ‘opinative faculty.’16 At any rate, the intention cannot be apprehended without first apprehending the exterior sensible features of an object, which gives Avicenna’s intentions an undoubtedly directional  state towards the world, negating the apprehension of intentions as a purely arbitrary feature of the animal soul. Even as knowledge is conditioned by the subject, it is at the same time conditioned by the connotational attributes we perceive, both human and animals. This relational or co-dependent

Hall, “Intellect, Soul, and Body,” 65.

Avicenna’s  De anima  in  the  Latin  West.  The  Formation  of  a  Peripatetic  Philosophy  of  the  Soul  1160–1300 (London: The Warburg Institute, 2000), 132–136. 13

Quoted in McGinnis and Reisman, eds., Classical  Arabic  Philosophy, 181.

15

Luis Xavier López Farjeat and Jorge Morales Ladrón de Guevara, “El contenido cognitivo de la percepción: Avicena y McDowell,” Thémata 43 (2010): 251–270. 14

16 See Jari Kaukua, “Avicenna on Subjectivity” (PhD diss., University of Jyväskylä, 2007), 65.

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Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  conception of knowledge plays as a barrier against scepticism and idealism.17

receive the forms of the Active Intellect. As Davidson writes:

It is only after the estimative faculty apprehends intentions that the animal soul gives way to action. As the memory preserves these intentions that trigger responses, we speak of animal ‘experience’ (tajriba).18 These intentions, along with the images of the compositive imagination, are what humans use to conjoin the Active Intellect.19

Natural sublunar forms subsist in the active intellect in an undifferentiated mode, and whenever influences from the heavens together with forces within the sub-lunar world blend a portion of matter so as to dispose it for a given natural form, the matter receives the appropriate form from the eternal, ever-present emanation of the active intellect. The active intellect is, as it were, an eternal cosmic transmitter, broadcasting an undifferentiated range of forms, as well as the substratum that can receive them, and properly attuned portions of matter automatically receive the natural forms appropriate to them. The active intellect is accordingly called the ‘giver of forms’. Matter blended to the highest possible degree of homogeneity receives an incorporeal human soul from the active intellect’s emanation.22

3.  The  Neoplatonic  frame  of  reference  and  its  limitations   Medicine is not the only source of Avicenna’s doctrine of the soul. While its importance cannot be denied, and has even led some to read Avicenna as an empiricist,20 we must keep in mind his greater Neoplatonic frame of reference. As a Neoplatonist, Avicenna has in mind an emanative scheme of the world, working in triads, each corresponding to an intellect, a soul and a celestial sphere.21 God emanates the First Intellect that in turn by reflecting upon his maker emanates another intellect, a sphere by reflecting upon itself as caused, and a soul by reflecting upon itself as an intellectual substance. The souls of spheres (the Sun, the planets) and their intellects correspond to the angels of religion. There is an Active Intellect or Giver of Forms that corresponds to our own sphere (the Earth) and the souls that inhabit this sphere: plants, animals, and humans. Earth itself is just matter with basic forms. But the movement of the celestial spheres also moves the Earth’s matter, instilling the basic qualities of heat, dryness, cold, and wetness, so that it may be aptly disposed to

17

There is an important parallel here between cosmology and psychology, as Robert Hall notes: In Ibn Sīnā’s account of the ensouling of an embryo, the (primarily ‘chemical’) nature of the embryo as it develops makes it suitable to receive its soul – its particular individual soul in the case of a human being at least – and this soul emanates from the Active Intellect onto this prepared matter.23

Therefore, according to Avicenna, there are two emanations from the Active intellect, corresponding with the ‘two perfections’ Aristotle distinguishes in his De anima. The first perfection is the one that corresponds with the soul as the form of the body: the Active Intellect emanates the soul as the life that comes into a prepared matter. The second perfection are the operations  of life, like hearing, breathing and nurturing.

López Farjeat and Morales, “El contenido cognitivo,” 267.

See Aristotle’s Metaphysics I, 1, where memory makes way for experience. 18

Physiological development is not sufficient for the existence of a soul, whose real origin is the Agent Intellect. Avicenna does speak of a ‘desire’ in matter similar to animal desire (al‐shawq  al‐ nafsānī), but he calls it a natural preponderant desire (al‐shawq  al‐  taskhīrī  al‐tabī‘ī), and he says it is ‘improperly’ said of matter. This is the ‘desire,’ for example, which heavy objects have of falling. In these cases we speak of matter ‘moving by itself,’ or having a ‘propelling power in it’ (quwwa).

19 See Hall, “Intellect, Soul, and Body,” 65. For the conceptual mechanism in Avicenna see Dimitri Gutas, “Intuition and Thinking. The Evolving Structure of Avicenna’s Epistemology,” in Aspects  of  Avicenna, ed. Robert Wisnovsky (Princeton: Markus Wiener Publications, 2001), 1–38. See also Dag Nikolaus Hasse, “Avicenna on Abstraction,” ibid., 39–72. 20 John McGinnis, “Avicenna’s Naturalized Epistemology and Scientific Method,” in The Unity of Science in the Arabic Tradition.  Science,  Logic,  Epistemology  and  their  Interactions, eds. Shahid Rahman, Tony Street, and Hassan Tahiri (Milton Keynes: Springer, 2008), 129–152.

For a more detailed account see Herbert Davidson, Alfarabi,  Avicenna,  and  Averroes,  on  Intellect (Oxford: University Press, 1992). 21

68

22

Ibid., 124.

23

Hall, “Intellect, Soul and Body,” 66.

D. González Ginocchio: Avicenna’s Philosophy of the Animal Soul… there are texts in which he seems to hesitate in the attribution of self-awareness to animals, there are also passages where he explicitly asserts that animals are self-aware in quite the same sense as human beings.26

These are ‘natural forces,’ but they are not at all identical to animal faculties. Avicenna’s point is that life cannot be understood as a mere physical phenomenon, and the activities of living beings cannot be sufficiently explained by an account of physical forces.

Indeed, according to Avicenna,

The difference between the corporeal activities of the body and the spiritual nature of the soul leads Avicenna to distinguish soul and body as two separate substances. The defining property of the soul (arguably, of all intellectual substances, including the separate intellects and perhaps even God) is self‐awareness. Jari Kaukua has written extensively about Avicenna’s notion of selfawareness,24 distinguishing (1) a first primitive selfawareness as a common feature of every intellectual substance; (2) a corporeal self-awareness as a first-order awareness accessible to sensible life; and (3) a reflexive self-awareness, belonging to second-order knowledge. We have a very conscious use of the term self-awareness in ordinary language, which leads us to immediately raise the question: do animals have it? Avicenna is hesitant to concede it; at the very least he totally denies them (3) second‐order  self-awareness. But if animals, as any soul, can be said to have at least primitive self-awareness,25 we may explain the way in which every experience for them would always be singular, and thus explain how apprehended estimations would always be what they are for the  perceiving  subject  of estimation in a particular circumstance. Let us explore this possibility. Kaukua writes:

animal’s grasp (idrāk) of itself […] although estimation is on the throne of the rational (al‐ nāṭiqa) cognitive faculties which the animal has, it is conjoined [to the body so that] it cannot be distinguished from or undressed of it. Estimation is different from the animal soul which is primarily aware (al‐shā‘irati  al‐ūlā), and it does not estimate (yatawahhama) itself or affirm itself, nor is it aware of itself.27

Avicenna here denies animals reflexive selfawareness, while establishing estimative apprehensions in a first-order sensible self-aware state. He seems to posit the animal soul as ‘so conjoined with the body,’ that there is not enough ‘room’ for the ‘separateness’ that is necessary for the reflexive turn of awareness. This first-order self-awareness can therefore be found both in humans and animals: it may be understood as corporeal self-awareness. This seems to be attested in another passage of the Mubāḥathāt: It was asked: if in the other animals [i.e. other than human beings] there is no part that is both that which is aware and that what it is aware of (al‐mash‘ūra  bihi), is it not the case then, that no [other animal] is aware of its essence? If, on the other hand, there is in [the other animals] a part that is both that which is aware and that what it is aware of, it must be [the animal’s] essence. The answer: in [the other animals] that which is aware and that what it is aware of are not one. Instead, that which is aware is part of that what it is aware of.28

Insofar as Avicennian animals are capable of intentional apprehension of perceptible objects, one would expect them to be somehow aware of themselves as well. If such is indeed the case, then Avicenna would – unlike his more famous fellow dualist Descartes – not deny the primitive type of self-awareness from animals. Though 24

The key to this second passage is that corporeal faculties are not able to apprehend their own operations: the eye cannot see that it sees, and the ear cannot hear itself hearing. The corporeal instrument by which the faculties operate makes reflection impossible: the faculty of the animal’s knowledge (that which is aware) cannot identify

Kaukua, “Avicenna on Subjectivity,” 112.

Primitive and corporeal self-awareness are not exactly the same. Primitive self-awareness is a feature by which every intellectual substance is open to intentional  or mental states. Corporeal self-awareness is a primary manifestation of this: it is the way animals and humans always incorporate, in some level, their bodily life in their mental states, even though it is not always in the form of a direct awareness but one that may be obliquely known: it is the accompanying knowledge we may have, for example, when realizing that we are tired or sleepy when trying to study. Primitive self-awareness is e.g. maintained during sleep (and we may thus turn, for example, if we feel cold), while corporeal self-awareness is not. 25

26

Kaukua, “Avicenna on Subjectivity,” 112.

Mubāḥathāt. Cited in Kaukua, “Avicenna on Subjectivity,” 114. 27

28

69

Ibid., 114–115.

Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  4. Avicenna’s Heritage and Modern Psychology    Animals emerge in Avicenna as living forms that inhere in matter that is aptly arranged to sustain them (also owing to the movement of celestial spheres), but does not provide the necessary configuration of components to allow more than the basic vegetative instincts and a kind of knowledge incapable of communicating with its proper perfection by conjoining with the Active Intellect. Animals would be rational substances incapable of having the acquired intellect that perfects them. In my opinion, this doctrine would over time become a progressive materialization of the conception of animals; a materialism that is highly regrettable, for in Avicenna’s system, as Belo writes: ‘The theory of matter that emerges from this analysis of Avicenna’s texts is largely negative. Matter is an entity that must be assumed for the sake of the system but has no intrinsic, independent reality.’34 My personal hypothesis is that Avicenna’s doctrine would historically develop as an unfortunate understanding of animals as deprived of inner rationality. Or rather, they have a primitive  rationality, manifest in their actions and capability to respond to external stimuli, but they are unable to assume  this rationality as their own, that is to say, to possess it reflexively. Avicenna’s account, while open to two lines of interpretation (one that looks at animals as mainly similar to human beings and yet unable to decide on different ways of action, and one that sees them as slightly more than a mere physical mechanism), eventually led to this second interpretation. Avicenna would not agree at all with this characterization, for as López Farjeat and Morales argue:  

itself reflexively with its object (what is aware of). However, this does not deny a certain degree of awareness in animals, namely corporeal selfawareness, by which ‘the animal’s soul as a whole is aware of its action in governing the body of the animal.’29 Indeed, self-awareness is a ‘necessary condition of there being a relation between the living body and the soul as its form.’30 Otherwise we would not be speaking of a living being. But there is precisely no faculty that could grasp these experiences of being a living being as a whole, and therefore the animal as a whole cannot be the object of its own experience. Its experience of the world presents the only world there is for it. But due to the intentional feature inherent in the experience, it is still a world for someone, or something, although this being for something can never become an object of consideration. It is present in animal experience as that for which something appears the way it does and for the sake of which the animal must act the way it does.31

Kaukua calls this instinctive  awareness. As it is corporeal and sensible, this experience is always ‘indexed’ as a particular experience for a particular subject in particulate circumstances.32 That is why ‘mineness is a constituent of animal experience in much the same way as it is of human experience, but it can never be made into an object of second order reflective self-awareness, and for this reason there is no more “my world” than “your world” or “her world” for the animal. This, I believe, is the key to Avicenna’s hesitation’33 in speaking of ‘animal self-awareness.’ It may at least be considered analogous to the kind of bodily selfawareness human beings are ‘conscious’ of.     29

Ibid., 113.

30

Ibid.

31

Ibid, 116.

Avicenna […] helps us understand that animals actually know in some sense, for they have intentional states directed towards the world. And in their case, such knowledge is always oriented to action. Animals are capable of apprehending non-sensible features of objects and their relations to them. This is what Avicenna means when he says animals are capable of discerning, associating and even communicating certain contents that, while not being properties of the world, can only be perceived through it. When animals recognize these properties, they do so without possessing a

See Kaukua, “Avicenna on Subjectivity,” 66: “estimation is radically relational, or self-involving, in the sense that it consists in such a relation between an object and a subject that the particularity, the uniqueness of the subject determines the way the object appears. Thus, the individual subject itself is included in an estimative apprehension of an intention as one of the relata necessary to complete the whole. No estimation is anyone’s estimation, the intention is partly determined by the subject of its apprehension”; and 67: “intentional awareness is self-involving in the sense that intentionally apprehended objects are always objects for someone.” 32

33

34 Catarina Belo, Chance  and  Determinism  in  Avicenna  and  Averroes (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 87.

Ibid, 116.

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D. González Ginocchio: Avicenna’s Philosophy of the Animal Soul… conceptual linguistic apparatus. This in turn implies that propositional knowledge is not the only way for knowledge, for intentional perception is already a form of knowledge. The absence of propositional language, typical of human beings, does not impede animals from discerning, associating, and even articulate a certain kind of ‘intentional language’ with which they are able to transmit their own mental states and certain states of affairs, like danger, fear, pleasure, pain, anger or joy.35

run away when it perceives the wolf as hostile.37 Animals would therefore not be free in any sense, and their actions could eventually be simply reduced to stimuli-response schemes. (3) The interpretation of nature as external  determination  and that of freedom as self‐determination  would make its way to the philosophy of Kant, but a similar account can be traced in the philosophy of law. If the difference between human and animal cognition is only extensional, and if the will is the actual differentiating faculty between humans and animals, the result is that humans have a difference with animals that can be interpreted in a radical sense, as the latter cannot explain their movements by any form of elicited behaviour.

Nevertheless, if we, following Avicenna, place the accent on the limitations, and declare animals are souls emanated like human souls but differing from them out of the ‘defectiveness’ of matter, I believe we may reconstruct a historical and somewhat logical string of interpretations leading to Descartes’ mechanical account: (1) In first place, the difference of animal and human intellection becomes extensional. Animals have no possibility of abstraction, which amounts to their being incapable of language and propositional cognition. Animals may perceive impressions, and may employ their imagination in uniting sensations and intentions, but they do so on account of perception, not as any sort of reasoning. On the other hand, the incapacity of animals to achieve rational thought means that all their cognitive faculties are corporeal, and therefore every account of their behaviour must resort only to material elements. (2) The extensional account of cognitive faculties crosses a second threshold with Duns Scotus’s interpretation of the natural and free faculties. According to Scotus, the intellect is a natural faculty, not one that is rational or free.36 Only the will is a true rational, spiritual faculty, for only the will is able to both will its act and, at the same instant, maintain its power to not have willed  it. Cognitive faculties have no choice  but to know their object when confronted with it: if an intellect finds itself before the proposition ‘2+2=4,’ it has no other choice but to provide its assent. Animals, likewise, have no other choice but to apprehend external sensible features and arrange them internally; they also have no choice but to ‘sense’ the intentions that accompany external senses, and to act accordingly. A sheep has no choice but to 35

This emphasis on the free will can ironically be traced to Avicenna, who in fact understood the soul as an emanated substance that cannot be produced by matter and must be emanated by the Agent Intellect. But in doing so, he made the human and animal cognitive features so similar that a different approach at differentiation was necessary.38 Freedom of the will was then seen as a more profitable venue; lacking proper free will, animals were eventually regarded as little more than machines, establishing the paradigm of animals as mere bundles of instincts. Just recently, scientists have been able to look back with the sophisticated help of new neuronal and cognitive models, which may show the pertinence of Avicenna in noting the parallels between the human and animal cognitive faculties. This does not, of course, render irrelevant the difference between human and animal rationality, or the sense of agency in one and the others. But it seems to demand a more detailed approach to this difference in light of the way animals are subjects of desires and ends. A sign of this new approach could be given by pointing to a study by Adam

37 Kaukua, “Avicenna on Subjectivity,” 67: “The human being alone is capable of reflecting upon her estimative perspective, whereas the sheep is insurmountably tied to its own. […] Instead, the human capacity of reflection is solely due to her being essentially an intellect.”

López Farjeat and Morales, “El contenido cognitivo,” 267.

The similarity and difference between human and animal cognitive faculties can especially be seen in medieval accounts of the power known as estimative  faculty, or cogitative  faculty  in human beings. Their similar and different reaches are constantly discussed, especially by thinkers with a more acute interest in natural philosophy like Albert the Great. 38

For an extended account of Scotus’s doctrine on the will and its difference with the intellect, see Cruz González Ayesta, “Scotus’s Interpretation of Metaphysics  9.2: On the Distinction between Nature and Will,” Proceedings  of  the  American  Catholic  Philosophical Association 81 (2007): 217–230. 36

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Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  animal: man has more of the animal than the animal has of man.42

Arico, Brian Fiala and Shaun Nichols.39 They conducted an empirical study that shows that when we ‘classify’ an entity as an agent, we immediately attribute all kinds of properties to it associated with agency, namely beliefs, desires, feelings, etc. We may attribute agency to a dog, for example, or even to insects and in some cases, plants. This intuitive attribution of consciousness seems to follow the way we interpret an organic body  of capable of suiting consciousness.40 By underlining the ‘gap’ between human and animal cognitive systems, philosophy moved towards a normative difference between humans and animals, namely, a difference between free faculties. But this could just as easily be turned around as soon as we realized that we were taking the difference too far, as Descartes does in his account of animal agency. As we retake animal agency into question and realize the similitude in our cognitive faculties, we might attribute agency and therefore consciousness to animals again.41 It would seem that to have a better understanding of the difference between humans and animals we must not only have in mind the normative line of thought, but also rethink human and animal consciousness.

Bibliography Arico, Adam, Brian Fiala, and Shaun Nichols. “The Folk-Psychology of Consciousness.” Mind and  Language 26/3 (2011): 327–352. Belo, Catarina. Chance and Determinism in Avicenna  and Averroes. Leiden: Brill, 2007. Davidson, Herbet. Alfarabi,  Avicenna,  and  Averroes,  on Intellect. Oxford: University Press, 1992. Dennet, Daniel C. “Do Animals Have Beliefs?” In Brainchildren.  Essays  on  Designing  Minds, 323– 326. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1998. Gamboa, María Isabel. “El mecanicismo animal en la filosofía cartesiana.” In La  mente  animal, edited by Luis Xavier López Farjeat, 63–75. Mexico: Los libros de Homero, 2008. Gensollen, Mario. Mentes  animales,  mentes  artificiales [Draft]. González Ayesta, Cruz. “Scotus’s Interpretation of Metaphysics  9.2: On the Distinction between Nature and Will.” Proceedings  of  the  American  Catholic Philosophical Association 81 (2007): 217– 230. Gutas, Dimitri. “Intuition and Thinking. The Evolving Structure of Avicenna’s Epistemology.” In Aspects  of  Avicenna, edited by Robert Wisnovsky, 1–38. Princeton: Markus Wiener Publications, 2001. Gutas, Dimitri. “Medical Theory and Scientific Method in the Age of Avicenna.” In Before and  after Avicenna. Proceedings of the First Conference  of  the  Avicenna  Study  Group, edited by David C. Reisman, 145–162. Leiden: Brill, 2003. Hall, Robert E. “Intellect, Soul and Body in Ibn Sīnā: Systematic Synthesis and Development of the Aristotelian, Neoplatonic and Gallenic Theories.” In Interpreting Avicenna: Science and  Philosophy  in  Medieval  Islam.  Proceedings  of  the  Second  Conference  of  the  Avicenna  Study  Group, edited by John McGinnis, 62–86. Leiden: Brill, 2004. Hasse, Dag Nikolaus. Avicenna’s  De  anima  in  the  Latin  West.  The  Formation  of  a  Peripatetic  Philosophy  of  the  Soul  1160–1300. London: The Warburg Institute, 2000.

I have tried to show how Avicenna’s insights and observations can be helpful in this regard. Avicenna’s definition of the soul as selfconsciousness, and of the human soul as specifically capable of second-order consciousness, might once again provide indicative help in this regard. I’d like to finish quoting the thoughtprovoking words of Mario Gensollen: Those who believe animals don’t think because they don’t talk are wrong in the same way those who think machines could be capable of speech if we programmed them to do so. From the fact that they cannot speak it does not follow they cannot think; from the fact they speak it does not follow that they think. Those who defend animal thought usually err in trying to ‘humanize’ the

39 Adam Arico, Brian Fiala and Shaun Nichols, “The FolkPsychology of Consciousness,” Mind  and  Language 26/3 (2011): 327–352. 40 This is in line with Kant’s (and other idealists’) treatment of the human body as an organic recipient suitable for free causality (agency).

See for example Daniel C. Dennett, “Do Animals Have Beliefs?” in Brainchildren.  Essays  on  Designing  Minds (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1998), 323–326. 41

42

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Mario Gensollen, Mentes animales, mentes artificiales (draft).

D. González Ginocchio: Avicenna’s Philosophy of the Animal Soul… Hasse, Dag Nikolaus. “Avicenna on Abstraction.” In Aspects  of  Avicenna, edited by Robert Wisnovsky, 39–72. Princeton: Markus Wiener Publications, 2001. Jaffer, Tariq. “Bodies, Souls and Resurrection in Avicenna’s ar‐Risāla  al‐Aḍḥawīya  fī  amr  al‐ ma‘ād.” In Before and after Avicenna. Proceedings  of  the  First  Conference  of  the  Avicenna  Study  Group, edited by David C. Reisman, 163–174. Leiden: Brill, 2003. Kaukua, Jari. “Avicenna on Subjectivity.” PhD diss., University of Jyväskylä, 2007. López Farjeat, Luis Xavier, ed. La  mente  animal. Mexico: Los libros de Homero, 2008. López Farjeat, Luis Xavier, and Jorge Morales Ladrón de Guevara. “El contenido cognitivo de la percepción: Avicena y McDowell.” Thémata 43 (2010): 251–270. McGinnis, John. “Avicenna’s Naturalized Epistemology and Scientific Method.” In The  Unity  of  Science  in  the  Arabic  Tradition.  Science,  Logic,  Epistemology  and  their  Interactions, edited by Shahid Rahman, Tony Street, and Hassan Tahiri, 129–152. Milton Keynes: Springer, 2008. McGinnis, John and David C. Reisman, eds. Classical  Arabic  Philosophy.  An  Antology  of  Sources. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2007. Oataya, Sulaiman. “Ibnul-Nafees Has Dissected the Human Body.” In Encyclopedia  of  the  Islamic World. http://www.islamset.com/isc/nafis/index.html (accessed January 20, 2011). Rahman, Fazlur, ed. Avicenna’s  Psychology. London: Oxford University Press, 1952. Rahman, Fazlur, ed. Avicenna’s De anima. Being the  Psychological  Part  of  Kitāb al-Shifā’. London: Oxford University Press, 1959. Savage-Smith, Emilie. “Attitudes Towards Dissection in Medieval Islam.” Journal  of  the  History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 50 (1995): 67–110. Tachau, Catherine. “Approaching Medieval Scholars’ Treatment of Cognition.” In Intellect  et imagination dans la philosophie médiévale. Actes  du  XIe  Congrès  International  de  Philosophie  Médivévale  de  la  S.I.E.P.M., edited by Maria Cândida Pacheco and José Francisco Meirinhos, 1: 1–34. Turnhout: Brepols, 2006. Wolfson, Harry Austrin. “The Internal Senses in Latin, Arabic, and Hebrew Philosophical Texts.” Harvard  Theological  Review 28/2 (1935): 69–133.

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M. Iuffrida: Dogs and Human Relationship…

–V– DOGS AND HUMAN RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOLIDARITY  AND OTHERNESS IN THE LEGES BARBARORUM  Marco IUFFRIDA Università di Bologna – Alma Mater Studiorum / Musei Vaticani [email protected]; [email protected]

Abstract  Starting out from the basic fact that, in the early medieval culture inherited from Roman law, a dog was defined as a ‘non productive’ animal, my paper will analyze the relationship between man and dog through a novel interpretative grid informed by the legal approach adopted by a complex assemblage of barbarians (Visigoths, Franks, Burgundians, Frisians etc.). Solidarity or otherness? Examination of the early medieval Leges barbarorum (fifth to ninth centuries) has facilitated a pragmatic and fact-based assessment of humanity’s fraught and somewhat haphazard attempts at understanding and defining the status of its relations with domestic animals such as dogs. This analysis also allows us to bring to light the new roles that increased the significance of the dog in daily life (different types of dogs listed, i.e. barmbraccus, petrunculus, canis acceptoricius, triphunt, hovawart, etc.). Keywords  Barbarians; Dogs; Middle Ages; Solidarity; Otherness

In her recent book Dog1 Susan McHugh took up a theory stated over fifty years ago, namely that the laws of 945 AD of the king of Wales, Hywel Dda, should be considered the first catalogue of dogs in the world, since they mention seven types of dog spread throughout Wales in the middle of the tenth century. However, the first real taxonomy of dogs that can be documented in the Early Middle Ages in Europe is in fact within the Leges barbarorum dating between the fifth and ninth centuries AD. With the collapse of the Roman public apparatus, and the inflow of northern populations into Mediterranean civilisation, the political vacuum created was filled by a triumph of the ‘floating’ laws of the barbarians and then – in the Carolingian era – by the introduction of the principle of the legal personality. There were, therefore, two types of law in the territory of the former Empire: that of the barbarians and that of

1

Rome, without any real differentiation in the use of both. The Leges barbarorum – written in Latin for an easy use in the territory of the former Empire – show that the Roman law ceded ground to the mores, i.e. barbarian uses, on which governed daily life with nature, the countryside, the woods, men and animals, was based.2 The barbarian laws are an important source which helps in understanding the step between the dog’s ‘legal otherness’ of the Roman law, and the man-dog ‘legal solidarity’ of the barbarian culture. Investigation into the Leges  barbarorum shows that the dog was understood as an animal to which was ascribed a well defined role as aid and Stefano Gasparri, Prima  delle  nazioni.  Popoli,  etnie  e  regni  fra  Antichità  e  Medioevo (Rome: Carocci, 1997); Walter Pohl, Le  origini etniche dell’Europa (Rome: Viella, 2000); Patrick J. Geary, The  Myth  of  Nations:  The  Medieval  Origins  of  Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002); Stefano Gasparri and Cristina La Rocca, Tempi  barbarici:  L’Europa  occidentale  tra  antichità  e  medioevo (300–900) (Rome: Carocci, 2012).

2

Susan McHugh, Dog (London: Reaktion, 2004), 65.

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Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  companion, in the daily life of man. On the contrary, the roman jurists had an evident difficulty in considering the status of the dog. As regards laws covering the damage caused or suffered by a dog, compared to the Roman legal order, the barbarian lawmakers focused their attention mainly on the consequences of the damage, and on the value of fine, rather than on the apportionment of blame. For the Roman jurists the dog was an undefined legal entity. The first jurist of the Roman law who gave a clearer legal identity to the dog was Accursius, in the first half of the thirteenth century: in one of his glosses to the Corpus Iuris Civilis, he invented a ‘third genus’ for classifying the status of this animal. In practice, Accursius tried to theorize why the Roman legal order intends the dog as ‘legal otherness.’ Namely, the Roman jurists considered the dog a non-human quadruped which did not belong to the group of productive animals, the pecudes; the dog was considered completely different from all the other beasts for its unexpected temperament. For the barbarian lawmakers the dog did not belong to the pecudes either, as – at a certain point in its evolution – Roman law understood it. But given the effort of this animal in the hunt, which was a fundamental activity in the barbarian culture and was loaded with specific contents and values, the self same barbarian laws that excluded the dog from the productive animals, and the beastiae, became the prerogative which underlined its position as a prized and useful animal deserving exclusive protection.

of the farmboy and the shepherd, and furthermore, it was fashionable in the barbarian early society to own one.4 Alongside other noble, and non noble animals, the dog is present in almost all the barbarian laws, viz. the Leges  Visigothorum, the Leges Burgundionum, those of the Franks, the Leges  Alamannorum, as well as the Leges  Langobardorum, the Lex Baiwariorum and the Lex Frisionum. The first case that evidences the ‘legal relationship’ between man and dog in the laws of the Visigoths can be found in the Liber iudiciorum, dating from the middle of the seventh century, and concerns a dog instigated to violence. It was, in fact, the responsibility of the instigator to compensate for damages caused by a ‘vicious’ dog (‘Sue  habendum  culpe,  si  irritatum  animal  noceat  irritantem’, c. 18). The Visigoth Liber  iudiciorum deems it necessary to decree that, if a dog was caught harming someone its master was obliged to hand it over to the person who had suffered the damage so that it could be put down (if the master himself had not already seen to this). Alternatively, the owner had to render a duplam  compositionem (De cane damnoso, c. 20).5 In the Burgundian Liber  Constitutionum, from the early sixth century, the presence of a law that replaced an old tribal habit is significant in that it contained a more functional provision already covered by Roman law. Thus as regards a bite from a dog, that had killed a man, the repercussions would no longer be ascribed to the

Although the Roman law influenced the barbarian lawmakers, in the Leges  barbarorum the dog’s ‘legal otherness’ doesn’t exist. Hence through a set of fines, imposed for the special protection of dogs, the Leges barbarorum classify the roles, and the prices, of many different canine types. The analysis of the legal and cultural value of this canine taxonomy justifies the absence of a connection between dogs and otherness in the barbarian laws.

nell’alto  Medioevo, ed. Massimo Montanari (Naples: Liguori, 1979), 255–276; Massimo Montanari, “Vicende di un’espropriazione: il ruolo della caccia nell’economia e nell’alimentazione dei ceti rurali,” in Campagne  medievali:  strutture  produttive,  rapporti  di  lavoro,  sistemi  alimentari, ed. Massimo Montanari (Turin: Einaudi, 1984), 174–190; Bruno Andreolli and Massimo Montanari, Il  bosco  nel  Medioevo (Bologna: Clueb, 1988); Paolo Galloni, “L’ambiguità culturale della caccia nel Medioevo,” Quaderni Medievali 27 (1989): 14–37; Paolo Galloni, Il  cervo  e  il  lupo:  Caccia  e  cultura  nobiliare  nel  Medioevo (Rome – Bari: Laterza, 1993); Gherardo Ortalli, Lupi,  genti,  culture:  Uomo  e  ambiente  nel  Medioevo (Turin: Einaudi, 1997); Paolo Galloni, Storia  e  cultura  della  caccia (Rome – Bari: Laterza, 2000); Jacques Bugnion, Les chasses médiévales (Gollion: In Folio, 2005).

It is not difficult to trace the dog in the barbarian codes, as it was representative of the barbarian culture based as it was on hunting, and sheep farming;3 the dog was the daily companion

“Vita Trudonis confessoris hasbaniensis,” in Scriptores  Rerum  Merovingicarum, eds. Bruno Krusch and Wilhelm Levison, vol. 6 of Monumenta  Germaniae  Historica (Hanover – Leipzig: Hahn, 1911), 278.

4

Paul Van Den Vorst, “Braques, braconnerie, braconnage et braconniers,” Revue  des  langues  vivantes 34 (1967): 246–251; Massimo Montanari, “La caccia,” in L’alimentazione  contadina 

“Leges Visigothorum,” in Leges  Nationum  Germanicarum, ed. Karl Zeumer, vol. 1 of Monumenta Germaniae Historica (Hanover – Leipzig: Hahn, 1902), 339–340.

3

5

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M. Iuffrida: Dogs and Human Relationship… dog’s owner if the animal had committed the act outside the legal responsibility of the owner  (De  his,  quae  casu  contigerint, tit. 18, c. 1).6 In practice, this was the Roman actio de pauperie. For the killing of a dog, on the other hand, the guilty party had to pay a sum of money to the animal’s owner (De cane  occiso,  c. 58).7 The Liber  Constitutionum is of major value because it cites three types of canine using Latin terminology and by means of a provision which, for a modern reader, may seem ironic, but which was anything but ironic for the medieval man who would be exposed to public derision for the mere fact of stealing a dog. Anyone who stole a canis  veltris 8 (a fast greyhound used for hare hunting), and a segusius 9 (i.e. hound and scent hound) or a petrunculus10 (a scent hound used by hunters in impassable mountain areas), was forced to kiss the buttocks of the self same dog in the presence of all the people in the assembly. If the guilty party refused he had to pay 6 solidi to the person from whom he had stolen the dog and, furthermore, a fine of 2 solidi (c. 97). 11 This Burgundian law provides very important information on an exemplary canine, the petrunculus. This type of dog was already well renowned from the first century BC and is cited twice in the Cynegeticon by Grattio Falisco (first century BC–first century AD approx.). 12 The Burgundian petrunculus shared with its Roman ancestor the characteristic of a dog endowed with hocks, suitable for rocky ground. 13 For chasing steinbocks the Burgundians, who in the Early Middle Ages lived in an area to the north and south of the French Alps, needed a medium-sized dog which, however, was smaller than a segusius. Since environmental conditions excluded the possibility of any type of hunt, with a mediumlarge sized pack dog, there was no other choice but to hunt the game with a bow and petrunculi mountain dogs. A braccoid, which adapts morphologically to move with agility among the

slopes of the Alps, could compare with the features of the petrunculus dog.14 The Lex  Romana  Burgundionum, dated 515–516 AD and consisting of selected fragments and legal treatises dating back to the late Roman Empire, was probably used by Burgundian judges handling Roman cases. This law stated that if an animal of an individual caused damage, the owner was obliged to pay compensation, or to hand over the animal as per the first book of rulings of Paul, a Roman jurist (end of the second-beginning of the third century BC). Again with reference to Paul’s rulings, in the event that the owner of a saevum  canem had not tied up the animal during the day any damage caused by the dog, in a public place, would be the full responsibility of the owner (c. 13, §§ 1–2).15 In the so-called Pactus  Legis  Salicae, from the end of the fifth century, the illegal acquisition of a segusius  magister is punished. The Pactus  Legis  Salicae consists of numerous terms and juridical formulae – the Malgerbic glosses – in the dialect of the Franks.16 In the text, these formulae are always preceded by the adverbial form mallobergo which should be translated as ‘as is said in the assemblies.’ The Salic Pactus states that anyone stained with the guilt of theft of a segusius magister would be forced to pay 600 denari (15 solidi)

14 15

16 Ruth Schmidt-Wiegand, “Zur Geschichte der Malbergischen Glossen,” Zeitschrift  der  Savigny‐Stiftung  für  Rechtsgeschichte,  Germanistische Abteilung 74 (1957): 220–231; id., “Das fränkische Wortgut der Lex Salica als Gegenstand der Rechtssprachgeographie,” Zeitschrift  der  Savigny‐Stiftung  für  Rechtsgeschichte, Germanistische Abteilung 84 (1967): 275–293; id., “Die Malbergischen Glossen der Lex Salica als Denkmal des Westfränkischen,” Rheinische  Vierteljahrblätter 33 (1969): 396– 422; id., “Mahal, Mahlstatt,” in Handwörterbuch zur  deutschen  Rechtsgeschichte (Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 1984), 3: 150–152; id., “Malbergische Glossen,” in Handwörterbuch  zur  deutschen  Rechtsgeschichte (Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 1984), 3: 211–215; id., “Mallobergus,” in Handwörterbuch zur deutschen Rechtsgeschichte (Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 1984), 3: 216–217; id., “Mallus, mallum,” in Handwörterbuch  zur  deutschen  Rechtsgeschichte (Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 1984), 3: 217–218; id., “Rechtssprache,” in Handwörterbuch  zur  deutschen  Rechtsgeschichte (Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 1986), 4: 344–360; id., “Die Malbergischen Glossen, eine frühe Überlieferung germanischer Rechtssprache,” in Germanische  Rest‐  und  Trümmersprachen:  Reallexikon  des  germanischen  Altertumskunde, ed. Heinrich Beck (Berlin – New York: Gruyter 1989), 157–174.

6 “Leges Burgundionum,” in Leges Nationum Germanicarum, ed. Rudolf von Salis, vol. 2.1 of Monumenta  Germaniae  Historica (Hanover: Hahn, 1892), 56. 7

Ibid., 91.

Charles Du Cange, Glossarium mediae  et  infimae  latinitatis (Niort: L. Favre, 1883-), s.v. canis veltris/veltrahus/vertragus, etc.

8

9

Ibid., s.v. canis segusius/seugius/seucis.

10

Ibid., s.v. canis petrunculus.

11

“Leges Burgundionum,” 112–113.

12

Bugnion, Chasses médiévales, 20.

13

Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. canis petrunculus.

Bugnion, Chasses médiévales, 20.  “Leges Burgundionum,” 137.

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Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  (De  furtis  canum, c. 6, § 1).17 The variation of this law clarifies that this sum could even rise to 1,800 denari (45 solidi), when the assembly decided to impose a fine for the amount customarily specified in the oath of fealty (mallobergo trocuuithien uano tue  ne chunne). This definition is obtained through the composition, and translation, of several barbarian terms18 present in the gloss (c. 6, § 1a).19 The word segusius is used to indicate a hound which had in the hunts the basic task of coordinator of the chase. In his Lexicon of the Mediaeval German Hunt, David Dalby notes that, according to Flavio Arriano (95– 175 AD), the etymology of the term probably derives from the tribe of the Segusians which, in remote times, lived in the vicinity of Lyon. In his 1951 study of hunting in the Roman era, Jacques Aymard argued that the origins of the term can be found in the Latin sequi: Aymard hypothesized that the Salic segusius  magister was not just a hunting dog, but a true companion as well. 20 Dalby, for his part, identifies the origin in the barbarian sūse which would suggest it was a racing greyhound. The form sūse derives from the merging of the old early German term (sixth/eighth centuries–1050 approx.) siuso, with the Latin medieval synonym segusius indicating a generic hound. The late form of the Middle High German term (1050–1350 approx.) segūse  was, on the other hand, taken directly from Medieval Latin. 21 It should be noted that the behavioural habits of the segusius have held up over the centuries, to the extent that they shape the modern bloodhound.

furatis, c. 10, § 1).22 And when witnesses managed to identify, with irrefutable evidence, who had stolen or killed a cervum  domesticum  signum  habentem23 (which is to say a domesticated deer of a hunting reserve), and if, along with it, another two animals – again of a reserve – had been killed the guilty party had to pay a fine of 600 denari multiplied by the number of the animals: in this case, 1,800 denari  (De  venationibus furatis, c. 33, § 2). 24 The sum of 1,800 denari also occurs in the provision against the stealing of the segusius  magister, and clarifies why this crime entailed the same sanction as the one for hunting reserve animals. The Salic law protected a type of prized bloodhound perhaps forming part of those packs of dogs, set free in the king’s forest, which were carefully selected and trained in a manner not allowed for similar types of dogs owned by other less important proprietors. As regards the canis  argutarius, 25 a greyhound, the Salic Pactus  established that since one was dealing with a common trained dog (mallobergo chunneuano)26 the price to be paid for its theft would be 600 denari  (De furtis canum, c. 6, § 2).27 And 600 denari was also the fine to be paid, if after the sun went down a tied up dog was stolen: this fell under those thefts of something ‘chained’ (mallobergo repouano) and, as such someone’s property (§ 3).28 The barbarian *raipa‐ (ring or ring-shaped ribbon) leads back to the concept of a dog tied to a chain (rēpwano).29 The unlawful appropriation as well as the killing of a canis  pastoralis 30 (which protected sheep against wolf attacks) cost 120 denari (3 solidi). As much had been decided upon for small crimes (mallobergo  leodardi) and for the protection of a house-trained dog: the theouano, which usually worked with shepherds. The Salic term theouano is in fact interpretable as Knechts‐Hund, i.e. ‘slave-dog’ or ‘accustomed’ to working with shepherds (De furtis  canum, 6, § 4).31

The law on the segusius  magister requires a further consideration: this exemplar could reach a value well above the fine of 1,400 denari, imposed by the Salic lawmaker, for the theft of a male or female slave who were deemed pecudes along the same lines as livestock  (De  servis  vel  mancipiis 

“Pactus Legis Salicae,” in Leges  Nationum  Germanicarum, ed. Karl August Eckhardt, vol. 4.1 of Monumenta  Germaniae  Historica (Hanover: Hahn, 1962), 36–37. 17

Elmar Seebold, Chronologisches  Wörterbuch  des  deutschen  Wortschatzes.  Der  Wortschatz  des  9.  Jahrhunderts (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 2008), 1014a, 1040a, 1037b, 1116b.

18

“Pactus Legis Salicae,” 37; Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. chunna; Gunter Gudian, “Centena,” in Handwörterbuch  zur  deutschen  Rechtsgeschichte (Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 1971), 1: 603–606.

19

20

22

“Pactus Legis Salicae,” 51.

23

Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. cervus signum habens.

24

“Pactus Legis Salicae,” 124.

25

Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. canis argutarius/argutaritus.

26

Dalby, Mediaeval German Hunt, s.v. hunt.

27

“Pactus Legis Salicae,” 37.

28

Ibid., 38.

Ruth Schmidt-Wiegand, “Reipus,” in Handwörterbuch  zur  deutschen Rechtsgeschichte (Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 1986), 4: 849–851.

29

Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. canis segusius/seugius/seucis.

30

David Dalby, Mediaeval German Hunt (Berlin: Gruyter, 1965), s.v. sūse.

Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. canis pastoralis. 

“Pactus Legis Salicae,” Wörterbuch, 1014a and 1037b.

21

31

78

38;

Seebold,

Chronologisches 

M. Iuffrida: Dogs and Human Relationship… Although with several variations in the glosses, and in the number of laws, the same measures as the Salic Pactus are taken up by the later Lex Salica  (763–764 AD)  (De  furtis  canum, c. 47, § 4; De  venacionibus,  c. 52, § 1). 32 Compared to the Salic Pactus a more marked difference lies in the fact that in the Lex Salica, specifically in the chapter on the theft of dogs, other canine types are mentioned. The fine is the standard one of 600 denari. The dogs in question are the segusius  reliquus33 (chosen as a pointer), the veltris  porcarius (a type of astute and fast greyhound, used for hunting wild pigs and boars, with a name that suggests Celtic origins),34 and the veltris  leporarius (a hare chasing greyhound); 600 denari was also the fine for the theft or killing of a canis custos domus sive curtis, a dog which guarded property (De furtis canum, c. 47, §§ 2–3).35

Other information emerges from the Leges  Alamannorum regarding the naming of barbarian canine types, and the functions for which they were selected (De canibus seusibus vel aliis furatis aut occisis,  c. 82, §§ 1–6).40 It becomes clear that when someone robbed a canem  seusium,  primum  cursalem, i.e. a bloodhound which in a pack of hunting dogs ran up front,41 he had to pay 6 solidi. Whereas a dog qui  secundus currit, which ran behind the leader to pick up a lost scent, had half that value. The tasks of an exemplar are clearly specified, namely, the laitihunt 42 which as ductor guided the hunter towards the prey. The barbarian term laitihunt designated a greyhound for chasing and for coursing game, one particularly suitable for driving out deer before the hunt began and before the rest of the pack started out. In modern German (from about 1650) laitihunt or leitihunt indicated a bloodhound, or better, a large-sized greyhound, trained to chase wounded animals;43 its build and speed also allowed it, to handle itself courageously in the event of dangerous attacks. For the theft of one of these dogs the thief had to pay out no less than 12 solidi, the highest sum mentioned in this law regarding a dog. If a bonum  canem  porcaritium,  ursaritium  vel  qui  vaccam  et  taurum  prendit 44 was killed, the lesser sum of 3 solidi was demanded. In the Sachsenspiegel (1215–1235), the Saxon law, Dalby identified the words hetzehunt and hessehunt which recall the characteristics of the giant canis porcaritius of the Alamanni, specialising in hunting by sight: his job was to immobilize the injured wild pig or boar, until the hunter arrived and dealt the final blow. In the Merovingian and Carolingian era the Hetzjagd concerned the hunting of ‘black beasts,’ large-sized and dangerous animals such as boars, bears and wolves. The barbarian verb hetzen means ‘chase’ or ‘assail’ and was normally used in contexts which aimed to describe the activities of guard dogs, or heavy greyhounds.45 A sum of 3 solidi was due, also, for the theft or killing of a veltris  leporarius46 or, of a canis pastoralis which had the task of accompanying the shepherd during his movements and of defending the herds. A qui  curtem defendit dog had a value – the lowest – of 1

In the Lex  Ribuaria, 36 written not before the eighth century, there is no trace of the dog. The first edition of the law of the Alamanni is, rather, the Pactus Alamannorum written between the end of the sixth and the first half of the seventh century. It often repeats the settlement of the wergeld, as in the singular law regarding the case of an owned dog that kills a man (‘Si canis alterius hominem occiderit,  medium  wiregildum  solvat’, c. 28, § 1).37 The wergeld was the ransom to pay to the relatives of the deceased, to prevent their vendetta. In the later and more complete Leges  Alamannorum (712–725) there is a case in which if someone killed a pigherder, who had 40 pigs in the herd, and a canis  doctus, a sort of trained bloodhound,38 he had to make amends with 40 solidi  (De  eo,  qui  pastores  vel  artifices  occiderit, c. 79, § 1).39 “Lex Salica,” in Leges  Nationum  Germanicarum, ed. Karl August Eckhardt, vol. 4.2 of Monumenta  Germaniae  Historica (Hanover: Hahn, 1969), 219; ibid., 92.

32

33

Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. canis segusius, seugius, seucis.

Ibid., s.v.  canis  veltris/veltrahus/vertragus, etc. and s.v. canis  argutarius. 34

35 “Lex Salica,” 219; Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. canis custos curtis  vel domus. 36 Franz Beyerle, “«Die Lex Ribuaria». Volksrechtliche Studien I,” Zeitschrift der Savigny‐Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, Germanistische  Abteilung 48 (1928): 264–378.

“Leges Alamannorum,” in Leges Nationum Germanicarum, ed. Karl August Eckhardt, vol. 5.1 of Monumenta  Germaniae  Historica (Hanover: Hahn, 1966), 31.

40

Ibid., 142–144.

41

Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. canis cursalis.

42

Ibid., s.v. canis leitihunt et laitihunt.

43

Dalby, Mediaeval German Hunt, s.v. leit‐hunt.

44

Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. canis ursaritius. Dalby, Mediaeval German Hunt, s.v. hetzehunt and hetzen. Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. canis leporarius/leporalis.

37

38

Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. canis doctus.

45

39

“Leges Alamannorum,” 138.

46

79

Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  solidus: but, if it was killed by an ill-intentioned person the culprit had to swear that he had committed the crime in self-defence. The guilty party was even obliged to procure a puppy of the same type, no bigger than an exemplar that could pass through a yoke.

spaniel that flushed out injured deer. The spurihunt’s features recall those of a bloodhound.51 The Bavarian bibarhunt, on the other hand, was a beaver hound used for hunting beavers and ferrets (viverra) from which it took its name. It had a value of 6 solidi in the event that it was killed, and the guilty party had to provide the owner with a similar exemplar. And even if the term is recorded in modern German, for Dalby, it is not always easy to identify its physical characteristics, since the name attributed to this dog of the Bavarians denotes a specific function rather than a type.52 Presumably, however, it will have been of small-medium stature, since its task was to capture den animals. As regards the Bavarian canes  veltrices, i.e. greyhounds that hunted hares by catching up with them and blocking them with their speed, the individual guilty of killing one had to replace it with a similar dog and pay 3 solidi. This punishment was also imposed when a hapuhunt53 met the same end. The etymology of the term associated with this Bavarian dog can be traced back to the old early German hapuh/habech/habicht, 54 which means ‘rapacious’ and denotes a type of greyhound trained to hunt alongside a bird of prey such as a falcon. It was probably a powerful hunting dog of large birds such as cranes.55 Illegally killing a dog of this type, which could hunt bears and buffaloes – hence very large animals that the Bavarians called swarzwild56 –, was punished by the guilty party having to replace the dog with an identical type and pay a fine of 6 solidi. The fine was halved for the killing of a canis  pastoralis. According to Bavarian law a person found guilty of the death of a hovawart, a dog trained for the defence of the court of its master, was to be deemed fraudulent57. If all this happened after the sun went down the guilty party had to pay 3 solidi; if it occurred during the day, the donation of a hovawart together with 1 solido settled the question.

The 643 AD edict of the Longobard king Rotari records a series of original regulations that saw the dog as among the main animal protagonists: but it does not cite any types.47 In the Lex  Baiwariorum, dated 744–749, while some provisions only mention dogs  (De  vitiatis  animalibus  et  eorum  compositione, c. 13, §§ 1–3; De  mortuis et eorum causis, c. 19, § 7),48 others are given over completely to them, such as an entire chapter (De canibus et eorum conpositione, c. 20, §§ 1–10)49 on the protection of certain canine types. The functions of almost every type of dog are dealt with. If someone killed or stole a leitihunt he was forced to replace it with an identical type, or with a similar type and pay amends to the tune of 6 solidi. If, however, he denied the deed, he had to swear to this through three sacramental rites. When accused of stealing a type of Bavarian bloodhound called triphunt, another guide dog, the guilty party had to pay 3 solidi or swear his innocence. The term trīp‐ hunt derives from old early German and is composed of trīben and hunt, which gives it the literal meaning of ‘dog that leads the hunt pack.’ It was probably an inferior quality greyhound, but the fact that it assisted other dogs in the search for large-sized game means that it was most likely a large, and very rustic, bloodhound. 50 Theft of a Bavarian spurihunt, a dog accustomed to being held on a leash, was settled with a fine of 6 solidi and, furthermore, its replacement with a dog having the same features. Spür derives from the barbarian root spüren, perhaps a synonym of bracke, and leads one to identify the spurihunt as a

“Leges Langobardorum,” in Leges, ed. Georg Heinrich Pertz, vol. 4 of Monumenta Germaniae Historica (Hanover: Hahn, 1868), 72–75; Claudio Azzara and Stefano Gasparri, Le  leggi  dei  longobardi. Storia, memoria e diritto di un popolo germanico (Milan: Viella, 1992).

47

Dalby, Mediaeval  German  Hunt, s.v. spüre‐hunt; Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. canis.

51

Dalby, Mediaeval  German  Hunt, s.v. biber‐hunt; Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. canis.

52

“Lex Baiwariorum,” in Leges  Nationum  Germanicarum, ed. Ernst von Schwind, vol. 5.2 of Monumenta  Germaniae  Historica (Hanover: Hahn, 1926), 413–414 and 457–458.

53

Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. hapuhunt.

54

Dalby, Mediaeval German Hunt, s.v. hapuhunt.

55

Bugnion, Chasses médiévales, 21.

48

49

Ibid., 460–464.

Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. swarzwild; Dalby, Mediaeval German  Hunt, s.v. swarzwilt.

56

Dalby, Mediaeval  German  Hunt, s.v.  trīp‐hunt ; Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. canis. 50

57

80

Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. canis houa‐wart.

M. Iuffrida: Dogs and Human Relationship… In the Lex  Frisionum, dated 802, the fact that hunting dogs of the same type (De servo aut iumento  alieno  occiso, tit. 4, §§ 1–2)58 had a different value, according to the area of the Friesland in which they were killed, is noteworthy. For example when someone killed a canis acceptoricius, or a small bird dog that the Frisians called barmbraccus, he had to make amends with 4 solidi if the killing occurred in the territory of central Friesland  (De  servo  aut  iumento alieno occiso, §§ 3–4).59 Anyone who killed a dog that kept wolves at bay was fined 3 solidi; and those dogs that could rip a wolf to pieces were worth 2 solidi. A canis  custos  pecoris60 was worth 1 solido. If these varieties of dog were killed in the territory of east Friesland, the price rose more than double: to 8 solidi for a canis acceptoricius, to 12 for a barmbraccus, to 4 for a canis custos pecorum vel domus, and to 8 for the dog that wore a wolf out. Finally, for the dog that lived tantum in curte et in villa, and that had no specific task, 1 tremissis had to be paid regardless of the area of the Friesland where the killing had taken place (De servo aut iumento alieno  occiso tit. 4, §§ 5–8). 61 The variability of these provisions was connected to the territorial composition of the early medieval Friesland, which ranged from the North Sea of the Flanders to the river Elba. Flatlands and swamps were predominant, but in the areas near the continental woods – towards the east – the vegetation and fauna changed. In the flat expanses large game was scarce, while in the woody eastern part, rich with prey but also with wolves, the hunts were more widespread. Hence dogs had a greater value towards the east Friesland, precisely because they were more widely used by man. For example, ‘shepherd’ dogs, used for guarding animals and not for hunting, had the main role of protectors of herds exposed to the easy attacks of wolves. The practice of hunting birds in flight is attested by the documented presence of two types of dog, the greyhound and the bloodhound. 62 The canis  acceptoricius was in fact a variety of greyhound that cooperated with the bird of prey, in the capture of

game. 63 Charles Du Cange likens the canis  acceptoricius of the Frisians to the hapuhunt of the Bavarians; whereas Martha Paul locates it among the vogelhunde, generic hunting greyhounds:64 this canine type had to retrieve the prey within firing range. Coming back to the term barmbraccus this was a hybrid form between old early German and Medieval Latin, and it shows how this hunting Frisian exemplar was also a ‘walking’ dog: barme (‘lap’) may derive from the Saxon lexicon, meaning a small companion dog.65 The term bracke came into Medieval Latin under the form of bracco, braccus, brachetus and braccetus. 66 While there are no peculiar indications as to the activity of the Frisian barmbraccus, it is thanks to Dalby’s Lexicon that we can identify the tasks of the varieties of bracke: a hunter’s aid in bow hunting, and in the hunting of small game and birds in flight using birds of prey.67 So, concluding, in the barbarian laws the relationship between man and dog is based on a useful solidarity and not – as it is in the Roman law – on a ‘legal otherness.’ This also would justify the attention that the barbarian lawmakers paid to this special and most detailed taxonomy of dogs, mentioning many different canine types for the first time in the Middle Ages. Specifically, the intrinsic peculiarity of the barbarian laws means we can now underscore the substantial difference between Roman civilization (which completely oversimplified the dog’s existence by stressing the antinomies of useful or useless, wild or tame animal) and the barbarian world in the context of which the dog took on a specific role that was complementary to man’s activities, above all hunting. Amongst other things, this analysis also allows us to bring to light the new roles that increased the significance of the dog in daily life as well as the evolution of its links with man in a wide range of activities. The barbarian laws  cannot be disregarded in a study which has as its objective the identification of the canine typologies that were widespread and well known in the Europe of

“Lex Frisionum,” in Fontes  Iuris  Germanici  Antiqui  in  usum  scholarum, eds. Karl August Eckhardt and Albrecht Eckhardt, vol. 12 of Monumenta  Germaniae  Historica (Hanover: Hahn, 1982), 44–46.

58

59

Ibid., 46.

60

Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. canis custos pecoris.

61

“Lex Frisionum,” 46.

62

Bugnion, Chasses médiévales, 21.

63

Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. canis acceptoricius.

Martha Paul, Wolf, Fuchs und Hund bei den Germanen (Vienna: Halosar, 1981).

64

65

Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. barmbraccus/bracco.

Bugnion, Chasses  médiévales, 22; Dalby, Mediaeval  German  Hunt, s.v. bracke. 66

67

81

Bugnion, Chasses médiévales, 22–23.

Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  the Early Middle Ages. This is all the more true given the absence of specific treatises on dogs, which became more detailed only following Frederic II’s essay on birds De  arte  venandi  cum avibus  (1240–1250). From the end of the fifth and up to the ninth century, the barbarian laws were vital in conveying notions which, although not managing to rise to the level of official ‘classification’ of dogs, do nevertheless shed light on a canine taxonomy that was unique in the Early Middle Ages. In various provisions, indeed, the meticulousness of the barbarian legislator even flowed over into illustrations of the behavioural characteristics of the dogs mentioned: the dog was an animal to which man ascribed a well-defined role of aid and companion in daily life. When formulating laws for damage caused by or inflicted upon dogs, unlike his Roman counterpart, the barbarian legislator focused primarily on the consequences thereof and on the fine to be meted out, rather than on assigning guilt as such. Precisely on account of this important shift it is now possible to examine a list of fines laid down for the special protection of dogs and to understand the value that the barbarians ascribed to one or another canine typology. For the barbarians the dog was not categorized among the productive animals to the degree that it was in Roman law at a certain point in its development. However, given the zeal of this animal during hunting (an activity infused with certain contents and values in the Middle Ages), the very laws that exclude the dog from the pecudes  became the prerogative that highlighted its position as a prestigious and useful animal requiring special protection. All of this would explain the barbarian laws special consideration for ‘man’s best socius,’ the upshot of which was the most detailed compositio of dogs in European history with about thirty types listed.

Bugnion, Jacques. Les chasses médiévales. Gollion: In Folio, 2005. Dalby, David. Lexicon of the Mediaeval German Hunt. Berlin: Gruyter, 1965. Du Cange, Charles.  Glossarium  mediae  et  infimae  latinitatis. Niort: L. Favre, 1883-. Galloni, Paolo. “L’ambiguità culturale della caccia nel Medioevo.” Quaderni  Medievali 27 (1989): 14–37. Galloni, Paolo. Il  cervo  e  il  lupo:  Caccia  e  cultura  nobiliare  nel  Medioevo. Rome – Bari: Laterza, 1993. Galloni, Paolo. Storia  e  cultura  della  caccia. Rome – Bari: Laterza, 2000. Gasparri, Stefano, and Cristina La Rocca. Tempi  barbarici:  L’Europa  occidentale  tra  antichità  e  medioevo (300–900). Rome: Carocci, 2012. Geary, Patrick J. The Myth of Nations: The Medieval  Origins  of  Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002. Gudian, Gunter. “Centena.” In Handwörterbuch zur  deutschen  Rechtsgeschichte, 1: 603–606. Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 1971. Jungandreas, Wolfgang. “Vom Merowingischen zum Französischen. Die Sprache der Franken Chlodwigs.” Leuvense Bijdragen 44 (1954): 115– 133, and 45 (1955): 1–9. “Leges Alamannorum.” In Leges  Nationum  Germanicarum, edited by Karl August Eckhardt.Vol. 5.1 of Monumenta  Germaniae  Historica. Hanover: Hahn, 1966. “Leges Langobardorum.” In Leges, edited by Georg Heinrich Pertz. Vol. 4 of Monumenta Germaniae  Historica. Hanover: Hahn, 1868. “Leges Burgundionum.” In Leges  Nationum  Germanicarum, edited by Rudolf von Salis. Vol. 2.1 of Monumenta  Germaniae  Historica. Hanover: Hahn, 1892. “Leges Visigothorum.” In Leges  Nationum  Germanicarum, edited by Karl Zeumer. Vol. 1 of Monumenta Germaniae  Historica. Hanover – Leipzig: Hahn, 1902. “Lex Baiwariorum.” In Leges  Nationum  Germanicarum, edited by Ernst von Schwind. Vol. 5.2 of Monumenta  Germaniae  Historica. Hanover: Hahn, 1926. “Lex Frisionum.” In Fontes  Iuris  Germanici  Antiqui  in  usum  scholarum, edited by Karl August Eckhardt and Albrecht Eckhardt. Vol. 12 of Monumenta  Germaniae  Historica. Hanover: Hahn, 1982.

Bibliography  Andreolli, Bruno, and Massimo Montanari. Il bosco  nel Medioevo. Bologna: Clueb, 1988. Azzara, Claudio, and Stefano Gasparri. Le leggi dei  longobardi:  Storia,  memoria  e  diritto  di  un  popolo  germanico. Milan: Viella, 1992. Beyerle, Franz. “«Die Lex Ribuaria». Volksrechtliche Studien I.” Zeitschrift  der  Savigny‐Stiftung  für  Rechtsgeschichte,  Germanistische Abteilung 48 (1928): 264–378.

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M. Iuffrida: Dogs and Human Relationship… “Lex Salica.” In Leges  Nationum  Germanicarum, edited by Karl August Eckhardt. Vol. 4.2 of Monumenta  Germaniae  Historica. Hanover: Hahn, 1969. McHugh, Susan. Dog. London: Reaktion, 2004. Montanari, Massimo. “La caccia.” In L’alimentazione  contadina  nell’alto  Medioevo, edited by Massimo Montanari, 255–276. Naples: Liguori, 1979. Montanari, Massimo. “Vicende di un’espropriazione: Il ruolo della caccia nell’economia e nell’alimentazione dei ceti rurali.” In Campagne  medievali:  Strutture  produttive,  rapporti  di  lavoro,  sistemi  alimentari, edited by Massimo Montanari, 174–190. Turin: Einaudi, 1984. Ortalli, Gherardo. Lupi,  genti,  culture:  Uomo  e  ambiente nel Medioevo. Turin: Einaudi, 1997. “Pactus Legis Salicae.” In Leges  Nationum  Germanicarum, edited by Karl August Eckhardt.Vol. 4.1 of Monumenta  Germaniae  Historica. Hanover: Hahn, 1962. Paul, Martha.  Wolf,  Fuchs  und  Hund  bei  den  Germanen. Vienna: Halosar, 1981. Pohl, Walter. Le  origini  etniche  dell’Europa. Rome: Viella, 2000. Schmidt-Wiegand, Ruth. “Zur Geschichte der Malbergischen Glossen.” Zeitschrift  der  Savigny‐Stiftung  für  Rechtsgeschichte,  Germanistische Abteilung 74 (1957): 220–231. Schmidt-Wiegand, Ruth. “Das fränkische Wortgut der Lex Salica als Gegenstand der Rechtssprachgeographie.” Zeitschrift  der  Savigny‐Stiftung  für  Rechtsgeschichte,  Germanistische Abteilung 84 (1967): 275–293. Schmidt-Wiegand, Ruth. “Die Malbergischen Glossen der Lex Salica als Denkmal des Westfränkischen.” Rheinische  Vierteljahrblätter 33 (1969): 296–422. Schmidt-Wiegand, Ruth. “Mahal, Mahlstatt.” In Handwörterbuch  zur  deutschen  Rechtsgeschichte, 3: 150–152. Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 1984. Schmidt-Wiegand, Ruth. “Malbergische Glossen.” In Handwörterbuch  zur  deutschen  Rechtsgeschichte, 3: 211–215. Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 1984. Schmidt-Wiegand, Ruth. “Mallobergus.” In Handwörterbuch  zur  deutschen  Rechtsgeschichte, 3: 216–217. Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 1984. Schmidt-Wiegand, Ruth. “Mallus, mallum.” In Handwörterbuch  zur  deutschen  Rechtsgeschichte, 3: 217–218. Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 1984.

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G. Jaritz: Draconcopedes, or, the Faces of Devilish Virgins 

– VI –  DRACONCOPEDES, OR, THE FACES OF DEVILISH VIRGINS  Gerhard JARITZ Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University – Budapest [email protected]

Abstract  Discourses about Eden’s serpent, its type, outer appearance, and actions can be found in a rich number. There, also the draconcopedes  played an important role: in Beda Venerabilis, Adelinus, the Liber  de  natura  rerum, Konrad von Megenberg’s Book  of  Nature, the Hortus  Sanitatis, etc. The textual descriptions of draconcopedes tell that they are big and powerful serpents living in Greece. They can have the face of a human virgin and the body of a dragon. It is said that it was this serpent by which Eve was seduced in Paradise. This article concentrates on the visual representations of the draconcopedes (mainly those that can be found in the Central European areas), and their possible recipients. Keywords  Draconcopedes; serpent; Paradise; virgins; Devil

Medieval discourses about the serpent of Garden Eden, its species, outer appearance, and actions can be found in a rich number. Some studies have already dealt with its occurrence in theological texts, encyclopaedias, natural scientific treatises, religious drama, and images from the late ancient until the early modern period.1 I do not want to repeat these analyses but intend to concentrate on the late medieval Christian visual

evidence for one species of these serpents, that is, the draconcopes, the development of its image, and its roles as a representative of otherness and closeness. I will refer to Central European examples and compare them to Western European source evidence. The draconcopes  played an important role for a number of medieval theological and scientific authorities: Vincent of Beauvais (c. 1190–c. 1264), Albert the Great (c. 1200–1280), Thomas de Cantimpré (1201–1270), Bonaventure (1221–1274), Konrad von Megenberg (1309–1374), the Hortus  Sanitatis, and so on. The encyclopaedic Hortus Sanitatis from the end of the fifteenth century describes the medical use and impact of a large number of animals, plants, and minerals. The authorship of this illustrated book is unknown, but it is generally believed to have been compiled by its first printer, Jakob Meydenbach.2 The success of the book is proved by a new Strasbourg edition in 1497.3 It went through a number of further editions

See Hugo Schmerber, Die Schlange des Paradieses (Strasbourg: J. H. Ed. Heitz (Heitz & Mündel), 1905); Alice Kemp-Welch, “The Woman-headed Serpent in Art,” The  Nineteenth  Century  and  After 52 (1902): 983–991; Henry Ansgar Kelly, “The Metamorphoses of the Eden Serpent during the Middle Ages and Renaissance,” in Witchcraft  and  Demonology  in  Art  and  Literature, ed. Brian P. Levack (New York – London: Garland Publishing, 1992), 225–256 [repr. from Viator 2 (1971): 301–328]; John K. Bonnell, “The Serpent with a Human Head in Art and in Mistery Play,” ibid., 113–149 [repr. from American  Journal  of  Archaeology 21 (1917): 255–291]; John M. Steadman, “‘Sin’ and the Serpent of Genesis 3. Paradise  Lost, II, 650–653,” Modern  Philology  LIV/4 (1957): 217–220; Marcel van der Voort, Van  serpenten met venine. Jacob van Maerlant’s over slangen hertaald en  van  herpetologisch  commentaar  voorzien  (Hilversum: Uitgeverij Verloren, 1993), 85–88; id., Dat  seste  boec  van  serpenten:  een  onderzoek naar en een uitgave van boek VI van Jacob van Maerlants  Der naturen bloeme (Hilversum: Uitgeverij Verloren, 2001), 112– 113. 1

85

2

Mainz, 1491.

3

Hortus Sanitatis (Strasbourg: Johann Prüss the Older, 1497).

Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  Draconcopedes.  Ex  libro  de  natura  rerum:  Draconcopedes  serpentes  sunt  magni  et  potentes,  facies  virgineas  habentes  humanis  similes,  in  draconum  corpus  desinentes.  Credibile  est  huius  generis illum fuisse per quem dyabolus Euam decepit:  quia  (sicut  dicit  Beda5)  virgineum  vultum  habuit.  Huic  etiam  dyabolus  se  coniungens  vel  applicans  ut  consimili  forma  mulierem  alliceret.  Faciem  ei  tantum  ostendit  et  reliquam  partem  corporis  arborum  frondibus occultauit. ...

during the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century and was translated into French, English, German, and Dutch.

(Draconcopedes: Out of the Liber de natura rerum: Draconcopedes  are big and mighty serpents that have faces similar to the ones of human maidens ending with bodies of dragons. It is credible that this is the species with the help of which the devil deceived Eve – because it had (as Bede says) a maiden-like face. This way, the devil joined and attracted the woman to allure her by similar appearance. He showed her only the face and hid the rest of the body under the leaves of the trees. ...)

The illustration in Johann Prüss’ Hortus  Sanitatis follows the textual version regarding the virginal face of the draconcopes; the body of the animal, however, does not: it is by no means dragon-like but has the appearance of a snake. The text of the Hortus  Sanitatis  is based on Thomas de Cantimpré’s Liber  de  Natura  Rerum,6  5 It is quite clear that Bede did actually not refer to the serpent in this way. See Steadman, “‘Sin’ and the Serpent,” 218; Kelly, “Metamorphoses,” 309.

See Thomas Cantimpratensis, Liber de natura rerum, part 1: text, ed. Helmut Boese (Berlin – New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1973), 283 (for the translation see Kelly, “Metamorphoses,” 322–323):

6

De  dracontopedibus.  Dracontopedes  serpentes  sunt,  ut  referente  Adelino  philosopho  Greci  dicunt,  magni  atque  potentes.  Hii  facies  habent  virgineas  faciebus  similes  humanis,  sed  in  draconum  corpus  desinunt.  De  hoc  genere  serpentis credi potest fuisse serpentem, quo in  malum  suum  et nostrum prima mater nostra Eva decepta fuit. Dicit enim  Beda, quod serpens ille, quo usus est dyabolus in deceptione  primorum  parentum  habuerit  vultum  virgineum.  Sumpsit  autem  corpus  serpentis  dyabolus  non  sicut  sumit  anima  corpus,  sed  sicut  indumentum  homo:  non  enim  unum  fuerunt dyabolus et serpens. Sumpsit, inquam, coniungendo  vel  potius  applicando  sibi  faciemque  serpentis  virgineam  demonstravit  tantummodo  femine,  ut  forma  consimili  alliceretur:  omne  enim  animal,  sicut  dicit  sapiens,  diligit  simile  sibi.  Partem  vero  reliquam  corporis  serpenti  similem  arborum frondibus occultavit. …

Figure  6‐1.  The  Draconcopes  in  Johann  Prüss  the  Older’s  Hortus Sanitatis (Strasbourg, 1497). Krems/Donau (Austria), Library of the Institut für Realienkunde. 

The texts of the Hortus Sanitatis  are  mainly based on or refer to authorities like Galen, the Dioscurides, Saint Augustine, the Venerable Bede, Thomas de Cantimpré, and so on. The sections on plants are reminiscent of herbals, the ones on animals of the bestiaries. Many of the descriptions would today be called fantasies, as one finds there, among others, the centaur, merman and mermaid, the unicorn – and the draconcopes  (Figure 6-1). What does the text say?4

4

(About the dracontopedes. Dracontopedes are serpents of whom, following the philosopher Adelinus, the Greeks say that they are large and powerful. They have virginal faces similar to those of human beings, but they end in the bodies of dragons. It can be believed that the serpent was of this species, which deceived our

Draconcopedes, ibid., Tractatus de animalibus, cap. xlix.

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G. Jaritz: Draconcopedes, or, the Faces of Devilish Virgins  composed in the 1220s–1230s, and is a word-forword copy from Vincent of Beauvais’ Speculum  Naturale,7  dated after 1250,  which shows a continuity of the text of at least 250 years. Thomas de Cantimpré’s and Vincent of Beauvais’ texts are based on Petrus Comestor’s (c. 1100–1178) Historia  scholastica and the Eden serpent mentioned there.8 The reference to the English bishop Adelinus (= Aldhelm, c. 639–709) in Thomas de Cantimpré’s description and some later adoptions refers to the dracontopodes, huge humanlike monsters  with a dragon’s tail out of Greek fables, mentioned in the Liber  monstrorum  ascribed to Aldhelm. Thomas took the term over and used it for naming the serpent in Eden. As early as Vincent of Beauvais’ text the dracontopes had become draconcopes (that is, actually, dragonfoot). In later German or Dutch vernacular texts it then became drachenkopp, ‐kopf, that is, dragonhead, to be understood as a dragon with a human head.9

The draconcopes is thus a serpent that one finds regularly, all over Europe, textually and visually represented in the natural historical encyclopaedias as, for instance, in the Middle Dutch Der  Naturen  Bloeme by Jacob van Maerlant (c. 1235–c. 1291).10 The visual representation here is from a manuscript of van Maerlant’s encyclopaedia from

The draconcopes, that is, dragon head is a big and mighty serpent in Greece, as Adelinus says. The serpent has a human virgin’s face, the other part of its body is dragonlike. The masters say that it was such a serpent which deceived Eve in Paradise. Bede says that the same serpent had the face of a virgin so that it restrained and allured Eve with likeness, because a human as well as an animal accept their equals and enjoy them. The same serpent, when deceiving Eve, showed her only the head and hid the other part of the body under the leaves of the trees and twigs. …) See also Lecouteux, “Drachenkopp,” 339–343. Concerning Thomas de Cantimpré’s Liber  de  natura  rerum  as basis for Konrad von Megenberg’s Buch  der  Natur  see Benedikt Konrad Vollmann, “Thomas von Cantimpré und Konrad von Megenberg,” in Konrad  von  Megenberg  (1309–1374):  Ein  spätmittelalterlicher  ‚Enzyklopädist‘  im  europäischen  Kontext, ed. Edith Feistner, Jahrbuch  der  Oswald  von  Wolkenstein‐Gesellschaft  18 (2010–2011): 13–20.

first mother Eve to her and our Fall. For Bede says that the serpent which the devil used for the deception of the first parents had a virginal countenance. The devil took on the body of a serpent not as our soul takes on a body but as a human a piece of clothing: for the devil and the serpent were not one. He took it on, I say, to join or, better, to attract and showed this way the virginal face of the snake to the woman to allure her with a form similar to hers: every being, as the wise man says, loves what is similar to it. But he hid the remaining serpent-like part of the body under the leaves of the trees. …)

See Marcel van der Voort, Dat  seste  boec  van  serpenten, 112– 113: 10

Draconcopes es I serpent,  Alse Adelinus wel kent,  Starc ende groot ende sonder waen  Int anschijn alse de maget gedaen,  Mar neder ward ghelijc den drake.  Wi wanen dies in ware sake,  Dat tserpent was al dus ghedaen  Dar die duvel hadde mede bestaen  Onser herster moeder Hieven,  Alse wi noch lesen in brieven.  Want Beda seghet sonder waen,  Dat dit serpent was ghedaen  Int anschijn ghelijc der maghet,  Ende hadde die vrouwe also belaghet,  Dat soe nit dan danschin ne sach.  Wand dander lijf bedecket lach  Met loveren ende met risen mede. ... 

Concerning the reference to and the Liber  monstrorum ascribed to him see Claude Lecouteux, “Drachenkopp,” Euphorion  72 (1978): 340. 7 See Schmerber, Die  Schlange, 16–18; Bonnell, “The Serpent,” 258; Steadman, “‘Sin’ and the Serpent,” 218, n11. See also Kelly, “Metamorphoses,” 320–321. 8

See Kelly, “Metamorphoses,” 308–309.

See, for instance, Konrad von Megenberg, Das Buch der Natur.  Die  erste  Naturgeschichte  in  deutscher  Sprache, ed. Franz Pfeiffer (Stuttgart: Verlag von Karl Aue, 1861; repr. Hildesheim – Zurich – New York: Georg Olms Verlag, 1994), 270–271.

9

(Draconcopes is, as Adelinus knows well, an undoubtedly strong and big serpent, in its face similar to a virgin but dragonlike below. We hold it for true that it was such a serpent with which the devil had attacked our first mother Eve, as we can read in the letters. Bede says without doubt that this serpent had a virgin-like face and deceived the woman in a way that she saw nothing else than the face, because the other part of the body was covered with leaves and also twigs. ...)

Von dem drachenkopp.  Draconcopes  haizt  ain  drachenkopp  und  ist  ain  slang  in  Kriechenlant  gar  grôz  und  mähtig,  sam  Adelînus  spricht.  Diu  slang  hât  ainr  junkfrawen  antlütz  geleich  ainem  menschen,  aber  daz  ander  tail  irs  leibes  geleicht  ainem  drachen.  Nu  sprechent  die  maister,  daz  diu  slang  derlai  sei  gewesen, diu Evam betrog in dem paradîs, wan Beda spricht,  daz  diu  selb  slang  ain  junkfrawenantlütz  hab  gehabt,  dar  umb,  daz  si  mit  gleicher  gestalt  Evam  zämt  und  zuolocket,  wan der mensch und ain iegleich tier nimt seins geleichz und  ist lustig gegen im. Diu selb slang, dô si Evam betrog, zaigt  ir neur das haupt und verparg daz ander tail under der paum  pleter und buschen. …

For the transliterations of the snake book, see http://home.wanadoo.nl/ mjm.vandervoort/translitteraties/maerlantslangen/translitteraties-maerlant-slangen.html (last access May 20, 2012).

(About the dragonhead.

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Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  about 1350 (Figure 6-2). It presents the animal with the head of a human virgin, but the lower part of the body is different from the one in the later woodcut of the Hortus Sanitatis; it is more dragonlike and presents the animal as a big serpent with two legs.

Figure 6‐3. A Draconcopes in the Concordantiae Caritatis, Lower  Austria, c. 1350. Lilienfeld, library of the Cistercian house, cod. 151,  fol. 2v. 

Figure 6‐2. The Draconcopes in Jacob van Maerlant’s Der naturen bloeme,  Flanders,  c.  1350.  The  Hague,  Koninklijke  Bibliotheek,  cod. KA 16, fol. 124v. 

The flourishing period for the texts about and images of the maiden-faced serpents started in the thirteenth century and can be traced particularly from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries. Besides the ‘Natural Histories’ mentioned above, draconcopedes  became relevant in theological and religious literature and pictures.

Figure  6‐4.  Change  of  the  virgin‐headed  serpent  during  the  Fall.  Speculum humanae salvationis,  Upper  Austria  (?),  1336.  Vienna,  Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, cod. s. n. 2612, fol. 4r and 4v. 

In many cases in which adjoined texts do not exist or do not speak explicitly about the draconcopes or drachenkopf, the images of the serpent followed  the written descriptions to some extent, but at the same time could vary considerably.  An artistically rather provincial Austrian Speculum  Humanae  Salvationis  from the 1330s, for instance,  offers two images of the seduction of Eve by the serpent in Paradise which follow each other immediately and represent different realizations of the female-headed serpent that should probably visualize the devil’s ability to change his appearance (Figure 6-4):

In a mid-fourteenth-century Concordantiae  Caritatis from the Lower Austrian Cistercian house of Lilienfeld, the New Testament ‘Kiss of Judas’ is compared with the actions of the draconcopes  (Figure 6-3).  The caption says: ‘Blanda  non  seua  /  Draconcopede  fallitur  Eua.’11 The image, however, does not follow this caption and nor does the above-mentioned textual description of the serpent. On the one hand, the draconcopes  does not deceive Eve, but a man wearing a green dress; on the other hand, the lower part of the body is not dragon-like, but seems to be rather of a worm-like snake.

- once, in a particularly seductive way, the large serpent has a female human head and virginal face, but also the naked female upper part of a human body that ends in the dragon-like lower part of the body with wings, two legs, and a tail.

One sees, therefore, that sometimes the visual representations of the draconcopedes did not follow the descriptive texts and that serpents could receive different shapes or become even more hybrid. The seductive female head and virginal face, however, were mostly retained as important.

- in the other example, the image on the following folio, in which Eve offers the fruit to Adam, the serpent is a human female-headed snake-like species wound around the tree.

11 ‘Not fiercely but seductively, Eve was deceived by the draconcopes.’

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G. Jaritz: Draconcopedes, or, the Faces of Devilish Virgins  face is certainly the stone sculpture from c. 1220 on the west façade of Notre Dame in Paris, on the pedestal below a statue of the standing Virgin Mary with Child (Figure 6-6).12 Again the presentation of the serpent is particularly seductive; the devil not only has the beautiful virgin-like female face but also naked breasts. Generally, this visual representation functioned as a kind of counter-image: the devilish maiden-like serpent seducing Eve and leading her, Adam, and mankind into sin versus the saintly Virgin Mary above them who has saved mankind.

Sometimes the possibilities for the devil to occur in different guises were emphasized particularly by contrasting visual representations close to each other, in which the virginal-faced appearance could also play a relevant role. Thus, an illustration in an Austrian Biblia  pauperum, again from the 1330s, shows the snake with a virginal face seducing Eve near the black, winged, and horned devil unsuccessfully trying to tempt Christ (Figure 6-5).

Figure 6‐5. Different bodies and faces of the devil: at the Temptation of Christ  and  the  Fall  of  Adam  and  Eve.  Biblia pauperum,  Vienna,  1330–1340.  Vienna,  Österreichische  Nationalbibliothek,  cod.  1198, fol. 3v, detail. 

Figure 6‐7. The crowned virgin‐headed snake as the queen of hell. Eve  and her followers seduced by the draconcopes, wall painting, Klerant  (South Tyrol, Italy), filial church of St. Nicholas, c. 1480. 

Such a contrast can also be recognized in other didactic public images. In the vaults of the South Tyrolean filial church of St. Nicholas at Klerant, one finds, for instance, a wall painting of the Virgin Mary, queen of heaven, and her followers, and, to the left of it, another one representing Eve and her followers being seduced by the snake-like devil, shown as the queen of hell, with a crowned human head and the face of a virgin (Figure 6-7). As this latter example shows, the draconcopes could also enter small village churches and offer its didactic message to lower class visitors. Other instances of this kind can, for instance, be traced in

Figure  6‐6.  Female  face  and  upper  part  of  the  body  of  the  serpent. Paris,  Notre  Dame,  portal  of  the  Virgin,  Fall  of  Adam  and  Eve,  c.  1220. 

Devils with the faces of virgins not only ‘lived’ in the, let us say, restricted ‘private’ space of ‘Natural Histories’ and theological manuscripts. They ‘spoke’ to more people than just to the ‘specialists,’ that is, also in religious dramas and, particularly, in visual representations in various public spaces. One of the most famous early examples of such a public serpent with a virginal

12

89

See also Kelly, “Metamorphoses,” 319.

Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  churches in today’s Slovenia, like in a wall painting in the small village church of Hrastovlje in the very north of Istria (Figure 6-8). There, the female head of the snake again wears a crown as she seduces Eve to take the apple from the forbidden tree.13

some considerable varieties of the species; some are snake-like, others have dragon-like bodies, some show only a female human virginal face, others also a naked female upper part of the body. There may be differences concerning the share of human body parts, in particular.

Figure 6‐8. Eve  and  the  crowned  virgin‐headed  snake.  The  Fall,  wall  painting,  John  of  Kastav,  1490,  detail.  Hrastovlje  (Slovenia),  filial church of the Holy Trinity. 

When going back to the public space of the higher social strata of society and the visual representation of the scene for them, one can mention the example from the cathedral cloister of Brixen (Bressanone) in South Tyrol, which represents a number of possible varieties of the devil’s appearance. In the vaults, one finds a wall painting from 1477 that shows the different frightening bodies, faces, and colours of devils connected with the seven Capital Sins surrounding the seduction of Eve and Adam by the devil as a serpent with a human virginal face.14

Figure 6‐9. The virgin‐headed serpent with a female human upper part  of the body and a tail. Lucas Cranach the Elder, The Fall, woodcut, c.  1523. Vienna, Grafische Sammlung Albertina. 

In a number of cases the human head developed into the naked human upper parts of female bodies ending in serpent-like abdomens.15 An impressive example in this respect is the representation of the Fall by Lucas Cranach the Elder from the 1520s (Figure 6-9). Here, the serpent has become completely human except for missing legs, which are replaced by the serpent’s tail. This human-like being has also already come down from the tree, moved very close to Eve, and is pestering her physically.16

As already mentioned and shown, the images of the draconcopedes  offer visual representations of

13 Another Slovenian example can be found in the wall paintings of the filial church of Sveti Peter nad Begunjami from the 1530s. See image database of the Institut für Realienkunde (Krems/Donau, Austria): http://tarvos.imareal.sbg.ac.at/server/images/3009921.jpg (last access January 20, 2013).

15

For such half human bodies see already Figures 6-4 and 6-6.

Rather humanlike are, e.g., also the famous serpents in the representations of the Fall by Hugo van der Goes (c. 1440–1482), today in the Kunsthistorisches  Museum, Vienna, and the wall painting by Michelangelo (1475–1564) in the Sistine Chapel, Rome. With regard to the picture by Hugo van der Goes, see Robert A. Koch, “The Salamander in Van der Goes’ Garden  of  Eden,” Journal  of  the  Warburg  and  Courtauld  Institutes  28 (1965): 323–326 and plates 47a–48c. Kelly, “Metamorphoses,” 318 states that Van der Goes ‘has a serpent that looks like a child dressed 16

14 See image database of the Institut für Realienkunde (Krems/Donau, Austria): http://tarvos.imareal.sbg.ac.at/server/images/7004005.jpg (last access January 20, 2013).

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G. Jaritz: Draconcopedes, or, the Faces of Devilish Virgins 

Figure 6‐10. A dragon‐like serpent of the Fall. Seduction of Adam and Eve  by  the  Serpent,  manuscript  illumination,  Bible  paraphrase, Salzburg  (?),  1448.  Vienna,  Österreichische  Nationalbibliothek,  cod. 2774, fol. 7v. 

Figure  6‐12.  The  virgin‐headed  scorpion  in  Heidelberg,  cod.  Pal.  Germ. 300, fol. 211r. 

In contrast, there are still a number of examples of the visual representation of the serpent that did not follow the draconcopedes pattern of the virginal human face but show a ‘real’ snake or dragon (Figure 6-10). Of particular interest in this respect are examples in which the visual representations are described as being depictions of draconcopedes, but the images contradict to the textual evidence. One of them is an image of the drachenkopf  in a Heidelberg manuscript of Konrad von Megenberg’s Buch  der  Natur, in which, as already shown, the author followed the Latin descriptions in his translation and mentioned the human virginal face of the drachenkopf.17 The image that is depicted below the heading Von  dem  drachen  kopff  and precedes the text18 (Figure 6-11), however, does not

Figure  6‐11.  The  drachenkopff  as  a  fire‐spitting,  predatory  cat‐like  dragon  with  four  legs  in  a  manuscript  of  Konrad  von  Megenberg’s Buch der Natur  (Heidelberg,  cod.  Pal.  Germ.  300,  fol.  204r),  c.  1443–1451, coloured drawing, workshop of Diebold Lauber. 

17

See above, note 9.

Concerning the illustrations in manuscripts and prints of Konrad von Megenberg’s Buch der Natur  see Ulrike Spyra, Das  “Buch  der  Natur”  Konrads  von  Megenberg.  Die  illustrierten  Handschriften  und  Inkunabeln  (Cologne – Weimar – Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 2005); with regard to the Heidelberg codex Pal. Germ. 300 see ibid., 84–87 and 274–279, concerning the dragonlike draconcopes  in it see ibid., 133. Cf. also Christoph Wagner, 18

in a salamander suit.’ Concerning general lists of a number of depictions of the serpents with a human head (and partly human upper part of the body) see Schmerber, Die Schlange, 23– 31; Bonnell, “The Serpent,” 265–278; Kelly, “Metamorphoses,” 316–319.

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Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  follow the latter; the artist clearly did not understand the drachenkopf  as a ‘dragon with a human head’ but as a being with the head of a dragon. The picture shows a predatory cat-like fire-spitting dragon with four legs, a very long tail and a head without any resemblance to a human face. Thus, there is no relation between the image and the text describing it. This is quite different in the case of the scorpion and its representation in the same manuscript.  It is again described as a virgin-headed snake: ‘Scorpio heisset ein schorppffe.19  Das  ist  ein  slange  die  hat  hor  und  gar  ein  senfftiges  antlit  glich  einer  küschen  jungfrouwen  antlit. ...’.20 Here, the artist followed the descriptive text: the animal that is killing a little dog with its tail is a snake which has the face of a beautiful woman (Figure 6-12).21 Figure 6‐13. Draconcopedes, drawing, Isaac Horn, 2009.

Another piece that does not show a maiden-like face on the draconcopes leads into contemporary art and to the American artist Isaac Horn. Horn is member of ‘deviantArt,’22 a commercial American online-community offering a platform for artists to exhibit, discuss, and sell works. Horn’s art is based on fantasy and science fiction, mainly in the sphere of illustrations. He states, ‘I do traditional fantasy. I won’t draw real people, just not interesting, or realism or modern things. … I live and breathe fantasy, that’s what I do.’23 His draconcopedes (sic!) from 2009 (Figure 6-13)24 has a female human head, although not like the serpents with the seducing face of a beautiful virgin, but rather with an ugly and frightening grimace: meaning, on the one hand, a continuation of the medieval pattern, on the other hand, however, an explicit change of meaning.25 

*** Let us go back from Isaac Horn’s ‘lived and breathed fantasy’ of draconcopedes  to a summary concerning their medieval visual ‘reality.’ In his article, John M. Steadman stated that the images of the serpent of Genesis 3 fall into three categories. He put them in order of their quantity of occurrence:26 - most often, ‘a bona fide serpent, of considerable length, twined around the tree of knowledge’; - less frequently, the serpent with a woman’s head that ‘retains its serpentine form from the neck downwards’; - a serpent that is ‘human from the waist up, with a woman’s head, arms, and bust.’ Generally, one can agree with this statement and order, although the serpent with a female head and face played a particular role in the late Middle Ages. One also has to consider the many hybrids that can be found in the images in public as well as non-public space.

“‚Iconic turn‘ im Mittelalter? Visualisierungsformen im Buch der  Natur Konrads von Megenberg,” in Konrad  von  Megenberg  (1309–1374), 61–80. 19

‘Schorpe’ = scorpion.

‘“Scorpio” is a “Schorpe”. This is a snake that got hair and a kind face similar to the one of a chaste virgin’ (Heidelberg, cod. Pal. Germ. 300, fol. 211v). Concerning the tradition of the maiden-faced scorpion see Kelly, “Metamorphoses,” 312–313. 20

21

The draconcopes as the devilish serpent from Paradise with a maiden-like face and, at the same time, the representative of a medieval zoological species has to be seen as a being whose message

See also Spyra, Das “Buch der Natur”, fig. 27.

http://www.deviantart.com/ (last access May 20, 2012). ~lvl9Drow (= Isaac Horn), “Just clearin old journal” (2010, http://lvl9drow.deviantart.com/journal/#/d3qvjud – last access May 20, 2012). 22 23

24 See also: http://browse.deviantart.com/?qh=§ion=&global=1&q=Drac oncopedes#/d2o5rwj (last access May 20, 2012).

some myths it’s Lucifer in others it’s these things here. Some of you might be familiar with the picture of the snake with the upper torso of a women wrapped around a tree. In a lot of myths their [=they are!] winged as well. …’

25 See ibid., the artist’s statement: ‘A Draconcopedes is [!] often portrayed as the creature at the tree tempting Eve in Eden. In

26

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Steadman, “‘Sin’ and the Serpent,” 219.

G. Jaritz: Draconcopedes, or, the Faces of Devilish Virgins  was important for all levels of Christian society, in religious and theological as well as in learned secular space, and also as a general didactic medium for everyone’s daily life, for members of the upper classes as well as the lower strata, in texts, images, and plays. Draconcopedes  were a particular reality that were intended to influence one’s existence: as a warning, a help to understanding, a motivation to be careful in communicating with others, or a demand to change one’s life for the better – a ‘real’ being representing closeness and otherness at the same time. If not recognized, it could destroy the hopes and salvation of oneself, and even of all of mankind.

Steadman, John M. “‘Sin’ and the Serpent of Genesis 3. Paradise  Lost, II, 650–53.” Modern  Philology LIV/4 (1957): 217–220. Thomas Cantimpratensis. Liber  de  natura  rerum, part 1: text. Edited by Helmut Boese. Berlin – New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1973. Van der Voort, Marcel. Van  serpenten  met  venine. Jacob van Maerlant’s over slangen hertaald en van  herpetologisch  commentaar  voorzien. Hilversum: Uitgeverij Verloren, 1993. Van der Voort, Marcel. Dat seste boec van serpenten:  een onderzoek naar en een uitgave van boek VI van  Jacob  van  Maerlants  Der  naturen  bloeme. Hilversum: Uitgeverij Verloren, 2001. Vollmann, Benedikt Konrad. “Thomas von Cantimpré und Konrad von Megenberg.” In Konrad  von  Megenberg  (1309–1374):  Ein  spätmittelalterlicher ‚Enzyklopädist‘ im europäischen  Kontext, edited by Edith Feistner. Jahrbuch  der  Oswald  von  Wolkenstein‐Gesellschaft  18 (2010– 2011): 13–20. Wagner, Christoph. “‚Iconic turn‘ im Mittelalter? Visualisierungsformen im Buch  der  Natur Konrads von Megenberg.” In Konrad  von  Megenberg  (1309–1374):  Ein  spätmittelalterlicher  ‚Enzyklopädist‘  im  europäischen  Kontext, edited by Edith Feistner. Jahrbuch  der  Oswald  von  Wolkenstein‐Gesellschaft 18 (2010–2011): 61–80.

Bibliography Bonnell, John K. “The Serpent with a Human Head in Art and in Mistery Play.” In Witchcraft  and  Demonology  in  Art  and  Literature, edited by Brian P. Levack, 113–149. New York – London: Garland Publishing, 1992 [repr. from American  Journal of Archaeology 21 (1917): 255–291]. Hortus  Sanitatis. Strasbourg: Johann Prüss the Older, 1497. Kelly, Henry Ansgar. “The Metamorphoses of the Eden Serpent during the Middle Ages and Renaissance.” In Witchcraft  and  Demonology  in  Art  and  Literature, edited by Brian P. Levack, 225–256. New York – London: Garland Publishing, 1992 [reprinted from Viator 2 (1971): 301–328]. Kemp-Welch, Alice. “The Woman-headed Serpent in Art.” The  Nineteenth  Century  and  After 52 (1902): 983–991. Koch, Robert A. “The Salamander in van der Goes’ Garden  of  Eden.” Journal  of  the  Warburg  and  Courtauld Institutes 28 (1965): 323–326. Konrad von Megenberg. Das  Buch  der  Natur.  Die  erste  Naturgeschichte  in  deutscher  Sprache. Edited by Franz Pfeiffer. Stuttgart: Verlag von Karl Aue, 1861. Repr. Hildesheim – Zurich – New York: Georg Olms Verlag, 1994. Lecouteux, Claude. “Drachenkopp.” Euphorion  72 (1978): 339–343. Schmerber, Hugo. Die  Schlange  des  Paradieses. Strasbourg: J. H. Ed. Heitz (Heitz & Mündel), 1905. Spyra, Ulrike. Das  “Buch  der  Natur”  Konrads  von  Megenberg.  Die  illustrierten  Handschriften  und  Inkunabeln. Cologne – Weimar – Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 2005.

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D. Kottmann: Animal Fables set among the Biblical Cycle…  

– VII –  ANIMAL FABLES SET AMONG THE BIBLICAL CYCLE OF THE  NAVE OF SAINT‐SAVIN‐SUR‐GARTEMPE Delia KOTTMANN École Pratiques des Hautes Études, Paris / Technische Universität Dresden [email protected]

Abstract  This article treats of some animals in the Romanesque murals dating to around 1100 on the nave of the abbey church in Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe (situated in the Vienne department of Poitou-Charentes region, western France), showing a biblical cycle of Genesis and Exodus. Yet, what is unusual in this religious cycle is the depiction of secular scenes featuring animals. In the middle of the cycle one finds these scenes, nonexistent in the original biblical text, that show a human being climbing a tree, an animal hanging on the treetop and another one on the ground – seeming to bark to the other one – and an episode of an Aesopian fable, the fox and the raven. Do they express a uniquely moral appeal? Keywords  Romanesque art; wall painting; animal fables; Aesopian fable; moral sense

The Abbey Church of Saint-Savin has in its nave Romanesque murals dating to around 1100, which are renowned for the cycle of Genesis and Exodus. The murals in the crypt under the choir depict hagiographical scenes from the lives of the two patron saints of the abbey, Saint Savin and Saint Cyprian. In the narthex an apocalyptic cycle is illustrated. The tribune above depicts the Passion of Christ, and various other saints. Saints are also omnipresent in the choir. Yet what seems unusual is the depiction of scenes related to ‘profane’1 fables mixed in among the biblical scenes of the tunnel vault of the nave (Figures 7-1 and 7-2). The biblical cycle of the nave does not include the New Testament – which is surprising: usually, Romanesque decoration of naves followed the examples of the early Christian churches, using typological means to show the Old Testament as 1 Where the Middle Ages are concerned, it is not possible to divide clearly between a sacral and a profane world, the two domains belonging together. See Pierre-Marie Gy, “La liturgie à l’époque romane,” Les Cahiers de Saint‐Michel de Cuxa 34 (2003): 8.

Figure 7‐1. View of the nave of Saint‐Savin‐sur‐Gartempe from West  to East. 

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Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  anticipating the New. The cycle of the nave of Saint-Savin is depicted on four registers on the vault, divided by an ornamental frieze. In the west of the nave, on the upper register of the northern side, the cycle begins with the Creation. After the third bay, the cycle continues lower down on the same slope. Originally, it illustrated the planting of the Garden of Eden and afterwards the Creation of Adam, the Creation of Eve, the Temptation, followed by the Fall of Mankind owing to this original sin and Adam and Eve’s expulsion from Paradise in the third bay. Then the sequence continues on the upper register, with Adam and Eve labouring on the earth, Eve spinning yarn, followed by the stories of Cain and Abel, the Ascension of Enoch, the Instruction to Noah to construct an Ark, Noah’s Ark, the benediction of Noah and his family by God, Noah’s offering and, on the last bay of this register, the scene of Noah harvesting the grapes. These scenes are succeeded by those on the south side, on the east part of the upper register. Noah tastes his wine, gets drunk and curses Canaan. On the south slope, there are no boundaries in the succession of the narrative. In the eastern direction, the subsequent scenes tell us about the construction of the Tower of Babel and happenings in Abraham’s life. The cycle continues on the register below, showing Abraham and the life of Joseph, ending in the west. Then the series is interrupted. The viewers have to go back to the fourth bay of the lower register in the north, continuing to the east with Exodus illustrating the life of Moses.

biblical connotation. Representations of nonbiblical pictures in the other architectural parts of

Âge  et  l’époque  romane (Paris: Plon, Ars et historia, 1951); Otto Demus, Romanische Wandmalerei (Munich: Hirmer, 1968); Janine Wettstein, Fresques  et  peintures  des  églises  romanes  en  France (Paris: Guy le Prat, 1974). More recent articles dealing specifically with the wall paintings of Saint-Savin do not describe the fables among the biblical scenes of Saint-Savin: Marc Thibout, “La décoration peinte de Saint-Savin,” Bulletin  de  la  Société  nationale  des  antiquaires  de  France (1943–1944): 154–156; id., “À propos de la bande faîtière qui décore la nef de l’église de Saint-Savin,” Bulletin  monumental 103 (1945): 201–211; Paul Deschamps, André Grabar, and Marc Thibout, “Observations sur les fresques de Saint-Savin,” Cahiers  archéologiques 4 (1949): 135– 147; Paul Deschamps, “Les peintures de l’église de Saint-Savin,” Congrès  archéologique  de  France 109 (1952): 437–449; Paul-Henri Michel, “La Psychomachie. Note sur le cycle biblique de SaintSavin (Thème littéraire et plastique),” La Gazette  des Beaux‐Arts 40 (1952): 319–328; George Henderson, “The sources of the Genesis cycle at Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe,” Journal of the British  Archaeological  Association 26 (1963): 11–26, reprinted in id., Studies in English Bible illustration. Vol. I. Illumination of books and  manuscripts,  Medieval‐England (London: The Pindar Press, Selected studies in the history of art, 1985), 111–137; Jean Taralon, “Observations techniques sur la voûte de la nef de Saint-Savin et ses peintures,” Bulletin  de  la  Société  nationale  des  antiquaires  de  France (1968): 247–257; Marcel Stefanaggi, “Étude des peintures de la nef de l’église de Saint-Savin-surGartempe,” in La matière picturale: fresque et peinture murale, eds. Sylvie Colinart and Michel Menu (Bari: Edipuglia, Scienze et materiali del patrimonio culturale, 6, 2001), 135–147; Marie-Pasquine Subes-Picot, “Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe,” in Dictionnaire  d’Histoire  de  l’Art  du  Moyen  Âge  occidental, eds. Pascale Charron and Jean-Marie Guillouët (Paris: Robert Laffont, bouquins, 2009), 844–845. Pierre Dubourg-Noves, in his monograph on Saint-Savin, only mentions the fables in his explanation of the numbers on his draft of the scenes in the nave, without describing them in the text. See Pierre DubourgNoves, L’abbaye de Saint‐Savin (Rennes: Ouest-France, 1984), 25. René Crozet, in his works on Saint-Savin, only once refers to two of the fables, without any description or explanation: ‘mais  que  viennent  faire,  à  gauche  et  à  droite  [of the drunkenness of Noah],  les  deux  fabliaux  peuplés  d’animaux?’ See René Crozet, Chauvigny,  Saint‐Savin (Paris: Nouvelles éditions latines, Art et tourisme, 1987 [1969]), 27. The aforementioned author Paul-Henri Michel, on the other hand, identifies an image from the scene of Saint-Savin in the caption as a ‘chevreau pendu,’ but he does not describe it in the text, nor does he refer to a source. See Paul-Henri Michel, La  fresque  romane (Paris: Gallimard, Idées-arts, 1961), 63, fig. 21. Prosper Mérimée, Élisa Maillard, Georges Gaillard and YvesJean Riou also identify this hanged animal as a goat, but they do not indicate any source, nor do they mention the two quadrupeds next to the tree trunk, but refer only to the dog barking at the hanged goat. See Mérimée, “Observations,” 136; Élisa Maillard, L’église  de  Saint‐Savin‐sur‐Gartempe (Paris: Laurens, Petites monographies des grands édifices de la France, 1926), 72; Georges Gaillard, Les  fresques  de  Saint‐Savin.  La  nef (Paris: Les Éditions du Chêne, 1944), 4; Yves-Jean Riou, Die  Abtei  von  Saint‐Savin.  Vienne, trans. Annette Wendt (Poitiers, Connaissance et Promotion du Patrimoine de Poitou-Charentes, Images du Patrimoine, 101, 1992), 51.

Among some of the afore-mentioned scenes from the lives of Noah and Abraham, as well as the sequence relating to the construction of the Tower of Babel, there are some pictures which seem to depict fables,2 standing alone without any The oldest publications on Saint-Savin pay only scant attention to these fables and do not describe them in detail. See Prosper Mérimée, Notice sur les peintures de l’église de Saint‐Savin (Paris: Imprimerie royale, 1845); id., “Observations sur les peintures de Saint-Savin,” Bulletin  monumental 12 (1846): 193– 227, reprinted in id. Études  sur  les  arts  du  moyen  âge.  Avertissement  de  Pierre  Jossenard (Paris: Flammarion, Images et idées, 1967), 61–149 or Alphonse Le Touzé de Longuemar, Notice  historique  sur  l’ancienne  abbaye  de  Saint‐Savin  (castrum  ceracense) et description de l’église actuelle de la ville de Saint‐Savin.  Extrait des Chroniques populaires du Poitou insérées dans l’Abeille de  la Vienne en 1850 et 1851 (Poitiers: Henri Oudin, 1851). Indeed, the standard books on Romanesque wall paintings do not mention them at all: Henri Focillon, Peintures romanes des  églises  de  France (Paris: Paul Hartmann, 1938); Paul Deschamps and Marc Thibout, La  peinture  murale  en  France:  le  Haut  Moyen  2

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Figure 7‐2. Diagram of  the murals  of the nave of Saint‐Savin‐sur‐Gartempe, after  Éliane Vergnolle, L’art roman en France (Paris: Flammarion,  2003 [1994]), 179. 

the abbey do not exist. For the description of the profane images the sequence of the cycle is respected. At first, there is on the upper register of the south side, after the illustration of Noah tasting his wine, a field with an episode from Aesop’s fable of the fox and the raven (Figure 7-3):3 a story which urges us not to trust anyone who is trying to deceive us. Aesop discussed the theme of false flattery in the following way: the fox flatters a raven sitting with a piece of cheese in his beak on a tree, saying that the raven’s physical appearance is so beautiful, and that the other animals would give him the title of the world’s most beautiful bird, if only his voice were nicer. The raven fell for the fox’s tricks and let out a great squawk by trying to sing and thereby dropped his cheese. The Bayeux Tapestry, which dates to the second half of the eleventh century, shows the same fable three times

Aesop’s fable 104. See for example Laura Gibbs, trans., Aesop’s  Fables (Oxford: Oxford University Press, World’s Classics, 2002). The restorer Marie-France de Christen saw in the background of this scene an unfinished bird, which I was unable to discern. See Marie-France de Christen, “Les peintures de la nef: tracées, esquisses, repentirs et couleurs,” in Saint‐ Savin.  L’abbaye  et  ses  peintures  murales, ed. Robert Favreau (Poitiers: Connaissance et Promotion du Patrimoine de PoitouCharentes, 1999), 156. 3

Figure  7‐3.  Saint‐Savin‐sur‐Gartempe,  nave.  Aesop’s fable  of  the  fox  and the raven. 

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Figure 7‐4. Saint‐Savin‐sur‐Gartempe, nave. Noah’s drunkenness.

on the border register.4 Hence, the representation of Aesop’s fables is not an unknown theme in the history of Romanesque art. For example, the Ottonian canon table of the Gospel Book of Morienval likewise shows the fable of the fox and the raven.5 Furthermore, in a manuscript of

Ademar of Chabannes, the fable of the fox and the raven figures among others in a series depicting Romulus fables, the rewriting in Latin of Aesop’s fables dating to around the year 500.6 It is also worth noting that fables were often chosen for Latin lessons in school (and also in monasteries).7 The scene of the fox and the raven in SaintSavin is followed within the cycle by the scene of Noah’s drunkenness (Figure 7-4). The very next field is the second fable scene (Figure 7-5) – a white

4 See recently Peter K. Klein, “The meaning of the fables in the Bayeux Tapestry,” in Tributes to Nigel Morgan. Contexts of medieval  art:  images,  objects  &  ideas, eds. Julian M. Luxford et  al. (London: Harvey Miller – Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), 342. He gives an intense bibliographical overview. To this can be added Xenia Muratova, “Ideologia dei margini e margini dell’ideologia. Riflessioni sui margini dell’Arazzo di Bayeux e sui programmi delle zone secondarie nella decorazione dei monumenti medievali,” in Medioevo:  immagini  e  ideologie.  Atti  del  Convegno  internazionale  di  studi,  Parma,  23–27  settembre  2002, ed. Arturo C. Quintavalle (Milan: Electa, I convegni di Parma, 5, 2005), 657–670, and Agneta Ney, “Dans les marges de la tapisserie de Bayeux,” in La  tapisserie  de  Bayeux:  une  chronique  des  temps  vikings?  Actes  du  colloque  international  de  Bayeux,  29  et  30  mars  2007, ed. Sylvette Lemagnen (Bonsecours: Éditions point de vues, 2009), 163–173. Concerning the date, see Peter K. Klein, “La représentation du corps dans les marges au Moyen Âge,” Studium Medievale: Revista  de  Cultura  visual  ‐  Cultura  escrita 1 (2008): 102. The comparison was already established by André Grabar. See André Grabar, La  peinture  romane  du  onzième  au  treizième  siècle:  peintures  murales (Geneva: Skira, Les grands siècles de la peinture, 1, 1958), 90. The three scenes are printed in Léon Herrmann, Les fables antiques de la  broderie  de  Bayeux (Brussels et  al.: Latomus, Collection Latomus, 69, 1964), 19, 39 and 45.

6 Leyden, University Library, Ms. Leyden, Voss. 8º 15, fol. 197. See for example Danielle Gaborit-Chopin, “Les dessins d’Adémar de Chabannes,” Bulletin  Archéologique 3 (1967): 178– 182. She dates the manuscript to between the end of the tenth century and 1030 (p. 185). See also Georg Thiele, Der lateinische  Äsop des Romulus und die Prosa‐Fassungen des Phädrus. Kritischer  Text  mit  Kommentar  und  einleitenden  Untersuchungen (Heidelberg: Winter, 1910), CLXXXI–CLXXXV and Adolph Goldschmidt, An  early  manuscript  of  the  Aesop  fables  of  Avianus  and  related  manuscripts (Princeton: Princeton University Press, Studies in manuscript illumination, 1, 1947), 36. Figure in Herrmann, Les fables, fig. 1. 7 André Vernet, “La transmission des textes en France,” in La  cultura  antica  nell’occidente  Latino  dal  VII  all’XI  secolo (Spoleto: Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, Settimane di studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 22, 1975), 106; Klein, “The meaning,” 344. For this, he refers in p. 344, n83 to Günter Glauche, Schullektüre  im  Mittelalter:  Entstehung  und  Wandlung  des  Lektürekanons  bis  1200  nach  den  Quellen  dargestellt (Munich: Arbeo-Gesellschaft, Münchener Beiträge zur Mediävistik und Renaissance-Forschung, 5, 1970), 73–75.

5 Conserved at the treasury of the Cathedral of Noyon. See Amédée Boinet, “L’évangéliaire de Morienval à la cathédrale de Noyon,” Congrès  archéologique  de  France (1905), 637–650. Figure in Klein, “La représentation,” 102, fig. 1.

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D. Kottmann: Animal Fables set among the Biblical Cycle…   animal is hanging on a treetop and a red one is on the ground, seeming to bark up at the other. Two more red quadrupeds are standing beside the tree trunk. None of Aesop’s fables narrates such a story. Neither in the Roman  de  Renart, dated around eighty years after the decoration of the barrel of Saint-Savin,8 but already well known earlier through oral transmission,9 nor in the earlier version by Nivardus of Ghent,10 does a fable seem to be described which corresponds to this image at Saint-Savin. But what seems important is that this second illustration based on a tree is, like the first one, the depiction of a fable.11 Jean-Claude Bonne identified this scene as referring to the fable about the cat hanged by rats, in which the order of the world is inverted and ‘la  victime  fait  subir  au  chasseur la loi du talion.’ But the quadrupeds at the bottom of the tree do not resemble rats, nor does the hanged animal in the tree look like a cat.12 Martine Jullian and Reiko Nakauchi interpreted this scene as a depiction of the Aesopian fable of the pilgrimage of Renart, which is rewritten in the Roman  de  Renart: Reynard the Fox undertakes a pilgrimage to Rome with Belin and Bernard. They are followed by the wolf and his pack. Reynard the Fox and his companions take refuge in a tree, but the ass and the sheep fall from the top, crushing some wolves to death. Thereupon, the other wolves take flight.13 These two writers suggest that the hanged animal is about to drop down. However, firstly, the hanged animal does not look

like a fox (Martine Jullian identifies it with the sheep,14 but this is contradictory to the sense of the fable, since it is the fox that did not fall from the tree), and on the bottom there are no animals running away, nor are any animals dead or lying on top of one another. Prosper Mérimée has a funny explanation: the goat is hanging because he has eaten from Noah’s grapevines, akin to Bacchus’s punishment of the goats for eating from his grapevines.15

8 See for example Aurélie Barre, ed., Le  Roman  de  Renart.  Édité  d’après  le  manuscrit  O  (f.  fr.  12583)  (Berlin et  al.: De Gruyter, Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, 356, 2010).

Figure  7‐5.  Saint‐Savin‐sur‐Gartempe,  nave.  Animal  hanged  on  a  tree, and some quadrupeds on the ground. 

Léopold Sudre, Les  sources  du  roman  de  Renart (Paris: Émile Bouillon, 1892), 341. 9

10 See for example Mark Nieuwenhuis, trans., Nivard de Gand, Ysengrimus (Amsterdam: Querido, 1997).

Within the cycle of Saint-Savin follows the picture illustrating Noah cursing Canaan because his father Ham, one of Noah’s sons, ridiculed the drunken Noah’s nakedness while he was dozing. After this picture stands a tree without any figures (Figure 7-6). Its top is subdivided into three parts, maybe in allusion to the Holy Trinity.16 This tree

See Jean-Claude Bonne, L’art  roman,  de  face  et  de  profil.  Le  tympan  de  Conques (Paris: Le Sycomore, Féodalisme, 1984), 304 and 304, n110.

11

12 Nevertheless, Itsuji Yoshikawa also identified the hanged animal with a cat, and the one barking on the ground as a dog. He did not see the other animals, and does not give an explanation of this scene. See Itsuji Yoshikawa, Peintures  de  l’Église de Saint‐Savin‐sur‐Gartempe (Tokyo: Shinchosha, 1982), 23. 13 Martine Jullian, “L’arbre à Saint-Savin. Formes, fables, symboles,” PRIS‐MA 6 (1990): 164f., taken over by Reiko Nakauchi, Les piliers du bestiaire de Saint‐Savin, 2 vols. (Mémoire de maîtrise supervised by Marie-Thérèse Camus, Université de Poitiers, unpublished, 1995), 34, 49. Following Martine Jullian, there was an iconographical tradition of this fable before the Roman de Renart. She even refers to an illustrated manuscript of the Roman de Renart dating to the fourteenth century (Paris, BnF, Ms. fr. 12584, fol. 37). See Jullian, “L’arbre,” 165 and 171, n73.

14

Jullian, “L’arbre,” 165.

15

Mérimée, “Observations,” 136.

Emmanuelle Jeannin supposes this because the top of the tree is divided into three, but as an alternative explanation she also asks if this tree might refer to prosperity, as there are fruits on it, or if the artist might simply have had to paint ‘something’ in a field left empty between the two scenes from Abraham’s Life. See Emmanuelle Jeannin, Abbaye  de  Saint‐Savin‐sur‐Gartempe 16

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Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  may possibly show the divinity of the arbor  bona, perhaps alluding to the Tree of Life at the beginning of the cycle of the barrel of Saint-Savin. This image is not a fable, but it is a scene that does not fit into the biblical cycle of the nave. However, what militates against the suggestion that it might allude to the divinity of trees is the scene of the hanged Judas in the tribune of the narthex. There, Judas is hanged on a tree whose top is also composed of three parts.17

tree.18 It seems as if he wishes to harvest some fruits from the middle of the treetop.19 It is not an animal fable, but it may be a warning not to eat the forbidden fruits as Eve did at the beginning of the Genesis cycle at Saint-Savin. A similar representation of a man in the top of a tree is, in the domain of sculpture, depicted by Benedetto Antelami on the south portal of the baptistery in Parma from the end of the twelfth century. Here the scene is taken from the story of Barlaam and Josaphat: a man is chased by a unicorn, in this context a symbol of death. He climbs a tree to save himself and begins to eat from a honeycomb, forgetting the danger. In addition, two mice appear and gnaw at the roots of the tree. The man eating the honey is not aware of the dangers awaiting him, even though a dragon threatens him from below. The essence of this parable is a warning about the illusionary pleasures of the world, reminding the viewer not to live a life of luxury.20 Martine Jullian thinks that this scene in Saint-Savin of the man climbing on a treetop to reach fruits is a representation of the oak of Moreh as it is described in the Life of Abraham (Genesis 12:6) – as depicted in the cycle of Abraham.21 However, this does not explain the man climbing on it. Jullian even goes so far as to suggest that the man climbing on a vertical tree may be an allusion to verticality as an expression of the viewer’s desire to experience a sense of upliftment, of elevation towards the divine, this being reinforced by the many representations of vertical trees on the 18 Georges Gaillard is of the opinion that this tree is certainly an oak. See Gaillard, Saint‐Savin, 4. 19 This interpretation is also shared by Riou, Die  Abtei, 52. Yvonne Labande-Mailfert refers to the initial ‘I’ of a lectionary of Reichenau dating from the end of the tenth century (Wolfenbüttel, Herzog-August-Bibliothek, Cod. guelf. 84.5 Aug. 2°, fol. 41r). See Yvonne Labande-Mailfert, “Le cycle de l’Ancien Testament à Saint-Savin,” Revue  d’histoire  de  la  spiritualité 50 (1974): 382, n20. Figure in Otto Lerche, Das Reichnauer Lektionar  der  Herzog‐August‐Bibliothek  zu  Wolfenbüttel (Leipzig: Hiersemann 1928), fig. 8.

Figure 7‐6. Saint‐Savin‐sur‐Gartempe, nave. Scene of a tree.

This tree is followed by the construction of the Tower of Babel, God’s instruction to Abraham to go to the Holy Land, then the latest illustration of a fable scene (Figure 7-7): a human being climbing a

20 See for example Santiaga Hidalgo Sánchez, “L’homme sur l’arbre et l’escargot: à propos d’un chapiteau du cloître gothique de Pampelune,” Reinardus. Yearbook of the International  Reynard  Society 21 (2009): 64, or Gottfried Kerscher, Benedictus  Antelami oder das Baptisterium von Parma. Kunst und kommunales  Selbstverständnis (Munich: Angerer, 1986), 7f. See the figure in Chiara Frugoni, “‘E vedrà ogni carne la salvezza di Dio’ (Lc 3, 6). Le sculture all’interno del battistero,” in Benedetto Antelami e  il  Battistero  di  Parma, eds. Chiara Frugoni and Albert Dietl (Turin: Einaudi, 1995), 109–144, fig. 52.

(Moisenay: Gaud, 2001), 39. This idea of images being used merely to fill in blank spaces is also suggested by Yves-Jean Riou and Marie-France de Christen regarding the scene of the fox and the raven. See Riou, Die  Abtei, 50; Christen, “Les peintures,” 156. 17

See Jullian, “L’arbre,” 159. One page later she proclaims that this scene is a symbol of prosperity because of the representation of the fruits. 21

Figure in Saint‐Savin, ed. Favreau, 114, fig. f.

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D. Kottmann: Animal Fables set among the Biblical Cycle…  

Figure 7‐7. Saint‐Savin‐sur‐Gartempe, nave. A human climbing on a tree with fruits.

nave.22 Élisa Maillard, in her monograph on SaintSavin-sur-Gartempe, regards this tree as representing the plane of Sennaar, where the Tower of Babel was constructed (Genesis 11:2).23

depicting trees in Saint-Savin perhaps refer simply to divine creation as it is illustrated at the beginning of the cycle, and thus refer to the Tree of Life? Unfortunately, the inscriptions conserved on the red lines dividing one register from another do not say anything about the fables.26

Conspicuously, all four of the mentioned scenes of Saint-Savin are based on a tree. Altogether, we find twelve other trees conserved on the nave of Saint-Savin.24 They figure for the most part in the scenes of Creation and Paradise. Here, they seem to have only the function of decoration, and often they divide one scene from the other.25 But apart from their moral effect, do the fable scenes 22

Jullian, “L’arbre,” 159.

23

Maillard, Saint‐Savin, 72.

The animal scenes of the nave have been compared to the bestiary featuring bipeds and quadrupeds, birds and fantastical animals (Figure 7-8) which are pictured on two pillars of the nave of Saint-Savin, these being in the third bay,27 but in my view, the fact that the representation of animals is common to both locations does not suffice to compare the fable scenes of Saint-Savin to a bestiary.

Martine Jullian is of the opinion that together they create a pause in the viewing order and hence a certain rhythm: Jullian, “L’arbre,” 156 ff. 24

Maybe the scenes based on the image of a tree can be considered as belonging to what is known as ‘marginal art.’ This iconographical type of often

25 Cf. also Jérôme Baschet, “Ornementation et structure narrative dans les peintures de la nef de Saint-Savin,” in Le rôle  de  l’ornement  dans  la  peinture  murale  du  Moyen  Âge.  Actes  du  colloque  international  tenu  à  Saint‐Lizier  du  1er  au  4  juin  1995, ed. Dominique Paris-Poulain (Poitiers: CÉSCM, Civilisation médiévale, 1997), 169, n21; id., “La voûte peinte de Saint-Savin: ornementation et dynamique axiale du lieu rituel,” in L’iconographie  médiévale (Paris: Gallimard, Folio histoire, 2008), 388, n22.

Robert Favreau, “Les inscriptions de l’église de Saint-Savinsur-Gartempe,” Cahiers  de  civilisation  médiévale 19 (1976): 9–37, repr. in id. Études  d’épigraphie  médiévale (Limoges: Presses universitaires de Limoges 1995), 1: 21–73. 26

27

101

Nakauchi, Les piliers.

Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  margin of the biblical cycle, as far as the theme is concerned, they can indeed be considered marginal art. Incidentally, Martine Jullian interprets the fables of Saint-Savin not only as exhortations to moral conduct but also as ways of providing fun and entertainment for the monks, as well as for the laymen.30

Figure  7‐8.  Saint‐Savin‐sur‐Gartempe,  pillar  of  the  third  bay  of  the nave illustrating animals. 

profane or obscene scenes based on images was first studied in the margins of pages of miniatures,28 and then in the domain of medieval sculpture.29 These scenes that stand outside the main context have been explained by the desire of the artists for fun or secular pleasure in depicting such scenes. In the domain of wall painting, I am not aware of any research concerning images on themes that lie outside the main context. Even if the fable scenes of Saint-Savin do not figure in the Lilian M. C. Randall, Images  in  the  Margins  of  Gothic  Manuscripts (Berkeley – Los Angeles: University of California Press, California studies in the history of art, 4, 1966); Michael Camille, Image  on  the  edge:  the  margins  of  medieval  art (London: Reaktion Books, Essays in art and culture, 1992).

28

Figure  7‐9.  Saint‐Savin‐sur‐Gartempe,  nave.  Details  of  preparatory  drawings in the scene of Noah’s drunkenness. 

Nurith Kenaan-Kedar, Marginal  sculpture  in  medieval  France:  towards  the  deciphering  of  an  enigmatic  pictorial  language (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1995). See also the article by JeanClaude Schmitt, “L’univers des marges,” in Le  Moyen  Âge  en  lumière, ed. Jacques Dalarun (Paris: Fayard, 2002), 329–361. He explains the emergence of more profane scenes as an initial intermixture of the profane and the sacred worlds, ibid., 360. A recent overview of the sense of marginal images is given by Peter K. Klein, “Rand- oder Schwellenphänomen? Zur Deutung der Randbilder in der mittelalterlichen Kunst,” in Grenze  und  Grenzüberschreitung  im  Mittelalter  (11.  Symposium  des  Mediävistenverbandes vom 14. bis 17. März 2005 in Frankfurt an der  Oder), eds. Ulrich Knevelkamp and Kristian Bosselmann-Cyran (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 2007), 166–187. 29

At Saint-Savin, it is strange that only in the scene depicting Noah’s drunkenness, which is encircled by the two trees with animals, bizarre preparatory drawings surround the persons (Figure 7-9). Above the head of the woman on the left, the outlines of a dragon’s head can be seen. 30

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Jullian, “L’arbre,” 165.

D. Kottmann: Animal Fables set among the Biblical Cycle…   Between some towers, a face looks out over the scene. Another draft drawing shows an Agnus Dei,31 located above the head of Noah’s wife. These drawings are not obscene or profane. Did the artists in this case only take pleasure in joking by including strange preparatory works alluding to Noah’s befuddled state? This explanation corresponds to that of ‘marginal art.’ However, these bizarre drawings were probably immediately overpainted and were therefore not seen by the spectator. So they are not comparable with the representation of the four trees on the south side of the barrel. It is nevertheless conspicuous that two of the four strange profane scenes are to be found on either side of the image showing Noah’s drunkenness. Maybe the artists, and also the spiritus  rector, were aware of the fact that Noah’s drunkenness was amusing. Perhaps the artists and the spiritus  rector meant the joke to refer to other scenes near that of Noah’s befuddlement. Incidentally, a head similar to the one mentioned between the two towers figures as a preparatory work to the left of the treetop of the aforementioned isolated tree (Figure 7-10). Do these scenes have something in common, namely amusement on the part of the artists?

Another explanation of the question why these secular scenes figure at Saint-Savin is that they were intended to facilitate the act of reading for the laymen, as well as giving the viewer of the biblical scenes a sense of immediacy. If we look at the humorous aspect of the scenes, we can consider the theory of Mikhail Bakhtin, according to which popular laughter is created by adding carnivalesque aspects. Bakhtin asserted that laughter plays an important role in rituals, as also, for example, in theatres, in oral and written works, and in the vernacular vocabulary of the people.32 There is the comical scene of Noah’s drunkenness in Saint-Savin, in which his son laughs at him, causing Noah to pronounce his curse on Canaan. Around it, there are the four scenes of trees. In fact, they are only on the upper register of the south side, close to the scene of Noah’s befuddlement and curse. Concerning this fact, it may not be accidental that these bizarre and funny preparatory drawings are in the background of the ridiculous drunkenness of Noah and all the four trees are nearby. Furthermore, the viewer could also gloat over the stupidity of the raven, depicted just before Noah’s drunkenness. Would it be possible that the spiritus  rector behind the nave cycle at Saint-Savin considered laughing as a way of including the laymen, as a means to make them smile? Carnival, according to Bakhtin, was the second life of the populace – that is, in the case of Saint-Savin, the laymen of the region. But also the clergy was involved in this matter; and the monks had, for example, the ‘Monkish Pranks,’  Joca  monacorum in Latin, during the Middle Ages – a group of anonymous texts, probably from Gaul, dating from the mid-seventh century.33 Again with regard to monks as spectators, we know that there were also some illustrated scenes of Aesop’s fables in the abbey of Saint-Benoît-sur-

Figure  7‐10.  Saint‐Savin‐sur‐Gartempe,  nave.  Detail  of  preparatory drawing at the left of the treetop of Figure 7‐6. 

32 See Mikhail M. Bakhtin, Rabelais  and  his  world, trans. Hélène Iswolsky (Cambridge, MA – London: MIT Press, 1968). His work is much discussed, but his concept of the carnivalesque can well be considered as a kind of popular humour. See also the commentary of Jean-Claude Schmitt, “Les traditions folkloriques dans la culture médiévale,” Archives  de  Sciences  Sociales  de  Religions  52 (1981): 8, and in the German version “Menschen, Tiere und Dämonen. Volkskunde und Geschichte,” Saeculum 32 (1981): 338.

31 Marie-France de Christen did not identify this image as an Agnus Dei. She calls it a quadruped holding a club. In fact, the ‘club’ appears to be the staff of a banner held by the lamb. In another article, written together with Catherine de Maupeou, she indicates that ‘sur le fond usé de l’Ivresse de Noë, apparaissent  d’étranges animaux’ and that they could even have illustrated an Aesopian fable. These two authors did not regard these sketches as having been overpainted. See Marie-France de Christen and Catherine de Maupeou, “Restauration des peintures murales de la voûte de la nef de Saint-Savin-surGartempe,” Les monuments historiques de la France 3 (1976): 44.

33 See, for example, Jacques Dubois, “Comment les moines du Moyen Âge chantaient et goûtaient les Saintes Écritures,” in Le  Moyen  Âge  et  la  Bible, eds. Guy Lobrichon and Pierre Riché (Paris: Beauchesne, Bible de tous les temps, 4, 1984), 264–270.

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Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  Loire in Fleury, near Bourges. These have been destroyed, but André de Fleury has described them in his writing about the life of Gauzlin, abbot of Fleury from 1004 to 1030. The biography mentions depictions of Aesop’s fables in the refectory, painted about 1030–1032. The distichs that refer to the Aesopian fables are written in this biography.34 Comparing those scenes with those of Saint-Savin, it is notable that the refectory at Fleury was only accessible to the monks and clergy. The scenes of Saint-Savin, by contrast, were also accessible to laymen. So in general those pieces were not created for a distinct public.  Often, also the portals of churches were decorated with animal fables, visible for the clergy as well as for laymen; this is the case, for example, in the portal of Saint-Ursin in Bourges, dating from the beginning of the twelfth century, or the portal of the Pescheria at the cathedral of Modena (1125– 1135).35

abbey influenced the spiritus  rector behind the murals at Saint-Savin. But in general, it is not unusual that Christian libraries contained fables from Classical Antiquity, like those of Aesop, Phaedrus or Avianus. The reading of fables was part of the education of monks throughout the Middle Ages. So the clergy of Saint-Savin was probably used to these profane scenes. Upon closer inspection, their appearance among the biblical scenes from the Old Testament at Saint-Savin is not surprising. It is also noteworthy that in a sacramentary illustrated at Fleury in Ottonian times, there are two men climbing on trees in the initial ‘D.’39 Maybe this manuscript from Fleury, as well as the murals in the refectory there, influenced the fables of SaintSavin. Do the four profane scenes of Saint-Savin have a comical function? Or do they rather express a uniquely moral appeal through the two animal fables? The possibility of explaining the man in the tree as an exhortation not to eat from the forbidden fruits would also have had a very ethical content, directed towards the clergy and the lay people. Sociologists, at any rate, ascribe an important role to laughter in appeals to morality.

By the way, the first distich of Fleury also mentions flattery as a vice: Vera placent odiis, mulcens blanditia donis; Sic hodie pravis vera placent odiis36 The abbey of Saint-Benoît at Fleury was an important centre for the dissemination of ancient fables during the tenth and eleventh centuries.37 The library inventory of this monastery mentions, for example, manuscripts of Aesop and Phaedrus.38 It seems possible that this Benedictine

But furthermore, why do these scenes only figure on the register close to the themes of ridiculing Noah’s drunkenness, which was the reason for his nakedness?40 Or is their application close to the scene of Noah’s intoxication merely accidental and they are, instead, references – since they are all illustrated on trees – to the Tree of Life in Genesis, showing the public that the profane and secular worlds belong together? This could be

34 See for example Goldschmidt, Aesop  fables, 44; Nathalie Le Luel, “L’âne, le loup, la grue et le renard: à propos de la frise des fables du tympan Saint-Ursin de Bourges,” Reinardus.  Yearbook of the International Reynard Society 18 (2005): 66, n67. 35 Nathalie Le Luel, “Des images ‘parlantes’ pour les laïcs: l’utilisation du quotidien et de la culture populaire sur les portails des églises romanes,” Cahiers d’art sacré 27 (2010): 18–31. Nathalie Le Luel refers the fables to the illustration of oral transmission for notably the illitterati (p. 27). Figure of Modena in Le Luel, “Saint-Ursin de Bourges,” 73, fig. 14, and figure of Saint-Ursin, ibid., 70, figs. 7–8. 36

pensée… » De Grégoire de Tours à Charles d’Orléans. Une histoire du  livre médiéval en région Centre, eds. Louis Holtz, Élisabeth Lalou and Claudia Rabel (Paris: Somogy, 1997), 134. 39 It is attributed to Nivardus of Milan and conserved in Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty-Museum, Getty, Ms. Ludwig V 1, fol. 9. See the figure in Images  in  the  margins, ed. Margot McIlwain Nishimura (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, The medieval imagination, 2009), 7, fig 4.

See for example Goldschmidt, Aesop fables, 44.

See for example Bernhard Bischoff, “Paläographie und frühmittelalterliche Klassikerüberlieferung,” in La cultura antica  nell’occidente Latino dal VII all’XI secolo (Spoleto: Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, Settimane di studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 22, 1975), 66. 37

40 Only Emmanuelle Jeannin refers to the peculiarity that the scenes based on a tree are near the depiction of Noah’s drunkenness, but she has another explanation. The Aesopian fable of the fox and the raven stands between Noah tasting his wine and his becoming intoxicated. And the second animal scene with a hanged goat is positioned there in order to close the scene of the drunkenness, which had already opened with an animal fable based on a tree. See Jeannin, Abbaye, 35.

Karl Manitius, Handschriften antiker Autoren in mittelalterlichen  Bibliothekskatalogen (Nendeln: Kraus, Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen, Beiheft, 67, 1968 [1935]), 254. The library of Fleury was one of the biggest ones during the Middle Ages. See Marco Mostert, “Le temps des érudits,” in « Dedens mon livre de 

38

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D. Kottmann: Animal Fables set among the Biblical Cycle…   the reason why the nave was only painted with scenes from the Old Testament, with Genesis being depicted in detail.

Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, Settimane di studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 22, 1975. Bonne, Jean-Claude. L’art roman, de face et de profil.  Le  tympan  de  Conques, Paris: Le Sycomore, Féodalisme, 1984. Boinet, Amédée. “L’évangéliaire de Morienval à la cathédrale de Noyon.” Congrès archéologique de  France (1905), 637–650. Camille, Michael. Image  on  the  edge:  the  margins  of  medieval  art. London: Reaktion Books, Essays in art and culture, 1992. Crozet, René. Chauvigny,  Saint‐Savin. Paris: Nouvelles éditions latines, Art et tourisme, 1987 [1969]. De Christen, Marie-France and Catherine de Maupeou. “Restauration des peintures murales de la voûte de la nef de Saint-Savinsur-Gartempe.” Les monuments historiques de la  France 3 (1976): 33–55. De Christen, Marie-France. “Les peintures de la nef: tracées, esquisses, repentirs et couleurs.” In Saint‐Savin. L’abbaye et ses peintures murales, edited by Robert Favreau, 154–160. Poitiers: Connaissance et Promotion du Patrimoine de Poitou-Charentes, 1999. Demus, Otto. Romanische  Wandmalerei. Munich: Hirmer, 1968. Deschamps, Paul. “Les peintures de l’église de Saint-Savin.” Congrès  archéologique  de  France 109 (1952): 437–449. Deschamps, Paul, André Grabar and Marc Thibout. “Observations sur les fresques de Saint-Savin.” Cahiers  archéologiques 4 (1949): 135–147. Deschamps, Paul and Marc Thibout. La  peinture  murale en France: le Haut Moyen Âge et l’époque  romane. Paris: Plon, Ars et historia, 1951. Dubois, Jacques. “Comment les moines du Moyen Âge chantaient et goûtaient les Saintes Écritures.” In Le  Moyen  Âge  et  la  Bible, edited by Guy Lobrichon and Pierre Riché, 261–298. Paris: Beauchesne, Bible de tous les temps, 4, 1984. Dubourg-Noves, Pierre. L’abbaye  de  Saint‐Savin. Rennes: Ouest-France, 1984. Favreau, Robert. “Les inscriptions de l’église de Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe.” Cahiers  de  civilisation  médiévale 19 (1976): 9–37, reprinted in Favreau, Robert. Études  d’épigraphie  médiévale, 1: 21–73. Limoges: Presses universitaires de Limoges, 1995.

It is more likely that these scenes have a moral character. It does not seem fortuitous that they appear along with Noah’s befuddlement, the moral being not to drink to excess, and near to the construction of the Tower of Babel, the moral in that case being not to imitate God. In a second step, we can even contrast these fable scenes with the religious cycle of the nave. A religious life like that of Joseph or Abraham, which are illustrated here, is pleasing to God, which is the leitmotif of the biblical scenes in the nave of Saint-Savin. The best example is the Life of Enoch who is recompensed for his exemplary religious faith through his ascension into Heaven, illustrated on the sixth bay of the upper register of the northern side. Hence, is it perhaps possible that these ‘profane’ scenes of Saint-Savin are included in order to manifest the danger of the profane life in contrast to a religious life protected by the church?

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D. Kottmann: Animal Fables set among the Biblical Cycle…   Mérimée, Prosper. “Observations sur les peintures de Saint-Savin.” Bulletin monumental 12 (1846): 193–227. Reprinted in Mérimée, Prosper. Études  sur  les  arts  du  moyen  âge.  Avertissement  de  Pierre  Jossenard, 61–149. Paris: Flammarion, Images et idées, 1967. Michel, Paul-Henri. “La Psychomachie. Note sur le cycle biblique de Saint-Savin (Thème littéraire et plastique).” La  Gazette  des  Beaux‐Arts 40 (1952): 319–328. Michel, Paul-Henri. La  fresque  romane. Paris: Gallimard, Idées-arts, 1961. Mostert, Marco. “Le temps des érudits.” In « Dedens  mon  livre  de  pensée… »  De  Grégoire  de  Tours  à  Charles  d’Orléans.  Une  histoire  du  livre  médiéval  en  région  Centre, edited by Louis Holtz, Élisabeth Lalou and Claudia Rabel, 134–139. Paris: Somogy, 1997. Muratova, Xenia. “Ideologia dei margini e margini dell’ideologia. Riflessioni sui margini dell’Arazzo di Bayeux e sui programmi delle zone secondarie nella decorazione dei monumenti medievali.” In Medioevo:  immagini  e  ideologie.  Atti  del  Convegno  internazionale  di  studi,  Parma,  23–27  settembre  2002, edited by Arturo C. Quintavalle, 657–670. Milan: Electa, I convegni di Parma, 5, 2005. Nakauchi, Reiko. Les  piliers  du  bestiaire  de  Saint‐ Savin. 2 vols. Mémoire de maîtrise supervised by Marie-Thérèse Camus, Université de Poitiers, unpublished, 1995. Ney, Agneta. “Dans les marges de la tapisserie de Bayeux.” In La  tapisserie  de  Bayeux:  une  chronique  des  temps  vikings?  Actes  du  colloque  international  de  Bayeux,  29  et  30  mars  2007, edited by Sylvette Lemagnen, 163–173. Bonsecours: Éditions point de vues, 2009. Nieuwenhuis, Mark, trans. Nivard de Gand. Ysengrimus. Amsterdam: Querido, 1997. Nishimura, Margot McIlwain, ed. Images  in  the  margins. Los Angeles: Getty Publications, The medieval imagination, 2009. Randall, Lilian M. C. Images in the Margins of Gothic  Manuscripts. Berkeley – Los Angeles: University of California Press, California studies in the history of art, 4, 1966. Riou, Yves-Jean. Die  Abtei  von  Saint‐Savin.  Vienne, translated by Annette Wendt. Poitiers, Connaissance et Promotion du Patrimoine de Poitou-Charentes, Images du Patrimoine, 101, 1992.

Schmitt, Jean-Claude. “Les traditions folkloriques dans la culture médiévale.” Archives  de  Sciences Sociales de Religions 52 (1981): 5–20. Schmitt, Jean-Claude. “Menschen, Tiere und Dämonen. Volkskunde und Geschichte.” Saeculum 32 (1981): 334–348. Schmitt, Jean-Claude. “L’univers des marges.” In Le  Moyen  Âge  en  lumière, edited by Jacques Dalarun, 329–361. Paris: Fayard, 2002. Stefanaggi, Marcel. “Étude des peintures de la nef de l’église de Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe.” in La  matière  picturale:  fresque  et  peinture  murale, edited by Sylvie Colinart and Michel Menu, 135–147. Bari: Edipuglia, Scienze et materiali del patrimonio culturale, 6, 2001. Subes-Picot, Marie-Pasquine. “Saint-Savin-surGartempe.” In Dictionnaire  d’Histoire  de  l’Art  du  Moyen  Âge  occidental, edited by Pascale Charron and Jean-Marie Guillouët, 844–845. Paris: Robert Laffont, bouquins, 2009. Sudre, Léopold. Les  sources  du  roman  de  Renart. Paris: Émile Bouillon, 1892. Taralon, Jean. “Observations techniques sur la voûte de la nef de Saint-Savin et ses peintures.” Bulletin  de  la  Société  nationale  des  antiquaires de France (1968): 247–257. Thibout, Marc. “La décoration peinte de SaintSavin.” Bulletin  de  la  Société  nationale  des  antiquaires de France (1943–1944): 154–156. Thibout, Marc. “À propos de la bande faîtière qui décore la nef de l’église de Saint-Savin.” Bulletin monumental 103 (1945): 201–211. Thiele, Georg. Der  lateinische  Äsop  des  Romulus  und  die  Prosa‐Fassungen  des  Phädrus.  Kritischer  Text  mit Kommentar und einleitenden Untersuchungen. Heidelberg: Winter, 1910. Vernet, André. “La transmission des textes en France.” In La cultura antica nell’occidente Latino  dal  VII  all’XI  secolo, 89–132. Spoleto: Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, Settimane di studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 22, 1975. Wettstein, Janine. Fresques  et  peintures  des  églises  romanes en France. Paris: Guy le Prat, 1974. Yoshikawa, Itsuji. Peintures  de  l’Église  de  Saint‐ Savin‐sur‐Gartempe. Tokyo: Shinchosha, 1982.

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– VIII – THE DRAGON’S SKULL:   HOW CAN ZOOARCHAEOLOGISTS CONTRIBUTE TO OUR  UNDERSTANDING OF OTHERNESS IN THE MIDDLE AGES? Aleksander PLUSKOWSKI Department of Archaeology, University of Reading, UK [email protected]   Abstract  Perspectives of the ‘other’ in medieval European society have been almost exclusively constructed and debated by historians, literary historians and art historians within medieval studies. The ‘other’ was defined, in part, through definitions of the normative. Within Christian theology, animals were separated from humans, although some were more familiar than others, and the true ‘monsters’ lived beyond the realm of individual experience; whether in a lake or some remote land. People who crossed these cosmic boundaries (or were perceived as crossing this boundary through their projected appearance or behaviour) were by definition ‘monstrous.’ Since zooarchaeologists are concerned with animals, conceptually separated from humans within medieval Christian society, they are well placed to contribute to our understanding of otherness. This paper explores how the study of animal bones, and the material practices associated with responses to other species, can build on the foundations of existing scholarship on otherness, alterity and monstrosity. Keywords  Zooarchaeology; archaeology; alterity; hybridity; monstrosity; dragons

Introduction 

particularly Jewish communities within medieval Christian towns (e.g. Hinton 2003; CodreanuWindauer 2004). Visual and literary constructions of otherness in medieval Christian (as well as Jewish and Muslim) societies often employed animal metaphors in a process of graphic dehumanisation (Cuffel 2007, 198). If social differences were deliberately emphasised through the projection of animalistic characteristics, aberrant behaviour was readily associated in the minds of religious commentators with meat consumption and its related vices: gluttony and sexual promiscuity (Bazell 1997). In the most striking conceptualisations of alterity, there was a semiotic chain linking the animal, its meat and its human consumers, or abstainers. Food – how it was prepared, presented, eaten, and with whom it

In recent years, the notion of otherness has developed into an important area of enquiry within medieval studies, naturally dominated by the multiple expressions of the ‘other’ constructed and documented in written and artistic sources; the blurred spectrum from ethnic and social difference through to physical monstrosity and hybridity (e.g. Melinkoff 1993; Williams 1996; Merback 1999; Bildhauer and Mills 2003; Strickland 2003; Moore 2007). Archaeologists have also contributed to our understanding of otherness, particularly through the study of burial rites in both the early (e.g. Reynolds 2009) and later Middle Ages (e.g. Gilchrist and Sloane 2005), as well as the physical traces of minorities,

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Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  are numerous studies of divergent communities, ethnic minorities as well as controversial intellectual and popular movements. In some regions of Europe there were multi-cultural societies which accommodated significant cultural differences. The zooarchaeology of otherness, then, is first and foremost an investigation into whether variables in animal exploitation can be linked to the deliberate promotion of group identity, and whether there are differences in the ecological profiles of sites inhabited by minorities. However, it is also concerned with the otherness assigned to animal bodies, where in some cases their treatment embodied them with supernatural qualities. This is most commonly encountered by zooarchaeologists where animals feature as unusual deposits or as foci for ritual behaviour, and such uses have traditionally been excluded from our understanding of medieval Christian society. However, it is increasingly evident that transformations of normative animal roles were widespread and associated with a range of different communities. They were not restricted to the peripheries of mainstream Christianity but also featured within its cores, where animal bodies can be most readily understood as material culture (Pluskowski 2005a and 2007).

was shared – was more than simply a nutritional intake, it could also be used to reinforce social differences, group identities and even perceived cosmological truths. Levels of meat and fish consumption varied according to social group and in different regions of Europe (Banegas López 2010; Adamson 2002). Both were expensive and their consumption relatively infrequent within peasant communities before the fourteenth century (Woolgar 2006a). Nonetheless, the waste products of carcass processing and meat preparation, and in some cases fish processing, represent one of the most abundant sources of archaeological data which can further our understanding of the relationship between cultural norms and heterogeneity in medieval European societies. The remains of animals recovered in vast quantities from archaeological sites across Europe are typically the end result of human activity. Aside from the use of certain species as ecological proxies in reconstructing past habitats, the study of these remains has been used for reconstructing local and regional husbandry practices, alimentary (or culinary) cultures of different social groups, as well as the use of deadstock in various industrial processes, such as leather, horn and bone working. All of these multiple aspects of animal exploitation were accommodated within a complex worldview, which included value systems prioritising or emphasising select species. In an important sense, it is possible to link food culture – where animal products played a vital role – with group identity, particularly in the case of the polarised identities juxtaposed in scholarly studies of otherness, such as Christians, Jews, Muslims and other nonChristians (i.e. various so-called ‘pagan’ societies) (Pluskowski 2010).

In fact zooarchaeologists working with medieval contexts in Europe have rarely engaged with scholarly discourse on otherness, mainly for two reasons. Firstly, whilst the recovery of individual animal bone fragments can be at a relatively high resolution (e.g. from individual features, pits, ditches), by the conclusion of many zooarchaeological studies this resolution has been reduced in favour of a broader, diachronic perspective. There are a number of exceptions which retain the focus of analysis on individual micro-assemblages, but this is only possible where enough material has been preserved in contexts that are datable and understandable. A number of these exceptions are discussed below as important contributions to our understanding of alterity. Secondly, a normative model of a medieval Christian (or non-Christian) lifestyle is often used implicitly and only examined critically in cases where divergent world-views are known or suspected, such as at sites associated with the process of religious conversion, explicit forms of inter-cultural dialogue or ethnogenesis. But if an integrated (i.e. interdisciplinary) understanding of

Medieval societies across Europe certainly shared comparable signatures of faunal exploitation. The processed remains of cattle, sheep, goats and pigs are found in various combinations at every site of human occupation; their variable presence interpreted through the interplay of local social, economic and environmental contexts. Combined with documentary sources for food consumption they represent a normative model of medieval Christian alimentation (Woolgar 2006b). We do not need to look far for deviations from this model, as there

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A. Pluskowski: The Dragon’s Skull: How Can Zooarchaeologists Contribute... linked heresy with dietary restrictions, and went on to accuse religious deviants within Christian communities of ‘Judaising’ tendencies (Bazell 1997, 90). Dietary restrictions were certainly a flashpoint for both Christian and Jewish polemicists, and Jewish dietary laws were visibly maintained. One of the most important archaeological contributions to our understanding of medieval Jewish communities within Christian Europe, has been to demonstrate that alongside the organisation of space within synagogues and distinctive religious paraphernalia, tombstones, as well as religious texts, there were also levels of material enculturation, particularly in terms of buildings (Codreanu-Windauer 2004; Berend 2001, 232). Zooarchaeologists, in turn, have also tried to define Jewish communities by their distinct dietary profiles, linking faunal assemblages with kosher regimes. In terms of medieval faunal assemblages, the best documented example of this has been demonstrated by an absence of pig bones and the presence of kosher species, specifically non-scaled fish, linked to the location of the early Jewish community in medieval Buda (Daróczi-Szabó 2004; Bartosiewicz 2003).

the treatment of animals can be linked to cultural norms, faunal assemblages represent invaluable and largely untapped datasets for investigating European social heterogeneity at, potentially, a high resolution. This paper aims to encourage a stronger inter-disciplinary discourse on otherness by surveying the zooarchaeological contribution to three broad themes: diet, ritual depositions and religious foci, culminating in a case study where the value of a contextually specific, integrated approach is demonstrated with the example of the quintessential medieval hybrid: the dragon.    

Defining cultural norms through diet Christian polemicists consistently argued that humans were separated from all other species in creation. Whilst the increasing popularity of metaphorical uses of animals in literature and art from the twelfth century has been interpreted as a blurring of species boundaries (Salisbury 2011), the clear separation is most evident in the treatment of their respective remains: people were buried, usually in cemeteries, whilst domestic and wild animals were typically treated as waste associated with food preparation, manufacturing and natural expiration. The shift from non-Christian to Christian world views in northern Europe is paralleled by the abandonment of animal depositions in funerary contexts, although the chronology of this process is in fact complex and not always synchronised with the development of ecclesiastical administration (see Pluskowski 2011). This general picture masks a diversity of attitudes to animals, and specifically to animals as food. Early Christians gradually abandoned Jewish dietary restrictions and these were replaced by ecclesiastical ordinances proscribing a calendar of fasting and associated penitential foods, whilst early monastic communities adopted a stricter dietary regime which was eventually compromised, prompting revivals of rigorous diets within reformed orders such as the Cistercians and Carthusians (Bazell 1997, 84–85), although levels of meat consumption continue to vary, even within these communities (Bond 2001, 77–80). However, monastic dietary regimes were carefully distinguished from seemingly parallel attempts at asceticism, which were not ratified by religious authorities. These distinctions are evident from the earliest years of religious policing: the inquisitor Moneta of Cremona, writing in c. 1225, explicitly

The pig certainly features as the most prominent animal in the antagonistic dialogue between medieval Christians and Jews, and was regularly deployed as a symbol of the spiritual shortcomings of Jews, and more broadly as an embodiment of alimentary vices such as lust and gluttony. In the minds of medieval Christian commentators, who asserted that what was eaten directly influenced the body, passions and will, persistent Jewish abstinence from pork was interpreted as an avoidance of exacerbating the negative qualities they shared with pigs (Resnick 2011, 6). The effect of these dietary prohibitions was to prevent social interaction between Jews and Christians; in the late twelfth and thirteenth century, Canon law increasingly sought to restrict commensal meals between Christians, Jews and Muslims (Freidenreich 2008). The effective enforcement of these restrictions has been questioned, and the evidence for Jewish-Christian conversions with equivalent dietary changes, as well as the selling of pork by Jewish butchers to Christian consumers and the sharing of waste disposal sites by different communities, makes it difficult to consistently map alterity in the medieval urban landscape on the basis of faunal assemblages. Moreover, abstinence from culturally

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Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  consumption (Rackham 2004, 22) such in York (O’Connor 1989). Significant assemblages of horse bones from late medieval urban contexts in Bedford and Market Harborough have been linked to industrial processing, particularly leather working, rather than meat removal for consumption (Baxter 1996), and the fifteenth/sixteenth century horse disposal site in Westminster, London, which, alongside the remains of seventy six horses, also included several dog carcasses buried in four pits (Figure 8-1), and has been interpreted as a knackers’ yard which processed horse and dog hides (Cowie and Pipe 1998). It seems that the largest assemblages of horse remains from medieval English sites do not show even opportunistic exploitation for meat, most likely due to the absence of a market.

mainstream diets was only one response from minority or subversive groups; English Lollards, in the fifteenth century, deliberately challenged religious ordinances by admitting to eating meat and hunting on fast days (Grumett and Muers 2010, 53). In his diatribe against heresy, Moneta of Cremona suggested that true Christians could eat virtually anything, but encountering evidence for the consumption of horse meat in medieval European society often prompts zooarchaeologists to invoke dietary prohibitions. In fact, there is persistent assumption that the ‘horse meat taboo’ was consistently maintained since the late-eighth century papal bans to aid St. Boniface’s missionary activities. Horse consumption is certainly evident in a number of pre-Christian north European societies, but where it was raised as an issue by Christian authorities it can be related to the role of the horse in public (or at least publicly visible) cult activity, which, given the importance of food to religious identity outlined above, clearly presented a major obstacle to effective conversion. In tenthcentury Iceland, horse sacrifice was associated with ritualistic consumption during funerals (Loumand 2006), which were also expressions of family wealth within a different social setting to that found in the colonists’ homeland (Leifsson 2012). The use of the horse in sacrificial contexts was far more intensive in Iceland than elsewhere in Scandinavia – 34% of burials in Iceland include a horse compared with, for example, around 7% in Norway – representing a particularly striking link between pre-Christian food culture and religious identity (Sikora 2003– 2004). In Hungary, whilst banning the consumption horse meat was a direct confrontation with preChristian pastoral lifestyles in the eleventh century (Bartosiewicz 1998, 163), evidence for its infrequent consumption is found in later medieval archaeological contexts, such as at Buda (DarócziSzabó 2011), whilst some Cumans continued to include horses (or horse proxies such as equestrian equipment) in solitary graves in the thirteenth and early-fourteenth century (Berend 2001, 249–250), and perhaps even eat horse meat as late as the fifteenth century (Bartosiewicz 1998, 163). In England, the horse played an equally important role in the elite culture and cult practice of early Anglo-Saxon society from the fifth to seventh centuries (Bond 1996; Fern 2012), and subsequently there are only sporadic examples of horse

Episodes of mass starvation are plausible explanations for butchered horse bones found within a collapsed building in the outer bailey of Cēsis castle in Latvia, perhaps relating to a documented episode of horse consumption during the Livonian War in the 1578 (Kalniņš, pers. comm). A thirteenth-century deposit of seventy nine cats in a well in Cambridge, with evidence of cut marks linked to meat removal, may represent an even more unusual response to mass starvation or alternatively attempts at passing off cat meat as hare (Luff and Moreno García 1995). Normal diets were reinforced by such episodes which are clearly linked in contemporary sources with drastic responses to crises, particularly sieges (Bartlett 2000, 667). But what was a normal diet? Zooarchaeologists and historians have been able to profile the dietary regimes of different social groups based on their variable access to foodstuffs (Ervynck 2004; Wooglar 2006b), and diverse, regional cuisines are attested around late medieval Europe (Adamson 2002; Banegas López 2010). But the conceptual entanglement between food, religion and social differences remains to be investigated. The lamb, recognised as a fundamental Christological symbol (see Pluskowski 2005b), a source of meat and in adulthood wool and dairy, represented all of these meanings during festive meals, when its raising, slaughter, preparation and consumption were intimately associated with the retelling of the life of Christ (Fabre-Vassas 1997). Food, then, could be a focus for ritual associated with religious identification, however, where animals were

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Figure  8‐1.  Plan  showing  the  distribution  of  deposited  horses  at  Elverton  Street,  London,  UK  (by  permission  of  Alan  Pipe  and  the  Royal  Archaeological Institute).

goats, sheep, hawks (e.g. Eschwege) and deer (e.g. in a seventh-century pit at Schretzingen) in their own pits suggests complex relationships with animals (Gerken 2009), and an equally rich suite of fauna is evident in the diverse mortuary theatre of southern Scandinavia (Svanberg 2003). To the east, amongst the Balts, horses were assigned funerary roles since the first century AD, and from the eighth century through to the eleventh century significant numbers were being buried in the largest cemeteries in Lithuania such as at Marvelė (Figure 8-2), within a regionally unique fusion of politics and increasingly institutionalised cult practice (Bertašius 2009 and 2012). These horses, ritually killed, deposited and in the process sacralised, moved from the domestic sphere to the realm of the dead, transforming from something familiar to a supernaturally empowered other. The gradual or, in some regions, sudden disappearance of this public ritual use of animals characterises the acceptance of Christian customs (see relevant papers in Pluskowski 2011). This trend is not

deliberately deposited in contexts other than rubbish pits and ditches they also challenge our normative models of medieval society.      Animals as ritual foci  The complex shift from pre-Christian to Christian practices is at the heart of understanding the transformation and reconfiguration of cultural norms in European societies. The interface between contrasting cosmologies during the longue  durée of the Conversion Period in northern Europe is strikingly reflected in the treatment of animals. Between the fifth and eleventh century, horses and dogs were the most popular animals deposited with or alongside people buried in Germanic cultures; i.e. much of north-western Europe with a final phase in Scandinavia (Müller-Wille 1970– 1971; Prummel 1992). In Germany, the presence of cats in pits above graves, interpreted as mostly killed by stoning, and the presence of cattle, pigs,

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Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines 

Figure 8‐2. Plan showing the distribution of deposited horses in the cemetery at Marvelė, Lithuania (by permission of Mindaugas Bertašius). 

practices, perhaps only superficially related to previous customs, which are at the heart of communal life (see Hutton 2001). The topic demands more attention from zooarchaeologists, who are most likely to provide new examples of such unusual deposits, but here the creative use of animal remains within later medieval public religious contexts will be considered in more detail.

straightforward, as in some regions practices end and change before the appearance of institutionalised Christianity. Interpretations of the unusual treatment of animals in the later medieval period typically fall into two categories: a continuation of earlier practices, preserving some form of cultural memory but moving from the centre of public life to the margins, and a discontinuous reinvention or creation of new

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A. Pluskowski: The Dragon’s Skull: How Can Zooarchaeologists Contribute...

Figure 8‐3. Excavated articulated dogs from medieval contexts in Kana, Hungary (by permission of Márta Daróczi-Szabó). 

whole or partial animals in medieval Christian cultural contexts. In southern Scandinavia, Carlie’s (2006) survey of building deposits suggests that cranial and jaw fragments of domestic animals continue to be used in such ritualistic contexts into the sixteenth century. Further north, in Finland, building traditions beginning in the twelfth century are associated with special deposits, with the oldest dating to c. 980–1220 and consisting of an entire sheep carcass placed under a stone foundation of a timber building (Hukantaival 2007, 66). The use of skull or jaw fragments is a recurring theme of structured deposits in medieval contexts, with one of the most striking examples including carefully placed sheep mandibles on the fourteenth-century bridge foundations at the Thames waterfront in London (Merrifield 1988). In fact, Morris’ demonstration of dynamic trends in, for example, the type of species being deposited in the early and later medieval periods, suggests discontinuous practices that emerged to meet specific needs. In some regions there is evidence for persistent practices, at least where there is an overlapping chronology of deposits on either side of the appearance of Christian infrastructure. Excavations at the village of Kana in Hungary uncovered the burials of twenty five dogs in pits dating from the mid-twelfth to early-fourteenth century; ten dogs had been buried in outdoor pits and four newborn puppies had been placed in pots and buried upside down, a dozen others were buried under houses and interpreted as foundation deposits (Figure 8-3). What is interesting is that these practices took place within sight of the village church (Daróczi-Szabó 2009). In southern Greenland, the burial of twenty to thirty walrus skulls and four or five narwhal skulls in the

Vocal religious commentators have been cited as evidence for the Catholic (and eastern Orthodox) Church’s institutional disapproval of heterodoxy, and a papal agenda for religious uniformity across Christendom is particularly evident from the thirteenth century. There is certainly evidence for the prohibition of practices that strayed beyond what was considered acceptable by certain religious authorities. The thirteenth-century healing cult focused on the grave of a dog in the Dombes region of southeastern France was suppressed (as it turns out, unsuccessfully) by the inquisitor Stephen of Bourbon, demonstrating the disparity between institutional religious authority and local (or ‘folk’) beliefs. Unlike other interpretations of animal deposits (see below), this local cult was not interpreted as the remnant of pre-Christian practice, but rather as a peculiar reinterpretation of the symbolic role of the dog in the life of St. Guinefort (Schmitt 1983). If deposited animal bodies could be foci for what Bourbon swept under the umbrella of superstitio – a degraded and perverted form of religion – then the use of animal bodies in what can be critically defined as ‘ritualistic contexts’ surely represents a move beyond regular expressions of religious praxis. The existence of such data has been elegantly demonstrated by Morris’ (2011) quantitative, comparative study of associated bone groups (ABGs) in select regions of Britain from the Neolithic through to the post-medieval period. His systematic approach remains to be adopted across Europe, but there are numerous incidental case studies which verify the geographically widespread practice of deliberately depositing

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Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  the basis for luxury artefacts, many of which have survived in museum collections and cathedral treasuries. The most important of these was ivory, obtained from African elephants and Arctic walruses, which was most often chopped up but occasionally preserved intact, as in the case of Norman elephant tusk tip ‘oliphants’ and a few examples of whole walrus tusks, sometimes with cranial fragments attached (Roesdahl 1998). Where the visible zoological identity of the animal was lost in the process of manufacturing, the commercial, aesthetic and religious significance of the material was highlighted. Animal remains could, in this way, be transformed into physical evidence of the monstrous. These creatures transgressed the elemental boundaries set out in medieval intellectual thought, but they were deployed in churches to attract an attentive audience and to focus devotional activity. People continued to value the supernatural power mediated through the relics themselves, rather than their containers, but some treasuries contained natural marvels including shells and ostrich eggs, precursors of the early modern Wunderkammern. But they were different insofar as they represented testimonia, as evidence of gifts – thus relics communicated the wealth and piety of the sponsor, the host institution as well as the power of the saint (Mariaux 2006, 220).

churchyard and chancel of the cathedral at Garðar, is a more explicit case of acceptable praxis at the heart of a Christian community (Pingel 1834, 310; Pluskowski, 2005a). This particular example has been somewhat ambiguously interpreted as ‘hunting magic,’ with an understanding that religion and magic exist alongside each other as parallel streams. It has no parallels in other Scandinavian regions and appears to be a purely indigenous practice in the colony, perhaps reflecting a meeting between the conceptual worlds of Scandinavian Christians and Inuit. Such animal deposits appear to have been ‘normal’ within the lives of these communities, and were evidently sanctioned by local religious authorities. This clearly demonstrates that the enforcement of religious orthodoxy, especially in the case of attacks on superstition, was driven by individual personalities – by the actions of particularly industrious bishops or inquisitors. Carlo Ginzburg’s (1992) study of shamanic practices in sixteenth/seventeenth century north-eastern Italy demonstrates that inquisitors required their attention to be drawn to illicit activity, and even then it was not always easy to persuade them to launch investigations. The study of medieval inquisitors has also highlighted the role of networks of informers and witnesses (Ormerod and Roach 2004), and so the policing of irregular religious activities, including superstitions, was ad  hoc rather than institutionalised (Kieckhefer 1995), and only sustained by established networks in specific regions (e.g. thirteenth-century Languedoc; Given 1997). A more comprehensive, inter-regional diachronic study of such unusual animal deposits and their contexts, in relation to the activities of religious authorities, will shed important new light on European heterogeneity.

Relics were framed within a staged context initiating a sense of wonder in the viewer (Bynum 2001, 62–63). The triggering of astonishment, the focusing of attention and, from the perspective of intellectual commentators, admiratio was the first step towards knowledge of the divine. This provides a context for the deliberate incorporation of animal bodies into sacred spaces. Natural curiosities could function as exempla, and as a means of attracting the faithful to incite admiration with a moral intent. The popularity of ostrich eggs in churches in well attested, and has been linked to the ostrich as a prompt for people to return to God through good works (Mariaux 2006, 221). However, it appears that some objects had their own supernatural biographies. In the setting of church interiors and town halls they appeared to the viewer not as mere curiosities but rather as unique historical exempla representing local history as a legitimised and important part of biblical chronology. One of the best examples of this was the material culture associated with dragons.  

In many excavations unusual deposits are difficult to contextualise, as in the case of a human burial accompanied by bones from ox, pig and horse in a roughly cut grave in a rocky field, datable most likely by associated artefacts to the fourteenth or fifteenth century near Moytirra (c. Sligo) in Ireland (Rynne and Erskine 1961). Various explanations for ‘non-rational’ depositions of animal bones have been proposed, which include strategies for waste disposal (O’Connor 1993). There is, however, a category of animal remains which can definitely be linked to deliberate constructions of otherness. Skeletal fragments from a range of species imported into Europe provided

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A. Pluskowski: The Dragon’s Skull: How Can Zooarchaeologists Contribute... The Caput Draconis and dragon material culture:  A case study of embodying otherness  The dragon was one of the most widely used symbols of power (alongside the lion) in the Middle Ages, and only saints and exceptional heroic figures were capable of overcoming this monster; the encounter highlighting their own supernatural efficacy (Riches 2003, 198). The dragon, like the lion, was a multi-faceted symbol, featuring as a heraldic emblem, a proxy for its slayer, usually a saint, and perhaps most commonly a signifier for the devil, sometimes in his many-headed apocalyptic form (Figure 8-4). The head of the dragon vividly represented the mouth of hell, and the caput  draconis was a regularly employed metaphor for sin; its destruction, in turn, stood for salvation, resonating with the common motif of Christ or Mary crushing the head of the serpent underfoot, drawing on Genesis 3:15 (Robertson 2006, 547–557) and Psalm 74:13–14 which referred to the breaking of the heads of dragons and Leviathan. Although sculpted vignettes of dragons and their holy slayers are a staple of late medieval religious art, even appearing on reliquaries as proxies for the remains of saints contained within (Kovačević 2009), their physical remains confirmed their reality, something that is noted in vivid accounts of individuals (typically saints) encountering monsters in specific geographic locations within a historical timeframe. They were obtained, like other monsters, from the edges of the civilised world; their natural environment was the wilderness, situated at the fringes of human experience and control (Riches 2003, 204; see also Pluskowski 2005a). A recurring theory for the construction of dragon stories is based on discoveries of fossil finds, or from encounters with real, albeit exotic and unfamiliar beasts. But the evidence suggests a reverse procedure, where the reality of dragon encounters is confirmed by their remains.

Figure 8‐4. Part of a mural showing the apocalyptic dragon from the  Church  of  Our  Lady  in  Karlštejn  Castle,  Czech  Republic,  completed  before 1363 (by permission of Lukáš Kunst, Karlštejn Castle).  The castle was decorated with a range of dragon imagery, representing  the divine struggle against the infernal.  

fourteenth and fifteenth century) most likely reflecting the ‘charter myths’ of particular aristocratic families whose claim on property was justified by an ancestral slaying of monsters, emulating the model of St. George (Simpson 1978, 85). What is interesting is that in many of these stories, although recorded much later, there is material culture connected with the dragon which confirms the validity of the story, such as the weapon of its celebrated slayer, representations of dragons on tombs or heraldic emblems, the transformation of its body into striking topographic elements or sometimes surviving anatomical elements. There are some examples of these from other regions of Europe. The church of St. George in Velabro, Rome, contained the saint’s spear used to kill the dragon, whilst St. Michael’s sword and buckler were on display at Mont-SaintMichel until the French Revolution (Bonser 1962, 237). A twelfth-century manuscript from Rheinau abbey in Switzerland claimed possession of the fragment of rock (an interpretation of loco or place) where Michael had fought and slain the dragon (Ruggerini 2001, 36). Bones found in the ‘dragon’s cave’ under the Wawel in Cracow were transferred to the cathedral, and have been identified as deriving from a mammoth, woolly rhino and whale. Softer parts were also preserved and documented: the antiquarian Johann Fuchsmagen sent the smoked tongue of the dragon killed by Haymon/Hoyme to the relic collector Florian Waldauf in the late fifteenth century (Wood 2005, 1148, n84), whilst a fragment of the ‘Lambton

The body parts reflect well-established features of dragon anatomy disseminated through countless artistic representations from the eleventh century: their reptilian/serpentine nature and their size. The details of the remains themselves are of secondary importance compared to what Amy Remensnyder (1996) has described as ‘imaginative memory’ in the context of designating relics. An analysis of the topography in British dragon narratives points to a late medieval origin (i.e.

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Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  whales and prehistoric megafauna such as mammoths could be interpreted as either the remains of dragons, giants or monstrous fish (Wood 2005, 1149). The source of these bones was itself a landscape of alterity (Szabo 2008), and with experiences of large marine animals for the majority of the population limited to occasional strandings, whale bones in particular were conceptually malleable and suitable for reconfiguring as equally fantastic species.

Worm’s’ hide was allegedly displayed at Lambton Castle (c. Durham) in the nineteenth century (Simpson 1978, 87). The well-known pigment of dragon’s blood first described by Pliny originated from the struggle between the serpent and elephant that resulted in the mixture of their blood. Chemical analyses of this pigment have identified a series of resins sold under the name of ‘dragon’s blood,’ was traded and made available (Pearson and Prendergast 2001). Identification of pigments as the congealed blood of animals was not particular to medieval Europe, but was also found in China (Schafter 1957).

The public deployment of the dragon was particularly vivid in Bohemia in the late-fourteenth century, which brings us to the example of the dragon’s skull in Karlštejn Castle, identifiable as a Nile crocodile (Figure 8-6). Was this simply a marvel from a foreign land? Ecclesiastical treasuries contained many artefacts which represented donated gifts of diverse value. Exotic animal parts fell into this category, such as the presentation of the unicorn horn from the French king to the Abbey of St. Denis (Alcouffe 1991, 310– 311, no. 68). However, at Karlštejn the dragon may have functioned as something more than simply a North African marvel. The castle was constructed at the instigation of the celebrated Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, where he deposited the imperial treasure and relics of Christ’s Passion within the Chapel of the Holy Cross, consecrated in 1365. The iconographic programme of the Chapel includes three dragon slayers: St. Michael, St. Margaret and St. George. Furthermore, the story of St. Margaret, when the dragon reappears in the form of a man, he is thrown to the ground and his neck is crushed under her foot, is found as a decorative motif in a number of parts of Karlštejn Castle. The cult of St. George, originally a Byzantine saint from Cappadocia, spread into Central and Western Europe with important devotional centres focused on the presence of the saint’s relics. The cult was particularly popular in late medieval Central Europe, and the saint would be associated with two Hungarian chivalric orders (or societies); the Order of St. George founded by Charles I and the Order of the Dragon, founded by Sigismund with an explicit sacral purpose of defending Catholic orthodoxy (Boulton 2000, 348–349).

Figure 8‐5. The whale bones suspended behind the altar in St. Mary and St. Donato on Murano, Italy (by permission of Kathleen Walker‐ Meikle). 

More commonly surviving elements are represented by examples such as the bones attributed to the dragon slain by St. Crescentinus, originally housed in the church of Pieve de’ Saddi until they were moved to the cathedral in Città di Castello, where they are still stored, and a second rib bone, measuring over two metres and derived from a whale was kept in a small church of San Pietro di Carpini. Whale bones are regularly identified with the remains of dragons. In  the church of St. Mary and St. Donato on the island of Murano in the Venetian lagoon, four large whale bones are traditionally identified as those of a dragon slain by St. Donato (Figure 8-5). Klaus Barthelmess (2008) and Nicolas Redman (2004) have documented around two hundred cases of whale bones hung in European churches, castles and town halls, the majority situated in German and Swedish churches, as well as British castles – many of them now lost – and categorise them as hierozoika, the Greek term referring to the sacralisation of items from the natural world with biblical references or precedents. Depending on the monstrous heritage of the locality the bones of

His presence in Prague from the tenth century was revived in the early fourteenth century, at a time when the arm of the saint kept in the Convent of St. George was encased in a new reliquary (Otavský 2005). The head of the Karlštejn dragon is

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Figure 8‐6. The crocodile skull in Karlštejn Castle, Czech Republic (by permission of Lukáš Kunst, Karlštejn Castle). 

the infernal, but also proof that the devil could be overcome. Its particular audience in Karlštejn was private, but in the context of Charles IV’s ‘relic castle’ its context should not be understood as a collection of curiosities, as a wunderkammer, but as something embodied with supernatural agency. This manifestation of the demonic was emulated in the public domain with equivalent dragon proxies. Mock dragons were paraded in Chartres and Tours on Palm Sunday to signify the presence of evil in the world. In the processions during the three Rogation days leading up to the Ascension and on the Ascension itself, churches displayed representations of dragons in a ritual both confirming and banishing the presence of evil in the world, a transition from the ‘time of the dragon,’ to the ‘time of grace’; the dragon’s head was even crushed to music in the short-lived Caput  masses of the mid-fifteenth century (Robertson 2006, 575–578). The use of the dragon to represent God’s sovereignty was not restricted to mainstream Christian culture. Medieval Jewish renditions of dragons, in text and iconography, could also function as a ‘fulcrum between the divine and the demonic’ – a signifier of the ultimate power of God – however, this apparent similarity masks the gulfs between the two worldviews (Epstein 1997, 82).

first documented in 1355 and is subsequently identified as such in an inventory of 1515. However, by the eighteenth century this identity had been transformed into a crocodile. The emerging story situated the animal in a cave before the castle was built, from where it terrorised the local population (Pujmanová 1980, 321, n21). In fact, the link between dragons and crocodiles had already been made in the minds of some late medieval artists. Representations of St. Margaret emerging from yellow or gilded dragons may have alluded to the gold colour of the Nile crocodile as described in bestiaries. The encounter between another Nile-dwelling animal – the hydrus – and the crocodile, paralleled the vignette of St. Margaret bursting out of the dragon; medieval illuminators clearly drew the visual connection between dragons, crocodiles and the jaws of hell (Lippincott 1981, 12). This is perhaps most explicit in a mid-fifteenth century sculpture of a crocodile placed underneath St. Theodore in Venice to represent a dragon, and so the original identification of the Karlštejn dragon skull was not much of a conceptual leap. The dragon’s skull, as a proxy for St. George, functioned as much as a relic, as a marvel. It provided a reminder of the physical presence of

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Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  The transformation of animal bodies obtained from exotic locations into material culture that provided physical proof of the existence of monsters, facilitated experiences of the divine through the mechanism of admiratio. Medieval lay religion was, above all, a religion of activity experienced through practice (Arnold 2005, 231). Moreover, animal bodies appear to have been more widely passed off as relics, a practice extensively attacked during the Reformation. Hugh Latimer famously dismissed saints’ bones as the remains of pigs (Corrie 1845, 55), and they also continued to resonate in the ecclesiastical legislation issued by Edward VI and Elizabeth I; a key passage of the Church of England’s official homily on the sin of idolatry attacked the ‘wicked, impudent, and most shameless men’ who substituted horse bones for the limbs of saints and encouraged credulous laypeople to pay homage to the tail of a donkey (Walsham 2010, 124). In fact, the number of osteoarchaeological studies confirming the presence of animal bones in medieval reliquaries has been extremely limited; the relics of Joan of Arc containing a fragment of a cat femur turned out to be a nineteenth-century forgery (Charlier et  al. 2010), whilst relics associated with St. John the Baptist on Sveti Ivan in Bulgaria included three animal bones, although their context remains to be clarified.1 Irrespective of the real or perceived role of animal remains in relic culture, the shift in attitudes towards constructions of the monstrous and sacred ‘other’ underlies its intimate link with the preReformation Catholic world view and experiencing the sacred through physical exempla.

medieval attitude to the natural world, and the values attached to different species (Szabo 2008, 19). It is clear that our understandings of otherness are inextricably linked to definitions of the normative, and so the ‘other’ is never studied in isolation, but situated within the broader spectrum of responses to animals from the level of the individual household, through to the largest polities encompassing diverse communities and truly multi-cultural societies. Zooarchaeological contributions, to date, can be divided into two main categories. Firstly, the quantification of significant amounts of data enables the investigation of cultural norms defined by the group-specific trends in animal exploitation. This can be compared and contrasted with written sources for divergent practices, although the latter usually relate to very specific communities, as well as potentially misleading exaggerations and misunderstandings. This is as true of texts dealing with non-Christians as it is with polemics on heretics (Biller 2001). Secondly, zooarchaeologists can contribute to investigations of the use of animal bodies as physical proxies for the other, where the dislocation of biological identity is central to understanding the biographies of artefacts manufactured from skeletal elements. Various social groups within Christian Europe used animal bodies outside the normal sphere of alimentation and manufactured goods, and multiple meanings were readily accommodated within the same animal – whales were both ‘monsters at sea and mundane as meals’ (Szabo 2008, 25), and perhaps re-contextualised as dragons when their bones were suspended in public spaces. Zooarchaeologists, above all, work with physical animal bodies, which in the past and today have enabled people to confront and experience the reality of the other.     Bibliography 

Conclusion  This paper has suggested how zooarchaeologists can and are contributing to furthering our understanding of heterogeneity in medieval European society on either side of the widespread acceptance of Christianity, by mapping the development of cultural norms through the study of the varied treatment of animal remains in the context of religious selfidentification. By drawing attention to the conceptual plasticity of animals in medieval society, zooarchaeologists will also contribute to breaking down the notion of a single, simple

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Merrifield, Ralph. 1988. The  Archaeology  of  Ritual  and Magic. New York: New Amsterdam. Moore, Robert, I. 2007. The  Formation  of  a  Persecuting  Society:  Power  and  Deviance  in  Western  Europe,  950–1250. Oxford: Blackwell (second edition). Morris, James. 2011. Investigating  Animal  Burials; Ritual,  Mundane  and  Beyond. Oxford: BAR Publishing. BAR, British Series 535. Müller-Wille, Michael. 1970–1971. “Pferdegrab und Pferdeopfer im fruhen Mittelalter.” Berichten  van  de  Rijksdienst  voor  het  Oudheidkundig  Bodemonderzoek 20/21: 119–248. O’Connor, Terry. 1989. Bones  from  Anglo‐ Scandinavian Levels at 16‐22 Coppergate. London: CBA. O’Connor, Terry. 1993. “Process and Terminology in Mammal Carcass Reduction.” International  Journal of Osteoarchaeology 3/2: 63–67. Ormerod, Paul and Andrew P. Roach. 2004. “The Medieval Inquisition: Scale-Free Networks and the Suppression of Heresy.” Physica  A:  Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 339/3– 4: 645–652. Otavský, Karel. 2005. “Arm Reliquary”. In Prague:  The  Crown  of  Bohemia,  1347–1437, edited by Barbara Drake Boehm and Jiri Fajt, 160–161. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art – New Haven: Yale University Press. Pearson, Jane and Hew D. V. Prendergast. 2001. “Daemonorops, Dracaena and Other Dragon’s Blood.” Economic Botany 55/4: 474–477. Pingel, Christian. 1834. Grønland:  antiqvariske  Efterretninger. Copenhagen. Pluskowski,  Aleksander. 2005a. “Narwhals or Unicorns? Exotic Animals as Material Culture in Medieval Europe.”  European  Journal  of  Archaeology 7/3: 291–313.  Pluskowski, Aleksander. 2005b. “Wolves and Sheep in Medieval Semiotics, Iconology and Ecology: A Case Study of Multi- and Interdisciplinary Approaches to Human-Animal Relations in the Historical Past”. In Animal  Diversities, edited by Gerhard Jaritz and Alice Choyke, 9–22. Krems: M.A.Q. Pluskowski, Aleksander. 2007. “Communicating through Skin and Bone: The Appropriation of Animal Bodies in Medieval Western Seigneurial Culture.” In Breaking  and  Shaping  Beastly Bodies: Animals as Material Culture in the  Middle Ages, edited by Aleksander Pluskowski, 32–51. Oxford: Oxbow.

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Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  Schafer, Edward H. 1957. “Rosewood, Dragon’s Blood and Lac.” Journal  of  the  American  Oriental Society 77/2: 129–136. Schmitt, Jean-Claude. 1983. The  Holy  Greyhound:  Guinefort, Healer of Children since the Thirteenth  Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sikora, Maeve. 2003–2004. “Diversity in Viking Age Horse Burial: A Comparative Study of Norway, Iceland, Scotland and Ireland.” The  Journal of Irish Archaeology 12–13: 87–109. Simpson, Jacqueline. 1978. “Fifty British Dragon Tales: An Analysis.” Folklore 89/1: 79–93. Strickland, Debra Higgs. 2003. Saracens,  Demons,  and  Jews.  Making  Monsters  in  Medieval  Art. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Svanberg, Fredrik. 2003. Death Rituals in South‐east  Scandinavia,  AD  800–1000. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wicksell. Szabo, Vicki Ellen. 2008. Monstrous  Fishes  and  the  Mead‐Dark  Sea:  Whaling  in  the  Medieval  North  Atlantic. Leiden: Brill. Walsham, Alexandra. 2010. “Skeletons in the Cupboard: Relics after the English Reformation.” Past and Present 206/5: 121–143. Williams, David. 1996. Deformed  Discourse:  the  Function of the Monster in Medieval Thought and  Literature. Exeter: University of Exeter Press. Wood, Christopher S. 2005. “Maximilian I as Archaeologist.” Renaissance  Quarterly 58/4: 1128–1174. Woolgar, Christopher M. 2006a. “Meat and Dairy Products in Late Medieval England.” In Food  in  Medieval  England:  Diet  and  Nutrition, edited by Christopher Woolgar, Dale Serjeantson and Tony Waldron, 88–101. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Woolgar, Christopher M. 2006b. “Group Diets in Late Medieval England.” In Food  in  Medieval  England:  Diet  and  Nutrition, edited by Christopher Woolgar, Dale Serjeantson and Tony Waldron, 191–200. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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S. Tsonkova: Snake Pernicious and Venomous…

– IX – SNAKE PERNICIOUS AND VENOMOUS.  THE MALICIOUS AND DANGEROUS OTHER IN MEDIEVAL  BULGARIAN AND EARLY MODERN CHARMS  Svetlana TSONKOVA Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University – Budapest

Abstract  This article is based on medieval and early modern Bulgarian charms. Through comparison and contrast, the article presents and explores a specific verbal magical method of preventing snake bite, namely through calling the snake with a number of various names. The list of names is a central element in the charms and plays important roles: to conjure the snake, to describe it as a dangerous enemy, to declare the knowledge and power of user of the charm and finally to provide a verbal magical instrument for defeating the snake. Also known in a number of other cultures, such lists of names rely on the power of words for protection against serious dangers. Also, they provide an insight on the ambivalent South-Slavic attitudes towards an animal, which is seen as physical everyday presence, but also as carrier of harm and symbol of otherness. Keywords  Snakes; charms; apotropaic magic; daily life; cultural interaction

Introduction  

medieval and early modern Bulgarian verbal magic, and more specifically in medieval and early modern Bulgarian written charms. The focus of my paper is to point out the similarities between the lists of snake names and the lists of other demons’ names encountered in other charms. Further on, my aim is to outline the position of the snake as the most malicious being, with strongly emphasized chthonic nature. This role, however, presents only one side of the multilevel Slavic image of the reptile.  

All through human history, certain animals have been and are objects of a special attitude and attention. They play a wide range of roles and bear numerous connotations in various contexts: all the way from the physical features and behaviour of the actual animal to the deep mythological symbolism and religious allegory.   In terms of rich, multilevel and symbolic presence and significance in human culture, the snake occupies one of the top positions, since it appears as an universal cultural phenomenon through time and space (for example sacred, divine, cursed, unclean, wise, evil, benevolent, helpful, harmful, superior, inferior, etc.). The Slavic tradition is not an exception from this trend. Here I shall discuss the snake as an important figure in one branch of this tradition, namely in

The Bulgarian medieval and early modern source material in itself is very rich and provides many opportunities for deep research. However, it is also important to place the Bulgarian data in a broader cultural context and to compare it with material from other traditions. In the case of this article, I shall draw parallels and comparisons with Estonian, Lithuanian, Finnish and Swedish

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Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  charms. Such comparisons allow seeing and examining both the uniqueness of the Bulgarian tradition, and its numerous relations in the broader network of verbal magic. The choice of the comparative materials was determined by several factors. Firstly, there was the opportunity to access the Estonian, Lithuanian, Finnish and Swedish materials during a research stay at the University of Tartu in Estonia. Additionally, the Slavic material has deep and specific connections particularly with the Finno-Ugric verbal magic; therefore the comparisons between the two traditions are very interesting and fruitful. And finally, the Lithuanian examples show many archaic features, and the reference to it allows tracing the route and development of important motives and images.      The Source material 

seen in the source material for this paper. The material consists of two groups of medieval and early modern Bulgarian charms. The charms from the first group are written on medieval metal amulets, discovered during archaeological excavations and dated from the ninth to the fourteenth century. These amulets are small pieces of lead (folded or rolled), on which texts are written in Old Church Slavonic language. According to the content of the texts, there are two groups of amulets: the amulets for the dead (found in graves) and for the living humans and animals (found in various environments). Most of the amulets (and the charms written on them) have been discovered later than the manuscripts and subsequently they have not been properly researched.2 The charms from the second group are written in medieval and early modern manuscripts. The manuscripts are dated from the twelfth to the eighteenth century. The majority of these manuscripts are Orthodox Christian religious books: priest’s service books (служебници) and books of needs (требници). The charms however can be also often found in miscellanies (сборници) and healing books (лековници). The charms from manuscripts have been discovered relatively early and have been the subject of a more extensive research.3  

Before the presentation of the source material, it is appropriate to provide short information on the actual venomous snakes existing in Bulgaria. These are four such species, all belonging to the Viperidae family. This first pair is Vipera  Berus and Vipera  Ammodytes, which have always been typical reptile representative on the Balkan Peninsula, and can be found in Bulgaria until today. The second pair consists of Vipera  Ursinii and Vipera  Aspis, which are currently extinct in Bulgaria. They were to be found in nineteenth century, although rather rarely, and the scholars agree that Vipera  Ursinii and Vipera  Aspis have never been widely spread species in Bulgaria. All the four snakes are venomous, but their venom is relatively weak, and the bites are rarely fatal.1 In a sum, the venomous snakes on the territory of Bulgaria are relatively rare and do not represent an extreme danger. Scholars accept that the same is also true for medieval and early modern Bulgaria. 

Up to my knowledge, the exact number of the extant Bulgarian medieval and early modern charms has never been estimated. Generally speaking, they are texts of varying length, written in Old Church Slavonic language, in Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabets. The charms are many in number and with a rather heterogeneous content and form. Very often they refer to a specific ritual and use of magical objects.   In terms of content, the Bulgarian charms are focused exclusively on practical matters of daily

Verbal magic, however, gives a different picture of snakes and snakebites, which can be

Kazimir Popkonstantinov and Otto Kronsteiner, “Altbulgarische Inschriften,” Die  slavischen  Sprachen 36 (1994): 39–40.

2 

This research stay was part of the DoRa 5 Exchange Student Program at the Department of Estonian and Comparative Folklore at the University of Tartu. I would like to thank most sincerely and deeply to Prof. Ülo Valk and Dr. Jonathan Roper for their competent comments and suggestions, especially about the comparative material, used for this article.

3 [Donka Petkanova] Донка Петканова, Стара  българска  литература  в  седем  тома,  том.  I  Апокрифи (Old Bulgarian Literature in Seven Volumes. Vol. 1 Apocrypha) (Sofia: Българска академия на науките, 1981), 16–18, and [Maria Shnitter] Мария Шнитер, Молитва  и  магия (Prayer and Magic) (Sofia: Университетско издателство “Св. Климент Охридски,” 2001), 50–59.

David Mallow, David Ludwig and Goran Nilson, True Vipers:  Natural  History  and  Toxinology  of  Old  World  Vipers (Malabar, Florida: Krieger Publishing Company, 2003), 358–360. 1

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S. Tsonkova: Snake Pernicious and Venomous… life, especially protection and restoration of the health of humans and animals, and also provision of good luck and protection against evil powers and forces of nature. 4 These texts belong to a clearly defined branch of verbal magic, namely the positive and apotropaic one. Additionally, this is an area dominated by powerful supernatural benevolent or malevolent agents and their activities. These superior powers, however, are closely connected to the ordinary quotidian human experience. They influence heavily the daily life. Angels, demons, saints, personified illnesses, etc., cause and solve quotidian problems. It is a quotidian event to interact with these powers, to communicate with them or to oppose them.5

- Narrative about the Apostle Paul’s miraculous recovery from a snake’s bite. - Narrative of how Archangel Michael (or Gabriel) appeared to Apostle Paul in a dream and gave him written charms, aimed to help all people. - List of names of snakes, accompanied by an expulsion formula. - Promise of healing for everybody who applies this text.8 Here we can see for example one of the extant charms of this type: Apostle Paul’s prayer against snake bite: If a snake bit somebody, he should do the following: to bring a new vessel, to make the sign of the cross in the vessel, saying all the prayers about the Holy Cross, and to write this troparion around the cross: ‘Let Moses rise complete on the standard of healing.’ He must wash himself with holy water from a new moon, if he can find one. If not, he must find clean water, to wash the whole vessel and if the person bitten by snake is near, he must drink the water. If he is not near by, the curing person must drink the water. Charm: In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost! Once I was a persecutor, now I am an honorary vessel. I went out of my home in Sicily and while I was gathering dry woods, an echidna suddenly appeared because of the heat, bit my right hand and remained hanging there. But I had the power of the Holy Ghost inside me, shook it away in the fire, it burnt completely, and I didn’t suffer any harms from its bite. I fell asleep, and the great archangel Michael came, turned to me and said: ‘Saul, Paul, get up, take this piece of paper and you will find words written on it, saying: “I conjure you, sixty-five and a half kind of beasts, which creep on the ground, in the name of the Lord, creator of heaven, earth and sea and in the name of his immovable throne. Pernicious snake, I conjure you in the name of the fiery river, which rises from under the foot of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and the unearthly angels. Snake born from a basilisk, tetrachalin snake, dodekachalin snake, lagodroma snake, snake with twelve heads, snake like fire, snake like raven, snake climbing on oaks, snake like an arrow, snake like ashes, snake echidna, who has poison in the right side and whomever is bitten by it, can not live anymore. And also the twenty-four kinds

On the other hand, the charms often refer to another category of malevolent agents, such as malevolent humans or harmful animals.6 Although not supernatural in the strict sense, these characters are not less powerful or dangerous. One such prominent evil figure is the snake. A significant number of Bulgarian charms are aimed against snake bites and venom. The most popular and wide spread type of the anti-snake charms is the so-called Prayer  of  Apostle  Paul. This type of charms presents a rather specific method of protection: the snake is expelled through a long list of names. These names are adjectives and negative epithets, characterizing the snake as an extremely malicious being.7

The names of the snake  The above-mentioned Prayer  of  Apostle  Paul against snake bite usually contains five parts:  - Title and instructions about the ritual. [Benyo Tsonev] Б. Цонев, Опис  на  ръкописите  и  старопечатните  книги  на  Народната  библиотека  в  София,  том.  I (Catalogue of the manuscripts and the Early printed Books in the National Library in Sofia, vol. I) (Sofia: Издание на Народнaта библиотека, 1910) and [Benyo Tsonev] Б. Цонев, Опис  на  ръкописите  и  старопечатните  книги  на  Народната  библиотека  в  София,  том.  II (Catalogue of the manuscripts and the Early printed Books in the National Library in Sofia, vol. II) (Sofia: Издание на Народнaта библиотека, 1923). 4

5

[Petkanova], Стара българска литература, 19–20.

6

[Petkanova], Стара българска литература, 21.

[Jatsimirskii], “К истории ложных молитв,” 84–90, and [Tsvetan Kristanov] Цветан Кристанов and Иван Дуйчев, Естествознанието  в  средновековна  България.  Сборник  от  исторически извори (The Natural Sciences in Medieval Bulgaria – A Collection of Historical Sources) (Sofia: Българска Академия на науките, 1954), 75–78. 8

7 [A. I. Jatsimirskii] А. И. Яцимирский, “К истории ложных молитв в южнославянской письмености” (On the History of False Prayers in Southslavic Literature), Изв. ОРЯС 18/3 (1913): 1–102, and Изв. ОРЯС 18/4 (1913): 16–126.

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Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  of reptiles, whom the prohibition and the prayer of the holy apostle will reach. When a snake bites a human, let it die immediately, and let the bitten person remain alive in the glory of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost now, and forever and ever. Amen”.’9

of that will be a flying dragon.’ The second one comes from Psalms 91:13, where the text goes: ‘You will tread on the lion and the dragon / the asp and the basilisk you will trample under foot.’ These Christian influences (both canonical and apocryphal) came on the Balkans mainly from Byzantium.12 Some of the names in the Bulgarian charms have direct parallels in Byzantine sources,13 Thus, in the Byzantine texts ‘snake born from a basilisk’ is τόν βασίλισκον δρακόντα τόν γενναίον, ‘snake like a cloud’ is όφιν τόν νεφελοειδήν, ‘snake climbing oaks/trees’ is όφιν  τόν  δενδροαναβάτην, ‘snake like a raven’ is όφιν  τόν  κορακοειδή, ‘tetrachalin snake’ is όφιν  τετραχάλινον, ‘dodekachalin snake’ is όφιν  δωδεκαχάλινον, ‘lagodroma snake’ is όφιν  λαγοδρόμονα, ‘blind snake’ is όφιν τόν τυφλόν, ‘snake without eyes’ is αόμματον, and ‘snake like sea/fierce echidna with poison in the right jaw’ is έχιδνα τήν σκολίαν τήν  έχουσαν  τά  φάρμακα  είς  τήν  δεξιάν  αύτής  σιαγώνα.

All together, there are twenty five surviving charms of this type.10 All of them contain a list of different length, with the names and epithets of the snake. When summarized, the list looks as follows. The snake is called: ‘snake,’ ‘scorpion,’ ‘pernicious snake,’ ‘venomous snake,’ ‘harmful snake,’ ‘fierce snake with venom in the right jaw,’ ‘snake born from a basilisk,’ ‘asp,’ ‘snake like a cloud,’ ‘snake like fire,’ ‘snake like hair,’ ‘snake climbing oaks or trees,’ ‘flying snake,’ ‘snake like a raven,’ ‘snake with three jaws,’ ‘three headed snake,’ ‘tetrachalin snake/snake with four mouths,’ ‘dodekachalin snake/twelve headed snake/snake with twelve clothes/mouths,’ ‘lagodroma snake/snake moving like a hare,’ ‘blind snake,’ ‘snake without eyes,’ ‘snake like an arrow,’ ‘black snake,’ ‘snake coming from the ground,’ ‘snake that bites women,’ ‘snake like sea/fierce echidna with poison in the right jaw,’ ‘snake like ashes,’ ‘snake like a sly mouse,’ ‘snake born from the Devil/devilish inspiration.’

Secondly, there is the layer of pre-Christian Slavic elements. 14 For instance, the winged or flying snake, and the fiery snake are images, typical for the Slavic tradition. 15 However, these elements are inseparably intermingled and mixed with the Christian and Mediterranean motives. For example, the snake plays key role in the Slavic apotropaic and amuletic tradition, expressed in the zmeevik (змеевик). This is a medallion and pendant amulet with a Christian motif on one side and an ancient pagan motif (involving serpents) on the other. The  змеевик appears from the eleventh century onwards and is extensively wide-spread and used among the Slavs, especially the Eastern Slavs.16 Some scholars connect this popularity with

The list of names is rather heterogeneous. It demonstrates the main factors, which influenced the medieval and early modern Bulgarian charms, including the charms against snake bite. These influences come from several directions. Firstly, there is the main layer of Christian meaning and symbolism, based on the  Bible, and subsequently on the Physiologus, the apocrypha and the noncanonical literature, especially the divination books. 11 For instance, a very clear example for biblical elements can be seen in the reference to the basilisk and the asp. The first one is connected with a passage in Isaiah 14:29, saying: ‘the serpent’s stock can still produce a basilisk, and the offspring

Robert Mathiesen, “Magic in Slavia Orthodoxa: The Written Tradition,” in Byzantine  Magic, ed. Henry Maguire (Washington, D. C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1995), 155–178; and W. F. Ryan, The  Bathhouse  at  Midnight:  An  Historical  Survey  of  Magic  and Divination in Russia (Stroud: Sutton Publishing – University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999), 9–30. 12

9 Book of occasional prayers, dated 1423. My translation from the Old Church Slavonic text. [Jatsimirskii], “К истории ложных молитв,” 64–90; and [Kristanov], Естествознанието в  средновековна България, 54–57.

[Jatsimirskii], “К истории ложных молитв,” 88–89, where the author quotes apocryphal Byzantine texts against snake bite. 13

[Agapkina], Славянская  мифология, 58; and [Georgieva], Българска народна митология, 36–40. 14

[Jatsimirskii], “К истории ложных молитв,” 87–90; and [Tsonev], Опис на ръкописите, passim. 10

The snake is ‘a fiery queen,’ and the lord of the snakes is ‘flaming king’ in Lithuanian charms. See Daiva Vaitkevičienė, Lietuvių užkalbėjimai: gydymo formulės / Lithuanian Verbal Healing  Charms (Vilnius: Lietuvių literatūro ir tautosakos institutas, 2008), 745 and 839.

15

[Tatjana A. Agapkina] Татяна А. Агапкина, Славянская  мифология:  энциклопедический  словарь (Slavic Mythology: Encyclopedia) (Moscow: Meждунаpoдные отнoшения, 2002), passim; and [Ivanichka Georgieva], Иваничка Георгиевa, Българска  народна  митология (Bulgarian Folk Mythology) (Sofia: Наука и изкуство, 1983), passim. 11

16

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Ryan, The Bathhouse at Midnight, 42–44.

S. Tsonkova: Snake Pernicious and Venomous… a supposed ancient cosmic serpent cult. On the other hand, Ryan points that the  змеевик has primarily Christian (albeit non-canonical) interpretations. They are based on Byzantine and Near Eastern models and relate to the Biblical text in Numbers 21:8–9, saying:

As we can see, the first most important feature of the snake is its clearly manifested chthonic nature. This chthonic nature is expressed through the close relations with the earth (compare the Bulgarian word ‘змия’ meaning ‘snake’ and ‘земя’ meaning ‘earth, soil, ground’) and with water, wetness and moisture. In this respect the animal is inseparably associated with the Other World, the Underworld and the Land of the dead, and even plays an important role in the cosmic opposition between the Earth and the Sun.18

Et  locutus  est  Dominus  ad  eum:  ‘Fac  serpentem  ignitum  et  pone  eum  pro  signo  [standard]:  qui  percussus  aspexerit  eum,  vivet.’  Fecit  ergo  Moyses  serpentem aeneum et posuit eum pro signo; quem cum  percussi aspicerent, sanabantur.

The second most important feature of the snake is the general ambivalence of its character. It combines the male and the female, the positive and the negative. The snake is apotropaic and curative, but it also brings damage. It is unclean and evil, but also possesses enormous wisdom, fantastic powers and protective functions. The ambivalence of the snake is very clearly expressed in its double fiery and watery nature, and its ambiguous influence on meteorological phenomena, crops and domestic animals.19

These are only a small number of examples for the complex cultural contexts into which the snake appears among the Slavs, including the Bulgarians. In terms of interaction between different traditions, one thing has to be pointed out here. If we accept that the complex multilevel meaning of the snake (in general and in the Slavic case in particular) is of a rather ancient origin, then the examined medieval Bulgarian charms provide an image of the animal which is a result of long and complex cultural transmissions.

The parallel existence of such contradictory conceptual elements can be seen in other traditions too. The Lithuanian tradition sees the snake as a powerful fiery being, but also as ‘horrible crawling thing’ and ‘cold metal.’20 A Finnish charm conjures the snake and asks it to cure the injury from its own bite:

Otherness and evil in a network The snake is one of the key central animal characters in the Bulgarian medieval and early modern tradition. It is also one of the most complex ones, attributed with numerous and very often contradictory characteristics and roles. In a summary, according to the Bulgarian medieval and early modern world-view the snake: -

-

Black worm under ground Wriggler in the grass Rod among brushwood Snake under fences Bright under the rock Coiled under the knoll Iron-hued wretch, thin Under the steel-glass You did well to strike Better if you make better: bring honey from the hive, mead from your meadery drip honey from your tongue, pour mead out of your mouth for the time being for the best ointment.21

is bringer of evil, but also of good luck; can be protector of the house; is devilish creature, Satan’s animal; can stop the flow of a river and cause drought, but it can also bring rain; is closely associated with fertility and with the ancestors; is biting the sun or trying to swallow it; is closely associated with the dead and with the land of the dead, and acts as a messenger between the living and the dead; is also closely associated with hail and wind; killing a snake can be a sin, but also can provide redemption from sins; winged snakes, sitting on three huge oak threes are protecting the crops.17

[A. V. Gura] A. В. Гура, Символика  животных  в  славянской  народной традиции (The Symbolism of Animals in Slavic Folk Tradition) (Moscow: Индрик, 1997), passim. 18

19

[Georgieva], Българска народна митология, 38.

20

Vaitkevičienė, Lietuvių užkalbėjimai, 735.

Seventeenth-century Finnish charm. See Henni Illomäki, “Finnish Snake Charms,” in Charms,  Charmers  and  Charming. 

21 17

[Georgieva], Българска народна митология, 37–38.

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Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  little worms: one black, one red and one speckled. Praised be Jesus Christ!24

Therefore, it is more appropriate not to talk about the image of the snake, but about a number of images of this animal, loaded with a rich variety of meanings. The medieval and early modern Bulgarian snake bite charms, however, give us a good example of the very prominent unclean and evil side of the snake.

God was walking through the forests and found a nest of snakes. There were red ones, green ones, white ones. God buried the green one, killed the red one, and put the white one in his pocket. God climbed out of the place and he was bitten in the leg. He chopped the head of the white snake off and rubbed the wound. Get out on your own, you cursed snake, image of the devil, die!25

Let us look back to the list of names. On the one hand, there is the snake as a physical reality: an animal with dangerous venom, whose bite is a serious threat for the health and life of humans and other animals. Names like ‘pernicious,’ 22 ‘venomous,’ ‘harmful,’ ‘fierce,’ ‘black,’ ‘blind’ (the blind snakes are considered to be the most venomous ones), ‘climbing trees,’ ‘coming from the ground,’ refer more to the physical appearance and characteristics of the snake. These adjectives, however, always contain a layer of mythological meanings, beyond the immediate physical reality. It is remarkable that the symbolism of colour and substances is not so developed in the extant Bulgarian material. For comparison, the Estonian material speaks about ‘coppery snake,’ ‘blade snake,’ ‘bush snake,’ ‘water snake,’ and ‘clay snake.’ Also is lists certain colours, for example:

Gray snake, mottled snake, brown snake, take your pain back because you will end up on God’s trial!26 Mottled, black, or blue, stranger! Red-mottled, rofous-mottled, stranger! Red one, sorrel, rofous, stranger!27 

On the other hand, there is the snake as a figure with supernatural mythical characteristics. Together with the polycephaly (three headed snake), the number of the snake’s jaws can vary (three, four or twelve). There are also different comparisons: with elements of nature (fire, clouds), with other animals (scorpion, asp, basilisk, raven, hare, echidna, mouse), and with objects (hair, arrow, ashes). And, finally, the snake can fly. So, who is the snake according to medieval and early modern Bulgarian charms? It is an ordinary, usual, familiar presence in daily life. But it is also a strange, dangerous and malicious animal. The lists of Slavic and foreign names position the snake as an extremely harmful, evil and dangerous being. The snake is the bringer of evil with many faces, the ultimate aggressive intruder in the world of both humans and animals.

Snn, snn, snakekins White snakekins Black snakekins Many-coloured snakekins! I know where you live: Under the fence…23

The colour-association of the snake is important in the Lithuanian tradition too. A number of charms are focused on a list of different colours, like in the following examples:

Where does the snake stand among similar malevolent agents? The list of the snake names can be compared for example with the list of the witch’s names in another apotropaic early modern Bulgarian charm:

Peter ploughed, John ploughed, Jesus ploughed; they ploughed three beds and turned up three

International Research on Verbal Magic, ed. Jonathan Roper (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 166.

The witch said: ‘I eradicate fruit trees, I tie female beauty, I defeat female malice. I am coming closer and I shall enter the human dwelling as a hen, as a she-dove, as a snake. I strangle the beautiful

In the context of Bulgarian snake bite charms this colour is always with negative connotations and again referring to the strong chthonic nature. For comparison, in Swedish material we find svarta  snuva (black snake), and in Finnish material mato  musta (black worm). See Ritwa Herjulfsditter, “Swedish Snakebite Charms from a Gender Perspective,” in Charms,  Charmers and Charming, 57; and Henni Illomäki, “Finnish Snake Charms,” 167. 22

24 Lithuanian charm, see Daiva Vaitkevičienė, “Lithuanian and Latvian Charms: Searching form Parallells,” in Charms,  Charmers and Charming, 205.

Vepsian charm. See Jonathan Roper, Traditional Verbal Charms  with  Particular  Reference  to  the  Estonian  and  English  Charms‐ Traditions (MA thesis, University of Sheffield, 1997), 30–31.

25

Vaitkevičienė, Lietuvių užkalbėjimai, 737. 

26

Ibid., 747.

27

Ibid., 840.

23

130

S. Tsonkova: Snake Pernicious and Venomous… children and that is why they call me “murderer.” When the true word of God was born, I went there to deceive it. Archangel Michael found me and fettered me, and I swore and said: “I swear in the throne of the Supreme and in the supreme powers that I shall not lie to you and I shall tell you the truth. If a human can copy in writing my name, I shall not enter the home of the servant of God.” And archangel Michael said: “Tell me your names!” First name: Mora. Second name: Witch. Third name: Vizusa. Fourth name: Makarila. Fifth name: Siyana. Sixth name: Evgelusa. Seventh name: Navridulia. Eighth name: Living Fire. Ninth name: Midday One. Tenth name: Strangler of children. Eleventh name: Thief of the milk of the new-borns. Twelveth name: Devil Deceiver.’28

Conclusion remarks  The image of the snake as seen in the medieval and early modern Bulgarian snake bite charms appears as a focal point of the unknown, the otherness, the dangerous and the evil. It is a very late stage of the snake’s existence as a supernatural figure in the Slavic tradition. Presented as a malicious evil with chthonic character, closely related to the Devil, the snake in the charms keeps some of the features characteristic for other malevolent agents like demons and witches – in terms of activities and a clearly defined operational sphere. Even more, the snake is attributed with the long list of negative names, similarly to other evil figures in charms.

Other examples are the Bulgarian charms against fever, where the fever is personified in seven or nine female figures. They are conjured and expelled by a saint ordering them to say their names and to declare their activities. All these lists of names (and the charms they belong too) are meant to be memorized and reproduced in an oral or written form.

As the snake in charms is the personification of evil, such an enemy also requires an adequate defence. The protection against the snake bite exists as a fully developed system: it is provided and supported exclusively through the means of verbal magic. The power of the animal can be opposed most effectively by the power of words, more specifically with the list of negative epithets. Additionally, the protection against the snake is additionally very much connected with magical rituals. The names are central element of the conjuration of the snake. Thus the animal is involved in the field of practical magic. The counteraction to the snake relays on the oral and written reproduction of the words and names that is then additionally strengthened by the usage of magical objects. These points show that the figure of the snake has to be examined not only in the strict terms of demonology, but also in the broader perspective of protective practical magic.31

In the case of the snake bite charms, the full and successful reproduction and repetition of all the names guarantees the efficient protection against snakes and the successful healing of the bitten person or animal. The list of names has the function to organize the snake, and thus to control it and place it a new framework of meanings. 29 Thus, the Other is effectively recognized, understood, controlled and expelled. For comparison, the purpose of a euphemistic description of the snake in Finnish charms is ‘to create a situation in which the opponent and the charmer are at the same level of authority, and can recognize one another. At the same time, by revealing the outlook and the origin of the snake, the charmer dominates it.’30 The lists of names are verbal magical device: an instrument to communicate with the evil Other (snake, illness, witch) and a weapon to stop its activities and to expel it away from the human world.

The medieval and early modern charms are important sources for the examination of the meaning of animals in medieval popular perception. Even more, the medieval and early modern charms are important for the better understanding of the later folklore traditions on animals. The snake in medieval Bulgarian charms is only one example for a complex negative image of a dangerous animal, attributed with the role of the evil and malicious Other in the context of verbal magic. In terms of further research, the snake in Bulgarian charms has to be examined not

Priest’s service book, seventeenth centrury. My translation from the Old Church Slavonic text. [Tsonev], Опис  на  ръкописите, том II, 118–119.

28

Laura Stark, Peasants, Pilgrims, and Sacred Promises. Ritual and  the  Supernatural  in  Orthodox  Karelian  Folk  Religion (Helisnki: Finnish Literature Society, 2002), 134–135. 29

30

Ulrika Worf-Knuts, “Charms as Means of Coping,” in Charms,  Charmers and Charming, 64–66.

31

Henni Illomäki, “Finnish Snake Charms,” 169.

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Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines  Popkonstantinov, Kazimir and Otto Kronsteiner. “Altbulgarische Inschriften.” Die  slavischen  Sprachen 36 (1994): 39–40. Roper, Jonathan. “Traditional Verbal Charms with Particular Reference to the Estonian and English Charms-Traditions.” MA thesis, University of Sheffield, 1997. Ryan, William Francis. The  Bathhouse  at  Midnight: An Historical Survey of Magic and Divination in  Russia. Stroud: Sutton Publishing – University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999. [Shnitter, Maria] Шнитер, Мария. Молитва  и  магия (Prayer and Magic). Sofia: Университетско издателство “Св. Климент Охридски,” 2001. Stark, Laura. Peasants, Pilgrims, and Sacred Promises.  Ritual and the Supernatural in Orthodox Karelian  Folk  Religion. Helisnki: Finnish Literature Society, 2002. [Tsonev, Benyo] Цонев, Беньo. Опис  на  ръкописите  и  старопечатните  книги  на  Народната  библиотека  в  София,  том.  I (Catalogue of the manuscripts and the Early printed Books in the National Library in Sofia, vol. I). Sofia: Издание на Народнaта библиотека, 1910. [Tsonev, Benyo] Цонев, Беньo. Опис  на  ръкописите  и  старопечатните  книги  на  Народната  библиотека  в  София,  том.  II (Catalogue of the manuscripts and the Early printed Books in the National Library in Sofia, vol. II). Sofia: Издание на Народнaта библиотека, 1923. Vaitkevičienė, Daiva. Lietuvių  užkalbėjimai:  gydymo  formulės  /  Lithuanian  Verbal  Healing  Charms. Vilnius: Lietuvių literatūro ir tautosakos institutas, 2008. Vaitkevičienė, Daiva. “Lithuanian and Latvian Charms: Searching form Parallells.” In Charms,  Charmers  and  Charming:  International  Research  on  Verbal  Magic, edited by Jonathan Roper, 186–214. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Wolf-Knuts, Ulrika. “Charms as Means of Coping.” In Charms,  Charmers  and  Charming:  International  Research  on  Verbal  Magic, edited by Jonathan Roper, 62–70. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.

only in the broader context of animals in popular traditions, but also in the perspective of quotidian interaction with humans, the snake as an actual physical presence and its supernatural side.

Bibliography  [Agapkina, Tatjana A.] Агапкина, Татяна А. Славянская  мифология:  энциклопедический  словарь (Slavic Mythology: Encyclopedia). Moscow: Meждунаpoдные отнoшения, 2002. [Georgieva, Ivanichka] Георгиевa, Иваничка. Българска народна митология (Bulgarian Folk Mythology). Sofia: Наука и изкуство, 1983. [Gura, A. V.] Гура, A. В. Символика  животных  в  славянской  народной  традиции (The Symbolism of Animals in Slavic Folk Tradition). Moscow: Индрик, 1997. Herjulfsditter, Ritwa. “Swedish Snakebite Charms from a Gender Perspective.” In Charms,  Charmers  and  Charming:  International  Research  on Verbal Magic, edited by Jonathan Roper, 54– 61. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Illomäki, Henni. “Finnish snake Charms.” In Charms,  Charmers  and  Charming.  International  Research  on  Verbal  Magic, edited by Jonathan Roper, 163–173. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. [Jatsimirskii, A. I.] Яцимирский, А. И. “К истории ложных молитв в южнославянской письмености” (On the History of False Prayers in Southslavic Literature). Изв.  ОРЯС 18/3 (1913): 1–102, and Изв. ОРЯС 18/4 (1913): 16–126. [Kristanov, Tsvetan] Кристанов Цветан, Иван Дуйчев. Естествознанието  в  средновековна  България.  Сборник  от  исторически  извори (The Natural Sciences in Medieval Bulgaria – A Collection of Historical Sources). Sofia: Българска Академия на науките, 1954. Mallow, David, David Ludwig, and Goran Nilson. True  Vipers:  Natural  History  and  Toxinology  of  Old  World  Vipers. Malabar, Florida: Krieger Publishing Company, 2003. Mathiesen, Robert. “Magic in Slavia Orthodoxa: The Written Tradition.” In Byzantine  Magic, edited by Henry Maguire, 155–178. Washington, D. C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1995. [Petkanova, Donka] Петканова, Донка. Стара  българска  литература  в  седем  тома,  том.  I  Апокрифи (Old Bulgarian Literature in Seven Volumes. Vol. 1 Apocrypha). Sofia: Българска академия на науките, 1981.

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O. Vassilieva-Codognet: Ambiguous Figures of Otherness…

– X –  AMBIGUOUS FIGURES OF OTHERNESS: REDOUBTABLE BEASTS  IN PRINCELY BADGES OF THE LATE MIDDLE AGES     

Olga VASSILIEVA-CODOGNET École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris [email protected]     To Michel Pastoureau on the occasion of his sixty‐fifth birthday  

Abstract  This paper addresses the symbolism of redoubtable beasts in princely heraldic badges of the late Middle Ages. It consists of three parts: first, a quantitative study of 894 heraldic badges dating from 1370 to 1520 which allows to apprehend the population and evolution of redoubtable beasts occurring in these badges; second, a series of four case-studies, namely Giangaleazzo Visconti’s leopard, Jean de Berry’s bear, Richard III’s boar and Louis XII’s porcupine, in order to shed light on the relationship between a prince and his emblematic animal; third, a study of the animal badges that can be found in the first modern treaty on heraldic badges, namely Paolo Giovio’s Dialogo dell’imprese militari e amorose (Rome: Antonio Barre, 1555), in order to discover the metamorphosis of the medieval heraldic badge into the early modern times.    Keywords Badge; emblem; heraldry; predator; prince         Louis d’Orléans’s wolf 

royal French crown then on the head of Charles VI, Louis d’Orléans’s insane brother. The previous allegorical image retells the same story: the crown is grasped by the wolf and consequently no longer in equilibrium on the French lily.2 The manuscript that contains this miniature is one of the four extant copies of a work known as the Justification  du  duc  de  Bourgogne  (‘Justification of the Duke of Burgundy’), an apology of the deeds of John the Fearless, and written by Jean Petit in March 1408.3 Regardless the political consequences of this

A fifteenth-century French manuscript 1 opens with a miniature (Figure 10-1) depicting a powerful lion giving the fatal blow to a grasping wolf that is attempting to reach for a crown. Read allegorically, as such things must be, this intriguing miniature reveals the lion as Burgundy’s heraldic emblem. The wolf is Louis d’Orléans’s heraldic badge, and the overall scene refers to the murder of said Louis d’Orléans, which was ordered by the Duke of Burgundy John the Fearless and took place on November 23, 1407. John the Fearless essentially reproached Louis d’Orléans for having unjustly tried to seize the

On the facing folio of the aforementioned miniature, the following quatrain can be read: ‘Par force le leu rompt et tire/A ses  dens  et  gris  la  couronne,/Et  le  lyon  par  très‐grant  ire,/De  sa  pate  grant  coup  lui  donne’ (‘By using his teeth and claws the wolf breaks and takes the crown by force, and the lion in great anger gives him a hard blow’). 2

Acknowledgements: all my thanks go to my friend Laurent Hablot for having provided me with an electronic version of his PhD Dissertation. 1

Michael Nordberg, “Les sources bourguignonnes des accusations portées contre la mémoire de Louis d’Orléans,” Annales de Bourgogne 31 (1959): 82–98. 3

Chantilly, Musée Condé, ms. 878, fol. 2 (detail).

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Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines

Figure  10‐1.  Lion  giving  a  fatal  blow  to  a  wolf.  Jean  Petit’s  Justification du duc de Bourgogne,  Pseudo‐Jacquemart  de  Hesdin,  Paris,  1408. Chantilly, Musée Condé, ms. 878, fol. 2 (detail). 

defects.4 If most animals were seen in the Middle Ages as ambivalent, viz. with both good and bad aspects, the wolf was not and, to a certain extent, it was the worst of all animals. Returning to Louis d’Orléans, it shall be further observed that Louis had ‘etymological’ (in the sense of the time) affinities with this animal: the French language allowing for a rather obvious pun between ‘Louis’ and ‘loup’ (the French word for ‘wolf’). But the price Louis d’Orléans had to pay for this pun seems very high, and one may wonder if Louis’s choice did not have some other motivation. Nevertheless, since among Louis’s other heraldic badges can be found the porcupine, the nettle and

murder, our analysis bears upon the animal symbolism within the miniature. The lion’s symbolism is unproblematic both in form and content. Indeed, the lion was both a hereditary emblem – it was the Flemish lion John inherited from his mother, whose feudal possessions included Flanders – and a noble and highly positive animal, since by then the lion was already the king of all animals. On the other hand, the wolf’s symbolism is much more uncommon. First, Louis’s wolf was not an inherited heraldic coat-ofarms, but rather a personal emblem, deliberately chosen by Louis for his heraldic badge (Figures 105a and 10-5b). Second, the wolf symbolism was extremely pejorative since the medieval wolf was perceived as a violent, ferocious, bloodthirsty and cowardly animal – to name but a few of its

4 Michel Pastoureau, Bestiaires du Moyen Âge (Paris: Seuil, 2011), 71–73. Regarding the presence of wolves in France at the times of Louis d’Orléans, see Jean-Marc Moriceau, L’homme  contre  le  loup: une guerre de deux mille ans (Paris: Fayard, 2011), 73–78.

134

O. Vassilieva-Codognet: Ambiguous Figures of Otherness… the crossbow, i.e. equally aggressive animal, vegetal and object, it may safely be assumed that Louis d’Orléans perfectly understood all the consequences of the wolf symbolism and that he purposely turned to the wolf’s otherness to present through his wolf badge his own radical otherness. As shown above by the Justification  du  duc  de  Bourgogne’s opening miniature, this symbolism was not lost on John the Fearless. Actually, shortly after the death of Louis d’Orléans, the Duke of Burgundy outdid himself on the symbolic level: in the winter of 1408 he organized a wolf hunt on the outskirts of Paris, an act which can be seen as both a symbolic repetition of, and a claim for, his cousin’s murder.

as a practical means to help fighters recognize their own. Heraldry soon developed into a rigorous system called blazon which constitutes the main semiotic system created by the Middle Ages and to which we owe our flags, road signs and sport insignia. Coats-of-arms having soon become hereditary, the knights’ social elite invented a new sign of individuality, namely the crest, which appeared in the thirteenth century on the occasion of this kind of training and mock war that was the tournament. Crests were striking yet fragile 6 assemblages made of metal, wood and papier mâché which very frequently took the form of animals, or rather of parts of animals: heads, wings, etc. The animals that these crests strived to evoke were most of the times frightening: dragons, eagles, boars and so on.7 It was actually so because the tournament’s jouster aimed not only at being identified by his crest, but also at impressing his adversary by his crest’s big horns, large teeth or long feathers. Generation after generation – and we are now arriving at the fourteenth century – tournaments were less and less for real, and more and more for the show, namely for the ladies who attended these by then courteous and courtly spectacles. It is at this time that the heraldic badge comes into its own.8 Natural heir of both arms and crests – but liveries, seals and drueries (love tokens) also attended to the cradle –, the medieval heraldic badge often consists in a figure, although it may alternatively consist in a brief sentence called motto.9 In any case, the badge says something of its owner’s wishes – of a prince’s dreams. Not untruly may the badge be called the ideal self of the prince.

The previous, admittedly extreme, example of Louis d’Orléans 5 brings us to the subject of our study, namely the symbolism of redoubtable beasts found in heraldic princely badges. Indeed, many late Middle Ages princes chose redoubtable beasts such as the boar, the bear, the dragon or the tiger for their badges. Our study will consist of three parts: first, a quantitative study of heraldic badges which will allow us to apprehend the population of redoubtable beasts occurring in heraldic badges, as well as to chart their evolution over 150 years from 1370 to 1520; second, a series of four case-studies on the animal symbolism that can be found in heraldic badges, namely Giangaleazzo Visconti’s leopard, Jean de Berry’s bear, Richard III’s boar and Louis XII’s porcupine; third and lastly, a study of the animal badges featured in Paolo Giovio’s Dialogo  dell’imprese  militari  e  amorose (‘Dialogue on the military and amorous badges’) (Rome: Antonio Barre, 1555), an extremely important para-heraldic treaty that would give us a taste of things (viz. badges) to come in the modern era. But before discovering the metamorphosis of the medieval heraldic badge into the modern impresa, we first need to present a brief account of its genesis and development.

Very fragile indeed: only five (one English and four continental) medieval heraldic crests are still extant. See Jonathan Alexander and Paul Binski, Age  of  Chivalry.  Art  in  Plantagenet  England  1200–1400 (exhibition catalogue) (London: Royal Academy of Arts, 1987), 480 (cat. 627). 6

7 See generally on the topic Christiane Pantens-Van den Bergen, “La représentation et la signification des animaux comme cimiers héraldiques,” Revue belge d’archéologie et d’histoire de l’art  62 (1993): 5–15.

Alternatively, the word ‘device’ (Middle and Modern French: devise) could be used. We nevertheless refrained from using it since we felt this peculiar meaning of the word ‘device’ is insufficiently known and would not have been properly understood – with all apologies to our emblematist friends. 8

Arms, crests and badges  The medieval heraldic badge is essentially the offspring of the coat-of-arms. Coats-of-arms first appeared on the mid-twelfth-century battlefields

9 For a modern, abstract reconstruction of this semiotic system which would actually distinguish between figure, motto, cipher and colours, see Michel Pastoureau, “L’emblématique princière à la fin du Moyen Age, essai de lexique et de typologie,” in Héraldique  et  emblématique  de  la  maison  de  Savoie  (XIVe‐XVe  s.), eds. Bernard Andenmatten, Annick Vadon and Agostino Paravicini Bagliani (Lausanne, 1994), 11–43.

Although Louis of Orléans’s wolf symbolism is uncommon, it is not unique. For instance, Jasper Tudor, Jean de Daillon or Charles de Blois also had a wolf badge. 5

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Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines Medieval heraldic badges come in many colours and shapes: a blue boar, a rose, a sail, a couple of turtledoves. Most of the times, these badges metaphorically refer to their owner’s enterprises, whether military, amorous or something else. Yet this creative, indeed nearly poetic, aspect of the heraldic badge should not conceal the fact that its primary social function was that of creating, for the sole benefit of the prince, a clientele constituted by the princely badge’s owners. For, contrary to the coat-of-arms or to the crest, the medieval heraldic badge was distributed among the prince’s family members, retainers and partisans. Besides giving a material form to the princely household,10 sharing of the heraldic badge – exactly like that of the perfectly contemporary chivalry order’s insignia – created a sense of belonging among the happy few who were lucky enough to bear it. In an age where a prince could hardly find men willing to fight for his cause, this was truly priceless and constituted the secret raison  d’être of the heraldic badge. All in all, the heraldic badge must essentially be seen as a form of binding gift.

find animals, plants, minerals and human artefacts. We will chiefly be interested with animals and more specifically with redoubtable beasts. The Middle French ‘Bestes  redoubtables’ is frequently attested in the fifteenth century and that has roughly the same meaning as its modern English equivalent, denoting powerful animals of which men are scared. These redoubtable beasts are very often, but not necessarily, predators and they can be real as well as imaginary. In the view of medieval men, these redoubtable beasts differed both from peaceful domestic animals, such as the cow or the chicken, they used to breed, and also from the wild yet not ferocious animals, such as the hare or the partridge, they used to hunt. This category of redoubtable beasts contains animals such as the boar or the wolf that were readily encountered in medieval Europe, as well as animals such as the tiger or the dragon that would have been much harder to encounter. In any case, the ontological status of these animals was unquestioned at the time: they all really existed, as attested either by direct observation or/and by reliable texts (e.g., Scriptures), they all were part of the divine creation and each of them had its specific nature, according to God’s will and design.

A  quantitative  study  of  heraldic  badges  (1370– 1520) 

General evolution of animal badges 

The data on which this study is based consist of about one thousand heraldic badges dating from 1370 to 1520. This data collection has been patiently gathered by Laurent Hablot in his (yet) unpublished PhD dissertation. 11 These data have been collected in all available sources: artefacts (metallic badges, embroidered badges, woven badges, etc.), primary and secondary literature, iconic representations (miniatures, paintings, sculptures, seals, etc.). The owners of these heraldic badges come from all over Europe and belong to the topmost segment of western nobility, which is the reason why we refer to these badges as princely. It is important to observe that a given individual may have more than one heraldic badge, although, generally speaking, the less important the noble, the less numerous his badges. Let us move from the owner to his badge: what kind of picture does it present? Essentially, one can

As stated before, the time period considered by this study encompasses the years 1370–1520. It will conveniently be divided into five thirty-year time periods: 1370–1400, 1400–1430, 1430–1460, 1460– 1490 and 1490–1520. For each of these time periods, Table 10-1 gives the total number of badges (#T), the number of animal badges (#A), the number of badges featuring redoubtable beasts (#RB) as well as the ratios #A/#T and #RB/#A. Additional information is further provided by Table 10-2 which displays the corresponding lists of redoubtable beasts taken as heraldic badges during each thirty year period. Table 10-1 calls for the following remarks. Regarding the data distribution over time, the ratio #A/#T has a mean value of 31%, showing that nearly one badge out of three is an animal. It can be observed that this figure is nearly the same as the proportion of coats-of-arms that contain an animal figure, since this proportion is equal to 30% for the fourteenth century and decreases to 25% in

David Starkey, “The age of the household: politics, society and the arts c. 1350–c. 1550,” in The  later  Middle  Ages, ed. Stephen Medcalf (London: Methuen & Co, 1981), 264–268.

10

Laurent Hablot, “La devise, mise en signe du prince, mise en scène du pouvoir” (PhD diss., University of Poitiers, 2001).

11

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O. Vassilieva-Codognet: Ambiguous Figures of Otherness…

Period 

Total (#T) 

Animals (#A) 

Redoubtable  Beasts (#RB) 

Ratio #A / #T 

Ratio #RB / #A 

1370–1400

88

53

35

60%

66%

1400–1430

205

68

39

33%

57%

1430–1460

160

38

26

24%

68%

1460–1490

262

80

52

31%

65%

1490–1520

179

42

21

23%

50%

Total/Average

894

281

173

31%

62%

Table 10‐1. Heraldic badges, 1370–1520. 

Period 

List of redoubtable beast badges 

1370–1400

boar (3), dolphin, dragon (2), eagle (7), falcon (4), greyhound (5), griffon (2), hunting dog (2), leopard, lion (6), salamander, unicorn

1400–1430

antelope (2), bear, boar, dolphin (2), eagle (5), falcon (4), greyhound (6), griffon, hunting dog (4), leopard, lion (4), porcupine, salamander (2), sparrow hawk, tiger (3), wolf

1430–1460

antelope, bear, boar, crow, dolphin, dragon (5), eagle (4), falcon, greyhound (4), hunting dog (2), lynx, sparrow hawk, unicorn, yale (2)

1460–1490

bear (5), boar (4), bull (3), dragon (3), eagle (2), elephant (2), falcon (6), genet, greyhound (3), hunting dog (4), hydra, leopard, lion (4), lynx (2), porcupine, ram, salamander (2), unicorn (4), yale, wolf (2)

1490–1520

bear, crow, dragon (5), eagle (2), elephant, falcon, genet, greyhound, griffon (2), hunting dog, porcupine, salamander, wolf (2), yale

1370–1520 (Total)

antelope (3), bear (8), boar (9), bull (3), crow (2), dolphin (4), dragon (15), eagle (20), elephant (3), falcon (16), genet (2), greyhound (19), griffon (5), hunting dog (13), hydra (1), leopard (3), lion (14), lynx (3), porcupine (3), ram (1), sparrow hawk (2), salamander (6), tiger (3), unicorn (6), yale (4), wolf (5)

Table 10‐2. Lists of redoubtable beast badges, 1370–1520. 

1500.12 Returning to Table 10-1, we can see that the ratio #A/#T is relatively stable over time, except for the first time period where it is exceptionally higher, the very first stock of devices being much more (almost twice) animal-oriented that the subsequent ones. To explain this phenomenon, one can perhaps point to the influence of the badge’s predecessor, namely the crest, whose symbolism was mainly animal-based. The mean value of the ratio #RB/#A is 62%, indicating that nearly two out of three animal devices are redoubtable beasts.

With respect to time, the lowest number (viz. 50%) is reached in the last period, viz. the years 1490– 1520. This last figure may very possibly be contingent and non-significant, but it could equally well hint to a slight disinterest for redoubtable beasts. As a matter of fact, we shall see in our study of Paolo Giovio’s Dialogo dell’imprese  militari e amorose that it was the very essence of the heraldic badge that was changing at the turn of the sixteenth century. Let us now consider Table 10-2 which displays the lists of the redoubtable beast badges taken

Michel Pastoureau, Traité  d’héraldique (Paris: Picard, 1993), 134.

12

137

Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines during the years 1370–1520. In order to construct this table one has to determine, for each animal badge, whether the animal in question is redoubtable or not. Generally speaking, this choice is unproblematic: if, according to medieval criteria, an animal can be seen as harmful to man then it is classified as redoubtable, otherwise it is not. Today’s reader might be surprised to see the dolphin classified as a redoubtable beast. Yet, in the eyes of medieval men who almost never saw a real dolphin, this latter was an enormous fish whose flipper was bristling with spikes which were sharp enough to cut the skin of its intimate enemy, namely the crocodile – it is no coincidence if the heavily toothed mouths of hideous dolphins appear recurrently on fifteenth- and sixteenthcentury armours. To a certain extent, the case of the antelope is similar. The medieval knowledge of this exotic animal mainly relied on bestiaries which, following the Physiologus,13 presented it as a cousin of the unicorn: although equipped with two saw-like horns instead of a single one, the antelope proved equally ferocious and impossible to catch. Speaking of horned beasts, a word should be said about one of their relatives: the yale. Originated in Pliny, and tentatively identified today with the buffalo, 14 the yale, which possessed the amazing property of being able to swivel its horns at will, became an important and almost exclusively English royal heraldic in the late Middle Ages.15 A more problematic case is constituted by the pair of these domestic, yet powerful, predators that are the greyhound and the hunting dog: they are classified as redoubtable because at the time they were primarily seen as hunting auxiliaries, not pet animals. Another difficult case was the one of the crow: the emblematically black bird was considered to be redoubtable on the grounds that it is frequently presented as an extremely pejorative – indeed devilish – animal.16 And finally here is the list of the animals that were not classified as redoubtable and that, accordingly, do not appear on Table 10-2: alcyon, bee, cow, crane, deer, dove, ewe, hart, hind, ermine, horse, ostrich, peacock, pelican, swallow, swan, and turtledove.

Redoubtable beast badges vs. heraldic animals  Taking a look at Table 10-2, we can see that the ten most frequent animals are, in decreasing order: eagle (20 occurrences), greyhound (19), falcon (16), dragon (15), lion (14), hunting dog (13), boar (9), bear (8), salamander (6) and unicorn (6). Observe that, if they are all traditional heraldic animals, their relative importance among badges and among coat-of-arms is completely different. For instance the lion, the heraldic star par  excellence, arrives here only in fifth position! One will recall that the lion is by far the most important heraldic figure since it occurs in 15% of all coats-of-arms17 and in six out of ten animal coats-of-arms. In other words, the number of heraldic lions exceeds the number of all other heraldic animals. Returning now to badges, the previous absolute domination of the heraldic lion over his forest of coats-of-arms is but an old memory. This phenomenon can probably be explained in the following manner: the lion’s heraldic hegemony mainly reflects the conformism of the coat-of-arms’ owners, a French heraldic saying going ‘Qui n’a pas d’armes porte un  lion’ (‘Who does not have arms bears a lion’). Conversely, the low number of lion badges, as well as the amazing variety of animal badges, testifies to the badge owners’ desire of individuality. On other grounds, the audience for the badges is not the same as the general audience of heraldry: while the former is restricted to the topmost segment of nobility, the latter encompasses not only the whole nobility, but also many bourgeois, craftsmen and peasants. Let us then turn to the lion’s perennial rival, the eagle. In heraldry, the eagle is the second most frequent animal – in truth, it is the martlet which constitutes the second heraldic animal, but this small generic bird is a mere heraldic invention, not a real (or imaginary, for that matter) animal and it can be discarded accordingly. The eagle is found about six times less than the lion and it represents around 10% of all animal coats-of-arms. 18 Considering animal badges, we will discover that the eagle wins out narrowly over the greyhound. The eagle’s results are consequently ambiguous, or rather ambivalent: on the one hand, the eagle keeps its relative rank, as it still goes before all other animals; on the other hand, its very narrow

Physiologos:  le  bestiaire  des  bestiaires, trans. Arnaud Zucker (Grenoble: Jérôme Millon, 2005), 213.

13

Wilma George, “The yale,” Journal  of  the  Warburg  and  Courtauld Institutes 31 (1968): 423–428.

14

15 Hugh Stanford London, Royal Beasts (East Knoyle Wilts: The Heraldic Society, 1956), 33–37. 16

Pastoureau, Bestiaires, 148–151.

138

17

Pastoureau, Traité, 136.

18

Ibid., 148.

O. Vassilieva-Codognet: Ambiguous Figures of Otherness… success shows that, not unlike the lion but less dramatically, its important heraldic capital seems to have melted away when it comes to badges.

coat-of-arms actually refer to domestic pigs rather than to their wild cousins.22 On the contrary, the wide-spread presence of boars and bears among animal badges seems to indicate the desire of their owners to appropriate the whole symbolic content of these common inhabitants of European forests. In this case, as opposed to the previous one (viz. the hunting animals), the badge owner is not the hunter chasing after its prey in the woods, but rather the wild predator itself: the boar badge’s owner envying the unparalleled valiance of an animal that would die rather than flee, and the bear badge’s owner the raw power of the woods’ strongest animal. A case in point is Jean III de Brabant, an indefatigable and furious jouster who was nicknamed the Boar (Figure 10-4a) – observe, though, that this remarkable case of animal symbolism does not involve badges which were not yet in existence in 1300. Finally, the salamander badge owners are most of the times related to the Order of the Salamander23 or, in a few cases, to the Orléans-Angoulême dynasty: in this last case, the salamander badge passed on generation after generation before ending up as François I’s famous emblem.

We will consider next the group of hunting animals altogether. The greyhound finishes second, the falcon third and the hunting dog fifth. Considered collectively, and with the addition of their hunting fellow the sparrow hawk, their cumulative scores are as follows: 31%, 38%, 31%, 25% and 14%. This indicates an initial nonnegligible interest followed by a progressive disinterest. In the eyes of their owners, these hunting animal badges probably incarnate a form of familiar predator-prey symbolism, thus revealing their taste for mundane, as opposed to heroic or exotic, hunting metaphors. It can be further observed that all these animals are also traditional heraldic animals, even if the falcon is (inexplicably) rare in heraldry. Contrary to the lion and, to a lesser extent, to the eagle, these animals have managed to transfer and even increase their modest symbolic capital from heraldry to badges, although this symbolic capital proves in turn subject to some erosion in the last of our time periods. Although the dragon and the unicorn are very important medieval figures, these mythical animals are rather rare in heraldry. Here they took their revenge, especially the dragon which finishes fourth. Dragon badges were borne by English princes, Central European sovereigns and Earls of Foix. Yet these dragons are not all alike: the first one refers to the archaic Welsh red dragon and is taken in  bona  parte; 19 the second one is the devil incarnate and symbolizes the defeat of evil and the triumph of Christendom;20 the third one remains unexplained.21

Women’s badges  Since 130 among our 894 badge owners are women (15%), we would like to present women’s badges. First of all, as exhibited by the previous figures, women are very under-represented in the field of para-heraldry – less than one third with respect to gender parity. As could be expected, men and women do not choose exactly the same kind of badges. More surprisingly, women’s badges also include their contingent of redoubtable beasts. When it comes to choosing a badge, women favour vegetal (40%) more than animal (28%) – this last figure being very close to the total average (31%). If among these animal badges non redoubtable animals such as the (innocent) lamb, the (immaculate) ermine or the (faithful) turtledove dominate, redoubtable beasts perform rather well: they number 15 out of 36 animal badges (42%). Here are the lists of redoubtable beast badges owned by women according to our five time periods: 1) dog, greyhound, lion; 2) unicorn, tiger; 3) lion, bear; 4)

The boar and the bear are very common heraldic figures, but most of the time they function as armoiries parlantes (canting arms). Their heraldic representations display more frequently their head or their paws than their entire body, and most boar 19

London, Royal Beasts, 43–46.

These badges refer to a Society of the Dragon founded by Emperor Sigismund from Luxemburg in 1408; see Jonathan Dacre Boulton D’Arcy, The  Knights  of  the  Crown (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1987), 348–355.

20

Peter S. Lewis, “Une devise de chevalerie inconnue, créée par un comte de Foix,” in Essays  in  later  medieval  French  history (London – Ronceverte: The Hambledon Press, 1985), 29–36.

21

139

22

Pastoureau, Traité, 146.

23

Boulton D’Arcy, Knights of the Crown, 342–344.

Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines eagle, genet, greyhound; 5) eagle, genet, fox, yale. Even if several of these badges come either from the lady’s arms or from previous family badges – but the same is true of men badges! –, women also prove able to create their own badges. For instance, such is the case of the genet, the small animal allowing a play on words with the name of its owner (e.g., Jeanne de Laval, Jeanne de Valois) since the French word for genet, viz. genette, is very close to Jeanette, which is Jeanne’s diminutive form. And such is also the case of Jane Seymour’s panther. One cannot resist evoking here the episode that took place in the 1530s at the court of Henry VIII after Ann Boleyn had been succeeded by Jane Seymour. With a due regard to economy, ten of Ann Boleyn’s leopards that stood in Hampton Court Palace’s garden were transformed into Jane Seymour’s panthers by ‘new makyng of hedds and the taylls’!24

matter of fact, these badges constituted a non negligible part of the material culture of their times for they often took on the shape of magnificent works of art, rightfully claiming their princely quality.

Bernabò Visconti’s leopard  Bernabò Visconti’s leopard is actually a cheetah. It is well known that the medieval sense of the word ‘leopard’ includes altogether the leopard, the panther and the cheetah. However, the leopard badge that was first taken by Bernabò Visconti and subsequently taken again by other members of the Visconti House (Figures 10-2c and 10-2d) refers beyond any doubt to the cheetah. Indeed, at the Visconti court one could find representations of cheetahs that were obviously taken from life (Figures 10-2e and 10-2f), as well as written accounts of hunting with the help of cheetah. Regarding this last point, one will recall that the cheetah was traditionally used in the Near East as a hunting auxiliary and that the feline was trained to be able to ride horses. Western crusaders in the Holy Land discovered this type of hunt and imported in Europe both the cheetah and the corresponding hunting practice. Throughout the Middle Ages, the world fastest animal could thus be seen (successfully) running after its prey in Frederic II’s Sicily, in Angevine Naples and in Lusignan Cyprus. By importing the animal in his Milanese Earldom, Giangaleazzo Visconti’s father, Galeazzo II, brilliantly renewed this tradition. Galeazzo II and his brother Bernabò, who reigned together over the Milanese Earldom in the 1360s and 1370s, were true hunting aficionados: Galeazzo II created at the time the so-called parco  vecchio (old park) in the surroundings of Pavia, a game preserve that was to be later tremendously expanded by his son Giangaleazzo (up to c. 20 km2), while Bernabò’s kennels numbered thousands of dogs.

Four case studies  Given the quantitative nature of the previous study as well as the very limited information about heraldic badges (viz. the name of the animal and the date of the badge), the reader must feel somewhat frustrated. Indeed, our investigation did not answer crucial questions such as: why did a given individual take such or such animal as his badge? What was the relationship between the owner and the animal? Did the emblematic animal correspond to an actual animal in real life? In order to address these issues, we will devote the present section to four case studies, namely Giangaleazzo Visconti’s leopard, Jean de Berry’s bear, Richard III’s boar and Louis XII’s porcupine. Actually, these case studies will not only give us the opportunity to better understand the relationships between these princes and their emblematic animals, they also will allow us to take into account the various material forms of heraldic badges. Up to now, we have essentially presented these badges as sheer abstract signs, and it is more than time to discover their concrete aspect.25 As a 24

Let us turn from the animal to the emblem: Bernabò’s original badge was actually a leopardo  galeato (helmeted cheetah) (Figure 10-2a), 26 a response to his brother Galeazzo II’s canting badge which displayed the figure of a helmeted (Italian:

London, Royal Beasts, 69.

Regarding the material aspect of heraldic badges, the particular yet important case of princely dress has been addressed by the author: O. Vassilieva-Codognet, “L’étoffe de ses rêves : le vêtement du prince et ses parures emblématiques à la fin du Moyen Âge,” in Se vêtir à la cour en Europe (1400–1815), eds. Isabelle Paresys and Natacha Coquery (Lille: IRHIS, 2011), 43–66.  25

Gianfranco Rocculi, “Un’ impresa decifrata: il ‘leopardo galeato’,” in Atti  della  Società  Italiana  di  Studi  Araldici (Milan, 2009), 207–230. 26

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O. Vassilieva-Codognet: Ambiguous Figures of Otherness…

Figure 10‐2. Clockwise from top left:   2a. Bernabò Visconti’s Leopardo galeato badge. Al‐Faḍl ibn Sahl’s Liber judiciorum et consiliorum, Workshop of Giovanni  Benedetto da Como, Lombardy, before 1385. Paris, BnF, ms. latin 7323, fol. 5. (detail).  2b. Sketch for a badge with the inscription ‘leon pardo in un giardino’ (‘leopard in a garden’). Drawing from Giovannino de’  Grassi’s sketch book, follower of Giovannino de’ Grassi, c. 1400. Bergamo, Biblioteca Civica Angelo Mai, ms. Cassaf. 1.21,  fol. 17 (detail).  2c. Emblematic cheetah in an Adoration of the Magi scene. Visconti Prayer book, Michelino da Besozzo, Milan, c. 1410–1420.  New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, ms. M 944, fol. 6.  2d. Sleeve with embroidered cheetah. Panel from a cassone, Northern Italy, second quarter of 15th century. London, Victoria &  Albert Museum, inv. 8974‐1863.  2e. Three cheetahs in front of their kennels. Giovannino de’ Grassi’s sketch book, Giovannino de’ Grassi, 1380–1398. Bergamo,  Biblioteca Civica Angelo Mai, ms. Cassaf. 1.21, fol. 8 (detail).  2f. Cheetah, possibly drawn from life. Giovannino de’ Grassi’s sketch book, follower of Giovannino de’ Grassi, c. 1400. Bergamo,  Biblioteca Civica Angelo Mai, ms. Cassaf. 1.21, fol. 21v (detail). 

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Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines

Figure 10‐3. Clockwise from top left:   3a.  Duke  Jean  de  Berry  kneeling  in  prayer  while  wearing  his  usual  bear‐fur  hat,  together  with  his  bears  and  swans  embroidered coat. Lectionary, Pseudo‐Jacquemart de Hesdin, Paris, c. 1400. Bourges, Bibliothèque Municipale, ms. 35,  fol. 17v (detail).  3b.  Duke  Jean  de  Berry,  in  his  usual  bear‐fur  hat,  seated  under  a  canopy  decorated  with  collared  bears  and  swans.  Miniature from the calendar (January) of the Très Riches Heures of Jean de Berry, Limbourg Brothers, Bourges, c.  1416. Chantilly, Musée Condé, ms. 65, fol. 1v (detail).  3c. Bear in the margin of a book belonging to Jean de Berry. Evangeliary, Pseudo‐Jacquemart de Hesdin, Paris, 1405–1410.  Bourges, Bibliothèque Municipale, ms. 48, fol. 1 (detail).  3d.  Bear  resting  at  the  feet  of  Jean  de  Berry’s  gisant.  Marble,  Jean  de  Cambrai,  1416–1438.  Bourges,  Saint‐Étienne  cathedral.

142

O. Vassilieva-Codognet: Ambiguous Figures of Otherness… galeato) lion. Thus Bernabò’s badge is the mere result of the substitution of the noblest feline by its more exotic cousin. And yet, in a certain way, it is also representative of its times, since it combines the perennial aristocratic taste for hunting with the craze for princely menageries. Concretely, this badge took several material forms, all of which involve precious materials and elaborated craftsmanship: jewels, woven fabrics, embroideries, etc. Fortunately, a sketch of such a precious jewel managed to survive to the present day (Figure 10-2b). It is a drawing executed by the workshop of Giovannino de’ Grassi and dating from the last decade of the fourteenth century, which in all probability constitutes a design for a Visconti leopard badge. In this case, the owner of the badge in question could not have been Bernabò Visconti, but rather his nephew Giangaleazzo, Galeazzo II’s son, who (poisoned and) succeeded him in 1385, and who also had a (non galeato) leopard for badge. As a final iconographic observation we note that the animal featured in this sketch is very similar to, and possibly taken from, the right-most cheetah of the previous drawing made by Giovannino de’ Grassi himself (Figure 10-2e).

English at the battle of Poitiers in 1356. It was at the court of Edward III, where he was to spend seven years, that the young Duke of Berry presumably discovered, among other things, the practice of heraldic badges. He took the bear for his own badge very possibly because of the ‘bear’/‘Berry’ phonetic similarity. Whatever his initial motivation may have been, his fascination for the quadruped increased with time. He owned successively three different bears to which he gave rhyming and meaningful names: Chapelain, Martin and Valentin. 27 He developed a close relationship with them, to the point that his familiar bear was supposed to follow him during his frequent travels from one place of residence to another! This mobile menagerie presupposed a dedicated staff and specially made carts and obviously incurred non negligible expenses, but for Jean de Berry the constant presence of his animal fetish seems to have been imperious. To his greatest delight, he could enjoy the company of his favourite bear beyond his earthly existence: in the Saint-Étienne cathedral in Bourges where his body rests, Jean de Berry’s gisant is being faithfully watched over by none other than a stone likeness of his dear Valentin (Figure 10-3c).

Jean de Berry’s bear 

Richard III’s boar 

Jean de Berry’s bear (Figures 10-3a and 10-3d) is a very special case of human-animal identification, the bear being the Duke of Berry’s animal alter ego. Well, at least his dreamed animal double, since this refined patron of the arts and thoughtful diplomat did probably very rarely behave like the king of the forest – that savage and truly redoubtable beast – he took for his emblem. In spite or because of his very polite manners, Jean de Berry’s fascination for the humanoid quadruped leaves no room for doubt. Actually, the Duke of Berry had two different animal badges, the bear and the swan (Figure 10-3b). Taken altogether, both animals form a striking, antithetic pair: the dark and hairy bear vs. the white and pure swan, the most animal of all animals vs. the barely animal bird – Jean de Berry seemingly had a taste for contrast. The origin of his bear badge probably goes back to his youth and more specifically to his captivity in England. He was taken there at the age of twenty, in exchange for the release of his father, King Charles V, who had been previously taken prisoner by the

Richard III’s thirty-six month reign over England was the shortest of any adult king since the Norman Conquest and the most controversial one – Richard III’s black legend is partly due to Shakespeare’s eponymous play. Since Richard III’s personality is as complex as his intentions are debatable, it would be foolish to pretend to know why he chose a white boar as his personal badge (Figures 10-4b and 10-4c). It can nevertheless be surmised that he took this emblem partly because his grand-grand-grand-father, King Edward III, included a blue boar among his many badges. During the many years of his long reign, Edward III – the founder of the Order of the Gartner and the godfather of English heraldic badges – gathered a complete zoo of heraldic beasts: among them could be found a griffin, a bull, an eagle, a leopard, a unicorn, a dragon and a greyhound.28 But if Edward III’s boar is blue, Richard III’s is 27 Michel Pastoureau, L’ours: histoire d’un roi déchu (Paris: Seuil, 2007), 265. 28

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London, Royal beasts, 17.

Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines

Figure 10‐4. Clockwise from top left:   4a. Boar vs. greyhound fight, allegorical representation of the real fight between Jean III de Brabant and Édouard de Bar. Inventaire des chartes de Brabant, Adrien van der Ee, 1438. Brussels, Archives générales du Royaume, Manuscrits divers 983, fol. 266 (detail).  4b. Richard’s III white boar badge found at Bosworth Field in 2009. Gilt silver, England, late 15th century. Bosworth Battlefield Heritage Centre.  4c. Richard III’s white boar badge as livery collar pendant. Effigy of Ralph Fitzherbert, alabaster, late 15th century. Norbury church.

144

O. Vassilieva-Codognet: Ambiguous Figures of Otherness… white: Richard III being a younger son, heraldry’s laws, which in fifteenth-century England also applied to heraldic badges, compelled him to differentiate his own beast from his ancestor’s, which he did by exchanging silver for azure. Whatever may have been his reasons for choosing this animal badge, it was marvellously fitting, Richard III being as courageous, headstrong and undisguised as the beast itself. He was indeed a valiant military man, a resolute ruler and a lifelong loyal supporter of his elder brother King Edward IV – Richard III’s motto being: ‘Loyaulté  me  lie’ (‘Loyalty binds me’). But all this did not prevent him from being a man of his time who was well aware of the importance of public opinion. The War of Roses being also a war of signs, for purposes of propaganda he had made more than ten thousand of fustian badges that were to be distributed to his supporters! Indeed, in the Great Wardrobe accounts for the years 1483–1484 is a reference to ‘iiij  standardes  of  sarsynett  beten  with  white  bores  and  xiijMI  conysances  of  fustian  paynted  with  bores.’29 It was while he was carrying one of these banners that Sir Percival Thirlwall, Richard III’s standard-bearer, died at the final battle of Bosworth Field, in the early morning of August 22, 1485. It is commonly believed that on seeing his barons’ defection, Richard III himself hastened the battle’s fatal outcome by stubbornly charging at the heart of the enemy’s ranks, like the true boar he was – or rather had become in public opinion.

the said pikes upon them. By the way, it may quite possibly be the case that Louis d’Orléans owned porcupines. There are actually two possibilities: the first one regards his father-in-law, who was none other than the well-known animal collector Giangaleazzo Visconti and who could perfectly have offered the little rodent to his son-in-law as a present since at the time his menagerie surely included porcupines (Figure 10-5c); the second possibility has to do with Cyprus, for one will recall that medieval Cyprus was a natural home to porcupines. Returning now to Louis XII, it is significant that the French King revived the porcupine badge in the 1480s, that is to say before embarking in his Italian wars. He did so both because he considered himself the legitimate heir of the Duchy of Milan through his grand-mother Valentina Visconti, Louis d’Orléans’s wife, and because the aggressive symbolism of this badge presented him as a determined warrior, which suited him perfectly. Consequently, during the years of Louis XII’s Italian wars, the porcupine made several appearances under different guises. Not only was its figure painted of the French soldiers’ armours, but, more imaginatively, the animal was also featured in a tableau  vivant that was staged on the occasion of Louis XII’s first Joyous Entry into Paris in 1498: a large (viz. twenty-foot long and thirteen-foot high) mechanical porcupine was able to raise its gold and silver spikes, turn its head and move its eyes!30 In the following years, Louis XII’s aggressive porcupine badge seems to have been sidelined while a new, milder badge took centre stage. Its figure consisted of a large beehive and a swarm of bees, and whose motto was ‘non  utitur  aculeo  rex  cui  paremur’ (‘the king to whom we are subject refrains from using his sting’) (Figure 10-5e). 31 Thanks to the influence of humanism, Latin was especially fashionable at the time, and all subsequent badges of the Kings of France would bear Latin mottoes. This is probably the reason why Louis XII’s porcupine badge is retrospectively thought of as having been complemented by the ‘cominus  et  eminus’ (‘from near and far’) motto. Nothing is less certain. Indeed, all contemporary artefacts displaying a porcupine we are aware of do not bear such a motto (Figure 10-5d). Actually,

Louis XII’s porcupine  Louis XII’s porcupine is yet another illustration of the afterlife of heraldic badges. In this case, Louis XII revived the porcupine badge from his grandfather Louis d’Orléans. We have already seen that Louis d’Orléans’s aggressiveness accounted for the choice of many of his badges. But what was the little rodent’s status in Louis’ days? Following Pliny, one thought that the animal was able not only to defend itself thanks to its pikes, but also to attack his enemies by throwing Anne F. Sutton and Peter W. Hammond, eds., The Coronation  of  Richard  III:  the  extant  documents (Gloucester: Alan Sutton – New York: St Martin Press, 1983), 174. The painter of these banners was called William Melborne, as is recorded in another document: ‘William Melborne for betyng and gylding of iiij standards, beten with the bore and the Kynges worde upon sarsynett of the sore of the Great Warderobe, every pece beting xl s. : viij li.,’ ibid. 133. 29

30 Nicole Hochner, “Louis XII and the porcupine: transformations of a royal emblem,” Renaissance  Studies 15/1 (2001): 21–22. 31

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Ibid., 27.

Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines

Figure 10‐5. Clockwise from top left:   5a.  Embroidered  wolves  on  the  sleeve  of  Louis  d’Orléans.  Christine  de  Pizan’s  Queen  manuscript,  Cité  des  Dames  Master,  Paris,  1410–1414.  London, British Library, Harley ms. 4431, fol. 95 (detail).  5b. Emblematic bell‐collared wolves in the opening miniature of a manuscript dedicated to Louis d’Orléans. Sallust’s De conjuratione Catilinae,  Bedford Master, Paris, c. 1404–1407. Paris, BnF, ms. lat. 9684, fol. 1 (detail).  5c. Porcupine drawn from life and other animals. Giovannino de’ Grassi’s sketch book, Giovannino de’ Grassi, 1380–1398. Bergamo, Biblioteca  Civica Angelo Mai, ms. Cassaf. 1.21, fol. 5 (detail).  5d. Cannon with Louis XII’s porcupine badge. Bronze, 1498–1515. Paris, Musée de l’Armée.  5e. Foreground: Louis XII’s beehive badge; background: Louis XII’s porcupine badge. Jean Marot’s Le Voyage de Gênes, Jean Bourdichon, c.  1508. Paris, BnF, ms. fr. 5091, fol. 15v (detail).

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O. Vassilieva-Codognet: Ambiguous Figures of Otherness… up-to-date personal emblems of their time and accordingly set the tone for the rest of Europe, not least because they appear in Paolo Giovio’s influential and authoritative book. But what about the animals? Among the hundred imprese or so contained in the book there are thirty animals, fifteen of which are redoubtable beasts – these figures are perfectly in line with the previous figures for the years 1490–1520 (cf. Table 10-1). Here is the list of these redoubtable beasts, in their order of appearance in the book: lion, porcupine, salamander, greyhound, falcon, rhinoceros, unicorn, elephant, griffon, lion, scorpion, crocodile, lion, fox and wolf. 32 Turning to the figures’ intended meaning, Paolo Giovio’s explanations can be summed up as follows: two of the lions are merely their owners’ heraldic animals whereas the signification of the third one, which constituted Lorenzo de’ Medici’s badge, is completely lost to Paolo Giovio’s contemporaries, as regretfully admitted by the author himself; the griffon is also the heraldic animal of its owner; the frightening crocodile is only featured for its tears, as stated by the motto which reads ‘crocodili  lacrimae’ (‘crocodile’s tears’), alluding to that proverbial token of hypocrisy; the porcupine and the salamander are the two French royal badges that were already accounted for; the unicorn and the scorpion are paradoxically only evoked for their curative, alexipharmic properties: both the horn of the first and the dead body of the second were believed to remove poison; the elephant, is fighting with, and eventually triumphing of, his mortal enemy, viz. the dragon; the greyhound is redoubtable, as explains the motto: ‘quietum  nemo  impune  lacesset’ (‘no one attacks the quiet with impunity’); the falcon remains unexplained, but may possibly have been chosen because it is a redoubtable beast; the rhinoceros proves invincible (motto: ‘non huelvo sin vencer’ – ‘I do not come back without victory’ –); the fox is as astute as ferocious, as stated in the motto: ‘simul astu et dentibus utor’; the wolf is represented while fleeing a couple of dogs, with a slaughtered sheep in its mouth, thus living up to its image of outlaw (motto: ‘pavent  oves, timent canes, intrepidus maneo’ – ‘the sheep are scared, the dogs afraid, but I remain impassive’ –).

the main source for the previous assertion seems to be a mid-sixteenth-century book, namely Paolo Giovio’s Dialogo  dell’imprese  militari  e  amorose to which we shall now turn.

Paolo  Giovio’s  Dialogo  dell’imprese  militari  e  amorose  Written at the very end of his life by the famous humanist during the summer otium of 1551 and published in 1555 three years after his death, Paolo Giovio’s Dialogo dell’imprese militari e amorose is an extremely important treaty on heraldic badges. Well, at least on sixteenth-century badges, since its informative value regarding the actual genesis of fourteenth-century badges is close to zero. On the other hand, Paolo Giovio’s treaty will perfectly introduce us to the developments of para-heraldry at that time that his book both recorded and accelerated, for it constituted partly a descriptive and partly a normative work. By the mid-sixteenth century, heraldic badges were more and more systematically composed of both a figure and a motto, this latter being written in a foreign language, preferably Latin. To put it in Giovio’s words: the impresa needs both corpo ed anima (body and soul), i.e. figure and motto – the medieval heraldic badge is dead, long live the modern impresa! This collusion of word and image, as well as the introduction of (previously unheard) Latin, is the hint of the heraldic badge’s intellectual turn. The prince’s secretary, who now proudly calls himself a humanist, is more and more frequently involved in the making of his master’s (and occasionally other princes’) heraldic badges, and Paolo Giovio himself is the perfect exponent of this fashion. It may be observed in passing that this advent of a new category of heraldry specialists recalls the fourteenth-century advent of another semiotic specialist: the herald. With respect to the collection of heraldic badges presented in the previous section, the imprese gathered and discussed by Paolo Giovio differ on numerous points: they are far (nearly ten times) less numerous; their owners are preponderantly Italian, whether they be dynastic princes or common condottieri; in the overwhelmingly majority of cases, they were creations from that time, several of which were due to Paolo Giovio himself. These imprese thus constituted the most

32 They can be found respectively on pages 14, 25, 27, 38, 43, 51, 67, 78, 83, 93, 109, 120, 131, 145 and 146 of the first edition of Paolo Giovio’s Dialogo  dell’imprese  militari  e  amorose (Rome: Antonio Barre, 1555).

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Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines Obviously, some of these imprese conform to our notion of redoubtable beast. Leaving aside the animals that were brought in merely for heraldic reasons, we are left with the greyhound, the falcon, the rhinoceros, the fox and the wolf, all of which are essentially featured in the previous imprese because they are powerful animals. The first two may be discarded since they are old, fifteenthcentury imprese: the (unexplained) falcon belonged to Pietro de’ Medici and the greyhound to Francesco Sforza – his greyhound being actually the mere revival of an even older Visconti impresa. Now the remaining four imprese were designed by Paolo Giovio himself: he invented the rhinoceros impresa for Alessandro de’ Medici by drawing his inspiration from the famous rhinoceros sent by the King of Portugal to the pope in 1515; he excerpted from Pliny the elephant vs. dragon story33 in order to create the corresponding impresa which records the fierce and famous Fieschi vs. Fregosi vendetta; he conceived both the fox and wolf imprese for obscure condottieri. Regarding these last two imprese, it is worth observing that they come at the very end of a book which, in accordance with the usual practice of heraldic armorials, is hierarchically ordered, starting with the emperor and the king of France and ending with Italian capitani di ventura. In designing these four imprese the shrewd bishop of Nocera perfectly knew who deserved what, i.e. which animal was appropriate for which owner: the invincible rhinoceros for the Medici prince, the mighty 34 elephant for the eminent Genoese kin and the Roman  de  Renart’s protagonists for the common people. Indeed, if at the end of the fourteenth century Louis d’Orléans still wanted to be seen as a wolf, it is significant that, one hundred and fifty years later, the canis  lupus badge is then deemed to be only good for an obscure condottiere.

salamander36 and scorpion),37 Erasmus (crocodile)38 or medieval lore (unicorn).39 As a matter of fact, this is not peculiar to redoubtable beasts, and many of the other animals, as well as many of the remaining entities (plants, minerals, heavenly bodies, human artefacts, etc.), appearing in the book function in the same way: these figures are essentially the bearers of similar marvellous and mythical properties which are very often taken from Pliny, his Naturalis  historia being Paolo Giovio’s principal source of inspiration. Having arrived at this point, one cannot help thinking that the modern impresa is not so much interested in redoubtable beasts simply for their mere redoubtable character. Rather, it seems that the figure (whether animal or not, redoubtable or not) appearing in the modern impresa is but the vehicle for expressing an uncommon, erudite metaphor that is taken from, and refers to, the classical tradition. As regards this last topic, the importance of Antiquity in the book is truly remarkable, for numerous imprese refer not only to the great figures of Jupiter, Mercury, Atlas and other gods or demigods, but also to more obscure historical facts involving consul Fabritius, Phalaris’s brazen bull, Mucius Scaevola’s (right) hand, Juno Lacinia’s or Diana Efesia’s temples and so on. In addition to all this, several mottoes are directly taken from Virgil or Cicero, testifying to the book’s fascination for Antiquity. There is nothing very surprising about this: Renaissance Italy was obsessed with its Roman past and Paolo Giovio himself was an historian. Going back to France and to Louis XII’s porcupine, one will recall that, owing to archaeological evidence, the motto ‘cominus  et  eminus’ – an elegant alliterative formulation obliquely alluding to Pliny’s description of the animal – does not seem to have been in use, at least not widely, during the time of Louis XII, but appears instead to have been a later addition. If this is really the case, then the anecdote is very telling, for it implies that it was a must for a badge to have a (preferably Latin) motto in the 1550s. By then the porcupine was no longer seen primarily as a redoubtable exotic beast, but rather as the mere vehicle for an erudite and alliterative

We previously noted that the elephant vs. dragon anecdote was taken from Pliny. It is also well worth noting that several of the previous, admittedly far-fetched, properties of redoubtable beasts are also drawn from Pliny (porcupine, 35 33

Pliny, Naturalis historia, VIII, 12.

In Pliny’s narrative the elephant is mighty but not invincible, for the elephant and the dragon both die at the end of the battle. In Paolo Giovio’s rendering of the story, the issue of the battle is implicitly (and very probably intentionally) different, since in the end the elephant simply ‘ammazza’ (‘kills’) the dragon – end of story. 34

35

36

Ibid., X, 188.

37

Ibid., XI, 90.

Erasmus, Collected  works  of  Erasmus:  Adage  II  i  1  to  II  vi  100, trans. R.A.B. Mynors (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991), 222 (adage II iv 60).

38

Pliny, Naturalis historia, VIII, 125.

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O. Vassilieva-Codognet: Ambiguous Figures of Otherness… Bibliography    Sources 

quotation. In the sixteenth century, at least in the more advanced intellectual circles, to be (a) redoubtable (beast) is not as fashionable as it was previously: it is simply no longer enough.

Erasmus. Collected works of Erasmus: Adage II i 1 to II  vi 100. Translated by R.A.B. Mynors. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991. Giovio, Paolo. Dialogo dell’imprese militari e amorose. Rome: Antonio Barre, 1555. Physiologos:  le  bestiaire  des  bestiaires. Translated by Arnaud Zucker. Grenoble: Jérôme Millon, 2005. Pliny. Naturalis  historia. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1947–1985. Sutton, Anne F., and Peter W. Hammond, ed. The  Coronation  of  Richard  III:  the  extant  documents. Gloucester: Alan Sutton – New York: St Martin Press, 1983.

*** Looking back at the evolution of para-heraldic devices over time, and at the risk of grossly oversimplifying, the following picture emerges: the original thirteenth-century animal crest almost physically turns the knight who wears it into an animal, since the man actually bears the beast’s horns, feathers or teeth. In the next century, the nascent heraldic badge indicates a further, yet slightly more removed, symbolic identification between man and animal. In the case of a collared animal, this identification is even more removed: the man is no longer the beast, but rather its owner, and he inherits its redoubtable character by a sort of transitivity – the one provided by the associative character of symbols and words. At the turn of the sixteenth century, the redoubtable beast metaphor – that archaic paradigm of aggressiveness – begins to lose some ground as the badge’s owner prefers other metaphors to express his ideal self, turning to more subtle properties of animals, plants or minerals. And yet, during the Renaissance military men were as heroic as ever – or rather, as heroic as they ever pretended to be. But instead of dreaming of dazzling adventures in an Arthurian forest full of redoubtable beasts, they were gazing at humanity’s most glorious past, namely Antiquity – exchanging thus animal otherness for cultural otherness. Consequently, their role models became Jason, Alexander, Ulysses and above all Hercules. Innumerable are the sixteenth-century princes and kings who have been allegorically portrayed under the guise – the Nemea lion’s skin – of the great Stoic hero! Redoubtable beasts play hardly any role in this grandiose revival of heroic Antiquity, except that of designated victims: the crazy horses, the furious bull, the ubiquitous hydra are but the faire‐valoir of (super)human valiance. At the threshold of the early modern times, the sixteenth-century hero definitively leaves the ancestral, mythical forest – abandoning to rust and dust the medieval speculum of redoubtable beasts.

Studies  Alexander, Jonathan, and Paul Binski. Age  of  Chivalry: Art in Plantagenet England 1200–1400, exhibition catalogue. London: Royal Academy of Arts, 1987. Boulton D’Arcy, Jonathan Dacre. The Knights of the  Crown. The Monarchical Orders of Knighthood in  Later Medieval Europe, 1325–1520. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 1987. George, Wilma. “The yale.” Journal of the Warburg  and Courtauld Institutes 31 (1968): 423–428. Hablot, Laurent. “La devise, mise en signe du prince, mise en scène du pouvoir.” PhD diss., University of Poitiers, 2001. Hochner, Nicole. “Louis XII and the porcupine: transformations of a royal emblem.” Renaissance Studies 15/1 (2001): 17–36. Lewis, Peter S. “Une devise de chevalerie inconnue créée par un comte de Foix.” In Essays in later  Medieval  French  History, 29–36. London – Ronceverte: The Hambledon Press, 1985. London, Hugh Stanford. Royal Beasts. East Knoyle Wilts: The Heraldic Society, 1956. Moriceau, Jean-Marc. L’homme  contre  le  loup:  une  guerre de deux mille ans. Paris: Fayard, 2011. Nordberg, Michael. “Les sources bourguignonnes des accusations portées contre la mémoire de Louis d’Orléans.” Annales  de  Bourgogne 31 (1959): 82–98. Pantens-Van den Bergen, Christiane. “La représentation et la signification des animaux comme cimiers héraldiques.” Revue  belge  d’archéologie et d’histoire de l’art 62 (1993): 5–15.

Odell Shepard, The  Lore  of  the  Unicorn (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1930), 119–127.

39

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Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines Pastoureau, Michel. Traité  d’héraldique. Paris: Picard, 1993. Pastoureau, Michel. “L’emblématique princière à la fin du Moyen Age, essai de lexique et de typologie.” In Héraldique  et  emblématique  de  la  maison  de  Savoie  (XIVe‐XVe  s.), edited by Bernard Andenmatten, Annick Vadon, and Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, 11–43. Lausanne, 1994. Pastoureau, Michel. L’ours:  histoire  d’un  roi  déchu. Paris: Seuil, 2007. Pastoureau, Michel. Bestiaires du Moyen Âge. Paris: Seuil, 2011. Rocculi, Gianfranco. “Un’ impresa decifrata: il ‘leopardo galeato’.” In Atti della Società Italiana  di Studi Araldici, 207–230. Milan, 2009. Shepard, Odell. The  Lore  of  the  Unicorn. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1930. Starkey, David. “The age of the household: politics, society and the arts c. 1350–c. 1550.” In The  later  Middle  Ages, edited by Stephen Medcalf, 225–290. London: Methuen & Co, 1981. Vassilieva-Codognet, Olga. “L’étoffe de ses rêves : le vêtement du prince et ses parures emblématiques à la fin du Moyen Âge”. In Se  vêtir à la cour en Europe (1400–1815), edited by Isabelle Paresys and Natacha Coquery, 43–66. Lille: IRHIS, 2011.

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EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

María Victoria Chico Picaza

scholarships from Complutense University in Madrid and the Ministry of Education of Spain. He has been a short term research fellow at the Centre d’Études Supérieures de Civilisation Médiévale (Poitiers) and the Groupe d’Anthropologie Historique de l’Occident Médiéval (EHESS – CNRS), and invited researcher at the Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art (Paris). He has published several articles on Romanesque sculpture of the Cathedral of Jaca (Aragon, Spain) and participated in many international seminars and conferences at Queen Mary – University of London, the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, or the International Medieval Congress at the University of Leeds, in whose last editions he has organised sessions.

María Victoria Chico Picaza is Senior Lecturer of Medieval Art History at Complutense University in Madrid (UCM). She was Vice-dean of Academic Organisation at the Faculty of Geography and History of this institution between 1997 and 2010 and she is actually Secretary of the Editorial Committee of the journal Anales  de  Historia  del  Arte and Coordinator of the European M.A. in Advanced Studies in Spanish Art History (UCM) since 2010. She has extensive experience in teaching undergraduate and postgraduate Art History students in many subjects such as Sumptuary Arts of the Middle Ages, Andalusi Art, Byzantine Art and its Influence, ‘Mudejar Art and Mudejarism,’ Medieval Painting and Society, or Promoters in Hispanic Art during the 15th Century. She specialises in late medieval painting and manuscripts and has participated in many national and international medieval conferences (IMC University of Leeds, CESCM – Poitiers, University of the South, Sewannee – Tenn. USA, University of Santiago de Compostela, Cátedra Alfonso X el Sabio – El Puerto de Santa María, Fundación Santa María la Real – Aguilar de Campoo). She has also coordinated the second and fourth editions of the international conference Jornadas  Complutenses  de  Arte Medieval at the UCM in 2008 and 2010. Since 1983 she has published different books and articles in journals, exhibition catalogues and facsimile editions on Late Medieval Castilian art, with special focus in the court of Alfonso X the Wise (including her Ph.D. Composición  pictórica  en  el  Códice  Rico  de  las  Cantigas  de  Santa  María, 1987), as well as on fifteenth-century painting and Islamic and Byzantine Art.

Mónica Ann Walker Vadillo Mónica Ann Walker Vadillo (Ph.D., Complutense University in Madrid, 2013) currently holds a Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellowship in the Digital Humanities at the University of Waterloo, Ontario (Canada). She was the recipient of a pre-doctoral scholarship from the Ministry of Education of Spain for her dissertation on the iconography of Bathsheba in Medieval Manuscripts. In addition, she has completed short term research stays at Harvard University (Massachusetts, USA), the Department of Medieval Studies at the Central European University (Budapest, Hungary), the Warburg Institute (London, England) and the J. Paul Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles (California, USA). Her M.A. thesis Bathsheba  in  Late  Medieval  French  Manuscript  Illumination:  Innocent  Object  of  Desire or Agent of Sin? was published in 2008 by the Edwin Mellen Press. She has also published other articles on the iconography of biblical women, book presentation scenes, and the Cycle of the Life and Passion of Christ in the Bible of Ávila. She has participated in numerous international congresses, given several public lectures, and she has been involved in the organization of congresses at the University of Florida and at Complutense University, and sessions at Leeds International Medieval Congress.

Francisco de Asís García García Francisco de Asís García García is completing his Ph.D. dissertation at Complutense University in Madrid on the beginnings of Romanesque art in Aragon and its relation to the Gregorian Reform and the Aragonese Monarchy. He was awarded the First National Spanish End of Studies Prize in Art History (2007) and has enjoyed pre-doctoral

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Thierry Buquet

metaphysics, epistemology, and action theory, especially in Avicenna and Duns Scotus, and their influence in modern and contemporary philosophy. Among other publications, he has books on both Avicenna’s (La metafísica de Avicena:  la  arquitectura  de  la  ontología, 2011) and Scotus’s metaphysics (Ser e infinito en Duns Escoto, 2013). He currently works as an associate researcher in the Special Line of Classical Spanish Thought at the University of Navarre.

Graduate in history and philology at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE, Paris), Thierry Buquet is a CNRS engineer at the French Institute of the Near East (Ifpo, Beirut). He was previously at the Institute of Research and History of Texts (IRHT, Orléans) for fifteen years. He is now manager of digital humanities and electronic resources at Ifpo. His scientific works are devoted to the history of exotic animals in the Middle Ages, from Orient to Occident, mainly the African and Asian fauna. His research interests are the history of princely menageries, the history of the zoonyms, the history of zoological knowledge and its transmission from Antiquity to the Renaissance. Personal Web page at Ifpo: http://www.ifporient.org/thierry-buquet

Marco Iuffrida Marco Iuffrida has a Ph.D. in Medieval History (University of Bologna, 2012) and currently works for the Vatican Museums. His Ph.D. research is focused on the social and economic relationship between man and dog, especially considering sources such as the barbarian and Carolingian laws, literature, hagiography, focusing on the Early Middle Ages. Marco is also a writer and collaborator of several Italian Medieval magazines. Other research interests are Franciscan History (such as the relationship between Saint Francis of Assisi and animals) and Latin, Greek and Byzantine Palaeography.

Laura Fenelli Laura Fenelli (Ph.D., Medieval History, University of Bologna, 2007) is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Bologna and associate researcher at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz. She works on the history of medieval and early modern images as well as on saints’ iconography and hagiography, a theme on which she has recently published a book titled Dall’eremo  alla  stalla.  Storia  di  sant’Antonio  abate  e  del  suo  culto (Rome – Bari: Laterza, 2011).

Gerhard Jaritz Gerhard Jaritz is Professor of Medieval Studies at the Central European University – Budapest, Honorary Doctor at the University of Copenhagen and Senior Scientist at the Institute for the Research into Material Culture at the University of Salzburg. He has also been a guest professor and lecturer at several European universities. Prof. Jaritz is author of numerous publications in cultural and social history of the Late Middle Ages and the history of medieval daily life. He is a member of the International Medieval Congress (Leeds Programming Committee), editor, and coordinator of several journals and databases.

Yehoshua Frenkel  Dr. Yehoshua Frenkel studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Currently he is a senior lecturer at the University of Haifa, where he teaches the history of Arab-Muslim societies in the Middle Ages. As a fellow of the Annemarie Schimmel Kolleg for the History and Society during the Mamluk Era – University of Bonn, he works at present on social practices and legal history of Egypt and Syria (1250–1517). On these themes several contributions have been published by him recently.

Delia Kottmann Delia Kottmann studied History of Art at the Universities of Tübingen, Padua and Paris III Sorbonne Nouvelle. Her Master’s thesis focused on the Romanesque murals of Castel Sant’Elia (Viterbo, Italy). After a DÉA at the CÉSCM of Poitiers on the Romanesque murals in the crypt of

David González Ginocchio David González Ginocchio holds Ph.D.s. in Philosophy by the Panamerican University (Mexico City) and the University of Navarre (Spain). His research focuses on medieval

152

Olga Vassilieva‐Codognet

Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe (Vienne, France) she received a scholarship from the German Centre of History of Art in Paris for her doctoral thesis on the Romanesque murals of Saint-Savin (cotutelle at the ÉPHÉ – Paris and the Dresden University of Technology) and thereafter a scholarship at the European Graduate College ‘EGC 625: Institutional orders, script and symbols,’ financed by the DFG. She is a member of the networking project ‘ZeitenWelten. Zur Verschränkung von Weltdeutung und Zeitwahrnehmung im frühen und hohen Mittelalter.’

Olga Vassilieva-Codognet was born in Saint Petersburg where she graduated as a textile engineer. She then moved to Paris to study with Michel Pastoureau at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, where she is currently completing her Ph.D. on Fortune’s iconography (11th–16th centuries). She is a member of the Society for Emblem Studies and of the CIETA (Centre International d’Étude des Textiles Anciens) and she has written more than a dozen papers on heraldry and emblems, dress, portraits, medieval and modern iconography. She also co-organised with Michel Pastoureau the international colloquium Des  signes  dans  l’image  :  usages  et  fonctions  de  l’attribut  dans  l’iconographie  médiévale (Brepols, 2013).

Aleksander Pluskowski Aleks Pluskowski teaches medieval archaeology at the University of Reading. His research includes physical and conceptual biodiversity in medieval Europe and particularly responses to large carnivores and the role of animals as material culture. He is also interested in, and often combines his ecological research with, religious conversion and heterodoxy, and most recently crusading and related colonisation in frontier regions. He is currently directing a major international project investigating the environmental impact of the crusades in the eastern Baltic region, funded by the European Research Council. He is also involved in a research programme on the archaeology of colonialism in the Indian Ocean World, focusing on slavery and indenture on Mauritius.

Svetlana Tsonkova Svetlana Tsonkova has an M.A. degree in Classical Philology from the University of Sofia, and a M.A. degree in Medieval Studies from the Central European University – Budapest, where she is a Ph.D. candidate. Her doctoral research deals with medieval and early modern Bulgarian verbal charms and amulets, and their roles and applications in everyday life. In connection with her doctoral research, she spent twenty months as an exchange Ph.D. student at the Department of Estonian and Comparative Folklore at the University of Tartu. She also specialised in Germany and Norway, and has a number of conference papers and publications on the topic of cultural analysis of verbal magic, charms, and amulets.

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