Livestock in the Brehon Laws
The content of Brehon Law is as varied as the life of the people, and ranges from law of the person to the regulation of almost trivial details of farming.
Fishes and other aquatic species in the Byzantine literature: Classification, terminology and scientific names
Fish was a substantial food item during antiquity and the Middle Ages for the people living around the Mediterranean area, as it is considered of high nutritional value.
Killing Cats in the Medieval Period: An Unusual episode in the history of Cambridge, England
Were they viewed as pets or pests? How important were they in the extermination of vermin? How much value was put on their skins? And were they ever eaten?
Ŭng Kol Pang, a 14th century Korean treatise on falconry
The earliest evidence for falconry in ancient Korea is found on a 5th-6th century AD tomb wall at Jilin Sheng.
Prosecuting animals in Medieval Europe : possible explanations
From the ninth to the nineteenth century, more than two hundred well-recorded animal trials took place in Western Europe.
“Bad to the bone”? The Unnatural History of Monstrous Medieval Whales
The image of the monstrous whale pervades most medieval textual traditions on cetaceans, but historians have not explored the impact of these cultural perceptions on the use of whales in the medieval world. This paper considers how concepts of the monstrous whale impacted, if at all, the use of whales in the medieval North Atlantic.
Dogs, cats and horses in the Scottish medieval town
This paper is concerned with three domesticated species — the dog, cat and horse — and reviews the nature of their relationships with town dwellers.
Wu Zhao’s Remarkable Aviary
Despite these fertile pre-conditions, the biological fact that Wu Zhao was a woman presented serious problems in her effort to assume the dragon throne. Even in these open times, the Confucian bureaucracy held great political sway just as patriarchal values, which held to the principle that “the male is venerated and the female is denigrated” (nan zun nu bei 男尊女卑), still exerted tremendous social influence.
Animals in an Urban Context. A Zooarchaeological study of the Medieval and Post-Medieval town of Turku
This study aims to reveal what the role and importance of the different animal species in Turku was. This question is studied through the osteological data and documentary evidence, from the medieval to the post‐medieval period and from an urban‐rural perspective.