The Humble Medieval Pig, with Jamie Kreiner
One of the most influential animals of the medieval world, both in the barnyard and on the table, was also one of the most troublesome: the pig. This week, Danièle speaks with Jamie Kreiner about how the humble pig influenced everything from culture to theology.
Study tracks elephant tusks from 16th century shipwreck
The team extracted DNA from 44 tusks. By analyzing genetic sequences known to differ between African forest and savanna elephants, the scientists determined that all of the tusks they analyzed belonged to forest elephants.
The Elephant in the Room, at Gourdon in Burgundy
This talk explores the fragmentary twelfth-century mural depicting an elephant, situated in the lowermost zone, or dado, of the choir wall in the church of Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomption at Gourdon, a small village in the Charolais district of Burgundy. T
Medieval Scottish Deer Parks and Beyond, with Kevin Malloy
Kate Buchanan is joined by Kevin Malloy to discuss Kevin’s journey to studying medieval Scottish history, his work on medieval deer parks, and how researching medieval Scottish history can lead to other work.
Medieval Eels with John Wyatt Greenlee
Medieval historians can sometimes study quirky things. For John Wyatt Greenlee it is researching eels in the Middle Ages. This week on The Medieval Podcast, Danièle speaks with Surprised Eel Historian about the impact of this fish on the medieval world – who was eating them, how they were eating them, and why they were sometimes a great way to pay the rent.
Medieval Rabbit Farming
How rabbit farming was a lucrative business in the Middle Ages.
A 525-year old fish story
There are tales of the ‘big fish’ that got away. Now, researchers from Lund University have revealed that a two-metre long Atlantic Sturgeon was able to escape a royal feast, by remaining in a barrel of a sunken ship for the last 525 years.
A pet cat on the Silk Road
It is rare for archaeologists to come across the remains of a buried cat – to find one along the medieval Silk Road is even rarer.
Oh My Dog! St Guinefort and St Christopher
Dogs and holiness in the stories of St Guinefort and St Christopher.
How to get good horses in medieval China
During the Northern Song period, the best regions for horse breeding had been snapped up by powerful steppe empires. So the Chinese state had to turn to other means to obtain good horses, coming up with a variety of innovative and ambitious schemes in the process.
Over-hunting walruses contributed to the collapse of Norse Greenland, study suggests
The mysterious disappearance of Greenland’s Norse colonies sometime in the 15th century may have been down to the overexploitation of walrus populations for their tusks, according to a study of medieval artefacts from across Europe.
Norse arrival on Iceland led to extinction of its walrus population, study finds
A team of researchers have shown that soon after the Norse arrived in Iceland, that island’s species of walrus went extinct.
(Medieval) Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: Imagining Animals in the Middle Ages
The wild landscape in the medieval imagination is both enchanting and enchanted.
Dead Dogs are so 9th Century
My research looks at specific acts of ritualised mortuary violence enacted on objects, animals, and people by Vikings in the British Isles, and aims to develop a new interpretative framework with which to consider them.
Criminalising Animals in Medieval France: Insights from Records of Executions
This article explores compelling and specific cases from France during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in which animals were formally executed for crimes.
The Kitten that Nearly Killed King Arthur
“I’ve never feared for myself any more than I did when I was entangled with that devil…”
Famous Boars in Medieval Arthurian Romance
In medieval literature boars made teh perfect enemies that the hero must conquer in order to complete their quest.
Why Icelandic Vikings were buried with horses
Archaeologists in Iceland have for decades examined the remains of more than 350 graves from the Viking Age. In approximately 150 of these, teeth or bones of horses were found.
How the Vikings Inhabited Scotland: A Social Zooarchaeological Approach
The field of human-animal relations is a growing area of research, and with regard to the
Viking Age the majority of this research has concerned the Scandinavian homelands.
The Forgotten Beasts in Medieval Britain
This thesis identifies and discusses historical and literary sources describing four species in the process of reintroduction: lynx, large whale, beaver and crane.
A Singular and Plural Beast
In the early Middle Ages, the pig was a caricature for greed, dirt, and disorder (and not much has changed).
Like Master, Like Horse: Five Famous Horses in Medieval Legends
In many medieval legends and literary works, great knights and great horses are often found in pairs; the master’s worthiness manifests in the extraordinariness of his horse.
Man is Not the Only Speaking Animal: Thresholds and Idiom in al-Jāhiz
Furthermore, according to the language of the Arabs, every animal is either eloquent or a foreign-speaker … Man is the eloquent one even if he expresses himself in Persian, Hindi, or Greek.
How did a cockatoo reach 13th century Sicily?
Frederick II’s cockatoo provides a rare window into that world – a medieval world that was surprisingly interconnected.