Medieval French bestiaries
The French Bestiaries of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries marked the culmination of at least two traditions of Beast Legend.
Medieval Animal Trials
Why were animals put on trial – for murder or for eating crops – in the Middle Ages?
Matthew Paris and Henry III’s elephant
Matthew Paris’s drawings of Henry III’s elephant are well-known, and popular accounts of the Tower of London often mention the elephant’s brief residence there.
A Medieval How-to Book for Shepherds
A recently published book is offering insights into fourteenth-century farming practices and the life of a shepherd named Jean de Brie.
Medieval Advice on How to Take Care of Your Pet
Medieval people did have pet dogs, cats and other animals. Here is some of the advice they gave about taking proper care of these animals.
War dogs among the early Irish
In the Celtic world, as elsewhere, canines were admired for their senses of sight, smell and hearing. Dogs were used on hunting expeditions and to guard homes, as domestic pets and as a source of food
That Melodious Linguist: Eloquence and Piety in Christian and Islamic Songbirds
That Melodious Linguist: Eloquence and Piety in Christian and Islamic Songbirds Cam Lindley Cross University of Chicago, December 8 (2010) Abstract “Birds,” writes Albertus…
Medieval Pet Names
What did people in the Middle Ages name their dogs and cats?
Feeding the Dogs: The Queer Prioress and Her Pets
Everybody knows what we should think about the Prioress’ love for animals. She steals from the poor by feeding her ‘smale houndes’ roast meat and good bread. And she’s breaking the rules just by keeping pets.
Man Bites Dog: Alarming Effects of Medieval Animal Venom
This paper was part of a fantastic series on mental health and disability in the Middle Ages. It was very humorous. This paper examined various types of bites, the “medieval symptoms” and some cures. So if you don’t want to bark like a dog, or lash out at people with your teeth, read on…
Jewish Hawking in Medieval France: Falconry, Rabbenu Tam, and the Tosafists
Falconry reached an apex in the Middle Ages and Renaissance periods, but in the modern era it was displaced to a great extent by the use of firearms. The present article explores the medieval Jewish knowledge of, and especially the exploitation of this technique, centered in twelfth-century Northern France in the communities surrounding the great master Tosafist, Rabbenu Tam.
Horses for Courses? Religious Change and Dietary Shifts in Anglo-Saxon England
The spread of Christianity across England over the course of the Anglo-Saxon period brought new worldviews, ways of acting and dietary habits.
The historical basis of Lycanthropism or: where do Werewolves come from?
Werewolves, Lycanthropes or Man-Wolves appear in many German, French and Scandinavian stories. Nowadays there exists an image of these creatures, which combines almost all the aspects of the werewolf-myths around the world, that was brought to us by Hollywood.
Animals on Trial
The history of animals in the legal system sketched by Evans is rich and resonant; it provokes profound questions about the evolution of jurisprudential procedure, social and religious organization and notions of culpability and punishment, and funda-mental philosophical questions regarding the place of man within the natural order.
Why did the English people stop eating horses in the Middle Ages?
People living in Anglo-Saxon England were turned off the idea of eating horses once they became Christian as they believed it was ‘pagan’ food, argues a new research paper.
An Environmental History of the Middle Ages: The Crucible of Nature
John Aberth focuses his study on three key areas: the natural elements of air, water, and earth; the forest; and wild and domestic animals.
Riding To The Afterlife: The Role Of Horses In Early Medieval North-Western Europe
In order to establish the role of horses in the pre-Christian religions of Anglo-Saxon England, Viking-Age Scandinavia and other Germanic regions in mainland Europe, this dissertation will look for evidence of burial, sacrifice and other rituals involving horses in both archaeological and literary sources
Animals in Medieval Sports, Entertainment, and Menageries
We shall see that apes, marmosets, and popinjays were hardly the only kinds of animals pressed into service as entertainers for medieval people, for virtually every common European animal – and a large number of exotic imported species as well – took some part, large or small, in games, spectacles, menageries, performances, tournaments, and displays.
Human Drama, Animal Trials: What the Medieval Animal Trials can Teach Us About Justice for Animals
There is a long history, mainly from the medieval and early modern periods, of animals being tried for offenses such as attacking human beings and eating crops.
Greenland’s Viking settlers gorged on seals
A Danish-Canadian research team has demonstrated the Norse society did not die out due to an inability to adapt to the Greenlandic diet: an isotopic analysis of their bones shows they ate plenty of seals.
An Ecoritical Approach to Chaucer. Representations of the Natural World in the English Literature of the Middle Ages
The choice to write and present a study of nature in medieval English literature from an ecological perspective has been originated by a personal interest in the urgency of the deep environmental crisis we are faced with and by the drive to expand the eco- oriented study of representations of nature in literature to chronological and spatial areas well beyond those originally typical of ecological criticism.
Horses of Agency, Element, and Godliness in Tolkien and the Germanic Sagas
What is the contract between man and equine that allows a beast ten times our size and one hundred times our strength to willingly serve in our ambitions? What magnetism (and who placed it) is it that draws humanity and horses together?
Environmental impact of the Baltic Crusades: deforestation, animal extinction, dogs no longer on the menu
A multidisciplinary project seeks to understand the environmental impact of the Baltic Crusades. Horses, for example, aided the Christians in battle, while the castles the Crusaders built decimated forests.
Fools, Devils, and Alchemy: Secular Images in the Monastery
The fool is one of the most popular and stable character types throughout cultures and times. This is especially true of medieval Europe. The fool, sometimes a jester, sometimes a clown or a trickster, is always recognizable through his abnormal appearance.
Avorio d’ogni ragione: the supply of elephant ivory to northern Europe in the Gothic era
Why, after a scarcity of elephant ivory in northern Europe during the twelfth century, was there sudden access to such large tusks around 1240?