New directions in medieval Animal Studies

"Animals, real and imaginary, played a vital role in medieval societies around the world. From the Middle East to Scandinavia, from medieval Japan to the newly discovered species of the Americas in the fifteenth century, wild and domestic animals were necessary for human survival as sources of food and beasts of burden. Beginning in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, travellers returned from the East with knowledge of extraordinary and exotic beasts, and translations of Aristotle’s works suggested new ways of thinking about human-animal boundaries. We will focus on understanding the role of animals of all kinds in medieval belief systems, assessing how the daily experience of animals shaped collective thought on topics such as pets, fantastic animals,or exotic display animals in menageries."

PMLA, 2009

Antiquity, 1999

Archaeological evidence and historic records are often at variance on the subject of animal husbandry. This paper discusses the problems of integrating the evidence for medieval and later Britain, and offers new discussion on the interpretation of the zooarchaeological data.

Archaeological Journal, 2015

H-France Review, 2021

Recent trends in critical animal studies, or the animal “turn,” have inspired increased interest in the medieval book of beasts. Bestiaries from the Middle Ages provide insight into human understanding of the relationship between mankind and the natural world. At the origin of medieval bestiaries are the second-century CE Physiologus (a Christian didactic text written in Greek containing allegories of beasts, stones, and trees) and textual recensions through the centuries, most notably by Isidore of Seville.[1] Illuminated manuscripts offer a glimpse into the quotidian lives of women and men as they understood medieval Christendom. The beasts that fill these pages act as “memory hooks” as viewers and auditors learn the nature and significance of each animal as an allegorical lesson of orthodox Christian conduct.[2] Just as a dog tongue cures a wound by licking it, so does the priest cure the wounds of sinners through confession and penance.[3] The ubiquity of equine creatures with a long, spiralling horn in contemporary popular culture is just one sign of the enduring legacy of medieval beliefs about the unicorn.

Breaking and shaping beastly bodies: animals as …, 2007

Arthuriana, 2014