Man and Animals in the Byzantine World

165
Man and Animals in the Byzantine World
Taxiarchis G. Kolias (Athens)
This research project focuses on the relationship between humans and the
environment in the Middle Ages. In spite of the great significance of the “animal”
in various fields of human activity, the topic has not been so far studied
independently, at least within Byzantine Studies. The aim of this project is the
study of the importance of animals for people and the relationship between people
and animals in Byzantium, that is, the Eastern Roman Empire which survived
in southeastern Europe, Asia Minor and the eastern Mediterranean (until
the fifteenth century), characterized by new cultural features, such as Christianity,
the Greek language, and Byzantium’s cultural influence in the Middle East
and on the Slavs of the South.
The project is organized by the Faculty of Literature (School of Philosophy,
University of Athens), the Department of Byzantine Literature and
Folklore. This research endeavour is the result of the material that the initiator of
the project has accumulated over the years. Since 2001, the project has been partially
funded by the University of Athens Research Committee. In 2005, twoyear
funding was obtained from the Operational Programme for Education and
Initial Vocational Training, co-financed by the European Social Fund and National
Resources. This provided for the employment of one researcher and one
part-time research associate, as well as technical support. Within the frame of
the financed project, research focuses on the period between the eighth and
eleventh centuries. Although such a chronological distinction cannot be easily
justified, it was necessary for practical reasons. Nevertheless, broader research is
essentially extended throughout the entire Byzantine period.
At the current stage, data concerning animals are being drawn from primary
written sources. But it is planned to extend the research into the areas of
Byzantine art, archaeology and archaeozoology in collaboration with colleagues
in these areas.
Of course, references to animals are variously attested in all genres of the
medieval Greek literary tradition. Firstly, works which are expected to contain
abundant information on animals are scrutinized, for example dream interpretations,
vernacular literature (symbolic legendary stories with animals), veterinary
accounts, medical accounts with information on human diet, lives of Saints, medieval
dictionaries of the Greek language, legislation, epistles and so on. During
the study of these sources the databases Thesaurus Linguae Graecae and Dum166
barton Oaks Hagiography are useful and facilitate the researcher in tracing the
relevant passages.
Up to now, the activities of this project are the following: collecting the
relevant secondary bibliography, listing the main sources (written almost exclusively
in Greek), which are expected to include considerable information concerning
animals. There will also be a systematic study of these sources and inclusion
of information into a database.
The database is in Greek but it is hoped that English will also be employed.
The information held in this database will also be of interest to non-
(modern)Greek speakers because through it will be possible to pick out passages
about animals in primary sources.
The main themes of the research project are: animals as part of the human
diet, animal symbolism, medieval attitudes towards animals, their importance in
transportation, war, economy and agriculture. It is also expected to find material
about humans working with animals, such as shepherds, nomads, horsemen,
blacksmiths, fishermen, hunters, traders of animals and animal products, craftsmen
and others for whom animals represented a source of living and an energy
resource; in other words, about medieval people within the confines of Byzantine
society who depended on the natural environment and for whom animals
were a source of inspiration and interpretation.
Contact address:
Prof. Dr. Taxiarchis G. Kolias
Department of Byzantine Philology and Folklore
Faculty of Philology, School of Philosophy
University of Athens
157 84 Zographou – Athens
e-mail: kolias@phil.uoa.gr
ANIMAL DIVERSITIES
Edited by
Gerhard Jaritz and Alice Choyke
MEDIUM AEVUM QUOTIDIANUM
HERAUSGEGEBEN VON GERHARD JARITZ
SONDERBAND XVI
ANIMAL DIVERSITIES
Edited by
Gerhard Jaritz and Alice Choyke
Krems 2005
GEDRUCKT MIT UNTERSTÜTZUNG DER ABTEILUNG
KULTUR UND WISSENSCHAFT DES AMTES
DER NIEDERÖSTERREICHISCHEN LANDESREGIERUNG
Cover illustration:
The Beaver,
Hortus Sanitatis (Strassburg: Johannes Prüm the Older, c. 1499),
Tractatus de Animalibus, capitulum xxxi: Castor.
Alle Rechte vorbehalten
– ISBN 3-90 1094 19 9
Herausgeber: Medium Aevum Quotidianum. Gesellschaft zur Erforschung der materiellen
Kultur des Mittelalters, Körnermarkt 13, A–3500 Krems, Österreich. Für den Inhalt verantwortlich
zeichnen die Autoren, ohne deren ausdrückliche Zustimmung jeglicher Nachdruck,
auch in Auszügen, nicht gestattet ist. – Druck: Grafisches Zentrum an der Technischen
Universität Wien, Wiedner Hauptstraße 8-10, 1040 Wien.
Table of Contents
Preface ………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 7
Aleksander Pluskowski, Wolves and Sheep in Medieval Semiotics,
Iconology and Ecology: a Case Study of Multi- and Inter-disciplinary
Approaches to Human-Animal Relations in the Historical Past …………… 9
Alice M. Choyke, Kyra Lyublyanovics, László Bartosiewicz,
The Various Voices of Medieval Animal Bones ………………………………. 23
Grzegorz Żabiński, Swine for Pearls?
Animals in the Thirteenth-Century Cistercian Houses
of Henryków and Mogiła ………………………………………………. 50
Krisztina Fügedi, Bohemian Sheep, Hungarian Horses, and Polish Wild Boars:
Animals in Twelfth-Century Central European Chronicles ……………….. 66
Hilary Powell, Walking and Talking with the Animals:
the Role of Fauna in Anglo-Latin Saints’ Lives …………….……………. 89
Gerhard Jaritz, Oxen and Hogs, Monkeys and Parrots:
Using “Familiar” and “Unfamiliar” Fauna
in Late Medieval Visual Representation …..………………………………… 107
Sarah Wells, A Database of Animals in Medieval Misericords …………….. 123
Zsofia Buda, Animals and Gazing at Women:
Zoocephalic Figures in the Tripartite Mahzor ………..…………………. 136
Taxiarchis G. Kolias, Man and Animals in the Byzantine World ………..…. 165
Ingrid Matschinegg, (M)edieval (A)nimal (D)atabase:
a Project in Progress ………………………………………………..… 167
7
Preface
Over the last two decades, interests in animals and the relationship between
humans and animals in the past have increased decisively. This is also
true particularly for the research into the Middle Ages. A variety of perspectives
and approaches can be traced concerning
• the questions asked;
• the used source evidence: zooarchaeological, textual, visual;
• the embedding of the analyses into the wider fields of the study of the
history of nature, environment, economy, religion and theology, signs
and symbols, social history, and so on;
• the degrees and levels of the application of interdisciplinary and comparative
methods;
• the level of consciousness of the diversities of use and functions of
animals in medieval society, on the one hand, and of the contextualized
networks of their meanings, on the other hand.
Such a consciousness of animal diversities and, at the same time, of animal networks
has been the basis for this volume of collected essays. They originate
from a number of international research collaborations, communications, and
presentations at international meetings, such as the annual Medieval Conferences
at Kalamazoo and Leeds. All the contributors have aimed to show individual
aspects of human-animal relations and have also been interested in the
social contexts animals occur in. Therefore, the book is meant to represent Animal
Diversities but certainly also, in particular, the indispensable Animal Contexts
and Contextuality: from zooarchaeological evidence to zoocephalic females
in visual representations of Ashkenazi Jews; from the economic function of
animals in Cistercian houses to the role of their representations in Gothic misericords;
from animals in chronicles or hagiographical texts to their images at different
levels of late medieval visual public space.
Some recently initiated projects, two of them introduced in the volume,
others referred to in the contributions, will hopefully also open up possibilities
for new insights into the variety of roles and functions that were played by
and constructed for all kinds of fauna in the Middle Ages.
“Zoology of the Middle Ages” may then perhaps be seen, in general,
as one of the model fields for representing the importance of relations and connections
between the sciences and humanities, economy and theology, daily life
8
and symbolic meaning, nature and culture, intention and response, as well as
construction and perception, …
December 2005 Gerhard Jaritz
.