Oxen and Hogs, Monkeys and Parrots: Using “Familiar” and “Unfamiliar” Fauna In Late Medieval Visual Representation

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Oxen and Hogs, Monkeys and Parrots:
Using “Familiar” and “Unfamiliar” Fauna
In Late Medieval Visual Representation
Gerhard Jaritz (Budapest and Krems)
Animals played important roles in a variety of fields and aspects of medieval
culture. One finds them as bones in archaeological material representing
food refuse and remains from other economic, social and religious activities.
They appear in textual as well as visual evidence, as representations of ‘real’ or
fictitious creatures, as participants in religious or secular narratives, as symbolic
or metaphoric objects: to document, to warn, to argue, to signal, to teach, to
urge, or to motivate. They could be animals, very familiar in the surroundings
from the immediate environment and also creatures whose existence was only
known from some ancient or religious authorities, from theological or scientific
discourse. Parts of different animals could also be mixed to achieve a variety of
effects.
This way, animals represented, on the one hand, very familiar objects for
their audience and recipients. They turned up in common and well-known situations.
On the other hand, they became beings whose existence, appearance and
function were mostly unknown, or only noted from some far-off messages, from
mentions in the bible, from the writings of ancient savants, or from awesome
travel accounts. Such contrasts between matters of familiarity and strangeness
seem to have determined the image of animals in a multiplicity of evidence.1
And just this familiarity and, at the same time, extraneousness must have influenced
all kinds of perceptions.2 They created and affected the individual
animals’ as well as, generally, the fauna’s function in arguments and discourses.
1 For such an approach towards animals, see also Jacques Voisenet, Bêtes et Hommes dans le
monde médiéval. Le bestiaire des clercs du Ve au XIIe siècle (Turnhout: Brepols, 2000),
particularly chapter I: “Monstres et animaux domestiques, la proximité avec l’homme” (p.
15-52).
2 Regarding the perception of animals in the Middle Ages see, in particular, Esther Cohen,
“Animals in Medieval Perceptions: the Image of the Ubiquitous Other,” in Animals and
Human Society: Changing Perspectives, ed. Aubrey Manning and James Serpell (London
and New York: Routledge, 1994), 59-80.
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It is just such contexts that I would like to concentrate my analysis on visual
source material from the Late Middle Ages, mainly originating from Central
European territories.3
Fig. 1: Saint Bernard strewing salt for the animals.
Familiar representation of fauna was connected with typical late medieval
‘realistic’ depictions which were used to create visual closeness between beholder
and picture, a closeness that was supposed to lead to the important
proximity of the whole message of the image to its recipient.4 Such a situation
3 Concerning the role of iconography for the studies of medieval fauna, see Aleks Pluskowski,
“Hares with Crossbows and Rabbit Bones: Integrating Physical and Conceptual Studies of
Medieval Fauna,” in Medieval Animals, ed. Aleks Pluskowski, Archaeological Review
from Cambridge 18 (Cambridge: Department of Archaeology, 2002), 156-157. For the
analysis of visual sources from medieval France, see Marcel Durliat, “Le monde animal et
ses représentations iconographiques du XIe au XVe siècle,” in Le monde animal et ses représentations
au Moyen Âge (XIe-XVe siècles), Actes du XVème Congrès de la Société des
Historiens Médiévistes de l’Enseignement Supérieur Public (Toulouse: Université de Toulouse-
Le Mirail), 73-92. Regarding an individual object of art, see William Brunsdon Yapp,
“Animals in Medieval Art: the Bayeux Tapestry as an Example,” Journal of Medieval History
13 (1987): 15-73.
4 On closeness and distance in late medieval visual culture, see Gerhard Jaritz, “Nähe und
Distanz als Gebrauchsfunktion spätmittelalterlicher religiöser Bilder,“ in Frömmigkeit im
Mittelalter. Politisch-soziale Kontexte, visuelle Praxis, körperliche Ausdrucksformen, ed.
Klaus Schreiner (Munich: Fink, 2002), 331-346. Concerning the reality effect of late me109
may certainly have been particularly relevant in rural space or for the representation
of rural space.
There is, for instance, the miracle from the legend of Saint Bernard of
Clairvaux’s life concerning his strewing of consecrated salt for the domestic
animals that had been struck by an epidemic (fig. 15).
Fig. 2: Labors of the Months, September:
plowing the field with the help of oxen and horses.
There are also the various and well-known representations of the Labors
of the Months:6 as, for instance, the month of September from the wall paintings
in the episcopal residence of the Upper Italian town of Trento, showing the right
dieval art, see Keith Moxey, “Reading the Reality Effect,” in Pictura quasi Fictura. Die
Rolle des Bildes in der Erforschung von Alltag und Sachkultur des Mittelalters und der frühen
Neuzeit, ed. Gerhard Jaritz (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften,
1996), 15-22.
5 Saint Bernard strewing salt for the animals, panel painting from a winged altarpiece, Jörg
Breu the Older, c. 1500. Cistercian house of Zwettl (Lower Austria). See Cäsar Menz, Das
Frühwerk Jörg Breus des Älteren (Augsburg: Kommissionsverlag Bücher Seitz, 1982), 24-
25.
6 For the Labors of the Months see, generally, Bridget Ann Henisch, The Medieval Calendar
Year (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999).
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people carrying out the right work, in the right way at the right time and, concerning
the topic of this contribution, also with the help of the right, that is, familiar
animals (fig. 27).
One also should think of the examples of moralistic-didactic depictions of
the Virtues and Vices: in this case from Brixen in South Tyrol which shows the
active bishop willing to work, that is, plowing the field with his oxen, and the
idle and inactive bishop refusing to do it (fig. 38).
Fig. 3: The active (virtuous) bishop plowing the soil.
Representations of the Virtues and the Vices are often connected with
animals and with the symbolic values and connotations ascribed to the beasts:9
7 Plowing with the help of oxen and horses, Labors of the Months: September (detail), wall
painting, beginning of the 15th century. Trento (Upper Italy), Castello del Buonconsiglio,
Torre Aquila. See Francesca de Gramatica, “Il ciclo di Mesi di Torre Aquila,” in Il Gotico
nelle Alpi 1350-1450, ed. Enrico Castelnuovo and Francesca de Gramatica (Trento: Castello
del Buonconsiglio, Monumenti e Collezioni Provinciali, 2002), 343-365.
8 Bishop plowing with oxen: The Active and the Lazy Bishop (detail), wall painting, 1420-
1430. Brixen/Bressanone (South Tyrol), cloister of the Cathedral, tenth arcade. See Karl
Wolfsgruber, Dom und Kreuzgang von Brixen. Geschichte und Kunst (Bozen: Athesia,
1988), 39-40.
9 See Mireille Vincent-Cassy, “Les animaux et les péchés capitaux: de la symbolique à
l’emblématique,” in Le Monde Animal et ses représentations au Moyen Âge (XIe-XVe siècles),
Actes du XVème Congrès de la Société des Historiens Médiévistes de l’Enseigne111
like the familiar hog, already in the bible a symbol of impurity that served well
as a mount for an unchaste, vicious couple from Levoča in today’s Slovakia (fig.
410).
Fig. 4: The unchaste couple riding on the impure hog.
ment Supérieur Public (Toulouse: Université de Toulouse-Le Mirail), 121-132; Ron Baxter,
“Learning from Nature: Lessons in Virtue and Vice in the Physiologus and Bestiaries,” in Virtue & Vice:
the Personifications in the Index of Christian Art, ed. Colum Hourihane (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 2000), 29-41; Carmen Brown, “Bestiary Lessons on Pride and Lust,” in The Mark of
the Beast, ed. Debra Hassig (New York and London: Routledge, 2000), 53-70.
10 The unchaste couple riding on the impure hog: The Capital Sin of Unchastity, wall painting,
end 14th century. Levoča (Slovakia), parish church. See Dušan Buran, Studien zur Wandmalerei
um 1400 in der Slowakei. Die Pfarrkirche St. Jakob in Leutschau und die Pfarrkirche
St. Franziskus Seraphicus in Poniky (Weimar: Verlag und Datenbank für Geisteswissenschaften,
2002), 50-52. Concerning the hog in medieval art, see, e. g., Wilfried Schouwink,
Der wilde Eber in Gottes Weinberg. Zur Darstellung des Schweins in Literatur und Kunst
des Mittelalters (Sigmaringen: Jan Thorbecke, 1985).
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Bestiaries and other illustrated encyclopaedic works that dealt with fauna
were not meant for such a public space as the aforementioned wall paintings.11
In the encyclopaedias an attempt was made to mention all known or existing
animals. Therefore, they describe, on the one hand, very familiar creatures and
offer a visual representation of them. On the other hand, they also concentrate
on unfamiliar and perhaps strange beings. An example is the Hortus Sanitatis.
The description and depiction of the louse in this Latin version published at
Strassburg in 1499 (fig. 512), for example, belongs to the first group of familiar
animals and their representations. Some of these vermin appear in and beside the
plate which is positioned between the woman and the man. The main content of
the image again depicts a very familiar situation, that is, delousing the hair of
one’s partner with the help of a licebrush.
Fig. 5: Hortus Sanitatis: The louse.
The Hortus Sanitatis, however, also contains a large number of unfamiliar
animals and their visual representations which would certainly not have been
found in the regions where the producers and recipients of the encyclopaedias
lived. Such examples are, for instance, the centaur (onocenthaurus) and the giraffe
(orasius) (fig. 613).
11 Concerning the reception of bestiaries see in particular, Ron Baxter, Bestiaries and Their
Users in the Middle Ages (Phoenix Mill: Sutton, 1998).
12 The louse: Hortus Sanitatis (Strassburg: Johannes Prüm the Older, c. 1499), Tractatus de
Animalibus, capitulum cxix: pediculus.
13 Hortus Sanitatis (Strassburg: Johannes Prüm the Older, c. 1499), Tractatus de Animalibus,
capitulum cvii: Ex libro de naturis rerum. Onocenthaurus est animal monstruosum et
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Fig. 6: The centaur (onocenthaurus) and the giraffe (orasius).
There are clear connections and contexts between some of the unfamiliar
contents of the scientific encyclopaedias and the public space of religious
paintings. This is particularly true for the unicorn, or for fish and other creatures
natura biforme capite scilicet azinino et corpore velut humano, faciem habet satis horridam
manusque formatas abiles ad omnem actum dum vocem promit quasi loqui incipit. … Hoc
monstrum … inter ceteras bestias ab initio non fuisse tale creatum sed aliquando et alicubi
casualiter ex adulterine commixtione generari. Orasius. Isidorus: Orasius in anteriori parte
altum eminens valde, ita ut extenso capite xx cubitorum altitudinem possit attingere. In
posteriori vero parte demissum est, instar cervi. Collum habet extensum, caput equinum, licet
minus pedes autem et caudam ut cervus, pellem vero sic omni colorum genere diuersimode
variatam, ut homo frustra temptet artificio naturalem eius pulchritudinem imitari …
Albertus …appellat eum Orafflus (Out of the Book of the Nature of Things: The onocenthaurus
is a wondrous animal of ambiguous nature, with the head of an ass and a humanlike
body; it has a rather terrifying face and hands able to do anything, while it issues sounds as
if starting to speak. This wondrous being … was not created in the beginning like the other
animals but born sometime and somehow out of an adulterous commingling. Orasius: Isidor:
The orasius appears at its front part very high so that, with stretched head, it can reach
a height of 20 cubits. But in its back part, it becomes lower, like a stag. It has a long neck, a
horselike head, but smaller feet and a tail like a stag; it has a coat varying in color in different
ways so that man might try in vain to imitate its natural beauty artificially. … Albertus
(Magnus) … calls it Orafflus”]. For the centaur, see Elizabeth Atwood Lawrence, “The
Centaur: Its History and Meaning in Human Culture,” Journal of Popular Culture 27:4
(1994): 57-68; Ludo Jongen, “Do Centaurs Have Souls? Centaurs as Seen by the Middle
Dutch Poet Jacob van Maerlant,”, in Animals and the Symbolic in Medieval Art and Literature,
ed. L. A. J. R. Houwen (Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 1997), 139-154.
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living in waters or in the sea. There is, for example, the mermaid (syrena) depicted
and described in detail in a large number of bestiaries and encyclopaedic
treatises.14 Such beasts also could be found in public space and would have been
visible and ‘familiar’ to everybody, for instance on wall paintings on both the
outside and inside wall surfaces of churches that depict Saint Christopher carrying
Jesus over the river (fig. 715).
Fig. 7: Mermaid in the river crossed by St. Christopher.
A similar situation existed for representations of the dolphin, frater
hominis dicitur, which was said to be very close to humans in its character.16 An
animal like the dolphin which would have been unfamiliar in Central Europe
14 See, e. g., again the Hortus Sanitatis (Strassburg: Johannes Prüm the Older, c. 1499), Tractatus
de Piscibus, capitulum lxxxiii: syrena.
15 Mermaid: St. Christopher Carrying the Christchild (detail), wall painting, 1511. Pens/Pennes
(South Tyrol), parish church.
16 Hortus Sanitatis (Strassburg: Johannes Prüm the Older, c. 1499), Tractatus de Piscibus, capitulum
xxvii: delphin (the illustration is very close to the one of the syrena; see note 14):
Delphinus frater hominis dicitur quia moribus humanis quodammodo assimilatur …(The
dolphin is called the brother of man as it has assimilated with human mores); with references
to Aristotle, Plinius and the Physiologus.
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certainly may have been visually represented differently from its actual appearance.
In the mid-fourteenth-century monastic manuscript of the so-called Concordantiae
Caritatis, one is confronted with a rather strange dolphin whose love
for music is emphasized, as a typological example of the “Annunciation to the
Shepherds” (fig. 817). Sometimes, also the dolphin could find its way into public
space: for instance in a Czech wall painting that again offers a glimpse into the
river through which Saint Christopher carried the ChristChild and shows rather
different dolphins from the one depicted in the Concordantiae Caritatis (fig.
918).
Fig. 8: The dolphin enjoys music and follows the musician.
Such a variety of distinct visual representations is certainly generally
significant for the depiction of unfamiliar animals: for example, the fish or
whale that swallowed Jonah whole and spit him out after three days. The only
17 The dolphin enjoys the music of lutes and flutes, and follows the musician; exemplum to the
Annunciation of the Shepherds, manuscript illumination, c. 1350. Concordantiae Caritatis,
Cistercian house of Lilienfeld (Lower Austria), monastic library, cod. 151, fol. 12v: Simphonidens
vocem delphin sequiturque velocem (The dolphin quickly follows the sound of
chords). See Hedwig Munscheck, Die Concordantiae caritatis des Ulrich von Lilienfeld.
Untersuchungen zu Inhalt, Quellen und Verbreitung, mit einer Paraphrasierung von Temporale,
Sanktorale und Commune (Frankfurt/Main et al.: Peter Lang, 2000), 216.
18 Dolphins, Saint Christopher Carrying the Christchild (detail), wall painting, 2nd quarter of
the 15th century. Boritov (Czech Republic), St. George’s church.
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comparable matter to be found in all depictions of it are what treatises in encyclopaedias
often mention at the beginning of the beast’s description: … est immense
magnitudinis bestia …(It is an animal of enormous size).19 In a similar
way, for instance, very different elephants may be encountered, occasionally
horse-like ones, only recognizable because of their trunks.20 Such a phenomenon
of visual diversity is true for ‘scientific’ representations in encyclopaedias or
bestiaries as well as for images in the public space of wall paintings. Particularly
unfamiliarity led to differences in the depictions, to something that today would
be called a wrong image: a term of which I think that it is generally out of place
when talking about medieval ways of the portrayal of animals that included
specific meanings.
Fig. 9: Dolphins in the river that Saint Christopher crossed with the Christchild.
19 See, e. g., Hortus Sanitatis (Strassburg: Johannes Prüm the Older, c. 1499), Tractatus de
Piscibus, capitulum xiiii: balena.
20 See, e. g., elephant, Death of Eleazar, wall painting, Leonhard of Brixen, c. 1470. Brixen/
Bressanone (South Tyrol), cathedral cloister, third arcade (Wolfsgruber, Dom und Kreuzgang
von Brixen, 31); elephant, Death of Eleazar, wall painting, workshop of Leonhard of
Brixen, c. 1480. Klerant/Cleran (South Tyrol), filial church of St. Nicholas.
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Unfamiliar and strange animals were also used together with familiar
fauna – as indispensable for depicting the totality of living creatures: for instance,
the entirety of animals created by God at the beginning of the world (in
this case, of birds and water animals; fig. 1021) or the ones having fled into
Noah’s arch. There, familiar and unfamiliar animals had to be shown together to
visualize the meant collectivity and totality.
Fig. 10: The Creation of the birds and the water animals:
a collection of familiar and unfamiliar species.
Familiarity and unfamiliarity of represented animals and their functions
and meanings also have to be seen in context within the broad field of animal
21 Creation of the Animals (represented by birds and water animals), wall painting, John of
Kastav, 1490. Hrastovlje (Slovenia), Trinity church. See Marijan Zadnikar, Hrastovlje: romanska
arhitektura in gotske freske (Hrastovlje: Romanesque architecture and Gothic frescoes),
2nd ed. (Ljubljana: Družina, 2002). Concerning birds in medieval art, see Brunsdon
Yapp, Birds in Medieval Manuscripts (London: The British Library, 1981); Gertrud Roth-
Bojadzhiev, Studien zur Bedeutung der Vögel in der mittelalterlichen Tafelmalerei (Cologne
and Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 1985).
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symbolism.22 In a number of cases and concerning specific, often unfamiliar animals,
one may be confronted with a variety of different messages that they contained
and proclaimed directly or indirectly. The application of contrast patterns
occurs regularly.23 Important examples in this context are, for instance, monkeys
that turn up in a number of inter-related contexts. Monkeys are generally rather
unfamiliar in medieval Central Europe and, therefore, sometimes used for the
classification of situations depicting strange phenomena or far-away origins. The
Three Magi, for example, came from far-distant lands. It seems clear that a faraway
animal like the monkey would have fit well with their characterization and
the depiction of their journey.24
Fig. 11: The Monkey and the Fool.
22 Concerning the variety of symbolic meanings and values of animals, see, e. g., L. A. J. R.
Houwen, ed., Animals and the Symbolic in Mediaeval Art and Literature (Groningen: Egbert
Forsten, 1997).
23 For the functions and application of contrasts in late medieval society, see, e. g., Gerhard
Jaritz, ed., Kontraste im Alltag des Mittelalters (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie
der Wissenschaften, 2000).
24 See, e. g., Journey of the Three Magi, wall painting, John Aquila, 1387. Velemer (Hungary),
Roman Catholic church [Dénes Radocsay, Wandgemälde im mittelalterlichen Ungarn
(Budapest: Corvina, 1977), 180]; Journey of the Three Magi, wall painting, 1504. Sv.
Primož (Slovenia), filial church St. Primus and St. Felician [France Stele, Gotsko stensko
slikarstvo (Gothic wall paintings) (Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga, 1972), cxxx-cxxxii]; Journey
of the Three Magi, wall painting, 1420-1430. Morter (South Tyrol), filial church of St.
Stephen in Obermontani [Edmund Theil, St. Stephan von Obermontani bei Morter, 3rd ed.
(Bozen: Athesia 1986)].
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Monkeys were not mentioned in the Bible. Their use in medieval textual
and visual evidence developed, on the one hand, towards their closeness to humans
and, on the other hand, often in context with their manlikeness, towards
symbols of a negative character: of malignity, mischievousness, friskiness, of
‘monkey-ing around’. Therefore, they could closely conform to visions of the
fool (fig. 1125). They also moved towards superbia, to haughtiness, as indicated
by the mirrors that they were shown holding (fig. 1226).
Fig. 12: The Monkey and the Mirror.
However, such negative attributes and their representation would certainly
have demanded perhaps originally not expected and, therefore, surprising positive
contrasts as, for instance, also with regard to hogs, bears, dogs, cats and
foxes, etc.27 Thus, monkeys or apes could be moved into very familiar and
positive spaces. The female monkey from a comparative Flemish example
concentrates on spinning and the upbringing of her offspring, these being
25 The Monkey and the Fool, marginal manuscript illumination, prayer book of Barbara of
Cilli, Vienna, 1448. Vienna, Austrian National Library, cod. 1767, fol. 257r. Concerning
the taking over of bestiary images into the marginalia of psalters and bibles from the 13th
century onwards, see Debra Hassig, “Marginal Bestiaries,” in Animals and the Symbolic in
Medieval Art and Literature, ed. L. A. J. R. Houwen (Groningen; Egbert Forsten, 1997), 171-
188.
26 The Monkey and the Mirror, marginal manuscript illumination, Bible, Austrian (?), c. 1450.
Vienna, Austrian National Library, cod. 1228, fol. 82r.
27 Concerning animals representing examples for and mirrors of human behavior and values,
see, e. g., Voisenet, Bêtes et Hommes, 255-283; Joyce E. Salisbury, The Beast Within: Animals
in the Middle Ages (New York and London: Routledge, 1994), 103-136.
120
important positive activities that needed to be learned by women as indispensable
parts of their obligations in family life (fig. 1328). The didactic message and
moral is obvious: Look, how well even the normally so negative monkeys live
and behave. Take their example and behave in a similar way!
Fig.13: The monkey as a positive example of good family life.
* * *
In conclusion, it should be emphasized that familiar as well as unfamiliar
fauna and their visual representation played an important role in late medieval
society. Both familiarity as well as unfamiliarity could be applied and were used
to address audiences and beholders in various ways to mediate specific religious
and secular messages. Images of strange animals as well as of ordinary ones offered
a variety of possibilities for communication in a number of areas.
28 The female monkey as a positive example for women, taking care of children’s up-bringing
and doing the spinning; marginal manuscript illumination, Prayer Book of Charles the Bold
(Book of Hours of Mary of Burgundy), Flanders, 1466-1477. Vienna, Austrian National
Library, cod. 1857, fol. 17r [photo out of Stundenbuch der Maria von Burgund (Gebetbuch
Karls des Kühnen). Faksimile-Ausgabe, Codices Selecti, vol. XIV (Graz: Akademische
Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1968)].
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In all these cases, one has to be aware of important networks but also differences
with regard to the space in and for which visual or also textual information
about animals was created. There was the scientific zoological space –
certainly referring to medieval ‘symbolic zoology’, and not the ‘realistic’ zoology
that we are used to nowadays. In close context and relation to this
zoological space, one has to be aware of the indispensable religious-theological
range of ideas. There was also the broader public space meant for ‘everybody’
that may have concentrated both on didactic religious and secular contents.
In this way, familiar as well as unfamiliar animals and their context-bound
visual representations were used to mediate easily understandable religious and
secular messages as well as highly complex discourses that required extensive
background knowledge to comprehend. Animal images could contain general
and simple information about right and wrong but also embody difficult analogies.
– One such analogy should finally be mentioned. Parrots were said to die
when their feathers got wet in the rain (fig. 1429). This example was then used
for characterizing Saint Elizabeth of Hungary (fig. 1530) who was never touched
by a drop of rain, – meaning that no “lust coming from any kind of worldly
drop” had ever dishonored her heart, body, and spirit.
Fig. 14: The parrot killed by raindrops.
29 The parrot dies when its feathers get wet from rain, manuscript illumination, Concordantiae
Caritatis, c. 1350. Cistercian house of Lilienfeld (Lower Austria), monastic library, cod.
151, fol. 226v: Pluvia si tangis psitacum male mortibus angis (Rain, if you touch the parrot,
you force him to death). See Munscheck, Die Concordantiae caritatis, 430.
30 Ibidem: Deathbed of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary. See Munscheck, Die Concordantiae
caritatis, 430.
122
Fig. 15: Deathbed of Saint Elizabeth,
never touched by a drop of lust during her life.
All photos (if not mentioned otherwise): Institut für Realienkunde des Mittelalters und der
frühen Neuzeit, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Krems (Austria).
.
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
.