Das Mittelalter. Perspektiven mediävistischer Forschung

Einleitung

2023-10-06T07:37:58+02:00

Animals have long been in the focus of Medieval Studies. Yet, while there has been a significant conceptual shift in post-modern Animal Studies, an ‘animal turn’, according to which reflections, imaginations, and forms of practice of human–animal relations are studied from theoretically reflected interdisciplinary perspectives, their latest advances have not seen any large-scale response from Medieval Studies. Similarly, modern theoretical and methodological discussions in the field seldomly include findings from Medieval Studies. The question, then, is: where do Medieval Studies position themselves within current trends in Animal Studies and what potential do they have? With the contributions gathered here, we show that the latest methods, theorems, and critical reflections in Animal Studies are highly relevant for the analyses of medieval perceptions and conceptions. Also, by continually reevaluating animality and agency as well as the dynamics between real and allegorical or symbolical functionalisations of animals, Medieval Animals Studies move beyond semiotic frames and thus make a substantial contribution to the field. They may even allow for a historicisation and reconceptualisation of current human–animal relations and their study, helping to understand them as products of (cultural) animal history.

Die Mensch-Tier-Differenz in der gelehrten Medizin des Mittelalters

2023-10-06T07:39:54+02:00

In late medieval medicine, the distinction between humans and animals plays a constitutive role. The anthropological difference is emphasised in key texts dealing with the theory of medicine. However, with the detachment of humans from animals, medicine seems to be in a quandary, which is due to the basic principles of healing and the self-image as a scientific discipline. On the one hand, medicine defines itself as a natural science (physica) whose object is the noblest body, namely that of man, who is considered the “noblest animal” because of his intellective soul. On the other hand, however, medicine does not seem to be concerned with this distinguishing feature – the human soul or intellect – but with the body alone. That this body is to be understood and treated according to the same natural laws and causalities as other animal bodies is beyond doubt, as shown, for example, by the humoral-pathological paradigm, by anatomy, or by the primarily physical therapy of mental illness. The paper discusses how representatives of university medicine in the late Middle Ages, including Pietro d’Abano, Bernardo da Firenze, and Niccolò Falcucci, attempted to elevate their discipline philosophically while reinforcing the anthropological difference. It is argued that with the desire for recognition as a scientific discipline and dominance over other arts and creatures occurs a shift in the medical perspective, toward ideal philosophical images of man and away from the basic needs of disease-prone individual human beings.

Closely Related, but Different

2023-10-06T08:20:20+02:00

Several medieval Arabic zoographical writers include the ape (qird) in their texts on animals, and many of them share the idea that apes are similar to humans. This paper will discuss some stances taken on this similarity, with a focus on the philosophical motivation given in each case, that is, whether the ascribed similarity is argued for on morphological, habitual, temperamental, or other grounds. Through this particular focus and by consulting a broader set of texts, the article builds on previous scholarship on apes in Islamicate societies. The sources considered range from older adab (roughly, “belles-lettres” ) material, such as that found in al-Jāḥiẓ’s (8th/9th century CE, Iraq) ‘K. al-Ḥayawān’ (‘Book of Animals’), to Aristotle’s biological writings and Galen. The paper briefly addresses implications for the supposed borderline between humans and animals (for example, the use of apes as substitutes for humans in dissections). The question arises of whether, according to the authors considered, this divide is fixed or rather blurred, with a possible overlap between already existing established species. Another related question is whether this borderline can be transgressed in a way reminiscent of Darwinian evolutionary theory by allowing for a temporal development of one species into another, a claim made by some scholars, at least with regard to al-Jāḥiẓ.

(F)Rausein, Körperhaar und anthropologische Differenz

2023-10-06T07:45:18+02:00

References to the association of body hair with animality can be found in various late antique and medieval writings. Lactantius or Hildegard von Bingen, for example, argue that the lack of body hair and feathers distinguishes humans from animals. Although even a brief look at the world of nature can shake these assumptions, they seem to have persisted for hundreds of years. Considering body hair in (late) ancient and medieval texts, this article investigates the fragility, the resilience and the overlap of supposed human–animal characteristics. Body hair in medieval texts insinuates processes that take place beneath the skin, and it is the visible expression of qualities and characteristics that are commonly considered animalistic, such as a lack of impulse control or temperance. It is not surprising that a hairy human being (and especially a hairy woman) often stands for the transgression of boundaries in medieval German literature. This can be illustrated by the ‘Raue Else’, a hairy woman in the anonymous text ‘Wolfdietrich’ B/D. The body hair that separates the Raue Else from the courtly world must first be removed so the hero Wolfdietrich can sleep with her and she can eventually be (re)integrated into courtly society. This article focuses on the supposed anthropological difference – naked human and hairy animal – in various texts of (late) Antiquity and the Middle Ages, aiming to show that the categories of ‘animal’ and ‘human’ are not dissolved, but recede into the background. That is, the hair of the body itself becomes a visual moral marker – whether it is on a human or an animal.

Animal Crossings of Human Borders

2023-10-06T07:46:35+02:00

This article examines a selection of border crossings carried out by animals in three of Marie de France’s lays. It will be argued that the animal characters perform acts of border crossing that introduce and highlight a non-traditional representation of the human–animal relationship. The examples encompass the speaking hind in ‘Guigemar’, whose anthropomorphised representation destabilises the human–animal border; the weasel in ‘Eliduc’, which revives its mate and crosses the boundary of life and death; and the messenger swan in ‘Milun’, which disregards man-made (physical) borders and, as a pet, occupies an intriguing position on the human–animal spectrum. Besides their implied subversive potential, the three acts of border crossing also raise questions of agency, self-awareness, emotional capacity, and rational thought. Drawing on these concepts of animal studies, I aim to analyse the animals’ representations and to contextualise them in the philosophical, scientific, and cultural environment of the 12th century.

Von tapferen Löwen

2023-10-06T07:47:45+02:00

The Middle Ages are underrepresented in current German secondary school curricula. To overcome the dilemma between a marginalisation in the educational curricula and a popular cultural interest in the epoch, it would be helpful to integrate current social debates into the teaching of the Middle Ages. A pressing topic today – also in the context of the climate crisis and the resulting imperative of sustainability – is the relationship between humans and animals. This article attempts to show how fruitful recent approaches in Human–Animal Studies can be for teaching the Middle Ages in secondary school. It aims to show that integrating medieval sources in the classroom, inspired by Human–Animal Studies, can help to demonstrate the constructedness and fictionality of the human–animal relationship, thus strengthening animals in their subjectivity and their possibilities of action, ultimately promoting an attitude of critical reflection towards students’ own presuppositions, categorisations, and behavioural patterns. The paper highlights the potentials of this approach using the example of the lion in Felicitas Hoppe’s ‘Iwein Löwenritter’ and Hartmann’s von Aue ‘Iwein’.

Kristin Hoefener: Kultgeschichte als Musikgeschichte

2023-10-06T08:12:14+02:00

Kristin Hoefener, Kultgeschichte als Musikgeschichte. Untersuchungen zu Ursprung, Entwicklung und Verbreitung von Offizienzyklen zu Ehren der heiligen Kölner Jungfrauen (Beiträge zur Geschichte der Kirchenmusik 21). Paderborn, Brill / Schöningh 2022. XX, 452 S. 97 s/w-Abb. 70 Tab.

David Juste, Benno van Dalen, Dag Nikolaus Hasse u. Charles Burnett (Hgg.): Ptolemy’s Science of the Stars in the Middle Ages

2023-10-06T08:13:26+02:00

David Juste, Benno van Dalen, Dag Nikolaus Hasse u. Charles Burnett (Hgg.), Ptolemy’s Science of the Stars in the Middle Ages (Ptolemaeus Arabus et Latinus-Studies 1). Turnhout, Brepols 2020. X, 463 S. 11 s/w-Abb. 24 Tab.

Giorgio Pini (Hg.): Interpreting Duns Scotus

2023-10-06T08:15:29+02:00

Giorgio Pini (Hg.), Interpreting Duns Scotus. Critical Essays. Cambridge, CUP 2022. 290 S.

Joanna Smereka: Textlinguistische Untersuchungen zu mittelalterlichen deutschen Testamenten von Krakauer Bürgern

2023-10-06T08:16:53+02:00

Joanna Smereka, Textlinguistische Untersuchungen zu mittelalterlichen deutschen Testamenten von Krakauer Bürgern. Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2021. 343 S. 1 Abb.

Marion Sorg: Fibelausstattung und Lebensalter in der Merowingerzeit

2023-10-06T08:17:49+02:00

Marion Sorg, Fibelausstattung und Lebensalter in der Merowingerzeit. Studien zu Abnutzung und Gebrauch frühmittelalterlicher Fibeln (Ergänzungsbände zum Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde 129). Berlin, Boston, De Gruyter 2022. 301 S. 56 s/w-Abb. 5 farb. Tafeln.

Katharina Wolff: Die Theorie der Seuche

2023-10-06T08:18:39+02:00

Katharina Wolff, Die Theorie der Seuche. Krankheitskonzepte und Pestbewältigung im Mittelalter. Stuttgart, Franz Steiner 2021. 445 S. 4 s/w-Abb. 6 Tab.

Dissertationspreis des Mediävistenverbandes 2023

2023-10-06T08:10:53+02:00

Auszüge aus den Laudationen für den Preisträger Dr. Jan Glück

Archäozoologie des Mittelalters

2023-10-06T07:49:34+02:00

Animals were indispensable to all pre-modern societies. In the Middle Ages, livestock contributed significantly to the development of human communities. By reconstructing the human–animal relationship through the ages by means of faunal remains from archaeological sites, archaeozoology sheds light on the role of medieval livestock alongside written and iconographic sources. Our paper illustrates this with four species-specific case studies: cattle, dogs, cats, and fish. As a source of food, labour, and various raw materials, cattle were of fundamental economic importance. Among other things, this can be recognized in the increasing proportion of cattle remains in Central European settlements during the High Middle Ages. At the same time, in urban contexts, masses of bone-carving waste products illustrate the importance of cattle bones for this widespread handicraft. In rural milieus, the use of cattle as draught animals is evident from specific limb pathologies. The role of dogs varied depending on the social context, as evidenced by a comparison of faunal data from castles and towns: individuals from elite contexts reached extreme body sizes and a higher age compared to urban dogs. This leads to the assumption that dogs in medieval castles fulfilled specific functions as well-kept hunting companions and pets. Cut marks also prove the consumption of dog meat during the Middle Ages, at least in exceptional situations. Skin processing, however, was more the rule. This also applies to cats, as bone finds with characteristic cut marks from various high and late medieval contexts demonstrate. In the early Middle Ages, the cat was also part of funerary rites. Lastly, fish played an increasingly important role during the Middle Ages. With monasteries spreading across Europe, systematic carp breeding emerged. Archaeozoological finds from monasteries provide insight into the importance of pond farming and the use of local waters.

Auf der Schwelle

2023-10-06T07:52:52+02:00

This article is concerned with whale strandings that appear in royal and manorial administrative sources from late medieval England. Whale strandings were contingent, but stranded whales were also involved in the noble feudal economy. The article shows that the beach was a transitional zone of economic activity and legal claims, from which numerous conflicts arose. Because whales had a specific legal status as ‘royal fish’, contending parties connected their local disputes to whale strandings in order to bring these cases before the royal courts. At the same time, this leads to a narrowing of what the sources say about the appropriation and exploitation of whales in the later and late Middle Ages. Approaches to agency in Human–Animal Studies can, the article argues, help to think about and fill these gaps in economic maritime and legal history.

Was heißt es, eine Tiergeschichte des Mittelalters zu schreiben?

2023-10-06T08:02:02+02:00

What would it mean to write an Animal History of the Middle Ages? This article focuses on this question and is intended as a reflection on the relationship between the study of Medieval History and the (socio-)historical foundations of human–animal relations. It makes a plea for a social history of the Middle Ages beyond an anachronistic anthropocentrism. The conception of a history of animals in the Middle Ages must move away from a juxtaposition of humans and animals and locate human–animal relationships in the hierarchically stratified world order of the pre-modern era. This article aims to raise awareness of the necessity to write a medieval social history based on assemblages that are more than human. Such a social history is to be understood as a relational history that was shaped by historically specific human–animal relations and in turn helped to shape them. On the basis of three assemblages, namely the knight–warhorse duo, the agricultural collaborative work of peasant and ox, and the handling of so-called ‘pests’, the article argues that social and gender orders and their logics of domination cannot be adequately grasped without explicitly including human–animal relationships into the study of medieval societies.

Titelei

2023-10-06T07:35:27+02:00

Inhaltsverzeichnis

2023-10-06T07:37:00+02:00

Michael Italikos’ ‚Monodie auf ein totes Steinhuhn‘

2023-10-06T08:03:12+02:00

If we consider Michael Italikos’ monody of his beloved rock partridge with regard to the anthropological difference between humans and animals, we can observe a constant oscillation: the author gives arguments for the rationality of the rock partridge, but this is only an exception to the rule; he tries to question the anthropological difference, as far as life after death is concerned, on the basis of a biblical passage, only to retract this interpretation again, probably so that he would not be suspected of spreading a heresy. Furthermore, the animal in the human–animal relationship is seen as a ‘companion species’ with a social ‘agency’. The author’s lamenting the absence of a cure for the apparently fatal disease is, in modern terms, about animal welfare and protection. In the end, there is a plea for an empathetic relationship between humans and animals, again based on a biblical foundation: grief and compassion for the animal’s suffering form a moral community between humans and animals. In a certain way, the text thus reflects on a ‘limitrophe ambiguity’ with regard to the human–animal relationship. In the process, genuine love for animals is shown in the guise of sophisticated rhetorical art aimed at an educated audience.

„O admirande apium fervor!“

2023-10-06T08:04:21+02:00

The bee was allegorically charged in the Christian Middle Ages: it was considered a symbol of Mary’s virginity. Some regional Easter Vigil liturgies emphasise this in particular. In southern Italy, from the 10th century onwards, a new medium emerged to mark the significance of the Easter Vigil as the climax of the liturgical year. The vertically inscribed and illustrated parchment scrolls, so-called Exultet rolls, were furthermore important for the ecclesiastical and civil communities. This chant of the Easter Vigil prioritises the bee and its polis, thus transferring an ancient topos to Christian liturgy. This essay aims to trace this transfer, focusing on the agency of bees. The fact that such a significant liturgical text is concerned with a non-human animal is extremely unusual and has not yet been studied from the perspective of Human–Animal Studies.

Animal Agency Reloaded?

2023-10-06T08:07:46+02:00

This article explores the extent to which animals play a pivotal role as carriers of meaning in medieval art. It will be demonstrated that artists related them to the object’s function by selecting specific animal species and by the way the animals are depicted. Since the symbolic meaning of animals was never limited or fixed to one single level, my approach extends beyond their symbolicity and focusses specifically on their performative actions. This approach is by no means new, as it was already taken by Meyer Schapiro in the 1960s. As a case study, I will focus on medieval Italian thrones from the late 11th and the 12th century, whose origin and function have hitherto remained obscure. Within these chairs, animal representations in the form of elephants, horses, and lions play a role that surpasses their function as mere carriers of meaning. It will be shown that important insights emerge from the juxtaposition of the animals depicted in relief to the ones carved in the round. Furthermore, the animals manifest their agency in various ways, depending on the species and the associated essence, ability, and virtue. This can lead to iconographic enhancement as well as an artistically more sophisticated enlivening of the sculpture.

Mensch-Tier-Beziehungen und die Sinne im ‚Liebesbestiarium‘ des Richard de Fournival

2023-10-06T08:09:21+02:00

‘The Bestiary of Love’ (‘Li Bestiaire d’amours’), written around the middle of the 13th century, is probably the most famous work of the French cleric and scholar Richard de Fournival (1201–1260). Drawing on the late antique ‘Physiologus’ and medieval bestiaries, Richard created a narrative with both real and fictitious animals, whose original reading of salvation history he transformed into a narrative of love. This complex work shows numerous references to texts by ancient authors, especially Aristotle’s writings, and Christian ones. But not only love and animals enter into a relationship with each other. It is above all the senses, as well as remembering and forgetting, activated through sensory channels by images and text, that Richard interweaves in his animalistic love casuistry. Combining Human–Animal Studies and Sensory Studies, this article examines the different relationships humans and animals enter into and asks what role the (human) senses play in the ‘Bestiary of Love’. For this purpose, three pairs of animals are analysed as examples (cock and wild ass, lion and tiger, unicorn and female panther); they all embody sensory images of love and also represent imaginations of human–animal relationships.