Animals in the Middle Ages
My blogs
| Industry | Education |
|---|---|
| Location | Chicago, IL, United States |
| Introduction | Animals, the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss once famously observed, are good to think. They are also good to eat, ride, look at, hunt, train for battle, make things out of, and keep as companions. This course considers the many ways in which medieval Europeans used and thought about animals, from the horses, hawks and hounds of the hunt to the sheep, cows, chickens and pigs of the home; the lambs, doves and lions of Holy Scripture; the talking foxes of the beast fable; and the dragons and other fabulous beasts of saints’ lives, bestiaries, and travelers’ tales. Topics and questions to be addressed include the economic and social importance of animals; the symbolism of animals; animals in law, science, philosophy and art; and whether animals were believed to have feelings and/or souls. |