This research explores the diversity of changing human appropriations of animals and their environments in medieval Europe. The approach is interdisciplinary, drawing on archaeology, art-history and written sources as well as analogues from ecology, ethology and anthropology.

Research background

My Ph.D thesis, concerning changing human responses to the wolf and its environment in medieval Britain and Scandinavia has highlighted both the general lack of comprehensive studies on medieval fauna and the importance of a cohesive, interdisciplinary approach. Human responses to the medieval wolf were varied and complex – ultimately governed by dynamic wildlife value systems – and my thesis incorporates a wide range of evidence and perspectives. My Ph.D thesis will be published under the title of Wolves and Wilderness in the Middle Ages by Boydell & Brewer.

The leading monographs (e.g. Salisbury 1994) and collections of papers (e.g. Berlioz and de Beaulieu 1999) on medieval animals are predominantly concerned with written sources, to a lesser extent art, and barely touch on topics such as ecology, habitat and biological profiling. Whilst there is typically little attempt at integrating humans, animals and their co-habited physical and conceptual environments, these are without doubt all bold and important efforts at furthering our understanding of medieval human-animal relations – they are essential foundations for all future research. Aside from the handful of generalised overviews, the majority of studies on medieval animals are extremely specialised – focusing almost exclusively on faunal assemblages, individual artefacts such as bestiaries and hunting manuals or detailed themes such as fur trading and shape shifting (Pluskowski 2002). The importance of animals in virtually every aspect of medieval life cannot be underestimated, yet awareness of fauna and their related environments is typically limited and somewhat clichéd in the wider field of medieval studies. Therefore a fresh and accessible interdisciplinary study exploring the range of potential research avenues is long overdue.

Research Structure

The corpus of specialist studies and the generalisations of overviews is testimony to the potential immensity of this topic. However, combining the detail of individual case studies with broader theoretical perspectives and complementary analogues, it is possible to present a coherent, manageable synthesis. A breakdown of the proposed study follows.

The study will not examine all species and environments but will focus on those which precipitated the most important responses from human society, attested in the range of archaeological, written and artistic sources. Terrestrial, avian and aquatic fauna will be considered through the (changing) lens of medieval typologies of the natural world, corresponding to characteristics ranging from the physical to the elemental. These broad categories will be sub-divided into the following: wild, domestic, commensal and monstrous (or hybrid). However, unlike all existing studies incorporating such divisions, these categories will be explicitly associated with the broad physical and conceptual environments of their respective species, forming the main sections of the study. These will be divided into the following six categories:

• Animals in urban areas (including individual buildings and complexes).
• Animals in rural areas and hinterlands (including uplands and mountains).
• Animals in (or from) aquatic environments and coastal areas.
• Animals from distant lands (including trade and perceptions of exotic beasts).
• Animals in hunting and martial space.
• Animals in religious space (including heretical and Jewish communities).

Whilst the first four categories are defined by physical geographical parameters, the last two are also concerned with distinct conceptual definitions. This represents a completely fresh approach to medieval fauna, for it focuses on the integration of human and animal contexts within a common (physical and/or conceptual) environment, rather than a series of isolated case studies based on individual species. The interdisciplinary element will be maintained throughout to answer interdisciplinary questions, whilst each disciplinary ‘component’ will be clearly outlined during presentation and analysis for the detailed scrutiny of individual specialists. Primary sources will consists of:

• Archaeology: faunal assemblages, palaeobotanical data and artefacts
• Written Sources: historical, legal and literary sources
• Art: extant public and private

The primary question of this study is: how can animals be incorporated into our broader understanding of medieval societies through the broadest range of available evidence? A series of detailed case studies will highlight the changes, contrasts and comparisons between different social groups and different types of environment, guided by the categories listed above. These case studies are defined by clear spatial and chronological parameters.

Spatial and Chronological Parameters

This study will focus predominantly on two geographical regions: modern England and France, whilst complimentary material will be drawn from modern Belgium, Norway, Sweden, parts of central and eastern Europe. There are likewise two chronological ranges associated with the study. One will be used as an introduction to medieval fauna in the study areas, and will draw its material from late Anglo-Saxon and Carolingian contexts, particularly in the light of recent excavations and environmental analyses.

The second chronological range, which is concerned with the bulk of the study, spans from the twelfth to the fifteenth century. This timeline enables a consideration of changes from the ‘high’ to the ‘late’ medieval period, and is virtually a pre-requisite for any analysis of medieval faunal assemblages. Within each study area – guided by the environmental categories outlined above – a series of case studies will highlight comparable and contrasting trends between different social groups in different regions. The study will be exclusively concerned with published, archived and extant material and whilst ongoing excavations and analyses will also be considered, there is no intention to commence new excavations or catalogue freshly excavated faunal assemblages for the purposes of this research.

Objectives

This study will not produce a gazetteer of every excavated faunal assemblage, hunting charter or bestial sculpture, but rather aims to identify dynamic trends in responses to animals from a range of different social contexts, across a series of contrasting environments and how these changed over time. Rather than compiling a series of disjointed examples, the integrated approach focusing on specific environmental case studies in a limited study area will present a coherent survey of comparable and contrasting trends, accompanied by detailed analyses. The ultimate aim is to provide the first interdisciplinary framework of human-animal relations in the medieval Europe, highlighting avenues for future research. In this respect, this proposed study is pioneering and will, if successful, appeal to a range of academic audiences from archaeologists, historians and art-historians through to those engaged in historical reconstruction. The study will also provide the first holistic reference work on the subject for students of medieval archaeology, history, literature and art-history, as well as a detailed, comparable text for those engaged in faunal/environmental research and study in other eras and cultures.

References