Animals and gentlemen: why animals were loved in the Middle Ages
The book by British medievalist Kathleen Walker-Mickle claims to be the first large-scale study of pet life in Western Europe in the Middle Ages. The critic Lidia Maslova, especially for "Izvestia", found out how much she managed to accomplish the task set for herself.
Kathleen Walker-Mickle
"Pets in the Middle Ages"
Moscow : Alpina non-fiction, 2026. Translated from English — 252 p.
As the researcher notes at the beginning, animals constantly accompanied everyday human life: "People hunted them, ate them, milked them, sheared them, skinned them, rode them, plowed them, harnessed them to carts..." Animals also played an important role in culture, since they were often endowed with symbolic meaning, which could be useful both in in heraldry, and in the interpretation of the Bible. However, Walker-Mickle, drawing on various historical, literary and iconographic sources, focuses on those animals whose practical or cultural meaning is not always obvious — they exist only to give pleasure to a person and brighten up loneliness.
The word pet, which designates such animals, appeared in the title of the book in its modern meaning only in the 16th century, and even then only in Scotland and northern England, Walker-Mickle writes, referring to the Oxford English Dictionary, where the phrase "for the keeping of certain pets" occurs. ""Another important source is the book by the social historian Keith Thomas "Man and the Natural World: Changing Attitudes in England, 1500-1800," which defines a "pet" as an animal that is kept in a house, not eaten, and called by a personal name. Walker-Mickle also uses these criteria in relation to medieval animals, although psychologically they are no longer exactly animals. The special treatment actually blurs the boundaries between human and animal status: "They can be pampered and treated like family members. They are allowed into living quarters, fed and cared for with the same care as humans."
For the purposes of his research, Walker-Mickle decides to limit himself to those animals that were kept in the house, and leave out a fair contingent of animals used for outdoor entertainment (hunting birds and horses) and quite capable of becoming "pets" in terms of increased care for them. This methodological distinction leads to the fact that most of the pets described in the book belonged to women, clerics, and scientists because they spent more time indoors.
As an entertaining starter, and also to illustrate the contrast between pampered pets and other simpler pets, Walker-Mickle quotes the fable of the 12th-century poet Marie of France, "The Donkey who wanted to play with his master." It describes a simple-minded donkey who saw how sweetly his master was frolicking with his beloved dog, and decided to take an example from her: "Believing that he surpassed the dog in size and virtues, the donkey decided to behave like her and thereby earn the master's favor." Of course, the donkey, which playfully jumped on the owner with its hooves, was severely punished and placed in a stall for the edification of the plebeians, who "should not strive to rise."
Considering the maintenance of pets from the point of view of medieval theology, the author of the book raises an interesting philosophical question: are animals endowed with an immortal soul? According to traditional, orthodox concepts, of course not. However, the English philosopher and naturalist Adelard of Bath in his treatise "Natural Questions" still does not deny animals the presence of a soul, because they (especially those that are smarter and more educated), "are able to feel and distinguish what to desire and what to avoid, and such a distinction can exist only in the soul, but not in the body." Authorities such as Thomas Aquinas, Aristotle, and Augustine agreed that animals have souls, but they lack intelligence and therefore disappear after death. Walker-Mickle comments on this from an emotional point of view: "Nevertheless, doubts about the presence of a soul in pets, apparently, did not reduce either the lavish love poured out on them or the grief of their loss."
Listing the types of animals that were kept in medieval houses, Walker-Mickle mentions, in addition to the most popular small dogs and cats, monkeys, singing and talking birds, squirrels, ferrets and rabbits. Among the originals that stood out from the general background, one can name the French King Charles VIII, who kept a pet marmot, and the most eccentric collection was collected by the Italian artist Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, who had not only ordinary squirrels and monkeys, but also miniature donkeys and badgers. In one of the illustrations in the book, you can even see Bazzi's self-portrait, where he captured himself with a couple of pet badgers.
Of the feathered friends of man, the most exotic bird that was kept as a pet was a parrot, which also had an important religious and symbolic meaning: "It was believed that by nature parrots are able to pronounce Ave, although they can be taught other words. Since Ave was the greeting of the archangel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary, parrots were seen as a symbol of purity and were associated with the Virgin Mary." But in general, the question of whether keeping pets is a godly and soul-saving activity, or rather it should be considered a frivolous frivolous pastime of frivolous ladies, was treated ambiguously in the Middle Ages.
So, the German visionary and Saint Hildegard of Bingen wrote that the devil hates dogs because of their devotion to people, and in general, a dog was considered a more virtuous being than cats and monkeys. "The latter", due to their high cost, were an indicator of a high social status, but at the same time they were often used in iconography as a symbol of human stupidity and vanity, and Albert the Great in his fundamental work "On Animals" explicitly stated that "A monkey is a cunning animal with bad habits."
One of the fiercest critics of lap dogs was the English Dominican monk John Bromyard, who "saw them as useless, overfed, obsequious toys of the rich, akin to actors and prostitutes who receive gourmet food and gifts on demand, while the poor starve." However, the subject of criticism was not the attachment to the animal itself, but their over-feeding, distracting from showing mercy to the poor. And although pets are conspicuously absent from the stories of famous righteous women who wrote, for example, Giovanni Boccaccio or Cristina of Pisa, the irony is that even the authors of these highly moral texts are often depicted in extant portraits in the company of pets.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
