Animals On The Edge - Ebook

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword 7
Gerhard Jaritz
Introduction 9
Katja Fält
Animals on the Edge in NLW MS Peniarth 32 15

Coral Lumbley
The Goat of Scanderbeg 41

Etleva Lala
Disguise, Identity, and Horse Sense: The Case of Robin Hood and
Guy of Gisborne 71
Antha Cotten-Spreckelmeyer
Semper asellus erit? Hybrid Animals in Nigel de Longchamps’

Speculum stultorum 81
Maximilian Wick
Beasts along Boundaries: Elephants in the Medieval West 103

Kiwako Ogata
Animals on the Edge of Late Medieval Hebrew Manuscripts 135

András Borgó
Angela of Foligno, in Love, with Animals 159

William Robert
Notes on Contributors 175

FOREWORD
GERHARD JARITZ
Hark! Hark! His matin praise

In warblings sweet the lark doth raise
To Paradise above …1
Animal Studies are to a large extent also studies on humans and society.
For this reason, they are better called “human-animal studies.” Research
into this field has become more important, in historical analyses too.
There, an animal turn that also touched Medieval Studies can mainly be
observed since the end of the last century. 2 It is very welcome that
Trivent Publishing has now established a book series that is going to deal
with “Animals in Medieval Contexts”, this volume being the first book
of the series. In cooperation with the Medieval Animal Data-Network
(MAD)3 at Central European University (Vienna/Budapest), the series
aims at offering comparative studies on animals in medieval texts, visual
representations, and archaeological evidence, and their contexts with the
construction of human identity.4
1 Sharon Jacksties, Animal Folk Tales of Britain and Ireland (Cheltenham: The History Press,
2020), 140.
2 See, e. g., Cary Wolfe, “Moving forward, kicking back: The animal turn,ˮ postmedieval
2/1 (2011): 1--12.

3 See Alice Mathea Choyke, “MADness,ˮ Medium Aevum Quotidianum 59 (2009): 33-36.
4 See Aleksander Pluskowski, et al. “Introduction: Using Animals to Construct Human
Identities in Medieval Europe,ˮ in Bestial Mirrors: Using Animals to Construct Human Identities
Foreword by Gerhard Jaritz
The contributions in this volume on Animals on the Edge are the results
of sessions at the International Medieval Congress at Leeds. At first sight,
animals on the edge seem to be far away from the “real” position and
role of animals in medieval society. However, their construction must be
seen as indispensable part of the important world of the medieval
language of signs, of symbols and allegories created by clerics,
philosophers, “natural scientists,” encyclopedists, other authors, and
artists. They often played a didactic and instructive role, independent of
their “reality” or “fantastic” creation, as the latter might be recognized
and sometimes not understood by today’s recipients.
Edges may represent different, context-dependent, meanings, such as
borders, boundaries, thresholds, margins, or peripheries. In my opinion,
all of them can be found in this volume with regard to animals. What
appears to be most important, however, is the way in which members of
medieval society used, constructed, or invented animals on the edge, their
qualities, and their impact. The book shows this in a comparative and
explicit way.
Professor Gerhard Jaritz,

Central European University
GERHARD JARITZ is professor emeritus at the Department of Medieval

Studies, Central European University. Beside Human-Animal History, his
main research interests are History of Medieval Daily Life, Material and
Visual Culture.
in Medieval Europe, ed. Aleksander Pluskowski et al., Animals as Material Culture 3

(Vienna: Vienna Institute for Archaeological Science, 2010), 4.
8
INTRODUCTION
KATJA FÄLT
In the Middle Ages, animals were everywhere. In their natural form, they
inhabited forests and farms lands, air, and waters. Animals were also
crafted and made up by human minds and hands. They dwelled in
imaginations, manuscripts borders, artworks, textual narratives, oral
stories, physical objects, and buildings. Animals had spiritual and
religious potential, and, in the course of the Middle Ages, their
philosophical and anthropological potential was discovered. They were
sometimes real, sometimes fabulous or monstrous. Sometimes, the inner
and outer boundaries between humans and animals were not easily
defined. Animals were part of the everyday lives of the people and hence
familiar to all. Yet, at the same time, animals were not quite the same as
humans in the medieval mind, even though they were regularly exploited
in order to underline similarities between the animal and human world.
The complexity and variety of animals and relationships towards
animals have evoked scholarly interest with the rise of animal studies,
human-animal studies, and critical animal studies to the extent of a
paradigm shift, the so-called animal turn. The interest in animals and
their place in society has shown to offer a fertile ground for novel
perceptions about medieval culture and society and how humans have
constructed animals and been constructed by animals. Study on animals
has also proven to be especially fruitful for an interdisciplinary approach.
The scholarly inquiry about animals in the past is equally important from
the current perspective. While medieval studies focus on the animals of
the past, the current and global animal industry, climate change,
extinction of species, overfishing, meat industry, animal rights
Introduction by Katja Fält
movement, and the exploitation and killing of animals, in general, have a

massive and everyday effect on society and culture around the globe.
Animals had a significant and everyday effect on society and culture
during the Middle Ages as well. Exploring animals in the past helps us
understand animals in the present and dialogue between the two may
help us further understand the pivotal role animals have – and will – play
in the ecosystem.
The articles selected for this publication spring from four sessions
organized by MAD – Medieval Animal Data Network at the Leeds
International Medieval Congress 2019. The articles in this volume
demonstrate how animals can be used to understand, negotiate, and
challenge notions about distinct or stable boundaries. As the title
suggests, animals are on the edge, but are they, really? The scholarly
paradigm following the animal turn in the humanities placed animals in
the center of attention. In a similar vein, the focus of this publication
asserts the same – that animals might appear as being on the edge. In
reality, they are often far from it. The relationship between the “edge”
and the “center” go beyond the study of animals in medieval studies and
share similarities with the concepts of marginality and otherness that
have been explored extensively since the 1960s and 1970s and from a
wide range of perspectives. In manuscript studies and art history, the
medieval margins and images on the edge became the center of attention
after Michael Camille published his influential work Image on the Edge: The
Margins of Medieval Art. The physical margins are the spaces where animals
reside in medieval textual and visual tradition.
Andreas Borgo continues this tradition by focusing on and examining
the visual fauna in Hebrew manuscripts and discussing about the role of
the text and image in the medieval era in his article Animals on the Edge of
Late Medieval Hebrew Manuscripts. Often, the focus of manuscript studies
has been on the Western, Christian manuscripts, but Borgo’s article
examines animals in the Jewish tradition and hence represents the
increasing scholarly interest towards animals and Hebrew Studies.5 This
approach builds a novel intersection within the humanities and brings
new perspectives to animal studies. Borgo’s approach underlines the
thematic connection of text and image and the connections between
5Sherman, Philip, 2020. The Hebrew Bible and the ‘Animal Turn’. Currents in Biblical
Research 2020, Vol. 19(1) 36-63. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/147699
3X20923271.
10
Hebrew traditions and Christian traditions. Borgo presents some

characteristic features of selected Hebrew manuscripts and demonstrates
the function of animals in the manuscript pages. He argues that text and
image work to convey a spiritual direction even in cases where the text
and the image are not necessarily linked. We must also go deeper than
just the first visual layer of words and images and their initial meaning,
in order to understand the interconnected nature of text, image, and
spiritual message or intention in manuscripts.
The narrative and symbolic quality of animals project deep into the
medieval mindset. Although often visually depicted in their naturalistic
form, animals operate as crystallizations of complex cultural
constructions. In her article Animals on the Edge in NLW MS Peniarth 32,
Coral Lumbley has examined the depiction of dogs, or word-licking dog
heads, in Welsh manuscripts. For Lumbley, the dog-heads in manuscript
margins operate as windows into the scribal and literary culture of the
late fourteenth-century. Her article gives us glimpses of the
interconnections between memory studies, animal studies and semiotic
theory and the ways in which one single image on the edge can be
examined from these various perspectives. The images can be seen as
fluid, seeping over boundaries of interpretation, but also over the
boundaries of modern methodologies.
Lumbley also argues that the animal images are essentially carriers of
cultural residue. She follows book historian Erik Kwakkel’s notion and
suggests that the dog-heads in the manuscript margins reveal information
about the cultural context that is not directly embedded in the textual
narrative. The cultural residue can be seen as data that is interwoven in
the physicality of the image. As the book operated as a vehicle for words,
the images may have operated as a vehicle for the functioning of
medieval culture.6 This notion places emphasis on the materiality of the
image, discussed especially within the so-called new art history. This
approach favors an empirical approach to theory and pays attention to
the information the material characteristics of the image can reveal.7 This
6 Kwakkel, Erik, 2015. “Decoding the Material Book: Cultural Residue in Medieval
Manuscripts,” in Michael Johnston, The Medieval Manuscript Book: Cultural Approaches
(Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 60-76.
7 For example, Holly, Michael Ann, 2008. What is Research in Art History Anyway? Sterling
and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Mass., Ed. by Michael Ann Holly and
11
notion of the materiality of the image can also be connected to the

medieval understanding of the almost tactile qualities of seeing and
viewing images. The examination of the materiality of the image also
reinvents the image, in a sense, demanding us to adjust the modes to
encounter images in the edge.
Carved in the form of a material object, an interpretation of an animal
image still tends to radiate beyond the material borders into the realm of
the symbolic. Etleva Lala’s article The Goat of Scanderberg focuses on the
ambiguous and dichotomous character of a papal donation in the
Albanian cultural context. She examines a helmet adorned with a head of
a goat and shows the complexity of a seemingly straightforward object.
Her article also makes a point on how the interpretation and symbolic
value of animals can be dependent on the context they are placed in.
Especially with the goat, the dichotomous character is made evident
when comparing its role in Albanian and Western European Christian
cultures. Lala’s article also shows that the animal symbolism can be
understood and used to justify and demonstrate historical continuity,
power, and identity. Animals are therefore powerful tools in the
construction of identity politics.
Animals were used in the construction of identity in various ways.
The medieval narratives often played with the concepts of identity and
hybridity and the boundaries between humans and animals were not
necessarily self-evident or determined. In Antha Cotton-Spreckelmeyer’s
article Disguise, Identity, and Horse Sense: The Case of Robin Hood and Guy of
Gisborne, she discusses the equine imagery in medieval literature and the
role of the horse as a metaphor or an archetype for human behavior or
moral character. Cotton-Spreckelmeyer discusses the role of boundaries
and the ways in which human action is defined by human social contexts.
Humans can simultaneously use animal identity in order to step outside
these contexts. The use of animal attributes is connected to the
construction of identity, and Cotton-Spreckelmeyer shows how the
central role of equine imagery is communicated in medieval narratives.
The rise of animal studies has resulted in a change in the
anthropocentric observation of history, as it has shifted the focus from
human agency to animals as potential subjects. This does not mean that
humans are not part of the picture, as the discussion about whether
Marquard Smith. 3-12.; Mitchell, W.J.T., 2002. Showing seeing: a critique of visual
culture. Journal of Visual Culture 1 (2), 165-181.
12
humans are animals too and the intrinsic relationships between humans
and animals in all walks of life complicate the issue. In essence, it could
be argued that the scholarly focus on animals is based on the continuous
contestation of the dividing line between humans and animals. As
Professor Gary Wolfe has noted, “the human” and “the animal” flatten
the complexity and multidimensionality of the different ways of being in
the world. The relationships between humans and animals may not be
strictly dichotomic, but dynamic, processual, and relational. 8 Animal
studies often strive for revealing the hybridity of both humans and
animals, the humanity of the animals, and the animality of the humans.
Maximillian Wick discusses the anthropomorphizing of animals,
hybridity, and the dissolving of boundaries in his article “Semper asellus
erit? Hybrid Animals in Nigel de Longchamps’ Speculum stultorum”. In the
Speculum, animals are anthropomorphized to the point where they can
briefly turn into humans. We have been transported to a world of beast
epic and fable where the lines between humanity and animality are not
clear-cut. Fable typically takes its disposition from human beings, and the
world of the fable is generally that of humans. Even when animals are
presented as if they were humans or possessing qualities of both humans
and animals, they also acquire moral value. Wick points out how the
Speculum is about the “ambiguity of morality derived from narratives, but
also about the power of the narrative perspective over mediated
morality”. The fable is structured on order and stable cultural systems,
but, as Wick shows, the boundaries between the natural and the fabulous
can be easily dissolved, therefore blurring the perspective of the assumed
order.
Kiwako Ogata equally discusses boundaries in her article Beasts along
Boundaries: Elephants in the Medieval West. The article focuses on the visual
and textual representations of the elephant as a marginalized animal. The
elephant could have been placed in the realms of the natural and the
fabulous in the Middle Ages. Again, the boundaries between the natural
world and the fabulous world are significantly fluid. Ogata shows how
the symbolic and allegorical interpretations of the elephant connect the
animal to both Oriental and European roots. Both the textual and the
visual levels of the elephant reveal much about the complexity of
medieval texts and images, as they tend to be built on layers and layers
8Wolfe 2011, 3. Moving forward, kicking back: The animal turn. Postmedieval: a journal of
medieval cultural studies (2011) 2, 1-12. doi:10.1057/pmed.2010.46.
13
of multiple meanings. In Ogata’s article, the elephant acts as an

intersection through which Christian virtues and vices, exotism and
monstrosity, and anthropocentric ideas were being constructed and
sustained. Ogata also raises the connections between critical animal
studies and colonial studies that can be used to articulate the
interconnections between the oppression of animals and the alienation
of other cultures.
William Robert transports us to the realm of the nonhuman in Angela
of Foligno: In Love, With Animals. His article discusses Angela of Foligno’s
mystical itinerary and her relationship with divinity. Her mystical
spirituality was framed by Franciscan theology and tradition in which
animals appear frequently. Robert focuses on the “animal edge” in
Angela’s Memorial and the ecstatic and apophatic union with God.
Animals appear on the verge of a mystical experience and are therefore
pieces in the undoing of Angela’s identity. In Robert’s interpretation,
animals in the Memorial operate as vessels through which God operated.
But the relationship is more than that, God, Angela, and the animals
mingled with each other in a profound way. The boundaries get blurred
again with the interaction of humans, animals, and divinity, and non-
humanity can be a quality for humans, animals, and gods.
The editors would like to thank all the participants of the IMC 2019
sessions and the authors for their contribution to this volume. We are
also grateful for the support of MAD – Medieval Animal Data Network.
Their contribution to organizing and hosting the IMC sessions and their
persistent work on medieval animals are highly inspiring.
14
ANIMALS ON THE EDGE IN
NLW MS PENIARTH 32
CORAL LUMBLEY1
I. Introduction
Near the beginning of the fifteenth century, a Welsh scribe made an
unusual and likely spontaneous decision while copying Cyfraith Hywel Dda
[the Law of Hywel the Good] in the manuscript today known as
Aberystwyth, NLW MS Peniarth 32, or Llyfr Têg [the Fair Book]. Rather
than simply use maniculae (small, pointing hands) to mark key points in
the manuscript’s copy of the Law, this scribe began to replace the usual
pointing human hand with the head of a dog. Instead of depicting a
human index finger pointing to a significant phrase, a dog’s tongue
extends toward the text, lapping at selections believed to be of particular
interest to a future reader. These whimsical dog heads, situated among
other naturalistic marginalia and maniculae proper, raise questions
regarding their origins, purpose, and effects. Such unusual marginal
doodles trouble existing classifications in premodern manuscript studies,
as they are not strictly illuminations, grotesques, or classic maniculae.
This study discusses the word-licking dogs of Llyfr Têg in depth,
considering them as a provocative, original piece of cultural residue and
window into the literary and scribal culture of late fourteenth-century
Wales. By reading these word-licking dogs as imagines agentes [agents of
imagination] and situating them among late medieval perceptions of
canines, this study shows that Scribe X91 of NLW MS Peniarth 32
adapted Welsh marginal illustration practices to supplement his copy of
Cyfraith, drawing attention to sections of the text directly or indirectly
1 Macalester College, USA.

Coral Lumbley
concerned with hunting dogs.2

This three-part study first introduces the manuscript, its production,
Scribe X91, and his naturalistic marginalia. Section A also discusses the
relation of Peniarth 32 to other Welsh manuscripts marked by
illuminations or marginal doodles, showing the extent to which Scribe A
was influenced by his close collaboration with Hywel Fychan during the
production of the Red Book of Hergest (Oxford, Jesus College, MS 111).
The second section elaborates on the appearance and function of the
word-licking dogs, contextualizing these drawings within the text of the
Law and suggesting that the dogs playfully draw attention to loosely
relevant passages on animals, with one dog creating a visual Welsh-Latin
pun. The third and final section situates these marginal dogs within a
broader understanding of medieval theories of animals and signs,
hypothesizing that Scribe X91 guides his reader through historical study
of the Law with hunting dogs as imagines agentes.
II. Manuscript, Text, and Marginalia

National Library of Wales MS Peniarth 32, also known as Llyfr Têg, is a
Welsh and Latin manuscript containing legal materials, religious texts,
chronicles, and religious poetry. Created c. 1404, the manuscript consists
of 151 leaves with five bifolia per quire.3 Text is laid out in single-column
pages, resulting in relatively large letters and a high degree of readability.
The manuscript is bound in fine white vellum covers (likely modern) and
the folia are of fair to middling quality vellum, measuring 202 x 132 to
199 x 139 mm.4 The book features five hands and seven textual sections:
Cyfraith Hywel Dda [the Law of Hywel the Good] (Scribe A, also called Scribe
2 This is a designation given by Daniel Huws. As of the completion of this study, Huws’s
long-awaited Repertory of Welsh Manuscripts and Scribes c. 800-c. 1800 (2022) has just been
published by The National Library and the University of Wales Centre for Advanced
Welsh and Celtic Studies. A preview of material is available in “Peniarth 32: An Electronic
Edition, TEI Header”, in Welsh Prose 1300-1425, eds. Peter Wynn Thomas, D. Mark
Smith, and Diana Luft, Arts and Humanities Research Council. www.rhyddiaithganoloes
ol.caerdydd.ac.uk/en/tei-header.php?ms=Pen19 Accessed 8 June 2022.
3 Dating by Daniel Huws, Medieval Welsh Manuscripts (Cardiff: University of Wales Press,
2002), 35 and 47; Gathering count by Huws, 29. Also see Diana Luft, 67; the Epitome
dates itself to 1404, suggesting that at least the earlier parts of the text were completed in
or by that year.
4 Binding and measurements by “File Peniarth MS 32”, National Library of Wales.
archives.library.wales/index.php/y-llyfr-teg. Accessed 11/19/2021.
16
Animals on the Edge in NLW MS Peniarth 32
X91; 1-112); an abbreviated version of the Latin chronicle Epitome

Historiae Britanniae [Summary of the History of Britain] and O Oes Gwrtheyrn
Gwrtheneu [From the Age of Vortigern the Slender] (Scribe B, 112v-116v);
Breuddwyd Paul [the Dream of Paul] and Ystorya Addaf [the Story of Adam]
(Scribe C; 117-120v); a continuation of Ystorya Addaf (Scribe B; 121-125);
Brut y Saeson [Chronicle of the Saxons] (Scribe D; 125v-132v); and Englynion
i’r Offeren [Englynion to the Mass], Rhinweddau Gwrando Offeren [the Virtues of
Listening to Mass], and additional Englynion i’r Offeren (Scribe E; 133-137v).5
Cyfraith occupies the foremost and largest section of the manuscript, and
Daniel Huws characterizes Scribe A’s writing as the “Llyfr Têg hand.”6
More recently, Huws has designated Scribe A as X91, a practice I follow
here.7 Each scribe’s ductus varies, suggesting little attempt to simulate a
single-scribe manuscript, though each uses the Gothic textualis that was
fashionable across Europe during this period.8 The manuscript is
modestly rubricated with initials in red but is devoid of expensive blues
or earlier Welsh greens. Rulings in pencil and pencil guides for rubricated
letters are still evident.9
According to Huws, Peniarth MS 32 was conceived of as a single
antiquarian anthology, though the modern manuscript consists of the
formerly separate manuscripts of Hengwrt 311 (pp.1-221) and Hengwrt
8 (pp. 222-285).10 These texts were obtained by Sir Robert Vaughan
(1592-1667) of Hengwrt, Meirioneth, in North Wales, and may have
5 J. Gwenogvryn Evans, Report on Manusripts in the Welsh Language, Vol. I (London, 1898-
1905), pp. 363-366. For further discussion of the manuscript, see Diana Luft, “The NLW
Peniarth 32 Latin Chronicle,” Studia Celtica, Vol 44 (2010): 47-70.
6 Huws 60.
7 “Peniarth 32: An Electronic Edition, TEI Header”, in Welsh Prose 1300-1425, eds. Peter
Wynn Thomas, D. Mark Smith, and Diana Luft, Arts and Humanities Research Council.
Accessed 11/18/2021. www.rhyddiaithganoloesol.cardiff.ac.uk/en/tei-header.php?ms=
Pen32
8 The shift in hands was immediately noticeable to this author. The Epitome is particularly
distinct and heavy, suggesting Scribe B may have had inferior tools or quill-making skills,
an issue Gifford Charles-Edwards notes for the scribe of the Black Book of Chirk; “The
Scribes of the Red Book of Hergest.” National Library of Wales Journal 21:3 (Haf, 1980):
246-256, 250. On Gothic textura in Welsh vernacular manuscripts, see Huws, 13.
9 On Welsh rubrication and standard European practices of alternating blue and red
initials, see Huws 14. For an example of Welsh alternating green and red initials, see, for
example, Red Book 257r: https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/9bf187bf-f862-
4453-bc4f-851f6d3948af/surfaces/6c5d52b7-feb1-4542-b3d3-366a45100c45/.
Accessed 8 June 2022.
10 “Peniarth 32: An Electronic Edition, TEI Header.”
17
Coral Lumbley
been in the possession of the antiquarian William Maurice (d. 1680) prior
to or during Vaughan’s ownership of the volumes.11 Huws believes that
the two volumes were bound separately in the early seventeenth century
and rebound as a single volume in the late twentieth.12 Two pagination
systems appear in the upper corners. The earlier system appears in faded
black ink and numbers each page (upper right corner for recto and upper
left corner for verso). A second, later system appears in dark black ink in
the top right recto corners and numbers each folio.13 It is unclear who
created these systems; Vaughan, Maurice, Aneurin Owen (d. 1851), and
J. Gwenogvryn Evans are likely candidates. Additional, later notes appear
throughout the manuscript, including notes by Evans. The title of Llyfr
Têg became attached to the manuscript in 1662, in which year a reader,
possibly Vaughan or Maurice, wrote on a flyleaf “Lib. Têg, vel, Têg” [the
Fair Book, that is, Fair].14 As this title likely predates the binding of the
book in its current fair ivory-colored vellum, the adjective “têg” [fair]
likely refers to the “regularity and legibility” of Scribe X91’s writing in
folia 1-112.15
Little is known about the production of the manuscript itself, though
Diana Luft has noted that the highly abbreviated Epitome seems to have
been written from the perspective of a Glamorgan-based scribe, perhaps
one from Llantarnam Abbey, a Cistercian institution in southeast Wales
and daughter house of the literary center of Strata Florida Abbey in mid-
Wales.16 It is thus possible that Scribe B and his colleagues, including
Scribe X91, worked out of Llantarnam Abbey. Additionally, Huws has
identified Scribe X91’s interest in the Northern figures of Bleddyn ap
Cynfyn (d. 1075), Dyfnwal (d. 975), and Iorwerth ap Madog (d. c. 1268),
an observation that might hint at interest (on the part of the scribe or a
patron) in North Walian political and legal history.17 Given that this
11 “Peniarth 32: An Electronic Edition, TEI Header.”

12 Huws, “Peniarth 32: An Electronic Edition, TEI Header.”
13 My own observations are supplemented by “Peniarth 32: An Electronic Edition, TEI
Header.”
14 Diana Luft dates this inscription; for attribution, my conclusions drawn from
information in “Peniarth 32: An Electronic Edition, TEI Header.”

15 “Peniarth 32: An Electronic Edition, TEI Header”.
16 Diana Luft, “The NLW Peniarth 32 Latin Chronicle,” Studia Celtica, Vol 44 (2010): 47-70.
Cited in Ben Guy, “Epitome Historia Britanniae”, Welsh Chronicles, croniclau.bangor.ac.

uk/hist-britanniae.php.en. Accessed 8 June 2022.
17 Huws 24.
18
Iorwerth recension of Cyfraith is attributed to Llywellyn ap Iorwerth of

Gwynedd in North Wales, such geographical focus is not entirely
unexpected. Huws also notes the antiquarian nature of the manuscript,
suggesting that it was not intended as a handbook for dosbarthwyr [lit.
dispensers, the term for legal professionals], as were many earlier Welsh
lawbooks.18 Ultimately, Luft’s Llantarnam hypothesis is highly plausible,
given the manuscript’s production value and contents. Scribe X91’s taste
for “exuberant” marginalia, one he shares with the non-monastic Hywel
Fychan, seems to betray a non-Cistercian ethos, though it would hardly
be impossible for an experienced scribe, monastic or not, to make
idiosyncratic decisions regarding decoration.19
Scribe X91 is one of the more prolific of eighty-three known medieval
Welsh scribes, having worked on five identified manuscripts: the Red
Book of Hergest (c. 1382-1425), NLW MS Peniarth 19 (late 14th-early
15th cent.), NLW Peniarth 190 (first quarter of 15th cent.), NLW
Llanstephan 4 (c. 1400), and Peniarth 32 (c. 1404).20 As Gifford Charles-
Edwards noted, Scribe X91 is the “moderately” skilled third scribe of the
Red Book, supporting two other “very professional scribes,” including
his more famous colleague, Hywel Fychan, and an unknown scribe called
Hand 1, as his work begins the Red Book.21 X91’s contributions to RB
suggest close collaboration between himself and Hywel, as these two
scribes alternate sections with frequency, evidence of frequent trading-
off of the project. RB consists of 1442 columns, and Hand 1 and Hywel
alternate with some frequency from 1-1019. X91 begins copying his first
full-length work in Column 1020 (O Oes Gwrtheyrn Gwrtheneu, 254r) and
continues work until the end of the manuscript, with Hywel stepping in
18 Huws 24. Huws explanation is as follows: “First, we have the novel association of one
book of law texts, Llyfr Iorwerth and Damweiniau, and historical texts. Second, nota signs
in the margin by the scribe ... draw attention not only to legal points but also to references
to Bleddyn ap Cynfyn, Dyfnwal and Iorwerth ap Madog” (35).
19 Huws applies this adjective to Hywel Fychan and X91’s habit of decorating ascenders,
50.
20 Counts of scribes and X91’s MSS from Huws 51. Manuscript dates for Peniarth and
Llanstephan from National Library of Wales archive records: “File Peniarth MS 19,”
archives.library.wales/index.php/y-brutiau; “File Peniarth MS 190,” archives.library.
wales/index.php/y-lucidar, “File Llanstephan MS 4,” archives.library.wales/index.php
/burial-of-arthur-aesops-fables-c. Accessed 8 June 2022. Red Book dating from digitized
Jesus College MS 111.
21 Charles-Edwards 250. The third scribe is Hand 1, which begins the Red Book.
19
Coral Lumbley
eight times and Hand 1 appearing twice.22 The hands of Hywel and X91
are fairly distinct; Charles-Edwards’s side-by-side comparison of the
three hands of RB shows a weighty thickness to X91’s letter forms,
whereas Hywel’s forms tend toward verticality and slenderness, with
serifs and thin tails.23 In RB, X91’s work is visually somber and
restrained, even tentative and unsteady as the scribe attempts (often
unsuccessfully) to keep his letterforms evenly perched on a single
horizontal plane. In general, X91’s sections lack the confident flourishes,
easy conjoined letter forms, liberal rubrication, and colored initials of
Hywel’s work, with this contrast evident on folia such as 307r, on which
X91 begins writing in column 1230, Line 20.24 Given our knowledge of
X91’s career, it seems that RB production may mark an earlier moment
in his professional development, one that required him to work under
Hywel Fychan, or to at least supplement Hywel’s project. Hywel’s
colophon in Philadelphia MS 86800 links him to a secular patron,
Hopkin ap Thomas vab Einawn, and Hywel’s work is characteristic of
the emerging class of non-monastic scribes in his lifetime.25 This raises
the possibility that X91 was also a non-monastic scribe, training with a
more experienced master. However, Charles-Edwards has documented
the existence of collaboration between monastic production centers and
lay scribes during this period, so the particular conditions of X91’s
interactions with Hywel could have taken many forms.26
Whatever X91’s affiliation, he seems to have developed technical skill
and a sense of professional authority and even ease between his work on
RB and his piloting of the Llyfr Têg project. X91’s hand in Peniarth 32 is
smoother, with lines appearing on clear horizontal axes and letter spacing
achieving greater regularity. In some ways, Charles-Edwards’s
description of a typical monastic scribe (in contraposition to Hywel
Fychan) could be applied to X91: “A monastic scribe wrote a slow,
perfect and well-spaced hand, with a never changing, regular rhythm.”27
22 For a complete list of scribal hands, see Charles-Edwards, The Welsh Law (Cardiff, UK:
University of Wales Press, 1989), 255-56.
23 Thomas-Charles, 248-94.
24 Thomas-Charles, 255, called my attention to this section of RB. See f. 307a of RB.
25 Charles-Edwards, 250.
27 Charles-Edwards 251.
20
There is a professional regularity to X91’s portion of Peniarth 32, which

is also generously and meticulously rubricated.
The contributions of Scribe X91 to Peniarth 32 are limited to ff. 1-
112, which contain Llyfr Iorwerth [the Book of Iorwerth], one of three
major versions of Cyfraith. Unlike the Cyfnerth and Blegywryd versions,
Iorwerth seems to have originated in North Wales, likely Gwynedd,
during the rule of Llywellyn ap Iorwerth or perhaps his grandson,
Llewellyn ap Gruffydd.28 The recension itself attests that it was compiled
by Iorwerth ap Madog, under one of the aforementioned Gwynedd
rulers, but the more general body of works known as Cyfraith Hywel were
believed to have originated under the reign of Hywel Dda between 904
and 950.29 Iorwerth, extant in eight recensions, consists of three main
sections and two attached sections: (I) Prologue, (II) Book of the Court,
(III) Laws of Country, (IV) the Test Book, and (V) Appendages to the
Test Book.30 This represents an extension of the shorter Cyfnerth
redaction, as it incorporates the “test book” or damweiniau [incidents], a
series of if/then instructions for various scenarios that might be faced by
dosbarthwyr.31
Llyfr Iorwerth is the only section in Peniarth 32 to also feature eye-
catching décor, including a range of animals on the margins of Cyfraith.
These whimsical decorations include not only abstract ornate ascenders,
but a clumsily sketched mountain (f. 22r), flower blossoms (ff. 27 and
58), a dog-like mammal head (f. 68v), two rudimentary fishes (f. 74v), a
rabbit (f. 76r), an anteater-like creature (f. 110v), a reptilian creature
(perhaps a dragon) (f. 112), several human maniculae (ff.45v, 53r, 56v,
90r), and a mustachioed man in a pointed hat (f. 95r), as recorded in
Table 1.
28 Sara Elin Roberts, “Iorwerth”, Cyfraith Hywel, http://www.cyfraith-hywel.org.uk/

en/canllaw-testunau-iorwerth.php. Accessed 8 June 2022.
29 Charles-Edwards, 23; 6.
30 Charles-Edwards, 8 and 28.
21
Coral Lumbley
Table 1. Naturalistic Marginalia, NLW Peniarth 32
Marginal Image Folium

Mountain 22r
Flower 27r
Human Manicula 45v
Human Manicula 53r
Human Manicula 56v
Flower 58r
Word-licking Dog 64r
Dog 68v
Manicula 70v
Word-licking Dog 71r
Fish 74v
Rabbit Head 76r
Human Manicula 90r
Man in Hat 95r
Word-licking Dog 100v
Beast 110v
Dragon 112r
Just as Hywel added his own sketches to his doodles, it seems likely
that Scribe X91 is responsible for his own decorations as well.32 The
marginalia’s ink quality and style are consistent with the main text of
Peniarth 32, and, more importantly, the décor is sometimes rubricated in
the same red ink applied to the text. For example, f. 64r (in Fig. 1)
features an e transformed into a spiked ascender in black ink and
highlighted in red. The word-licking dog of f. 71r (in Fig. 2) has a tongue
marked in red. This suggests that the decorative elements were in
existence at the time that the rubricator (possibly X91 himself, depending
on the scale and context of his production) took over textual production
32 Huws makes this suggestion about Hywel on 106.
22
from the scribe. Furthermore, marginalia of this sort are absent from the
later parts of Peniarth 32, indicating that the “illuminator” ceased work
around the same time that Scribe X91 did.
Scribe X91 is hardly unique in his use of decorated ascenders or small
sketches. Huws notes that
There are scribes who seem to be possessed of an urge to
draw ... It was a not uncommon practice to decorate catch-
words and other words which had run on below the bottom
ruled line of the page. Animals, fish, monsters or human
faces may grow out of these isolated words. Some scribes
tend to treat tall ascenders in the top line in the same way.
Scribes given to this exhuberance [sic] include the scribe of
NLW, Peniarth 7 and NLW, Peniarth 21, and both Hywel
Fychan, the chief scribe of the Red Book of Hergest, and
one of his collaborators.33
Huws refers to Hand 1 of RB, but to this list we might add the scribe
of BL, Cotton Caligula A.iii, a Welsh lawbook of the thirteenth century,
and of course Scribe X91.34 It seems highly possible that X91 was
influenced by Hywel Fychan’s practice of turning ascenders or
descenders into grotesques, a practice evident in both Hywel Fychan and
Hand 1’s contributions to RB. As Charles-Edwards writes, Hywel does
not write with the steady measured hand of monastic scribes, but “allows
himself to amuse himself and to amuse others, witness his grotesques.”35
Llyfr Iorwerth of Peniarth 32 is notable as it may be one of two instances
in which Scribe X91 allowed himself the indulgence of entertainment or
amusement. I have observed no decorative elements like these in X91’s
work in RB nor Peniarth 190, and the Welsh Prose 1300-1425 project (eds.
Peter Wynn Thomas, D. Mark Smith, and Diana Luft) shows no
evidence of them for Llanstephan 4.
However, according Peter Wynn Thomas, D. Mark Smith, and Diana
Luft, Scribe X91 did include “lively line drawings,” mainly human hands,
33 Huws, 50-51.
34 On marginalia of BL, Cotton Caligula A.iii, see Huws, 184, and Plates 25-26, pp. 180-
181.
23
Coral Lumbley
and one creature, possibly a dog, in Peniarth 19.36 He or another scribe

also included pictures of fish and humans in decorated letters, including
a fish extending from a d on f.254, Line 1.37 This practice of embedding
a human face or a fish in a letterform could have been inspired directly
by Hand 1 of RB or Hywel; see RB f.3r (Hand 1) and f.122r (Hywel
Fychan). It could have also been inspired by other contemporaries, such
as the scribe of Peniarth 7 or Peniarth 21.38 It is even possible that he
had seen Cotton Caligula A.iii and been inspired by the thirteenth-
century scribe’s incorporation of evangelist iconography, which Huws
suggests was inspired by early Insular gospel books.39 Regardless of the
specific cause, elements of Peniarth 19 and Peniarth 32, in contrast to
the bareness of X91’s other works, suggest that these manuscripts reflect
a distinct period in X91’s career or the influence of a specific patron or
context that facilitated his enthusiastic deployment of decoration.
III. Word-Licking Dogs

While there is much to be said about the generally vibrant practices of
Welsh scribal illumination and decoration, Scribe X91 develops a highly
specific and recurring image in Llyfr Iowerth: three word-licking dogs, each
appearing on different pages. These drawings are not illustrations proper,
as we see in the relatively luxe MS Peniarth 28 copy of the Law in Latin,
but they do augment the general understanding that Welsh manuscripts
are impoverished in terms of visual interest.40 Scribe X91 was no
professional illuminator, nor a particularly talented draughtsman.
However, his playful marginal animal drawings show a drive to
supplement written text with visual interest, bringing new types of
signifiers to this copy of Cyfraith. In a move that X91 himself may not
36 “TEI Header for NLW MS. Peniarth 19”, Welsh Prose 1300-1425,
www.rhyddiaithganoloesol.caerdydd.ac.uk/en/tei-header.php?ms=Pen19. Accessed 8
June 2022.
37 Ibid.
38 Huws 50-51.
39 Huws 184.
40 Daniel Huws is certainly correct that, when it comes to illustration and originality, the
“Welsh tradition was poor in this respect,” but further study of medieval Welsh
marginalia is certainly warranted. Daniel Huws, “Peniarth 28”, Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru,
library.wales/discover/digital-gallery/manuscripts/the-middle-ages/laws-of-hywel-dda/
daniel-huws-article-peniarth-28-illustrations-from-a-welsh-lawbook. Accessed 8 June
2022.
24
have realized, his three word-licking dogs take on semiotic tasks typically
performed by humans, replacing the manicula’s range of signification
with a new, animal-centric field of meaning. Overall, the dogs encourage
what we might consider a playful form of reading, drawing the reader’s
attention to folia featuring animals, and in one case, possibly pointing out
a Latin-Welsh pun. While knowledge of the purpose (or purposelessness)
of these dogs is lost, we can develop a greater appreciation for Welsh
scribal practices by retracing some of X91’s steps. These word-licking
dogs appear in Figures 1, 2, and 3.
Fig. 1. Word-Licking Dog 1, f. 64r.

Reproduced courtesy of the National Library of Wales
25
Coral Lumbley
Fig. 2. Word-licking Dog 2,

f. 71r. Reproduced
courtesy of the National
Library of Wales
Fig. 3. Word-licking Dog 3,

f. 100v. Reproduced
courtesy of the National
Library of Wales
26
Dog 1 of f. 64r, or page 128, (Fig. 1) appears in the right margin of

the text and is distinct in design from the other two canines. Dog 1 faces
rightward and appears in full profile as it extends its head upward to lap
at a marginal “nö” (abbreviated nota bene, or note well) that seems to be
written in the same ink and hand as the main text. A single curved
rectangular ear hangs down behind the dog’s eye, which is blackened and
given a teardrop shape. The dog’s muzzle is decorated with narrow, light
scalloping that gives the illusion of texture or perhaps pigmentation. Its
tongue is shaded and highlighted in black, indicating the characteristic
folds and shiny wetness of a dog’s tongue. The dog wears a simply
decorated collar that arches in a convex manner, suggesting the upward
pressure of the dog’s right shoulder. The collar indicates the dog’s
domestic status as a hunter or guard dog. The canine’s large eyes and
upturned lips indicate a friendly disposition. Its pose also suggests
friendliness and interest in the human pursuits at hand, namely the
writing and reading of Cyfraith, and perhaps the fulfillment of the law
itself.
This nota bene floats far away from the column of text and appears
between lines 8 and 9. If the notation is meant to point to these lines, it
highlights a statement about the financial penalties for theft: “Ygkyfreith
howel y bu tal ac eil tal am bop lledrat” [“In the Law of Hywel there was a
charge and additional charge for every theft.”]41 However, the presence
of the dog may actually direct the reader to look upward to Line 1. The
first full sentence begins with an e sporting a decorated and rubricated
ascender – the type of ascender characteristic of Hand 1 and Hywel
Fychan in RB. The sentence reads as follows:
Line 1: Ereill adyllient o bop anime+
Line 2: il pedwar troedawc y vot un eueit uadeu.
“Others say that for [the theft of] every four-footed animal
it would be that his life is forfeit.”
The Law is kinder than this, however, as we see in the following
sentence:
41 English translations are my own. Full transcription of f. 64r or page 128 available at
“NLW MS. Peniarth 32 – Page 128”, Welsh Prose 1300-1425, rhyddiaithganoloesol.
cardiff.ac.uk/en/ms-page.php?ms=Pen32&page=128. Accessed 8 June 2022. An earlier
transcription and English translation are available in Aneurin Owen, Ancient Laws and
Institutes of Wales, Vol. 1. (London: G.E. Eyre and A. Spottiswoode, 1841).
27
Coral Lumbley
Line 2: Eis+
Line 3: soes diogelach yw hyt y pedeir keinhawc.
“Nevertheless it is more likely to be [worth] four pence.”
This page goes on to list the value of a thief who is to be sold, what
happens in the case that a thief’s life does become forfeit, and how a
victim of theft ought to be compensated. It could certainly be a
coincidence that Scribe X91’s first word-licking dog appears on a page
about the theft of four-footed animals, but the dog’s medieval position
as a guard or hunter makes this doodle quite apropos of the content. This
marginal drawing no doubt contributed to Huws’s observation that X91
was interested in major political figures of North Wales, with Bleddyn
appearing in line 9, changing Hywel’s tradition of charging multiple fees
to a thief.
Whether a simplistic illustration of Line 1 or a marker for Bleddyn,
Dog 1 gains significance as the reader encounters the second word-
licking Dog 2 on f.71r, or page 142 (Fig. 2). A few pages after drawing
Dog 1, X91 seems to have realized that he did not need to mark areas
with “nota bene” as well as a dog; rather, he could put the dog itself to the
labor usually performed by human language in the form of maniculae.
Dog 2 is visually distinct from Dog 1, and is more of a pair with Dog 3,
though all three appear in right profile and have the same basic shape.
Dog 2 is positioned at the bottom right of the page, looking upward and
extending his tongue toward the short final line. Its ears are either
naturally or artificially clipped short, bobbing upward from his head. It
seems to wear an undecorated collar that turns up in a concave manner,
and the long neck features scalloped detailing, indicating fur. A dark mark
appears on the snout and appears to be a mistake, following what may
be an erroneous pencil marking. The dog’s nose is distinctly formed, and
its tongue hangs outward. The tongue is drawn in the same red used for
the Llyfr Iorwerth’s rubrication, suggesting that the doodle was put in place
by the scribe, before the official rubrication process began.
As Huws noted, it was common for Welsh scribes to decorate this
area of a page. In my review of the corpus, it seems less common for
dogs to physically touch the text in this way, less so for them to serve as
augmented nota bene marks. In this case, Dog 2 licks a short line that hangs
below the sentence to which it is attached:
28
Line 26: Pob prenn ny ordiwedho frwyth; pedeir

Line 27: ke[inhawc] a dal.
“Every tree that does not bear fruit; four pence in payment.”
Dog 2 extends its tongue toward “frwyth” [fruit], perhaps playing upon
the idea of a dog salivating after a human delicacy. It is also possible that
this dog, if it is a hunting dog, was more inspired by the opening lines of
the page:
Line 1: Croen bleid; wyth kenhawc. Croen beleu; pe+
Line 2: deir ar hugeint. Croen llostlydan; chweugeint.
“The pelt of a wolf: eight pence. The pelt of a marten;
twenty-four. The pelt of a beaver; 120.”
Dog 2 may be interested in the fruits of trees or in the valuable pelts
of wild animals. The rest of the page is concerned with the values of
other creatures (including bees) and both fruiting and non-fruiting trees
(including sour apple and oak). Scribe X91 does not clearly plot out the
purpose of his word-licking dogs, but they are physically attached to the
text in a way that suggests significance. With Dog 2, a pattern emerges in
which a canine’s physical connection to the text encourages a particular
way of reading: one that is playful and interested in an animal-centric
view of Cyfraith.
Dog 3 of f.100v, or page 201, is the X91’s third and final word-licking
dog. It is placed at the bottom-most area of the lower margin and drawn
over the ruling marks, somewhat ungracefully. This canine is visually
similar to Dog 2 of f.74r, having short ears, a well-formed nose, and an
almond-shaped eye. The collar is simply decorated, like that of Dog 1,
but convex, like that of Dog 2. Dog 3 has the same textured fur of Dog
2, though his tongue is outlined plainly in black ink and not rubricated.
The tongue laps at the folia’s leader, reading “hyt bynnac” [shall so ever].
The larger statement to which this phrase belongs is nestled in a long
list of damweiniau [incidents], all beginning with the formulaic phrase “O
d[eruyd]”, or “If it happens that…” Discussion of this incident begins on
f. 100v, Line 23, and continues on to f.101r, Line 9. For brevity, I
conclude this transcription on Line 2, which completes the sense of the
relevant sentence:
29
Coral Lumbley
Line 23: O d[eruyd] torri llog kyn talu toll o honei;

Line 24: y brenh[in] bieiuyd y da. kyt torrer hitheu gwedy
Line 25: taler y doll; ny dylyir dim udunt. kanys breint
Line 26: alltutyon a vyd arnadunt o hynny allan. a phy
Line 1: hyt bynnac o hynny allan y bo wrth y hagor;
Line 2: ny dylyir dim idi.
If it happens that a ship wrecks before paying her toll; the
king is owed her goods. If she wrecks after paying the toll;
he is not owed them. [This is] because the status of alltudion
[aliens] will be upon them from then on. And whatsoever
duration after that she should be anchored; nothing is owed
from that.
This passage is part of a larger section on the protections and
restrictions of alltudion, a specific legal class in Cyfraith. The relevance of
a canine manicula pointing out “hyt bynnac” [whatsoever duration] is
unclear, and likely nonexistent. However, Scribe X91’s playful and
inventive approach to some of his works suggests that another element
may be at play. Very close to Dog 3’s head is the word “kanys” [before
or since], a Welsh homonym of canis, the Latin word for dog. Is it
possible that X91 selected this margin for a third word-licking dog,
drawing a connection between the Middle Welsh term for “because” or
“since” and the Latin term for canines? It is not possible to be sure of
X91’s intentions, but his habit of incorporating the specific, repetitive
image of a word-licking dog implies connections between them.
Overall, the stout appearance of the dogs, resulting from relatively
even proportions of snout to skull to neck give the impression that they
are designed to resemble full-bodied hunting dogs. They lack the long,
thin muzzle of the greyhound, a popular hunting dog, and appear too
large to be terriers or other small lap dogs of varieties that were
commonly kept as pets.42 It is possible that the scribe had the alaunt in
mind; although he did not replicate the alaunt’s signature pointed ears,
the dogs’ sizes seem to be in line with the alaunt’s generally stocky
contours. Considering their proportions and their proximity to a man in
42On small dogs as pets, see Kathleen Walker-Meikle, Medieval Pets (Suffolk, UK, Boydell
and Brewer, 2012), 2.
30
a hunter’s cap on f. 95, it seems possible that Scribe A’s dogs reflect a
hunter’s ethos.
That said, the dogs are highly differentiable from the dog of NLW
MS Peniarth 28 on f.21r. This canine is one of several illustrations in this
mid-thirteenth-century Latin copy of the Law.43 In Peniarth 28, a single
lean greyhound is featured in right profile, stretched out in motion as
though he were in the middle of a hunt.44 His neck is stretched forward,
eyes alert, and claws eagerly extended. Like the dogs of Peniarth 32, he
wears a collar, indicating his role as a friend and servant to humans,
performing the ritual hunt for a master. However, this canine is designed
to be a direct illustration of the text’s subject matter, not a paratextual
aid. In design, the word-licking dogs of Peniarth 32 are much more
similar to the lion of the mid-thirteenth-century Black Book of
Camarthen (Peniarth MS 1).45 Appearing on f. 4r., this lion is drawn in
right profile gazing upward toward a fragmented line. His teeth are bared
in a grimace and he raises a single paw, which allows the artist to display
the creature’s claws. The dogs also resemble the winged creatures of
Caligula A.iii, whose jaws and beaks are aimed at words underneath the
final ruled lines of pages.46
Peniarth 32 shows that Scribe X91 gained an interest in and
knowledge of the visual vocabulary of Welsh marginal illustrations,
whether or not he had access to the specific manuscripts discussed
above. Literary culture and manuscript production blossomed in late
medieval Wales, and a set of visual and decorative practices seem to have
been part and parcel of the movement of Welsh and Cambro-Latin texts.
Medieval Welsh centers of book production could not sustain the
creation of lavish, deluxe illuminated manuscripts, but even relatively
simple manuscripts show scribal awareness of how visual artistry could
add meaning and value to their work.
43 Dating from “Peniarth 28: a Latin text of the Laws of Hywel Dda”, National Library
of Wales, library.wales/index.php?id=252#?c=&m=&s=&cv=& xywh=-270%2C-165
%2C4068%2C4545. Accessed 8 June 2022.
44 Huws characterizes the dog as a greyhound. Huws, “Peniarth 28”, np.
45 The Black Book of Camarthen, National Library of Wales, www.library.wales/
discover/digital-gallery/manuscripts/the-middle-ages/the-black-book-of-carmarthen#?
c=&m=&s=&cv=8&xywh=-50%2C-465%2C1477%2C2697. Accessed 8 June 2022.
46 See Huws, Plates 25-26, pp. 180-181.
31
Coral Lumbley
IV. Theorizing Signs

As William H. Sherman has shown, the manicula (meaning “little hand,”
from the Latin manus [hand]) was a nearly ubiquitous feature of
manuscripts and printed books produced and read between the twelfth
and eighteenth centuries.47 Maniculae generally featured a single human
or humanoid hand with an extended or hyper-extended index finger,
pointing toward a word or section of text that the author, editor, or
reader believed to be of significant value. In 1495, John Trevisa wrote
“The second finger is called index and salutaris and is the teacher. For
with it we greet, and show, and teach all things.”48 This greeter, shower,
and teacher assisted with the creation of a mnemonic storehouse,
reminding book users of the multifaceted and “manual art” by which
knowledge could be encountered, acquired, internalized, and utilized.49
Drawing on the semiotic theory of Charles S. Peirce, which holds that
the triadic nature of signs includes an icon (element resembling a
referent), index (element referring to things associated with that
referent), and symbol (element randomly assigned to indicate a referent),
Sherman notes that the manicula “serves all three of these functions: it
is at once icon, index, and symbol.”50 The manicula resembles the hand
that turns the page and traces the letters, refers to the cerebral process of
obtaining and accumulating knowledge, and represents the abstract
concept of knowing in the Middle Ages.
But what happens when the manicula is no longer the same sort of
hand that turns the page? How do we theorize the “greeter, shower, and
teacher” when it is a canine tongue, not an index finger? The word-
licking dogs of Peniarth 32 may be simple marginal sketches, but they are
not mere grotesques, like those we see in the ascenders drawn by Hywel
Fychan and Hand 1 in RB.51 Sherman notes that some medieval scribes
departed from the classic manicula, drawing fingers that stretched into
47 William H. Sherman, Used Books: Marking Readers in Renaissance England (Philadelphia,

PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), 29.
48 Sherman, Used Books, 30. All translations are my own unless otherwise noted.
49 Sherman, Used Books, 48.
51 Of course, Michael Camille has shown that there may be no such thing as “mere”
grotesques at all. See Michael Camille, Image on the Edge: The Margins of Medieval Art
(London: Reaktion Books, 1992).
32
“phallic pointers” or “sprout[ed] leaves and flowers”.52 These signs bleed

into the realm of the illustration (when phalluses appear near relevant
discussions) and the decorative (when floral hands complement
illuminated foliage). However, Scribe X91’s word-licking dogs appear
instructive (drawing attention to key areas), non-illustrative (not
necessarily concerning events happening in the related texts), and not
strictly decorative. These canines frustrate the categories of medieval
manuscripts.
I suggest they fall into the broad category of what Erik Kwakkel has
called “cultural residue”, information about a manuscript’s cultural
context that is not part of the abstract or Platonic text itself.53 This “data
embedded in the physicality of the object itself” may be paleographic and
codicological, with handwriting revealing geographical affiliation of a
scribe or parchment quality revealing the wealth of a patron. These traits,
sometimes imbued upon a text inadvertently or unconsciously, provide
a wealth of information. Peniarth 32’s non-human maniculae fall within
this broad field of cultural residue, creating more questions than answers
about the scribe and projected reader’s assumptions, interests, and
practices. This cultural residue, marginalia that seem to have begun as
distractions from the text at hand, but become entangled with the text,
is situated within a manuscript designed to a memory aid of sorts. Llyfr
Têg was likely not a handbook for dosbarthwyr, but something closer to a
history book for Welsh antiquarians. Scribe X91 did not likely endeavor
to memorize the Law, being a scribe, not a lawyer, but he developed a
recurring, recognizable image to assist in his patron or reader’s
antiquarian study of the traditional Welsh law.
These word-licking dogs thus facilitate the creation of a mnemonic
storehouse by indexing particular moments in the Law. In a more specific
sense, the dogs can thus be considered imagines agentes, which Beryl
Rowland has defined as “corporeal figures engaged in some conspicuous
action or possessing striking characteristics.”54 While human maniculae

53 Erik Kwakkel, “Decoding the Material Book: Cultural Residue in Medieval
Manuscripts,” in Michael Johnston, The Medieval Manuscript Book: Cultural Approaches
(Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 60-76.
54 Beryl Rowland, “The Art of Memory and the Bestiary,” in Beasts and Birds of the Middle
Ages: The Bestiary and its Legacy, eds. Willene B. Clark and Meredith T. McMunn
(Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989), 12-25, 13.
33
Coral Lumbley
operate as a nearly universally-recognized visual sign meaning “look

here!”, the word-licking dogs bring specific pictorial associations to bear
upon the words being licked.55 For Mary Carruthers, the “mental image
which an individual makes [in memorization] need have little to do with
objective reality,” reminding us that Scribe X91’s guide dogs may – or
may not – have anything to do with the literal content to which they
point.56 The word-licking dogs fascinate the reader because X91 has
delivered a set of imagines agentes, but left no guide for the target
knowledge that the imagines are meant to support. Scribe X91 developed
a sign (a word-licking dog’s head) that he used to construct a truncated
paratext (the repetition of dogs’ heads signifying an archive of common
information), but the signified itself remains mysterious. While we
cannot know the specifics of the scribe’s decision to replace maniculae
with dogs, there are multiple possible associations he would have had in
mind. As the standard medieval understanding of dogs was both
scientific and spiritual, it stands to reason that the X91 may have
associated dogs with certain moral values, personality traits, or social
cues.
For medieval Welsh Christians, Peter Lord observes that “[t]he
meaning of images had a … fluid quality. The depiction of an animal, for
instance, will be read by most modern observers initially in naturalistic
terms, but in the Middle Ages it would have been understood primarily
in narrative and symbolic terms as explicating the Christian
understanding of life”.57 In Biblical terms, dogs symbolized both
foolishness and wisdom: the Tanakh (Proverbs 26:11) and New
Testament (2 Peter 2:22) compare the fool who repeats mistakes to a dog
who returns to his vomit, with the bestiary tradition continuing this
characterization.58 Some medieval commenters likened this vomit to the
process of confession, meaning that a dog might not be an icon of
foolishness but of wisdom, conjuring associations of reflective piety,
particularly after the Fourth Lateran council’s influential 1215 declaration
55 I follow Mary Carruthers’s distinction between visual and pictorial mnemonic cues.
Carruthers, The Book of Memory, Cambridge University Press, 2nd ed., 2008, 26.
56 Carruthers, The Book of Memory, 26.
57 Peter Lord, The Visual Culture of Wales: Medieval Vision (Cardiff: University of Wales
Press, 2003), 12.

58 Aberdeen Bestiary, f. 19v., University of Aberdeen, www.abdn.ac.uk/bestiary/
ms24/f19r. Accessed 8 June 2022.
34
on universal confession. However, Aesop’s ancient claim that dogs will

foolishly confuse reality with watery reflection remained popular
throughout the Middle Ages as well, making the intelligence of dogs
anything but a universally accepted idea.59 Following Pliny, Isidore of
Seville has complimentary words about dogs, claiming that they are the
smartest and most loyal of all creatures, with superior abilities in strength
and speed.60
Bestiary scholars note that commonplace images of animals were
considered powerful tools in the project of pastoral care. Jess Wong
writes, “Familiar domestic animals, such as cats, dogs, and sheep, were
excellent reminders of [the laity’s] lessons, as their very appearance and
connection to the bestiary’s vivid imagery echoed back to remembered
sermons.”61 Within the paradigm of medieval memory, it was vital to
arrange and store distinct images within the mind, images that could
contain their own array of enriching spiritual or intellectual connotations.
It was the responsibility of learned not only to maintain an intricate
mnemonic system of their own, but to “[produce] real imagines for the
laity to regard cum oculus carnis.”62 Many bestiaries, including the well-
preserved Aberdeen Bestiary, claims that the dog’s saliva has healing
properties, with f. 19v stating “Lingua canis dum lingit vulnum sanat illud”
(The tongue of a dog, in licking a wound, heals it.) F. 19r illustrates this
phenomenon, showing two dogs healing their own bodily wounds by
licking. Could Scribe X91 have thought to himself, as he sketched, of one
of these associations that have surrounded canines throughout the
European Middle Ages? Perhaps the positive associations of dogs would
have reminded the target audience (whether Scribe X91 himself, or a
patron) of the importance of loyally and faithfully performing duties
according to traditional legal practices.
Of course, it is highly possible that the scribe had a much more
secular set of canine associations in mind. While Isidore includes canines
within the category of “bestiis”, wild and driven by unpredictable free will,
59 Aberdeen Bestiary, f. 19v.

60 Isidore of Seville, The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, trans. Stephen A. Barney, W.J. Lewis,
J.A. Beach, and Oliver Berghof (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 253.
Pliny, Natural History, Volume III: Books 8-11, trans. H. Rackham, Loeb Classical Library
353 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1940). Book 8, Section 61.
61 Jess Wong, Reading in the Animal Vernacular: The Bestiary as Lay Genre in Medieval England,
unpublished dissertation (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2017), 38.

62 Rowland, “Art of Memory”, 13.
35
Coral Lumbley
Scribe X91’s word-licking dogs sport collars, indicating their tamed,

domesticated status. (Their small, perky ears may even be evidence of
ear-cropping in large-bodied, high-status dogs of late medieval Wales,
though this hypothesis would be difficult to prove.) The word-licking
dogs are defined by their service to humans, roles indicated by their
collars and their eager participation in the physical text itself. This
service-oriented portrayal, combined with dogs’ large proportions and
collars, seems to suggest that the dogs operate in the context of the hunt.
Perhaps our scribe wished to portray hunting dogs in a reversal of
their typical role; rather than bringing down prey, they contribute to the
intellectual florilegium of the manuscript’s user, lapping up useful
“flowers” of knowledge. If so, the dogs offer a late Welsh take trope on
the hunting/fishing trope of memory identified by Carruthers in
Aristotle, Albertus Magnus, Quintilian, and Geoffrey of Vinsauf.63
Indeed, Carruthers notes that “[f]ish are fairly common in a number of
manuscripts, sometimes drawn crudely by a reader opposite a portion of
text, thus functioning like a ‘NOTA’ admonition.”64 Scribe X91 provides
a single, crudely drawn fish on f. 74v, but there is no indication it serves
the same function as the word-licking dogs. However, if the word-licking
dogs are indeed hunters, friendly rather than ferocious, they contribute
to the high-class, secular associations of the manuscript, and may indicate
that Scribe X91 was catering to the aristocratic tastes of the manuscript’s
patron. The drawing of a mustachioed man in a broad-brimmed hat on
f. 95r further contributes to the idea that the dogs are evidence of an
aristocratic ethos present in the text. The man has a well-kept beard and
a single feather extends from the hat, indicating a distinctly secular and
somewhat elevated status. He is not directly linked to the dogs, but would
not be out of place in a hunting scene with these large canines, perhaps
a scene like that of Pwyll’s woodland hunt in the First Branch of the
Mabinogi. This leads me to suggest that the imagines agentes are indeed
hunting dogs, using associations of the hunt to coordinate a particular
meaning, as yet unknown, for the scribe or reader. Of course, there is no
guarantee that multiple readers would have, nor would have been
intended to have, interpreted these dogs’ heads in the exact same way.
Various readers may mentally “translate” these marginal images
differently, with some recalling Isidore and others Aesop, with still others
63 Carruthers, The Book of Memory, 323-24.

64 Carruthers, The Book of Memory, 324.
36
thinking of a past or future hunt. The addition of collars (and their

proximity to the sketch of a gentleman) do suggest that these canines
were hunters, guiding their reader to particularly fruitful selections of the
Law of Hywel Dda.
V. Conclusion
In conclusion, Scribe X91 engaged in Welsh scribal practices that
augment our reading of medieval Welsh and Cambro-Latin manuscripts.
He took his cue from scribes such as Hywel Fychan, but improvised new
techniques of adding visual interest and meaning to his copy of the Law.
In addition to using human maniculae to mark passages, he harnessed
animal labor – visually and metaphorically – in the creation of a
paratextual apparatus. While we may never know exactly why X91 chose
word-licking dogs as a tool, it seems that he considered hunting dogs to
be a useful image to repeat on three separate pages. Because these pages
feature values of four-animals, pelts, and fruiting trees, it seems that the
word-licking dogs may be designed to assist an aristocratic reader with
his study of how the traditional Law approached animal and forest
husbandry. If this is the case, X91 then encourages a playful mode of
reading as he points out a visual pun between the Welsh kanys and Latin
canis. Further study of Scribe X91’s work, especially the as-yet undigitized
Peniarth 19, may reveal key information about his associations, monastic
or secular, and about when and how he shifted his scribal practices from
those evident in RB to those of Llyfr Têg.
Indeed, the recent and ongoing digitization of medieval Welsh
manuscripts will continue to facilitate future studies of Welsh scribal
practices and the role of naturalistic marginalia in Welsh manuscripts. As
I have discussed here, Scribe X91’s use of dogs to fashion new maniculae
reveals the adaptation of practices that were common enough to form
patterns across thirteenth and fourteenth-century Welsh manuscripts.
Like their British and Continental neighbors, Welsh scribes used
naturalistic marginalia to enhance the quality, attractiveness, and
mnemonic value of the texts they copied. Animals on the edges of these
manuscripts still have much to tell us about the context of their origins,
creators, and readers.
37
Coral Lumbley
References
Aberdeen Bestiary. F. 19v. University of Aberdeen. www.abdn.ac.uk/
bestiary/ms24/f19r. Accessed 8 June 2022.
Charles-Edwards, T.M. The Welsh Laws. Cardiff, UK: University of Wales
Press, 1989.
Camille, Michael. Image on the Edge: The Margins of Medieval Art. London:
Reaktion Books, 1992.
Cappelli, Adriano. The Elements of Abbreviation in Medieval Latin Paleography.
Trans. David Heimann and Richard Kay. Lawrence, KA: University
of Kansas Libraries, 1982.
Carruthers, Mary. The Book of Memory. Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 2008.
Charles-Edwards Gifford. “The Scribes of the Red Book of Hergest.”
National Library of Wales Journal 21:3 (Haf, 1980): 246-256.
Clark, Willene B., and McMunn, Meradith T. Beasts and Birds of the Middle
Ages: The Bestiary and Its Legacy. Philadelphia, PA: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1991.
Crane, Susan. Animal Encounters: Contacts and Concepts in Medieval Britain.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2013.
Evans, J. Gwenogvryn. Report on Manuscripts in the Welsh Language.
Vol. I. London: Historical Manuscripts Commission, 1898.
Guy, Ben. “Epitome Historia Britanniae.” Welsh Chronicles. croniclau.ban
gor.ac.uk/hist-britanniae.php.en. Accessed 8 June 2022.
–––. “A Welsh Manuscript in America: Library Company of
Philadelphia, 8680.O.” National Library of Wales Journal 36 (2014),
1–26.
Jenkins, Dafydd. The Law of Hywel Dda. Llandysul, UK: Gomer Press,
1990.
Roberts, Brynley F. “Hopcyn ap Tomas ab Einion”. Oxford Dictionary of
National Biography. 23 Sept. 2004.
Kwakkel, Erik. “Decoding the Material Book: Cultural Residue in
Medieval Manuscripts”. The Medieval Manuscript Book: Cultural
Approaches, 60-76. Edited by Michael Johnston. Cambridge, NY:
Cambridge University Press, 2015.
Fulton, Helen, “Literary Networks and Patrons in Late Medieval Wales.”
In The Cambridge History of Welsh Literature, 129-154. Edited by Geraint
Evans and Helen Fulton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2019.
38
Huws, Daniel. Medieval Welsh Manuscripts. Cardiff, UK: University of

Wales Press, 2003.
Huws, Daniel. “Peniarth 28.” Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru.
www.library.wales/discover/digital-gallery/manuscripts/the-middle-
ages/laws-of-hywel-dda/daniel-huws-article-peniarth-28-illustration
s-from-a-welsh-lawbook. Accessed 8 June 2022.
Lord, Peter. The Visual Culture of Wales: Medieval Vision. Cardiff, UK:
University of Wales Press, 2003.
Luft, Diana. “The NLW Peniarth 32 Latin Chronicle”. Studia Celtica, Vol
44 (2010): 47-70.
McCracken, Peggy. In the Skin of a Beast: Sovereignty and Animality in Medieval
France. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2017.
NLW MS Peniarth 28. Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru. www.library.wales
/discover/digital-gallery/manuscripts/the-middle-ages/laws-of-hyw
el-dda#?c=&m=&s=&cv=&xywh=-84%2C-565%2C3778%2C52
20. Accessed 8 June 2022.
NLW MS Peniarth 32. Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru.
“NLW MS. Peniarth 32”. Welsh Prose 1300-1425. www.rhyddiaith
ganoloesol.caerdydd.ac.uk/en/ms-home.php?ms=Pen32f. Accessed
8 June 2022.
Isidore of Seville. The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville. Translated by Stephen
A. Barney, W.J. Lewis, J.A. Beach, and Oliver Berghof. Cambridge:
“Peniarth 19: An Electronic Edition, TEI Header”, in Welsh Prose 1300-
1425, eds. Peter Wynn Thomas, D. Mark Smith, and Diana Luft, Arts
and Humanities Research Council. www.rhyddiaithganoloesol.caerdy
dd.ac.uk/en/tei-header.php?ms=Pen19. Accessed 8 June 2022.
“Peniarth 32: An Electronic Edition, TEI Header”, in Welsh Prose 1300-
1425, eds. Peter Wynn Thomas, D. Mark Smith, and Diana Luft, Arts
and Humanities Research Council. www.rhyddiaithganoloesol.caerdy
dd.ac.uk/en/tei-header.php?ms=Pen32. Accessed 8 June 2022.
Pliny. Natural History, Volme III: Books 8-11. Translated by H.
Rackham. Loeb Classical Library 353. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1940.
Red Book of Hergest. Jesus College, University of Oxford.
https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/9bf187bf-f862-4453-bc4f-
851f6d3948af/. Accessed 8 June 2022.
39
Coral Lumbley
Roberts, Sara Elin. “Iorwerth.” Cyfraith Hywel. http://www.cyfraith-

hywel.org.uk/en/canllaw-testunau-iorwerth.php. Accessed 8 June
2022.
Rowland, Beryl. “The Art of Memory and the Bestiary.” In Beasts and
Birds of the Middle Ages: The Bestiary and its Legacy, 12-25. Edited by
Willene B. Clark and Meredith T. McMunn. Philadelphia, PA:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989.
Sherman, William H. Used Books: Marking Readers in Renaissance England.
Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008.
Stacey, Robin Chapman. “Law and Lawbooks in Medieval Wales.”
History Compass 8, no. 10 (October, 2010): 1180-1190.
–––. Law and the Imagination in Medieval Wales. Philadelphia, PA: University
of Pennsylvania Press, 2018.
Thomas, Peter Wynn. “Middle Welsh Dialects: Problems and
Perspectives.” Bwletin y Bwrdd Gwybodau Celtaidd [Bulletin of the Board
of Celtic Studies], 40 (1993), 17-50.
Owen, Aneurin. Ancient Laws and Institutes of Wales. Vol 1. London: G.E.
Eyre and A. Spottiswoode, 1841.
Walker-Meikle, Kathleen. Medieval Pets. Suffolk, UK: Boydell and Brewer,
2012.
Wong, Jess. Reading in the Animal Vernacular: The Bestiary as Lay Genre in
Medieval England. Unpublished Dissertation. University of Illinois
Urbana-Champaign, 2017.
40
THE GOAT OF SCANDERBEG:
A SHORT HISTORY OF MISUNDERSTANDINGS
ETLEVA LALA*
I. The Helmet of Scanderbeg with the Horned Goat on It

On Christmas Eve, his Beatitude donated to him
[Scanderbeg] the sword and the helmet as a sign to fight with
manliness against the Ottomans and to win great honor. And
Scanderbeg made a big feast.1
Lorenzo de Pesaro and Agostino de Rossi, ambassadors of Milan,
reported about this papal gift from Rome on 31 December 1466 to their
authorities, namely Duchess Bianca Visconti and Duke Galeazzo Sforza.
The donation of the sword and the ‘cap’ (helmet?) made to Scanderbeg
by Pope Paul II on Christmas Eve was also mentioned in the Vita of the
pope,2 which corroborates the report that these objects were indeed
given to Scanderbeg. Yet, this donation is not seriously taken into
consideration by scholars, although a papal donation, especially on the
event of Scanderbeg’s only visit to the Holy See, should have attracted
much more attention, especially when it is linked to Scanderbeg.
Scanderbeg is not merely a dominating figure in the history
and historical consciousness of the Albanians, but a figure of
* Eötvös Loránd University, Department of History of Eastern Europe, Hungary.

1 Francisc Pall, I rapporti italo-albanesi intorno alla metà del secolo XV (Naples: Società
Napoletana di Storia Patria, 1966), no. 70: “La nocte de Natale donó sua Beatitudine ad epso la
spada et il capello in signo de combatere virilmente contra ’l Turcho et feceli grande honore. Et espso
Scandarbecho ne ha facta gran festa.”
2 Giuseppe Zippel (ed.), Le vite di Paolo II di Gaspare da Verona e Michele Canensi (Città del
Castello, 1904), 148-149: pileum ensemque militarem.

Etleva Lala
commanding significance in the history of fifteenth-century

Europe. His career serves as a timely reminder that what
occurs in the Balkans has great bearing on the future of
Western Europe as well.3
There are thousands of books and articles and other studies written
about Scanderbeg4 that witness for the importance of his place in the
history of Albania and beyond, and yet this donation of Pope Paul II to
him is still mentioned only as a donation, without any further details on
what it actually was and what happened to it after the death of
Scanderbeg. This is one side of the coin.
The other side of the coin is that we have a lot of attention addressed
to the objects of Scanderbeg that have survived, especially to the helmet
(Fig. 1).
Scanderbeg’s helmet, now on display in the Collection of Arms and
Armour of the Kunsthistorischen Museum in Vienna, was originally
brought from Albania to Italy5 by Skanderbeg’s wife, Donika Kastrioti,
after his death (1468), and it is among the very few objects of Scanderbeg
that have survived: two swords, the helmet, and a prayer book. In 1590,
the helmet and one sword were in the possession of a certain count
3 David Abulafia, “Scanderbeg: A Hero and His Reputation,” In Scanderbeg, ed. Harry
Hodgkinson (Dublin: Center for Albanian Studies, 1999), ix.
4 There is a considerably large bibliography on Scanderbeg. The first vita was published
in Latin by Marinus Barletius c. 1508-1510 and translated into many European languages.
Marinus Barletius, Historia de vita, et gestis Scanderbegi, Epirotarum principis (Roma:
Bernardino Vitali, 1508/1510 (later published in Strasbourg, 1537; Frankfurt am Main,
1578; Zagreb, 1743) and translated into German (1533), Italian (1554), Portuguese (1567),
Polish (1569), French (1576), Spanish (1588), and English (1596). For a full bibliography
on Scanderbeg, see Kristo Frashëri, Gjergj Kastrioti Skënderbeu: jeta dhe vepra (1405-1468)
[Gjergj Kastrioti Scanderbeg: Life and oeuvre] (Tirana: Toena, 2002). One of the recent
best books on Scanderbeg was written by Aurel Plasari, Skënderbeu: Një Histori Politike
[Scanderbeg: a political history] (Tirana: Instituti i Studimeve Shqiptare “Gjergj Fishta,”
2010) [henceforth: Plasari, Skënderbeu]. During the year 2018, proclaimed as the Year of
Scanderbeg, commemorating to the 600th anniversary of his death, a considerable number
of publications on him appeared all over the world. I do a disservice in not mentioning
here some of the wonderful publications on that occasion, but I hope to do it in a
publication of a different format.
5 Lucia Nadin found evidence in the Biblioteca del Museo Correr di Venezia that the weapons
of Scanderbeg were preserved in the Arsenal of Venice before they were taken to Austria.
See Lucia Nadin, “Testimonianze manoscritte sull’armatura e le armi di Scanderbeg a
Venezia,” Palaver 8 (2019): 109-124.
42
The Goat of Scanderbeg
Wolfgang of Stubenberg (ϯ1597), whereas the other sword was in the

Museum of Arms (Zeughaus) of Charles II, Archduke of Austria (25 July
1564-10 July 1590), in Graz, Austria. The weapons were brought together
by the son of another German emperor, Archduke Ferdinand II (1529-
1595), who was one of history's most prominent collectors of art. He kept
them in his museum at Ambras Castle, near Innsbruck (Tyrol, Austria). In
1806, these weapons were transferred to the Imperial Museum of Vienna,
nowadays known as the Kunsthistorisches Museum.6
Fig. 1. The Helmet of Scanderbeg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/
a8/Helmet_of_Skanderbeg.JPG/1200px-Helmet_of_Skanderbeg.JPG
(Accessed on January 20, 2021)
The helmet and the swords were carefully studied by the specialist in
the fine arts Matthias Pfaffenbichler, who considers the helmet as of very
mixed qualities.7 He notes that the head of the horned goat, placed on its
top, is made of bronze and golden-plated and is of an extremely high
6 Matthias Pfaffenbichler, “L’elmo e la spada di Giorgio Castriota detto Scanderbeg,”

Palaver 4 (2015): 40-51.
7 Ibidem, 44.
43
Etleva Lala
quality, which makes him believe that this is the only part which was
indeed designed with care and for a higher purpose. In contrast, the
helmet as a whole is of such a bad quality, that it was unworthy to be
given as a present, and it is a big question why Scanderbeg would have
accepted such a present.
Of similarly poor quality was also one of the swords, not the one with
blood on it, which obviously was the real sword of Scanderbeg, but the
other one, which, being tarnished, must have never been used, according
to Pfaffenbichler. This sword is of an Ottoman design with an Arabic
inscription on it, and full of orthographic mistakes at that. If we ignore
for the moment the symbolic meaning of the gift of a sword of the foe,
we cannot imagine that Scanderbeg, who was well-educated and knew
well the language of the inscription, would not have immediately noticed
the mistakes on it and recognized how poor the quality was.8
When discussing the inferior quality of the helmet and the sword as a
donation to Scanderbeg, Pfaffenbichler looks to find a justification in the
plausible context of Scanderbeg’s coronation as king by Pope Pius II as
being the most probable occasion when this donation could have taken
place, thinking that the shortage of time could have been the reason for
the quality of the helmet and the sword. He, however, concludes that the
Ottoman-style sword and the poor-quality helmet were inappropriate for
such a solemn occasion as the coronation of a king. Nevertheless, he
forgets that the coronation never took place, as Pope Pius II died in
Ancona and never again met Scanderbeg, to be able to give him the
helmet and the sword. Scanderbeg did not go to the Holy See until
December 1466, on which occasion he received for the first time from
the Holy See the “helmet and the sword.” 9
The context of this donation is completely different from that of a
coronation, if we accept that these presents were given by Pope Paul II
on Christmas Eve 1466, as the evidence suggests.10 In this different
context, the whole story could have had a completely different meaning,
8 Ibidem, 48.
9 Pall, I rapporti italo-albanesi, no. 70: “La nocte de Natale donó sua Beatitudine ad epso la spada et
il capello in signo de combatere virilmente contra ’l Turcho et feceli grande honore. Et espso Scandarbecho
ne ha facta gran festa.”
10 Zippel, Vite di Paolo II, 149v, n. 1. Oliver Jens Schmitt, Skënderbeu [Scanderbeg] (Tirana:
Natyra, 2008) [henceforth: Schmitt, Skënderbeu]; Fan S. Noli, Historia e Skënderbeut (Gjergj
Kastriotit) Mbretit të Shqipërisë 1412-1468 [The History of Scanderbeg (George Castriota),
King of Albania 1412-1468] (Boston: Shtypeshkronja e Diellit, 1921), 259.
44
namely a gesture of humiliation and distrust on the part of Pope Paul II

towards Scanderbeg. Scanderbeg might not have perceived this message
immediately, as the goat may have meant something special to him. He
may even have been quite happy about receiving the helmet with the goat
from Pope Paul II, seeing that he responded by ordering a great feast,11
probably because the goat was for him a symbol of unity with his people,
as it will be argued in the following, and he understood its representation
in these terms.
Connecting thus the helmet and the sword to a very important and
delicate moment in the life of Scanderbeg, namely his last visit to Italy,
and specifically to the Holy See, and his need for Western support to
continue resisting the Ottomans, the response of the Holy See could not
only have been a disappointment for him, as he received too little in
comparison to what he was hoping for, but it also illustrates a
misunderstanding between the West and the Albanians.
II. The Goat and Its Symbolic Meaning to Scanderbeg

When Pope Paul II gave the sword and the helmet to Scanderbeg, the
latter rejoiced and made a great feast, swallowing his pride and probably
overlooking the quality of the present, and still prepared to believe that
this gift was a benevolent sign that the pope would respond to his request
for support against the Ottoman attacks. Scanderbeg could have taken
the head of a horned goat on top of the helmet as a sign of recognition
of who he was and what the goat represented regarding him, namely that
he was the new Alexander the Great.
Gjergj Kastrioti Scanderbeg, the Albanian national hero, is certainly
the best-studied personality in Albanian history. Therefore, in
mentioning some of the most important aspects of his life, the purpose
here will not be to write another account of his life and deeds, but rather
to seek the symbolic meaning of the goat that not only stands on his
helmet but represents a whole worldview of him and his Albanian
contemporaries.
It is no accident that the goat became Scanderbeg’s symbol. The
responses the goat evoked are certainly numerous throughout the
centuries since the time of Scanderbeg. The responses to such images,
which are mostly psychological and behavioral, rather than critical, have
11 Pall, I rapporti, no. 70.
45
Etleva Lala
not been confronted enough in literature, because, as Freedberg puts it,

“they were unrefined, basic, pre-intellectual, raw and too awkward to
write about.”12 Yet, “it should be within the historian’s range to be able
to reclaim precisely those kinds of responses that are not usually written
about.”13
Presumably born on the day of St. George in 1405, Gjergj Kastrioti
was given the name of the saint, St. George being venerated by medieval
Albanians of both Eastern and Western rites. It is debated whether
Gjergj was taken at a young or a mature age as an elite hostage to the
court of the Ottoman sultan, 14 or whether he indeed was taken at all as
an elite hostage,15 but it is undoubted that Gjergj was raised and educated
in the best way in letters and in arms, excelling as a great commander of
many battles and speaking many languages.
Renamed after Alexander the Great, Scander beg, Scanderbeg was
destined to become great like Alexander already in the belly of his
mother, as her dream shows,16 thus reconciling the name (Saint George)
with the dream (the dragon). The myth of the great Macedonian warrior,
Alexander the Great (356-323 BC), was widespread, especially with
regard to celebrating his military achievements,17 and he was a role model
particularly in the medieval Albanian community, as the name Alexander,
in its different short versions (Lek, Leks, Aleko, Sander, Skender), was
and continues to be widespread among Albanians. Lek, the most favorite
shortened version, is often encountered among medieval Albanian
12 David Freedberg, The Power of Images, Studies in the History and Theory of Response (Chicago,
London: The University of Chicago Press, 1989), xx.
13 Ibidem.
14 About the debate, see Plasari, Skënderbeu, 260-262. Selami Pulaha, “Mbi rininë e
Skënderbeut” (About the youth of Scanderbeg), in Studime për Epokën e Skënderbeut

(Tiranë: Akademia e Shkencave e RPSH-së, 1989), 476-481.
15 Harry Hodgkinson. Scanderbeg (London: The Center for Albanian Studies, 1999), 60.
16 About the use of dreams in the Middle Ages, see Gábor Klaniczay, “Dreams and
Visions in Medieval Miracle Accounts,” In Ritual Healing: Magic, Ritual and Medical Therapy
from Antiquity until the Early Middle Modern Period, ed. Ildikó Csepregi and Charles Burnett.
(Florence: Micrologus Library, 2012): 147-170.
17 Elias Koulakiotis, Genese und Metamorphosen des Alexandermythos im Spiegel der griechischen
nicht-historiographischen Überlieferungen bis zum 3. Jh. n. Chr. Xenia, Konstanzer Althistorische

Vorträge und Forschungen 47 (Konstanz: UVK Universitätsverlag Konstanz GmbH,
2006).
46
names,18 the most famous of whom was certainly Leke Dukagjini, after
whom the customary law of the Albanians: “Kanuni i Leke Dukagjinit”
was named.19
The fact that Albanians considered themselves the descendants and
heirs of Alexander the Great can be easily confirmed by the written
evidence. In the first page of the statutes of Shkodra, the audience is
presented with the claim of the inheritance of privileges of Alexander the
Great: Privilegium Alexandri Magni Macedonis ex Greco Originali Traductum, 20
establishing thus the roots for the legitimacy of the rights presented in
this legislative text.
The year 1443 is the turning point in the life of Scanderbeg: after
having deserted the Ottoman army during the battle of Nish, he took
over the castle of Kruja, declaring an open war and hostility against the
Ottoman rule in Albania. His war was not limited to battles and clashes
with them for 25 years, until his death, but included also a remarkable
soft way of verbal and symbolic interaction, such as through
18 Dominus Alesii (1387-1393), Ludwig Thallóczy, Joseph Jireček, and Milan von Šufflay
eds. Acta et Diplomata res Albaniae Mediae Aetatis Illustrantia I-II (Vienna: Holzhausen, 1913-
1918), no. 413, 501, 694 [henceforth: AAII]; Leccha Duchainus, Leccha Zacharia See
Barletius, Historia, 33v
19 Hodgkinson. Scanderbeg, 59-60. Át Marin Sirdani, O.F.M. in his work Skanderbegu mbas
gojëdhânash [Scanderbeg according to oral transmission] (Republished in Shkodër: Botime

Françeskane, 2008), states that all the inhabitants of the Northern Albania were called
Lekë (Malsisë së Madhe), 57, footnote 1.
20 Lucia Nadin and Pëllumb Xhufi (trans.). Statutet e Shkodrës nga gjysma e parë e shek. XIV,
me shtesat deri më 1469 [Statuti di Scutari della prima metà del secolo XIV con le addizioni
fino al 1469], (Tirana: IDK, 2017), 35:
Nos Alexander Philippi regis Macedonum, archos monarchiae figuratus, imperii Graecorum inchoator,
magni Iovis filius, per aremathum alloqutor Bragmanorum et arborum solis et lunae, conculcator
Persarum ac Medorum regnorum, dominus mundi ab ortu solis usque ad occasum, a meridie usque ad
septentrionem, illustri prosapiae Illyricorum populorum Dalmatiae, Lyburniae ceterarumque eiusmodi
idiomatis et linguae gentium ad Danubium et medias regiones Thraciae incolentium gratiam, pacem atque
salutem a nobis et successoribus nostris in gubernatione mundi succedentibus. Quoniam semper nobis
affuistis in fide veraces, in armis strenui nostri coadiutores bellicosi atque robusti, damus atque
conferrimus vobis libere et in perpetuum totam plagam terrae ab aquilone, usque ad fines Italiae
meridionales, ut nullus audeat ibi manere aut residere seu ibi locare nisi vestrates; et si quis ibi alius
inventus fuerit manens, sit servus vester, et posteri sint servi posterorum vestrorum. Datum in civitate
nova nostrae fundationis Alexandrinae, fundata super magno Nili flumine. Anno XII regnorum
nostrorum, arridentibus magnis diis Iove, Marte, Plutone et maxima dea Minerva. Testes huiusmodi rei
sint Athleta illustris logotica noster et alii principes undecim, quos nobis sine prole decedentibus,
relinquimus nostros heredes ac totius orbis. Alexander Magnus Macedo fuit ante adventum Christi 325,
anno vero mundi 4874.
47
Etleva Lala
correspondence and especially the usage of symbols. The goat was one
of these symbols Scanderbeg used as a means of communicating with the
sultans and other Ottoman authorities and as a kind of psychological war
against the superstitious Ottomans.21
In Surah 18, verses 83-101 of the Quran, Dhul-Qarnayn, “He of the
two horns” is a heroic figure who builds a wall to hold back the
monstrous giants, Gog and Magog. This Dhul-Quarnayn story entered
the Quran supposedly from the legends of Alexander the Great’s battles
in the Middle East, where Skanderbeg was often fighting on behalf of
the Ottoman army, so he could have been quite familiar with all their
myths and legends. Alexander the Great, as depicted on his coins, wore
the horns of the ram-god Zeus-Ammon, and Scanderbeg, having been
named after him, must have attributed to himself also some of his
qualities. Skanderbeg, the new Alexander who bears two horns, was
holding back the monstrous Ottoman Empire for 25 years, building a
wall between the Ottomans and Western Christendom.
As soon as Scanderbeg came to power in Albania, his first attempt
was to unite all the Albanian leaders and chieftains, which he officially
did in 1444, in the League of Lezha. This was the very first time that all
the Albanian political powers were united, and Scanderbeg was
appointed the commander of this league. Keeping the Albanians united,
however, was even more difficult. In this context, I argue that
Scanderbeg, besides other means, also used symbolic language to create
an identity of belonging among Albanians or, as the famous Albanian
21 After the death of Scanderbeg, the Ottoman solders took his bones and used them as
holy symbols for protection and good luck, as they believed that Scanderbeg was beloved
by the gods in a special way. Barletius, Historia de uita, 159v: Quo tempore turcae et barbari
potiri urbe Lyssi corpus Scanderbegi summo desiderio repertum de tumulo extraxerunt, et quem tantopere
uiuum reformidabant et ad eius tantum auditum nomen fugiebant, Mortuum et iam dissolutum (nescio
an id diuina dispensatione factum fit) uidere. Summopere cupierunt ne dicam uenerari et adorare
ostenderunt. Nam omnes quidem ita ad eius cineres ossasque certatim confluebant ut felix et perbeatus
is fore existimaretur, qui ea uidere et tangere feliciorque tamen qui minimam ex illis particulam uendicare
sibi posset quam alii argento auro alii recondere arque exornare faciebant et ad collum appendebant sibi
tanquam rem diuinam sanctam et fatalem et suma ueneratione ac religion obseruabant existimantes illos
omnes qui eas secum relliquias ferent. Consimili quoque fortuna et felicitate in uita usuros esse, qua ipse
Scanderbegus a Diis immortalibus impetrate solus ex omni hominum memoria dum uiueret semper usus est.
48
medievalist, Pëllumb Xhufi names it, “a centralized Christian state,”22

and the goat was chosen by him as the symbol of union between them.
Although the horse and the lion might have been a better symbol of
power and royalty for a leader, Scanderbeg deliberately refused these
royal attributes, as they were already used by other great powers. He
wished to give to the Albanians a different identity, by showing them that
they could be strong and proud even without having royal power. Being
aware of the lack of a political structure resting on kingship, Scanderbeg
had to appeal to the opposite of that, to create a local version of a military
power, which, as a matter of fact, was exercised predominantly in the
mountainous regions, rather than in the cities.23
Scanderbeg had thus many reasons to use the goat as a unifying
symbol of the Albanians. Not only could it show continuity with the great
ancient warriors like Alexander the Great and Pyrrhus of Epirus, who
were seen as his predecessors,24 but also it could inspire unity among
Albanians, who were all familiar with this independent animal, and at the
same time the holiest among the animals in Albanian superstitious
spirituality, which obviously had pre-Christian roots, as it will be shown
next. The geographic landscape of Albania and the guerrilla war of
Scanderbeg against the huge Ottoman army made the goat the
appropriate symbol of authenticity, resistance, and stamina of the
Albanians throughout the fifteenth century and even later, as a way of
remembering the glorious Scanderbeg.25
22 Pëllumb Xhufi, Skënderbeu: Ideja dhe Ndërtimi i Shtetit [Scanderbeg: The Idea and the
Building of the State] (Tirana: Dituria, 2019), 111: Edhe këta si malësorë, kishin konceptin e
tyre të lirisë, dhe në emër të asaj lloj lirie i kërkuan shpesh sulltanit t’i ndihmonte kundër tiranisë së
Skëndebeut. Por ekzistonte një ndryshim i madh midis këtyre dy koncepteve shqiptare të lirisë. Ndërsa
krerët feudalë i kthenin sytë me nostalgji nga një e shkuar kaotike, Skënderbeu synonte krijimin e një
shteti të krishterë të konsoliduar.
23 Barletius, Historia de uita.
24 See the letters of Scanderbeg addressed to the prince of Taranto, in which he
emphasized the ancient roots of the Albanians and their descent from Alexander the
Great and Pyrrhus of Epirus. Sulejman Meço, Dokumente për historinë e Skënderbeut, Albania.
[Documents about the history of Scanderbeg, Albania] (Rome: Journal of the Comité
national-démocratique ‘Albanie Libre’, 1970): 89-177, see specifically pp. 61-4.
25 Luigi Marlekaj traces back to the year 1487 the traditional folk songs dedicated to
Scanderbeg, referring to the work of Sabellicus on the History of Venice. See Luigi
Marlekaj, Scanderbeg nelle tradizioni popolari albanesi (Bari: Favia, 1969).
49
Etleva Lala
A. The Goat in the Albanian Culture

The cult of the goat was widespread in the Ionian and Adriatic coast and
its hinterland, just as it was among the ancient Greeks.26 The goat was
closely connected with Artemis, or Diana, who was also known as
“Potnia theron” (the Goddess of Animals) and in her representation she
is often depicted surrounded by goats.27 In the Tabula Peutingeriana,28 the
temple of Diana was in the vicinity of the city of Elbasan, on the Via
Egnatia, which was the continuation of Via Appia connecting Rome with
Constantinople from the 2nd century BC. Starting at Dyrrachium (now
Durrës) on the Adriatic Sea, the road followed the route along the river
Genusus (Shkumbin), over the Candavia (Jablanica) mountains, where the
temple Ad Dianam was. The Spring Day, which is celebrated in this area,
especially in Elbasan on March 14, was a feast dedicated to Diana. The
Candavia, which goes through forests and mountains, might have taken
its name from the verb cantare in its imperative form, meaning the road
where you have to sing or make noises, which connects to the habit of
the Albanians to sing, speak loudly or even cough, when they go through
wild forests, in order not to encounter any Zana, who could get angry
and dangerous if accidently seen by humans. The adoration of Diana as
a goddess of agricultural prosperity and protection from natural disasters
and catastrophes is evident throughout the whole Albanian hinterland.
This is evidenced not so much in written documentation, but more in
oral tradition, as well as in micro-toponyms.
According to Albanian myths, Ora and Zana were mythic characters
who were responsible for the luck or misfortune of every individual. The
difference between Ora and Zana is that Ora was present in the life of
everybody, even in the life of Zana, whereas Zana were beautiful lady-like
fairies who lived in the forests and could not be seen by anyone, because
seeing them could cause harm to humans, if not death. The Zana had
their own Ora, which could appear either in the form of a goat or in the
26 Edmond Muço. The Mythical and Legendary Symbolism in Traditional Artistic Carving.
http://www.anglisticum.org.mk/index.php/IJLLIS/article/viewFile/1501/2009?fbclid
=IwAR30aySe-JiX-Ui0txozRuLoooqDUZ3bM-q40ScYbZrdGF2MbjtL0QqnHAY
(accessed July 2020).
27 Chryssanthos Christou, Potnia theron: Eine Untersuchung über Ursprung Erscheungsformen und
Wandlungen der Gestalt einer Gottheit (Berling: “Thessaloniki,” 1968), 164.

28 Nussli, Christos, “The Tabula Peutingeriana, a Roman Road Map,” Euratlas.net
www.euratlas.net/cartogra/peutinger/6_epirum/epirus_5_2.html (accessed Jan. 2021).
50
form of a snake,29 which is why both the goat and the snake were
considered holy and were supposed not to be killed by humans. If we
can trust the claims of Jokli30 and Çabej,31 that the Zana was the Albanian
equivalent of the Latin goddess, Diana, we can see why the goats were
so important to the Zana, since Diana was the goddess of forests and the
goats were her favorite animals which accompanied her everywhere.
The cult of goats has been preserved mainly in the mountainous
region of Northern Albania, but also in the south, on the Mount of
Tomorr, the Highlands of Laberia, and elsewhere. Goats appear to have
had the attributes of forest deities also in the “Frontier warrior” epic
cycle, where fairies, called Zana, depend for their strength on three goats
(in Albanian are called Dhia): “We only have three wild goats whose
horns are made of gold, and all our strength comes from them.”32
“The horns relate to the Sacred Illyrian-Pelasgian Goat. Zeus is still
honored in Northern Albania, if not consciously, then out of
ignorance...”, wrote Shtjefën Gjeçovi, an Albanian priest, who spent
many years at the beginning of the twentieth century, between 1905 and
1920, among the Albanian highland tribes, collecting oral literature,
customary laws and codes, archaeological data and folklore,33 as well as
compiling the Code of Lek Dukagjini, and important collection
of Albanian Songs of the Frontier Warriors,34 a living epic song among the
Albanians, which is probably as old as the Iliad and the Odyssey of
Homer.
Respecting Skanderbeg and the link he was eager to forge between all
Albanians (in his time some being Greek Orthodox, some Serbian
Orthodox, and others Catholic), going back to pre-Christian35 beliefs was
29 At Bernardin Palaj, Mitologji, doke dhe zakone shqiptare [Mythology, Albanian habits and
customs] (Prishtinë: Shpresa, 2000), 26-32. See also Mark Tirta, Mitologji ndër shqiptarë
[Mythology among Albanians] (Tirana: Mësonjëtorja, 2004), 181-186.
30 Norbert Jokl, Studien zur albanischen Etymologie und Wortbildung (Vienna: A. Hölder, 1911).
31 Eqrem Çabej, Diana dhe Zana [Diana and Zana] (Tirana: Çabej, 2011).
32 Qemal Haxhihasani, Epika Legjendare [Legendary epic songs] I (Tirana: 1966), 347-349.
33 Jaho Brahaj, Shtyllat e Kombit: Publicistik/ Shtjefën K. Gjeçovi [The Pillars of the Nation/
Stephan K. Gjeçovi] (Tirana: Reklama, 1999).

34 Robert Elsie and Janice Mathie-Heck, Songs of the frontier warriors: Kenge kreshnikesh.
Albanian Epic Verse in a Bilingual English-Albanian Edition (Mundelein, Illinois: Bolchazy-

Carducci Publishers, 2004).
35 Grateful to Zara Pogossian, who went through the manuscript with a lot of corrections
and suggestions and, among others, also suggested this concept instead of ‘pagan’ to
avoid the negative connotation.
51
Etleva Lala
a strategy to bring them all on board. This is even more true, if we

consider that the army of Scanderbeg was mainly made of young man
coming from the hinterland, but almost never from the big cities, which
were already under Venetian authority. According to Barletius,
Scanderbeg had to inspire them continuously with brilliant speeches.
Although a Catholic priest, Barletius often introduces Gods in these
speeches of Scanderbeg, instead of speaking of one God. This shows a
clever mirroring of the Albanian religiousness in the fifteenth century.36
The significance of the goat was certainly underpinned with legends
and hearsay. According to one widespread legend, one night during the
siege of Kruja, in 1448-1450, Skanderbeg sent out a herd of goats with a
candle on each of the goat’s horns. The Ottomans believed it to be an
Albanian attempt at escape and pursued the herd. When the Ottomans
had advanced far enough against the goats, Skanderbeg launched a real
attack against them, destroying them. The Ottoman siege was lifted and,
according to the legend, Skanderbeg commemorated his victory by
designing a helmet with the head of a goat on it, as a reference to this
miraculous event and as a symbol of unity with all the Albanians who
believed in the protection of the Zanas and their goats.37
The choice of the goat as the symbol of Scanderbeg’s guerrilla war
and resistance makes sense not only because the goat was a domestic
animal, widely known, as possessing stamina, but also because spiritual
powers38 were attached to the goat in the Albanian folk beliefs, as
discussed above.39 Being at the same time the basis of the Albanian
economy given the difficult landscape of the Albanian lands and their
harsh climate and also having a special place in the belief set of the
Albanians, the goat was the perfect symbol for them.
36 Hoc maxime precium Dii imortales ab hominibus exigent, … si diis placet. Barletius, Historia,
87r, 96r. On a contemporary superstitious approach of the Albanians, see Kristin
Peterson-Bidoshi, “The ‘Dordolec’: Albanian House Dolls and the Evil Eye,” The Journal of American
Folklore 119, no. 473 (Summer, 2006): 337-355. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4137641
(accessed January 2021).
37 Gennaro Francione, Scanderbeg, un eroe moderno [Skënderbeu, një hero modern] trans.
Tasim Aliaj (Tirana, Albania: Shtëpia botuese Naim Frashëri, 2006), 90.
38 Mark Tirta, Mitologji ndër shqiptarë [Mythology among Albanians] (Tirana: Mësonjëtorja,
2004), 62-64. Franz Nopcsa, 40. Qamil Haxhihasani, “Epika Legjendare” [Legendary
Epic Songs] vol. I (Tirana, 1966), 347-349.
39 See Shaban Sinani, Tradita gojore si etnotekst [The oral tradition as an ethnotext] (Tirana:
Naimi, 2012).
52
The horns were a symbol of power, superiority and even fertility

among Albanians. When attributed to a man by calling him a “man with
horns” this was considered as the best compliment one could give to
him.40 In this context, although the goat does not possess the majestic
look of the lion or the horse, it is a proud animal, and this is an inspiration
to the Albanians, who value this quality as a virtue. The goat with horns
was, thus, the best symbol of unity Scanderbeg could choose: a symbol
with a glorious past and at the same time representative for the present.
II. The Gift of Pope Paul II to Scanderbeg

Scanderbeg was not only one of the most remarkable
soldiers of the fifteenth century. He was also a political
realist. The historian who studies the documentary sources
relating to his career finds constant evidence of the clarity of
Scanderbeg’s vision. Like the popes [in this case Pope
Eugene IV, Nicholas V, Calixtus III, Pius II] he had a simple
view of what were proper relations with the Turks. One
always fought with them, making peace (when possible) only
to gain time for further preparations for war. However much
the Venetian, Genoese, and Moreote Greeks might try to
weigh the pros and cons of peaceful co-existence with the
Turks, Scanderbeg believed that the ultimate price of such a
peace would be degrading servitude.41
As Keneth Setton puts it in this citation, Scanderbeg had a clear vision
and mission against the Ottomans, although a Venetian, a Genoese, or
Moroete Greek would not have been able to understand his motives, as
these peoples were making a different experience with the Ottomans,
namely “trying to weigh the pros and cons of peaceful co-existence” with
them. Pope Paul II was a Venetian, and this background should
40 Át Shtefën Gjeçovi, O.F.M (1874-1929), “Përkrenarja e Skënderbeut: Burrë me Bryena.

Populli,” [The helmet of Scanderbeg: The man with horns.] In Gjergj Kastrioti “Athleta
Christi” (Shkodër: Botime Françeskane, 2018), 149-151. See also Anton Blok, “Rams and
Billy-Goats: A Key to the Mediterranean Code of Honour,” Man 16, 3 (Sept. 1981): 427-
440.
41 Keneth M. Setton, The Papacy and the Levant, 1204-1251, vol. 2 (Philadephia: The
American Philosophical Society, 1978), 195.
53
Etleva Lala
necessarily be taken into consideration when discussing his attitude

towards Scanderbeg.
Pileum ensemque militarem42 or la spada et il capello43, i.e., the sword and
the helmet, donated by Pope Paul II to Scanderbeg were in fact of poor
quality, unworthy to be donated to a prince,44 and also provocative,
considering the meaning that the goat and the horns on the head of the
goat had in the West. The goat, and especially the horned goat, were in
the Western Middle Ages strongly associated with the Devil, sin, lust, and
untamed masculinity.45 Besides that, the goat was in the West associated
with Baphomet, the deity the Knights Templar were accused of
worshipping.46 The helmet with the horned goat on it could also have
inspired some depictions which have seemed weird and unexplainable
until now.
The initial in Fig. 2, from a book on Scanderbeg in Spanish, cannot
be related to the accompanying text, as so often happens with
contemporary illustrations. However, it is so profusely reproduced in the
pages of the book that it is impossible not to notice the negative
connotation of the horns on the head.47 In a text, where there is no
mention of the Devil at all, I believe that subtle hints are given to the
visual reader, to wonder whether it is the Devil or Scanderbeg
represented in the image.
In the same publication, there is also an initial M, with a figure similar
to later depiction of Baphomet (Fig. 3).48 The name Baphomet
42 Zippel (ed). Le vite die Paolo II, 148-149.

43 Pall, I rapporti, no. 70.
44 Pfaffenbichler, “L’elmo,” 40-51.
45 See “Horn” in Lexikon des Mittelalters (www.mittelalter-lexikon.de/wiki/Horn_(symb.)
(Accessed on January 2021). See also David Siddle, “Goats, Marginality and the
‘Dangerous Other,’” Environment and History 15 (2009), 521-36; Sonja Hukantaival, “The
Goat and the Cathedral – Archeology of Folk Religion in Medieval Turku,” Mirator 19:1
(2018): 67-83.
46 Jules Michelet, History of France, vol. 1 trans. G. H. Smith, (New York: Appleton and
Company, 1860), 375; Jules Loiseleur, La doctrine secrète des Templiers: étude suivie du texte
inédit de l’enquête contre les Templiers de Toscane et la chronologie des documents relatifs à la suppression
du Temple (Orleans: Herluison, 1872), 97.
47 Marino Barlesio, Chronica del esforçado principe y capitan Iorge Castrioto, Rey de Epiro o Albania
(Lisbon: 1588): 15v, 37r, 54r, 65r, 67r, 81r, 105v, 120r, 145r, 173v.
48 Ibid., 47v, 87v, 128r, 187v.
54
(=Mahomet)49 came up in several confessions in the trial of the

Templars. One of their main charges was their supposed worship of a
heathen-idol head, known as Baphomet, an Old French corruption of
the name Mahomet. The medieval order of the Knights Templar was
suppressed by King Philip IV of France, on Friday, 13 October 1307,
and many of their confessions were taken under torture. The claims of
the Templars’ worshiping an idol named Baphomet were unique to their
Inquisition trial records from the 14th century.50
Fig. 2. Marino Barlesio, Chronica del esforçado principe y capitan Iorge Castrioto,
Rey de Epiro o Albania (Lisbon: 1588): 15v, 37r, 54r, 65r, 67r, 81r, 105v, 120r,
145r, 173v.
Fig. 3. Marino Barlesio, Chronica del esforçado principe y capitan Iorge Castrioto,
Rey de Epiro o Albania (Lisbon: 1588), 47v, 87v, 128r, 187v.
49 Peter Partner, The Knights Templar and their Myth (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1987), 34-5.
50 Martin Sean, The Knights Templar: The History and the Myths of the Legendary Military Order
(New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2004), 119.
55
Etleva Lala
The contradictory relations of the Holy See with Scanderbeg can be

better understood if we consider how they are described in later
publications. In an article which reflects parts of his dissertation,
Edmond Malaj51 highlights some of the disappointments of the popes
towards Scanderbeg, which, although caused by minor issues in
comparison to the necessities of the time, were vital to the relations of
the papacy with Christian leaders in general. Pope Pius II ridicules the
expedition of Scanderbeg to Italy and also speaks ironically of the father
of Scanderbeg, Gjon Kastrioti, regarding his conversion to Islam.52 This
was certainly one of the most severe crimes that one could commit in
that time, and the fact that Pope Pius II mentions this gives room to
reflect how much more he appreciated the war of Scanderbeg against the
Ottomans.
Another reason for a certain mistrust of Pope Pius II towards
Scanderbeg would have been Scanderbeg’s peace agreement with the
Ottomans, so that he could go to Southern Italy to help Ferrante
(Ferdinand I), the king of Naples, against the prince of Taranto,
Giovanni Antonio del Balyo Orsini.53 Scanderbeg had earlier asked Pope
Pius II for permission to enter such a peace-agreement,54 and Pope Pius
51 Edmond Malaj, “Skënderbeu në veprat e humanistëve gjermanë gjatë shekujve XV-

XVII” [Scanderbeg in the works of the German humanists during the 15th-17th centuries].
Hylli i Dritës 2 (Shkodër, 2018): 40-50.
52 Malaj, “Skënderbeu”, 40-50. See also the original Pii II Pont Max, Asiae Europaeque
elegantissima descriptio mira festiuitate tum veteru[m], tum recentium res memoratu dignas complectens,
maxime quae sub Frederico III. apud Europeos Christiani cum Turcis, Prutenis, Soldano, et caeteris
hostibus fidei, tum etiam inter sese vario bellorum euentu commiserunt. Acessit Henrici Glareani,
Helvetii, poetae laureati, compendiaria Asiae, Africae, Europaeque descriptio. (Paris: Paud
Galeotum a prato ad primam Platii regii columnam, 1534), 337-338: In haec terra potes
Camusa fuit, qui Christianis parentibus ortus, parum tenax catholicae fidei, ad Muhametis infamiam
declinauit. Sed quam leuiter Christum defferuit, tam facile Muhametis sacra contempsit. Rediit enim ad
paternam legem, et quamvis vtranque religionem contempserit, neutri fidus, Christianus tamen mori
Turca maluit, paulo post Constantinopolitanam cladem morbo extinctus.
53 Nelo Drizari, Scanderbeg, His Life, Correspondence, Orations, Victories and Philosophy (New
York: National Press, 1968); Alan Rayder, “The Angevin bid for Naples 1380-1480), The
French Descent into the Renaissance Italy 1494-1495, ed. David Abulafia (London: Routledge,
1995), 67.
54 Addit quoque, quod, cum sine manifesto periculo amissionis locorum, quae in Albania tenes, discessus
tuus esse non possit, permittere tibi vellemus, ut cum Turcho posses pacisci; vel possessionem
defensionemque dominii tui suspiceret. Julius Ernest Pisco, Scanderbeg, Historische Studie
(Vienna: Frick, 1894), 148.
56
II had refused it.55 Nevertheless, Scanderbeg concluded the treaty,56 thus

disregarding the papal decision, an act which in other circumstances
would have ipso facto brought excommunication on any other Christian
leader.
It could have been also misleading to the Roman Curia that
Scanderbeg fought battles not only against the Ottomans, but also
against Christians. The first such campaign was against Deja, an Albanian
town, which after the murder of Leke Zaharia by Leke Dukagjini had
been given by his mother to the Venetian Republic, an act which made
Scanderbeg exceedingly angry, as he claimed that it belonged to him.57
This war against Catholic Albanians and Venetians brought not only a
great deal of material destruction, but also cast Scanderbeg in a negative
light.
The ferocity of Scanderbeg proved to be even more alarming in
Apulia, where he fought on the side of Ferrante, the king of Naples,
against the French Anjou, the latter being a threat not only to the
Kingdom of Naples, but to the whole Italic peninsula, and to papacy as
well.58 The Holy See was initially in favor of this war of Scanderbeg, but
when the French danger was averted, the old contradictions returned and
Scanderbeg, by being too faithful to the kings of Naples, was considered
as a threat to the Holy See59 and to the Venetian Republic, which had
competing interests with the Kingdom of Naples in the Adriatic Sea.
As mentioned above, Pope Paul II was a Venetian and, thus, had even
more reasons to be suspicious of Scanderbeg than Pope Pius II. The
prospect of organizing a crusade was no longer feasible and even less so
55 Ibidem. Ad haec, dilecte fili, respondemus, Romano Pontifici non convenire licentinam cuique dare,
ut cum infidelibus paciscatur, cuorum nulla conventio Dei offensione est vacua.
56 Ibidem. Et la vicinita deli Turchi non la possemo negare, lo qualevoj ce allegate, perché con loro
havemo combattuto lungo tempo senza vergogna nostra, come ogi homo sa, ma al presente perche ce havete
data causa voj, con loro havemo facta tregua per tre anni per potere satisfare ali comandamenti del mio
signor Re Ferdinando.
57 Barletius, Historia, 33v-40v.
58 David Abulafia, “Ferrante I of Naples, Pope Pius II and the Congress of Mantua
(1459),” in Montjoie, Studies in Crusade History in Honour of Hans Eberhard Mayer, ed. B.Y.
Kedar, R. Hiestand and J. Riley-Smith (Aldershot: Variorum, 1997): 235-49; Carold
Kidwell, “Venice, the French Invasion and the Apulian ports,” The French Descent: 295-
308.
59 Zippel, Vite di Paolo II, 149-150.
57
Etleva Lala
under the leadership of Scanderbeg, who was now too old60 to be trusted
with such a responsibility. Owing to his loyalty to the kings of Naples,
Scanderbeg was even more a threat to the Holy See itself, as the kings of
Naples claimed that power over Albania even more than before.61
The importance of the Scanderbeg question for the Holy See in the
context of the former’s last visit to Italy in 1466/7 has to be seen from
the Italian perspective, namely in the light of internal Italian
circumstances and contradictions, that had little to do with the
Ottomans, as Oliver Jens Schmitt has shown in his work on
Scanderbeg.62 The contradictions between Naples, Venice, and the Holy
See63 had a negative impact on Scanderbeg’s cause itself. Indeed, fearing
each-other, they started to fight Scanderbeg, who tried to keep a balance
with each of them.
The Venetians pretended to be helpful to him, but de facto they were
undermining his war on the ground in Albania,64 as their trade interests
with the Ottomans in Albania were more profitable than with the
Albanians themselves, and, for that reason, the Venetians had no desire
to see the war destroy their markets in Albania.65
Loyalty to the kings of Naples was another reason for Venice and
Pope Paul II to oppose Scanderbeg. Pope Paul had a quarrel with
Ferrante regarding the recognition of papal sovereignty in the Southern
Italian kingdom, and with Venice, among others, about the city of Cervia.
For the pope, these issues were more important than Albania.66 Pope
Paul II even sabotaged the anti-Ottoman campaign of Scanderbeg,
thinking that helping Scanderbeg against the Ottomans would be
beneficial to Naples and Venice, because, in his eyes, Albania was among
their territories.67
60 Giovanni Pierro Arrivabene from Rome wrote to Marchese Barbara of Mantua on 14th
December 1466: É homo molto de tempo passata li 60 anni, cum pauchi cavalli é venuto e da povero
homo. Ludwig von Pastor, Storia dei papi, II (Roma: Desclee, 1932), 344, n. 3.
61 A paper on the “Albanian Politics of the Hungarian Kings”, which is still in press,
sheds more light on this aspect.

62 Schmitt, Skënderbeu, 384.
63 Pastor, Geschichte der Päpste 2, 357.
58
Being a Venetian by origin and having spent the better part of his life
in Venice,68 Pope Paul II, perhaps subconsciously, behaved like a
Venetian, even if politically he was against the politics of the Venetian
Republic, a power in competition with the Holy See. For that reason,
Pope Paul II should have become quite suspicious towards Scanderbeg
when the latter was complaining about the Venetians, attributing to them
negative qualities like being deceitful, who had failed him continuously,
etc.69
The apathy of Pope Paul II towards Scanderbeg’s campaign against
the Ottomans was, however, not based on any antagonism of the Holy
See against him or the Albanians per se.70 Pope Paul was probably
misinformed about the position of the Albanians in relation to the
different Italian powers of the time, and Scanderbeg added
unconsciously to his confusion, by not knowing who was against whom.
Furthermore, there were hidden agendas of the competing powers to
feed this confusion of the popes, as there was in the case of the Venetian
ambassador at the Holy See, Paolo Contarini, who had successfully
intrigued against Scanderbeg. Contarini managed to convince Pope Paul
II that Kruja was already in the possession of Venice, and that it was
superfluous for the pope to send any assistance to Scanderbeg for that
purpose.71
Pope Paul II, after having heard the negative speech of Scanderbeg
against Venice, and, at the same time, being already in conflict with
Ferrante, as the latter refused to pay the tithe to the Church, might have
argued either that Scanderbeg had already received assistance from
Venice, but now he was denying it, or that Kruja was still in his and
Ferrante’s hands, so financially the latter were using the tithe, not given
to the Church. Being in such a state of confusion, probably being
68 He built the Palazzo San Marco (now the Palazzo Venezia) and lived there even as
pope, amassing a great collection of art and antiquities. See Michael Walsh, The Conclave:
A sometimes Secret and Occasionally Bloody History of Papal Elections (Gardeners Books, 2003),
109-110.
70 I have already argued in an earlier study that the Holy See helped Scanderbeg in
different ways, including financially. See Etleva Lala, “Skanderbeg

und der Heilige Stuhl,” in Nach 450 Jahren Buzukus ‘Missale’ und seine Rezeption in unserer
Zeit, ed. Bardhyl Demiraj. Albanische Forschungen 25 (Wiesbaden: Harrossowitz Verlag,
2007), 317-328.
71 Schmitt, Skënderbeu, 396; Pall, I rapporti, no. 72.
59
Etleva Lala
misinformed or misjudging the situation, he might well have lost the

higher perspective of Scanderbeg’s war against the Ottoman, but even if
not, he did not believe any longer that Scanderbeg would perform a
miracle against the Ottomans, now that the latter had already occupied
everything in South-Eastern Europe and beyond.
Being a Venetian, Pope Paul II must also have heard many of the
rumors about Scanderbeg, such as the Milanese diplomats who reported:
“Venetians speak only negatively about Scanderbeg, saying that he is
more Turk than the Turks. Some of these Venetians even say that he has
come as an informant and a spy of Turks.”72 This kind of gossip would
not only have influenced the decisions of Pope Paul II, but would also
have inspired the strange depictions of Scanderbeg later on. (Fig. 4, 5, 6).
These depictions also support a distorted story of Scanderbeg with
the helmet and the sword, better than the words written in any text so
far. In a depiction from 1593, the helmet is standing at the feet of
Scanderbeg, namely on his left side, which gives to it the symbolic
meaning of being a means of communication between him and the
Ottomans. The sword of Scanderbeg is directed towards the West,
probably implying some of his battles against the Venetian Republic or
in the Italian territory. His body is also turned to the West, but his head
is looking back to the East, and his pointing finger addressed to the West
could have given the impression of receiving instructions from the East
to fight against the West.
A possible explanation of why Scanderbeg does not have the helmet
on his head, besides its bad quality, and the strangely small measure (the
helmet was too small to be put on Scanderbeg’s head) could be the
disappointment that Scanderbeg experienced upon this donation.
Scanderbeg died the year after, so not much time was left to see what he
would have done with it, if he had had the time. Scanderbeg started to
be depicted only later with the helmet on his head, from the nineteenth
century onwards, when the nationalistic debate started to take over (see
Fig. 7).
72 Zippel, Vite di Paolo II, 148v, n. 3. Schmitt, Skënderbeg, 395.
60
Fig. 4. Pauli Iovii Novocomensis episcopi Nucerini, Vitae illustrium virorum

tomis duobus comprehensae, & proprijs imaginibus illustratae. Basel.
Petri Pernae typographi Basil. opera ac studio, 1578.
Fig. 5. Paolo Giovio. Novocomensis episcopi Nucerini, vitae illustrium

virorum vol. II. Basel: Petri Pernae typographi, 1578.
61
Etleva Lala
Fig. 6. Ambrasianvm a Ferdinando Archidvce Avstriae etc. splendide et

svmvose instrvcvm, ivssv eivsdem a Iacobo Schrenckio a notzingen historice
descriptvm et olim pvblicatvm additis imaginibvs aeri inscvlptis nvnc nova
editione instavratvm a IO. Davide Coelero P.P. svmptibvs vidvae Christophori
Weigelii, civis Norimbergensis a. 1735: 131.
Fig. 7. Georgius Castriota Scanderbegus, Varna 1444. Allgemeine

Welgeschichte, Vienna, 1872.
62
Fig. 8 (left). Spiro Xhega, Skenderbeu, Tirana, 1931;

Fig. 9 (right). Odhise Paskali. Skenderbeu, Tirana, 1939.
In the twentieth century, Italian nationalist scholars started to invest

themselves in creating a myth around Scanderbeg and the Italian-
Albanian relations.73 These examples were followed also later by the
Albanians (Fig. 8, 9).
II. Conclusions
This paper is about the helmet of Scanderbeg with the horned goat on it.
In this paper I have argued in favor of a dichotomy the goat represented,
rather than on a clear symbol as it nowadays self-evident, at least for
Albanians. I argue that the goat was a symbol of misunderstandings
between the Western Europeans and the Albanians. In the helmet with
the goat on it, donated to Scanderbeg by Pope Paul II on Christmas Eve
1466, a year before his death, Scanderbeg saw the goat as a symbolic
recognition of his power and the historical continuity between him and
Alexander the Great.
Although Scanderbeg was clear and irrevocable in his vision and
mission against the Ottomans, he either was innocently misjudged and
misunderstood, or this was part of Papal and/or Italian (meaning
73Roberta Belli Pasqua, “Il Monumento equestre di Giorgio Castriota Scanderbeg a

Roma,” Il Veltro 1-6 (Gennaio-Dicembre 2019): 217-246.
63
Etleva Lala
Venetian, Neapolitan, etc.) politics. He could have been both, by his

participation in the events, which shed a different light on him, in the
eyes of the Venetian Pope Paul II, namely fighting in Italy on behalf of
Ferrante, fighting against Venetians in Albania, and yet allying with them
against the Ottomans. Since Venetians were playing a double game, i.e.,
doing business with the Ottomans and pretending to fight against them,
Pope Paul II might have thought the same about Scanderbeg. Reflecting
the meaning of the goat in the Western world, even if Pope Paul did not
consider it as a symbol of Baphomet, he certainly knew that it could
evoke images of the Devil and witchcraft. The whole scenario was, thus,
not accidental, but reflected the distrust and lost favor of the Western
powers towards Scanderbeg and the Albanians, which reflected more the
Venetian origins of Pope Paul II and his misinformation regarding
Scanderbeg and Albanians rather than the attitude of the Holy See
towards Albanians in general.
Scanderbeg, on his side, was probably unaware about the negative
meaning attached to the goat in the West, as he was educated in the
Sultan’s court, and was rooted in the Albanian tradition and symbolism
of the goat and its horns. He rejoiced upon receiving this present, but
soon understood his ultimate failure at the papal court, when he felt sent
home empty-handed.
Bibliography
Sources
Barletius, Marinus. De Vita Moribus ac Rebus Praecipue Aduersus Turcas,
Gestis, Georgii Castrioti, Clarissimi Epirotarum Principis, qui propter
celeberrima facinora, Scanderbegus, hoc est, Alexander Magnus, cognominatus
fuit. Rome: B.V., 1508.
Nadin, Lucia and Pëllumb Xhufi (eds.). Statutet e Shkodrës nga gjysma e parë
e shek. XIV, me shtesat deri më 1469 [Statuti di Scutari della prima metà
del secolo XIV con le addizioni fino al 1469]. Tirana: IDK, 2017.
Pall, Francisc. I rapporti italo-albanesi intorno alla metà del secolo XV. Napoli,
Societá Napoletana di Storia Patria, 1966.
Ludwig von Pastor, Storia dei papi, vol. II. Roma: Desclee, 1932.
Piccolomini, Enea. Pii II Pont Max, Asiae Europaeque elegantissima descriptio
mira festiuitate tum veteru[m], tum recentium res memoratu dignas complectens,
maxime quae sub Frederico III. apud Europeos Christiani cum Turcis, Prutenis,
64
Soldano, et caeteris hostibus fidei, tum etiam inter sese vario bellorum euentu
commiserunt. Acessit Henrici Glareani, Helvetii, poetae laureati, compendiaria
Asiae, Africae, Europaeque descriptio. Paris: Paud Galeotum a prato ad
primam Platii regii columnam, 1534.
Sufflay, Emilianus de, Ludovicus de Thalloczy and Constantinus Jireček,
Acta et diplomata res Albaniae mediae aetatis illustrantia, vol. I. Vienna:
Typis Adolphi Holzhausen, 1913.
Zippel, Giuseppe (ed). Le vite di Paolo II di Gaspare da Verona e Michele
Canensi. Cittá del Castello, 1904.
Literature
Abulafia, David. “Scanderbeg: A Hero and His Reputation,” In
Scanderbeg, Harry Hodgkinson. Dublin: Center for Albanian Studies,
1999.
–––. “Ferrante I of Naples, Pope Pius II and the Congress of Mantua
(1459),” in Montjoie, Studies in Crusade History in Honour of Hans Eberhard
Mayer, ed. B.Y. Kedar, R. Hiestand and J. Riley-Smith (Variorum:
Aldershot, 1997): 235-49
Atansov, Georgije. „Kastriotite i Sveta Gora” [Castriots and the Holy
Mount] in Georg Kastriot Skenderbeg. Skopje, 2006.
Berisha, Gjon. Gjergj Kastrioti-Skënderbeu në fondet e Arkivit Shtetëror të
Dubrovnikut. [Gjergj Kastrioti-Scanderbeg in the holdings of the State
Archives of Dubrovnik]. Prishtinë: Instituti i Historisë “Ali Hadri”,
2018.
Blok, Anton. “Rams and Billy-Goats: A Key to the Mediterranean Code
of Honour.” Man no. 16, 3 (Sept. 1981): 427-440.
Brahaj, Jaho. Shtyllat e Kombit: Publicistik. Shtjefën K. Gjeçovi. [The Pillars of
the Nation, Publicistic, Shtjefën K. Gjeçovi]. Tirana: Reklama, 1999.
Bojović, Boško. Mont Athos, les princes roumains, Jean Castriot et la Tour
albanaise (Arbanaški pirg) dépendance de Chilandar, in Balcanica 37
(Beograd, 2007).
Carratelli, G. Pugliese, ed. The Western Greeks, Ausstellungskatalog. Milano
1996.
Christou, Chryssanthos. Potnia theron: Eine Untersuchung über Ursprung.
Erscheingusformen und Wandlungen der Gestalt einer Gottheit. Berlin:
“Thessaloniki,” 1968.
65
Etleva Lala
Christos, Nussli. “The Tabula Peutingeriana, a Roman Road Map”, Euratlas.net,

www.euratlas.net/cartogra/peutinger/6_epirum /epirus_5_2.html
(accessed: January 15, 2021).
Çabej, Eqrem. Diana dhe Zana [Diana and Zana]. Tiranë: Çabej, 2011.
Drizari, Nelo. Scanderbeg, His Life, Correspondence, Orations, Victories and
Philosophy. New York: National Press, 1968.
Elsie, Robert and Janice Mathie-Heck. Songs of the frontier warriors: Kenge
kreshnikesh. Albanian Epic Verse in a Bilingual English-Albanian Edition.
Illinois: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, 2004.
Fotić, Aleksander. Sveta Gora i Hilandar u Osmanskom carstvu (XV-XVII
vek) [The Holy Mount and the Hilandar in the Ottoman Empire
during the 15th-17th centuries]. Belgrade, 2000.
Francione, Gennaro. Skënderbeu, një hero modern: [Skanderbeg, a modern hero]
(in Albanian). Trans. Tasim Aliaj. Tiranë, Albania: Shtëpia botuese
Naim Frashëri, 2006.
Frashëri, Kristo. Gjergj Kastrioti Skënderbeu: Jeta, dhe Vepra (1405-1468)
[Gjergj Castrioti Scanderbeg: Life and Deeds (1405-1468)]. Tiranë:
Dituria, 2019.
–––. Gjergj Kastrioti Skënderbeu: jeta dhe vepra (1405-1468) [Gjergj Kastrioti
Scanderbeg: Life and Oeuvre]. Tirana: Toena, 2002.
Freedberg, David. The Power of Images, Studies in the History and Theory of
Response. Chicago, London: The University of Chicago Press, 1989.
Gjeçovi, Át Shtefën, O.F.M (1874-1929). “Përkrenarja e Skënderbeut:
Burrë me Bryena! Populli,” [The helmet of Scanderbeg: The man with
horns.] In Gjergj Kastrioti “Athleta Christi” (Përzgjedhje studimesh të
Klerikëve Katolikë). Shkodër: Botime Françeskane, 2018.
Haxhihasani, Qemal. Epika Legjendare [Legendary Epic], v. 1. Tirana:
Instituti i Folklorit, 1966.
Hodgkinson, Harry. Scanderbeg. London: The Center for Albanian
Studies, 1999.
Hukantaival, Sonja. “The Goat and the Cathedral – Archeology of Folk
Religion in Medieval Turku,” Mirator 19:1 (2018): 67-83.
Imami, Petrit. Srbi i Albanci kroz vekove [Serbs and Albanians during
Centuries]. Beograd: Samizdat B-92, 2016.
Jaritz, Gerhard. The Beauty Is in the Details: Patterns and Contexts in the Middle
Ages. Budapest: Trivent, 2019.
Jastrebov, Ivan Stepanović. Stara Serbia i Albania [Old Serbia and Albania]
vol. 36. Belgrade: Spomenik Srpske Kraljevske Akademije, 1904.
66
Jokl, Norbert. Studien zur albanischen Etymologie und Wortbildung. Vienna: A.

Hölder, 1911.
Kidwell, Carold. “Venice, the French Invasion and the Apulian ports,”
in The French Descent: 295-308.
Klaniczay, Gábor. “Dreams and Visions in Medieval Miracle Accounts.”
In Ritual Healing: Magic, Ritual and Medical Therapy from Antiquity until
the Early Middle Modern Period, ed. Ildikó Csepregi and Charles
Burnett. Florence: Micrologus Library, 2012: 147-170.
Koulakiotis, Elias. Genese und Metamorphosen des Alexandermythos im Spiegel
der griechischen nicht-historiographischen Überlieferungen bis zum 3. Jh. n. Chr.
Xenia, Konstanzer Althistorische Vorträge und Forschungen 47.
Konstanz: UVK Universitätsverlag Konstanz GmbH, 2006.
Krasnići, Mark. “Manastirske vojvode u Kosovsko 'Metohijskoj oblasti,”
[The Vojvods of the Monasteries in the Territories of Kosovo and
Metohia] Glasnik Muzeja Kosove i Metohije (Prishtine, 1958): 107-126.
Lala, Etleva. Regnum Albania, the Papal Curia and the Western Visions of a
Borderline Nobility. Phd Thesis. (Budapest: CEU, 2008).
“Skanderbeg und der Heilige Stuhl,” In Nach 450 Jahren Buzukus
‘Missale’ und seine Rezeption in unserer Zeit, ed. Bardhyl Demiraj.
Albanische Forschungen 25 (Wiesbaden: Harrossowitz Verlag, 2007):
317-328.
Loiseleur, Jules. La doctrine secrete des templiers: étude suivie du texte inédit de
lenquète contre les templiers de Toscane et la chronologie des documents relativs a
la suppression du temple. Orleans Herluison, 1872.
Malaj, Edmond. “Skënderbeu në veprat e humanistëve gjermanë gjatë
shekujve XV-XVII” [Scanderbeg in the works of the German
humanists during XV-XVII centuries]. In Hylli i Dritës 2 (Shkodër,
2018): 40-50.
Marlekaj, Luigi. Scanderbeg nelle tradizioni popolari albanesi. Bari: Favia, 1969.
Sulejman Meço, Dokumente për historinë e Skënderbeut, Albania. [Documents
about the history of Scanderbeg, Albania]. Rome: Journal of the
Comité national-démocratique ‘Albanie Libre’, 1970: 89-177.
Michelet, Jules. History of France, vol. 1 (trans. G. H. Smith). New York:
Appleton and Company, 1860.
Muço, Edmond. The Mythical and Legendary Symbolism in Traditional Artistic
Carving. www.anglisticum.org.mk/index.php/IJLLIS/article/viewFi
le/1501/2009?fbclid=IwAR30aySe-JiX-Ui0txozRuLoooqDUZ3b
M-q40ScYbZrdGF2MbjtL0QqnHAY (accessed: 07.07.2020.
67
Etleva Lala
Nadin, Lucia. “Testimonianze manoscritte sull’Armatura e le armi di

Scanderbeg a Venezia,” Palaver 8 (2019, 2): 109-124.
Ninković, Leontije. Srpska Lavra Visokih Dečana [The Serbian Lavra in
the Monastery of Dečan]. Peć, 1923.
Noli, Fan S. Historia e Skënderbeut (Gjergj Kastriotit) Mbretit të Shqipërisë 1412-
1468 [The History of Scanderbeg, King of Albania 1412-1468].
Boston: Shtypeshkronja e Diellit, 1921.
Notarfonso, Silvia. “Crypto-Christianity and Religious Hybridization in
the Ottoman Balkans: A Case Study (1599-1622)” Studia Ceranea 10
(2020): 217-226.
Palaj, Atë Bernardin. Mitologji, doke dhe zakone shqiptare [Mythology,
Albanian habits and customs]. Prishtinë: Shpresa, 2000.
Pasqua, Roberta Belli. “Il Monumento equestre di Giorgio Castriota
Scanderbeg a Roma,” Il Veltro 1-6 (Gennaio-Dicembre 2019): 217-
246.
Peterson-Bidoshi, Kristin. “The ‘Dordolec’: Albanian House Dolls and the Evil
Eye,” The Journal of American Folklore 119, no. 473 (Summer, 2006): 337-
355. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4137641 (accessed January 15, 2021).
Petković, Vladimir. „Arbanški pirg u Hilandaru,” [The Albanian Tower
in Hilandar] in Arhiv ya arbanašku starinu, jezik i etnologiju. vol. 1.
Beograd: n.a., 1923.
Pfaffenbichler, Matthias. “L’elmo e la spada di Giorgio Castriota detto
Scanderbeg,” in Palaver 4 n.s. (2015, 1): 40-51.
Pisco, Julius Ernest. “Scanderbeg.” Historische Studien. Vienna: Frick,
1894.
Plasari, Aurel. Skënderbeu: Një Histori Politike [Scanderbeg, A Political
History]. Tirana: Instituti i Studimeve Shqiptare “Gjergj Fishta”,
2010.
Pulaha, Selami. “Mbi rininë e Skënderbeut” (On the Youth of
Scanderbeg), in Studime për Epokën e Skënderbeut. Tiranë: Akademia e
Shkencave e RPSH-së, 1989: 476-481.
Rayder, Alan. “The Angevin Bid for Naples 1380-1480), The French
Descent into the Renaissance Italy 1494-1495, ed. David Abulafia.
Routledge, 1995.
Setton, Keneth M. The Papacy and the Levant, 1204-1251. vol. 2.
Philadephia: The American Philosophical Society, 1978.
Schmitt, Oliver Jens. Skënderbeu [Scanderbeg]. Tiranë: Natyra, 2008.
68
–––. “Paul Angelus, Erzbischof von Durazzo und seine Bedeutung für
den Turkenkampf Skanderbegs,“ in Thesaurismata 30 (2000): 127-161.
Sinani, Shaban. Tradita gojore si etnotekst [The oral tradition as the
ethnotext] (Tiranë: Naimi, 2012).
Siddle, David. “Goats, Marginality and the ‘Dangerous Other,’”
Environment and History 15 (2009), 521-536.
Sirdani, Át Marin Sirdani, O.F.M. Skanderbegu mbas gojëdhânash
[Scanderbeg according to oral transmission]. Republished in Shkodër:
Botime Françeskane, 2008.
Skendi, Stavro. “Crypto-Christianity in the Balkan Area under the
Ottomans,” Slavic Review. The American Association for the
Advancement of Slavic Studies 26 (1967): 227-46.
Subotić, Gojko, Bojan Miljković and Nikola Dudić, Натписи Манастира
Хиландара. Том pрви XIV–XVII Век. [Inscriptiones Monasterii
Chilandarici], vol. 1, Academia Serbica Scientiarum et Artium.
Collegium Chilandaricum Institutum Byzantinum Assa Fontes, Lib.
II. Belgradi: Monasterium Chilandaricum, 2019.
Stanojević, Ljubomir. Stari srpki zapisi i natpisi [Old Serbian Scriptions and
Instrictions] vol. 1. Beograd: Srpska Kraljevska Akademia, 1902.
Tirta, Mark. Mitologji ndër shqiptarë [Mythology among Albanians]. Tiranë:
Mësonjëtorja, 2004.
Walsh, Michael. The Conclave: A sometimes Secret and Occasionally Bloody
History of Papal Elections. Gardeners Books, 2003.
Xhufi, Pëllumb (trans.). Skënderbeu: Ideja dhe Ndërtimi i Shtetit. [Scanderbeg:
The Idea and the Building of the State]. Tiranë: Dituria, 2019.
Žestić, Zoran. “Dečane su čuvali srpski monasi, turski vojnici i albanske
vojvode” [The Monastery of Dečan was saved by the Serbian Monks,
Turkish Solders and the Albanian Vojvoda.] Telegraf. Belgrade, 2020:
11-16.
69
DISGUISE, IDENTITY,
AND HORSE SENSE: THE CASE OF
ROBIN HOOD AND GUY OF GISBORNE
ANTHA COTTEN-SPRECKELMEYER*
Equine imagery exists in various genres of medieval literature where

horses often play a significant role in the action of a narrative and form
an adventurous partnership with their riders. In the early Welsh stories
of King Arthur, two noble steeds named Llamrei and Hengeron figure
in dramatic escapades of Arthur and his Knights, with Hengeron carrying
Arthur to his final battle in Camlann.1 In other texts, horses function as
a metaphor for riders themselves. Chaucer provides an example of this
tradition in the Canterbury Tales, where he uses equine archetypes to
illustrate a pilgrim’s position in society, as well as the moral character of
the individual. In his article on “Horsemen of The Canterbury Tales,”
Rodney Delasanta points out that Chaucer’s knight rides a “gode” steed,
reflecting the knight’s good manners and his lack of “vileinye.” The clerk,
on the other hand, rides a horse that is “as lene … as a rake”, matching
the Clerk’s habits, status, and life in general.2
One of the most unique uses of equine imagery, one that builds on
and extends the earlier tradition, occurs in the late medieval poem Robin
Hood and Guy of Gisborne. Following Robin Hood’s bloody dispatch of
Guy, he dons the horse hide worn by his assailant, and in effect becomes
a horse himself.3 While this simple gesture initially seems like an
* Antha Cotten-Spreckelmeyer, Ph.D. College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. University

of Kansas. Lawrence, KS.
1 Norris J. Lacy, Geoffrey Ashe, The Arthurian Handbook (New York: Garland, 1997), 294.
2 Rodney Delasanta, “The Horsemen of The Canterbury Tales,” Chaucer Review 3(1968): 34.
3 Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne, in Knight and Ohlgren, 178, line 177.
afterthought peripheral to the dramatic action of the episode, it is, in fact,

central to the story’s resolution and the character’s significance. The hide
at once covers Robin’s body and confirms his identity. It enables Robin
to travel unrecognized into town to seek justice for the detention of Little
John and the slaying of two of his men. In this way, the “capell-hyde”
functions as an identity marker emphasizing Robin’s alignment with the
natural world and its creatures, as well as the law of nature over law and
order imposed by civil authorities.4 More significantly to the resolution
of the story, Robin not only looks like a horse in the final lines of the
poem, but he acts like one, demonstrating a good measure of “horse
sense” in his treatment of the Sheriff and in his advocacy for natural over
civil prerogative. It is this quality, of horse sense, understood as practical
wit, grit, cunning, and backbone, that enables Robin, like a good steed
ensconced in blinders, to carry the day: free Little John, dispatch the
Sheriff, and bolt to the greenwood.5
Costumes and disguises in the Middle Ages, and specifically in
medieval literature, span a broad spectrum of uses and interpretations.
Susan Crane, writing on “Knights in Disguise: Identity and Incognito in
Fourteenth Century Chivalry”, cites the dual use of costume during this
time period as a way to both protect and project identity. She describes
it as a motif of romance and as a historical practice which she terms
“chivalric incognito.” She posits that donning a mask amounts to a
peculiar kind of self-presentation that “invites rather than resists public
scrutiny.”6 She describes the purpose of “incognito” as a transformation
of an inner self into actuality that enables the hero to perform and
manipulate a self-chosen identity.7 In Guy of Gisborne, the capull-hyde
functions on multiple levels: while It covers Robin’s face and body, it
also marks him as a denizen of the greenwood, by association with
animals, and presents him as Guy, who is a known user of the hide by
the Sheriff and others awaiting his return to Barnsdale. Stuart Kane
comments on this phenomenon in his article on “Horseplay: Robin
4 (MED, s.v. “capel.” The word capel or capell sees generic usage at this time as a term
for various equine types, from cart and pack horses, to riding horses and war steeds).
5 “Horse Sense.” OED Online, Oxford University Press, September 202. Web 9
November 2020.
6 Susan Crane, “Knights in Disguise: Identity and Incognito in Fourteenth-Century
Chivalry,” in The Stranger in Medieval Society, ed. Fran R.P. Akehurst and Stephanie Cain
Van D’Elden (Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 1997), 63.
7 Ibid, p. 63.
72
Disguise, Identity, And Horse Sense: The Case Of Robin Hood And Guy Of Gisborne
Hood, Guy of Gisborne, and the Neg(oti)ation of the Bestial” suggesting

that this sequence of the poem “points towards the larger problem of the
borders between civilized, domesticated, wild designations which the
early Robin Hood ballads broadly interrogate.” And, although he takes a
different approach to the characters in question, Kane also notes the
potential of the hide as an identity marker in the poem.8
Barbara Brownie and Danny Graydon, writing about identity and
disguise in the superhero tradition, offer further insight into this use of
the horse-hide, noting that costumes generally have no identity of their
own, but that “An animal costume ... allows the wearer to play at being
something other than himself, specifically that animal ... and aspects of
that animal are transferred to the wearer.” Brownie and Graydon go on
to observe that, with animal costumes, “The mask is not a mask ... but
allows the man [behind it] to be who he really is, to revert to a primal,
unsocialized ... pure animal version of himself.”9 In costume, the hero
has the values and intelligence of a human combined with the strength,
speed, and ferocity of the animal with whom he may have some affinity.
While a hero’s actions are framed in human social contexts, they can use
animal identity to react primally to a sense of injustice.10 Hence, Robin’s
appearance and purpose after his encounter with Guy as he approaches
Barnsdale as a horse, where, in his own words, he hopes “to see how my
men doe fare,” and, by implication, settle the score with the sheriff.11
In this context, the poem’s use of equine imagery becomes
noteworthy on multiple levels. In her book on animals in the Middle
Ages, Joyce Salisbury points out that horses were considered the highest
in status of all beasts. In fact, the lines separating a man from his horse
were so thin, that a horse could be punished and disfigured for an
owner’s crime.12 And, perhaps more to the point of this story, a horse’s
hide was recognized as a valuable commodity, with stiff penalties for
8 Kane, Stuart, “Horeseplay: Robin Hood, Guy of Gisborne, and the Neg(oti)ation of the
Bestial in Robin Hood in Popular Culture, Violence, Transgression, and Justice, ed. Thomas Hahn.
(Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2000),106-07.
9 Barbara Brownie and Danny Graydon, The Superhero Costume: Identity and Disguise in Fact
and Fiction (London: Bloomsbury Press, 2016), 83.

10 Ibid, 92.
11 Knight and Ohlgren, 179, line 182.
12 Joyce E. Salisbury, The Beast Within: Animals in the Middle Ages (New York: Routledge,
1994), 20 p. 40-41.
73
anyone who skinned a dead horse without the owner’s consent.13 In an

interesting twist of this convention that seems to further conflate man
and beast, Robin Hood effectively skins and disfigures the owner of the
horse, or at least the horse-hide, following his encounter with Guy, and,
consequently, much as the traits of Chaucer’s Knight and Clerk are
marked by the horses they ride, Robin’s character, in this context, is
marked by the horse he wears.
Robin’s decapitation and slashing of his victim to a point beyond
recognition provide yet another link to medieval horse culture. Dana
Symons, writing about the rivalry between Robin Hood and Guy, points
to Robin’s “postmortem mutilation of Guy’s face” as a possible example
of the hobby horse tradition in the May Games, where “hobby-horse
performances could be a symbolic staging of manhood with sword
fighting and disfigurement of hobby horse riders.”14 In the early medieval
tradition, the hobby is simply a small horse with a short mane and tail,
but, in the Morris dance and other stage productions of the later period,
it designates the figure of a horse fashioned of light material and fastened
about the waist of a performer who may engage in “ridiculous antics, act
as a frivolous or foolish fellow, a jester or buffoon.”15 Guy’s “antics” in
the poem do indeed border on the questionable, and the costume in his
possession may well signal his unreliable nature. He is initially portrayed
as a “wight yeoman” at ease, reclining against a tree, hardly the posture
of a serious contender in any contest. He is further described as one who
“Had beene many a mans bane.”16 He admits he has “done many a curst
turne;” and Robin calls him a “traytor,”17 suggesting that Guy’s use of
the capull-hyde marks him as an undercover agent of sorts, traveling
beneath the radar; a false forester and a bounty hunter who uses the back
country and byways of the forest to further his own gain in the sheriff’s
employ.
The tables turn, however, when Robin dons the capull-hyde. In his
book on Ritual Animal Disguise, E.C. Cawte makes a noteworthy
13 Ibid., 22.
14 Dana Symons, “Relishing the Kill, Becoming a Man: Robin Hood’s Rivalry with Guy
of Gisborne,” in Robin Hood in Outlaw/ed Spaces, eds. Lesley Coote and Valerie B. Johnson
(New York: Routledge, 2017), 154.
15 Cawte, p. 4-5.
16 Knight and Ohlgren, 174, line 28.
17 Ibid., 177, line 136; 178, line 165.
74
observation on the Middle English derivation of the names in question.

He says that “the forms hobyn and hoby are probably by-names or
variants of Robin and Robbie.”18 Thus, when Robin puts “on that capull-
hyde,/That clad him topp to toe”19, he does it with intentionality
reinforced by his statement “ My dwelling is the wood,” ... /My name is
Robin Hood of Barnesdale.”20 Far from playing a role or using the hyde
as illicit cover, as Kane suggests in his discussion of “Horseplay,”21 Robin
uses it to avow his true identity and project a primal version of himself
as a practitioner of horse sense – intuitive cunning, perseverance, wit and
grit. If we follow Cawte’s definition, Robin embodies the hide with all
that it denotes for being a true and rightful inhabitant of the natural world
who uses this ingenious quality to outwit his opponents. This emerges
not only in the camouflage effect of the hide, but also when “Robin sett
Guyes horne to his mouth,” to deceive the Sheriff from a distance.
Likewise, Robin’s demand for a unique reward (“to strike the knave”)
shows disregard for conventional forms of compensation and more
native ingenuity in gaining access to Little John and defeating the
sheriff.22 Here, again, horse sense, with all that it suggests of single-
minded purpose and endurance over authority and sophistication,
prevails.
As a purveyor of good horse sense, Robin also resonates with the
image of the Wildman or woodwose character, as it emerges in later
medieval literature. Lorraine Stock notes that even Robin’s normal
costume of Lincoln green identifies him with this tradition,23 and Richard
Bernheimer, in Wild Men in the Middle Ages, points out that, as early as the
12th century, the wild man was seen as a protector of animals and
forests.24 Hayden White, writing about “The Forms of Wildness” in the
early modern period, provides useful background on the genesis and
development of this tradition. He observes that, when the social bonds
18 Cawte, 3.
19 Knight and Ohlgren, 178, lines 177-178.
20 Ibid., 177, lines 138-140.
21 Kane, 106.
22 Knight and Ohlgren, 179, line 183, 200; 180, line 220.
23 Lorraine K. Stock, “Lords of the Wildwood: The Wildman, The Greenman and Robin
Hood,” in Robin Hood in Popular Culture: Violence, Transgression and Justice, ed. Thomas Hahn
(Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2000), 243.
24 Richard Bernheimer, Wild Men in The Middle Ages (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1952), 9.
75
of medieval culture began to disintegrate in the 14th century, the wild man
began to transform from an object of fear and loathing into an object of
“open envy and even admiration.”25 White attributes this movement to
increasing disillusionment with the trappings and conventions of society,
whereby the Wildman, living unfettered in the forest, functioned as a
viable alternative to, or even an “antitype” of, social existence. He
became the ideal or model of “free humanity” in the face of increasingly
corrupt civil and religious bureaucracies that separated man from the
natural world and from a pure and simple natural existence. 26
Consequently, Robin Hood, in his “capull-hyde”, becomes both a
proponent and a beneficiary of the laws of nature over the laws of the
land: one who may well use, but does not abuse the resources of the
environment.
Perceptions of the law of nature manifest in a variety of ways in the
Late Middle Ages. On one level it refers to the way things are in the
physical universe: the example of gravity, the life cycle, the impulse of
organisms to survive and reproduce all demonstrate the natural order.
This understanding of the law of nature dates from the natural
philosophy of Aristotle that underlies the development of natural law
doctrine in the Middle Ages. “Law” at this juncture typically equates with
the term “lex” or rule, and with “ligare”, which implies tying or binding
one to act or refrain from acting in a certain way. Thomas Aquinas
determined that natural law derived from eternal law and might be
understood as God’s providence working towards the benefit of life in
the created world; hence, binding all living things to the principles of
survival and reproduction.27 By the 14th century, lex naturalis is
understood as a general precept by which human beings are forbidden
to do anything destructive to their lives, and encouraged to do everything
to extend and preserve existence. Eventually, this understanding
translates into a basic “eye for an eye” variety of rough justice and self-
25 Haden White, “The Forms of Wildness: Archaeology of an Idea,” in The Wildman

Within, eds. Edward Dudley and Maximillian E. Novak (Pittsburg: University of Pittsburg
Press, 1972), 22.
26 Ibid., 28.
27 Paul E. Sigmund, “Law and Politics,” in The Cambridge Companion to Aquinas, eds.
Norman Kretzman and Eleonore Stump (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

1993), 222-223.
76
defense, where natural law is valued as prior to and superior to civil laws,
and may even serve as a gage of validity in civil jurisprudence.
In Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne, Robin performs a series of brutal
actions that accord in surprising ways with the impartial course of nature
and the medieval understanding of nature’s law outlined above. We know
that Guy appears early in the poem disguised as a creature of the
woodland, “clad in his capull-hyde,/Topp and tayle and mayne.” While
he pretends to be in sync with the landscape, claiming “I dwell by dale
and downe,”28 he secretly harbors an agenda in league with civil authority
and the bounty hunting opportunities of conventional justice in the
Middle Ages. Robin, on the other hand, terms himself as a forest dweller
with a tenant’s claim, explaining “My dwelling is in the wood.”29 His
violent dispatch and disfigurement of Guy suggest self-preservation in
the form of self-defense against the “hitt” he receives in line 154 of the
poem, as well as justifiable punishment of a “traytor” who has exploited,
rather than protected, resources of the greenwood – all in accord with
medieval understanding of nature’s law that encourages protection of
one’s own person and property. As Stephen Knight observes in his work
on Robin Hood and forest law, Robin resists civil authority in all its
forms and “can be called a hero of natural law in every sense.”30
Guy’s appropriation of the capull-hyde disguises an opportunist using
the trappings of the natural world to gain a “knight’s fee” from the
sheriff. But, when Robin “puts on that capull-hyde”31 it is to the opposite
effect. In the tradition of King Arthur and Chaucer’s knight, who pair
with their horses in armed conflict, Robin uses his “horse” as a means to
resolve a battle of wits. With the hyde in hand, Robin enters Barnsdale
and fools the sheriff, which is his particular forte and frequent purpose
throughout the poems and ballads. As a result, Robin secures the release
and survival of Little John, who slays the sheriff in an act of natural
retribution for the murder of two of his men. Thus, on one level, the
capull-hyde enables that “eye for an eye” rough justice indicative of
Robin’s affiliation with the laws of nature, but, on a deeper level, it
enables a measure of existential justice for Robin Hood as well. Unlike
28 Knight and Ohlgren, 174, lines 29-30; 177, line 135.

29 Ibid., 177, line 139.
30 Stephen Knight, “Robin Hood and the Forest Laws,” The Bulletin of the International
Association for Robin Hood Studies 1 (2017): 2.

31 Knight an Ohlgren, 178, line 177.
77
Guy, for whom the hyde is a mask and no more, for Robin the incognito
provided by the hyde brings out the horse in the man. The horse hyde
moves from being an artifact on the edge of the action to become an
icon at the center of the story that enables Robin to live into his own
skin, with all that it implies regarding gumption, courage, and the natural
instinct of good “horse sense.” It actualizes his identity as a true forester,
who successfully protects and defends the woodland and its inhabitants
through an alliance with the laws of nature over and beyond the laws of
the land.
References
Bernheimer, Richard. Wild Men in The Middle Ages. Cambridge: Harvard
Brownie, Barbara and Danny Graydon. The Superhero Costume: Identity and
Disguise in Fact and Fiction. London: Bloomsbury Press, 1997.
Cawte, E.C. Ritual Animal Disguise: A Historical and Geographical Study of
Animal Disguise in the British Isles. Cambridge, D.S. Brewer, 1978.
Chisim, Christine. “Robin Hood: Thinking Globally, Acting Locally in
the 15th century Ballads,” The Letter of the Law: Legal Practice and Literary
Production in Medieval England. Emily Steiner and Candace Barrington.
Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2002. 12-39.
Crane, Susan. “Knights in Disguise: Identity and Incognito in
Fourteenth-Century Chivalry,” in The Stranger in Medieval Society. Ed.
Frank. R.P. Akehurst and Stephanie Cain van D’Elden. Minneapolis:
Minnesota UP, 1997. 64-78.
Delasanta, Rodney. “The Horsemen of the Canterbury Tales.” Chaucer
Review 3 (1968): 29-36.
Feinstein, Sandy. “The Reeve’s Tale: About that Horse.” Chaucer Review
1 (1991): 99-104.
Hyland, Ann. The Horse in the Middle Ages. Phoenix Mill: Sutton
Publishing, 1999.
Kane, Stuart. “Horseplay: Robin Hood, Guy of Gisborne, and the
Neg(oti)ation of the Bestial,” in Robin Hood in Popular Culture:
Violence, Transgression, and Justice. Ed. Thomas Hahn. Cambridge:
D.S. Brewer, 2000. 101-110.
Knight, Stephen. “Robin Hood and the Forest Laws.” The Bulletin of the
International Association for Robin Hood Studies 1 (2017) 1-14.
78
Knight, Stephen and Thomas Ohlgren, eds. Robin Hood and Other Outlaw
Tales. TEAMS Middle English Texts. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute
Publications, 2000.
Lacy, Norris J. and Geoffrey Ashe. The Arthurian Handbook. New York:
Garland, 1997.
Middle English Dictionary. Part of the Middle English Compendium. Ann
Arbor: The University of Michigan, 2001. https://quod.lib.um
ich.edu/m/med/. Accessed May 15, 2019.
Oxford English Dictionary. OED Online. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2020. https://www.oed.com. Accessed November 5, 2020.
Sigmund, Paul E. “Law and Politics.” In The Cambridge Companion to
Aquinas. Ed. Norman Kretzmann and Eleonore Stump. Cambridge:
Stock, Lorraine K. “Lords of the Wildwood: The Wildman, The Green
Man and Robin Hood.” In Robin Hood in Popular Culture: Violence,
Transgression and Justice. Ed. Thomas Hahn. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer,
2000.
Symons, Dana. “Relishing the Kill, Becoming a Man: Robin Hood’s
Rivalry with Guy of Gisborne.” In Robin Hood in Outlaw/ed Spaces: Media,
Performance and Other New Directions. Eds. Lesley Coote and Valerie
Johnson. London: Routledge, 2017.
Salisbury, Joyce E. The Beast Within: Animals in the Middle Ages. New York:
Routledge, 1994.
Saunders, Corinne. The Forest of Medieval Romance. Cambridge: D.S.
Brewer, 1993.
White, Haden. “The Forms of Wildness: Archaeology of an Idea.” In The
Wild Man Within. Eds. Edward Dudley and Maximillian E. Novak.
Pittsburg: University of Pittsburg Press, 1972.
79
SEMPER ASELLUS ERIT? HYBRID ANIMALS
IN NIGEL DE LONGCHAMPS’
SPECULUM STULTORUM
MAXIMILIAN WICK*
Unsatisfied with the proportion of the length of his tail to the length of
his ears, Burnell, a runaway donkey, consults his doctor Galen for advice.
Galen admonishes Burnell for his foolish wish, as it is against the law of
nature. To reinforce his point and to convince Burnell of the danger of
trying to intervene with nature in vain, Galen tells him a fable of two
cows in a similar situation, but the donkey does not appear to understand
Galen’s argumentation. In the end, the doctor provides the donkey with
a fake recipe, and Burnell heads to Salerno to get the ingredients. As one
can imagine, this leads to disaster: the donkey manages to buy the
ingredients from a dubious dealer for an exorbitant price, but on the way
home he loses the valuable goods and a piece of his tail in a dog attack.
After a quarrel with the dogs’ owner, in which the indignant Burnell
poses as the ambassador of the Curia, the donkey throws him into the
Rhône.
Now Burnell has time to think about his error and decides to study
in order to cover it up with academic glamor. On the way to Paris,
Burnell meets a student named Arnold. Arnold tells him another fable
(about a cock that refuses to crow out of revenge for a misdeed done),
but there seems to be no intention behind this. Burnell’s studies are
doomed to failure. After seven years, he cannot even remember the name
of his place of study. Again, he has to come up with something to cover
up his repeated failure, and decides to establish his own order. To
* Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany.

Maximilian Wick
convince Galen to join the order, Burnell tells him a third fable, in which
three goddesses of fate try to reconcile nature’s failures. As soon as
Burnell stops speaking, his former owner appears and forces him back
into service. To punish Burnell for his outburst, the owner cuts off his
ears, which ironically now match his short tail.
Nigel de Longchamps’ Speculum stultorum (c. 1180),1 a Latin satire of
about 2,000 elegiac couplets, has often been referred to as not being a
‘real’ beast epic.2 As the brief summary above shows, the boundary
between the animal and human worlds is barely contoured. Humans and
animals can talk to each other easily, the donkey can consult a human
doctor, has money, and is even admitted to university without any
comment. The excessive anthropomorphizing even leads to parts of the
animal body sometimes being briefly transformed into human ones.3 The
text regularly undermines the boundaries of anthropological difference,
not only in the area of social interaction and physical modelling, but also
in how basic communication occurs. Of the three fables integrated in the
framework, the donkey Burnell hears one from his (human) doctor, one
from the (human) student Arnold, and he tells the last one himself, i.e.
an animal, to a human, his doctor Galen. While the first fable is strictly
about animals, the second deals with a confrontation between a rooster
and his owner, and the last one is about humans and human-like
supernatural beings. The communication is highly remarkable in each of
the three cases, as it bears significance about the relationship between
animality and humanity in medieval beast epics and fables in general.
A statement in the prologue alludes to and decisively modifies
Avianus’ well-known fable of the donkey under the lion’s skin:
1 For details on the author and the context from which the Speculum arose cf. Jill Mann,
“Does an Author Understand his Own Text? Nigel of Longchamp and the Speculum
stultorum,” The Journal of Medieval Latin 17, no. 1 (2007): 9-36.
2 Of course, a text as complex as the Speculum can hardly be adequately described in this
way. Cf. Michael Waltenberger, “Socrates Brunelles est, oder: Aspekte asininer Narrativik.
Zum Speculum stultorum des Nigellus von Canterbury,” in Tierepik und Tierallegorese, eds.
Bernhard Jahn and Otto Neudeck (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2004), 71-72.
3 For example, when one of the cows from the first fable uses a dagger to cut off its tail
or when the donkey falls on its knees and prays (v. 277–282; 719-720). The Speculum
stultorum is quoted after Nigel de Longchamps, Speculum stultorum, eds. John H. Mozley
and Robert R. Raymo (Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1960). On
these “ontologische Inkonsistenzen” (ontological inconsistencies), see Waltenberger,
“Socrates Brunellus est”, 81–84 (quote on page 83).
82
Semper asellus erit? Hybrid Animals in Nigel de Longchamps’ Speculum stultorum
Regna licet teneat sceptrumque leonis asellus,

Juraque det populis, semper asellus erit.
Asperior tamen est, in sede leonis asellus
Si positus fuerit, quam foret ipse leo.
Pelle leonina tectum detexit asellum
Fastus et excedens gloria vana modum.
Si moderata foret saltem, sub imagine falsa
Res simulata diu posset habere locum.
Sed nimis impatiens gravis in novitate vetustas
Praecipites saltus in sua damna dedit;
Dum miser ipse sibi factus suus ex alieno
Fortunam didicit dedidicisse suam,
Perdidit invitus, male se simulante leonem,
Quod bene sive male credidit esse bonum.4
What the prologue introduces here is the basic moral of the Speculum:
be satisfied with what nature has given you.5 However, this moral is not
conveyed directly in a fable, but asserted as if a law of nature. The
prologue only implies a donkey accidentally finding a lion’s skin one day
and briefly acting as ruler. Instead of telling the whole fable, a law is
asserted and then its natural mode of action is detailed. One does not
discover how the donkey loses its dominion, but why it loses it: because
of its asinine nature.
Compared to Avianus’ fable, there is no (human) farmer who reveals
the betrayal and at the end announces to the donkey the same moral that
precedes as a premise in the Speculum:
4 V. 57-70: “An ass, though he may hold a monarchy/And rule the folk, an ass will ever
be./An ass in lion’s place would harsher prove/Than lion’s self, and more resentment
move./An ass draped in a lion’s skin is known/By undue pride and vanity o’erflown. A
thing pretended need not rouse offence/If moderation governs the pretence./But angry
pride impatient in new seat/Leaps ever headlong to its own defeat./Now to himself he
must once more return./Poor ass, he’s learnt his fortune to unlearn/His lion’s semblance
failed, and with it went/All that he dreamed of rich emolument.” (Nigel Longchamp, A
Mirror for Fools, transl. John H. Mozley (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1963), 2) Mozley’s translation is very free and is included in this article rather as an
aid. Jill Mann is currently working on an English translation that is more faithful to the
original, and Langosch offers a German translation (cf. Nigellus von Longchamps,
Narrenspiegel, transl. Karl Langosch (Leipzig: Insel, 1982)).
5 Fritz Peter Knapp, “‘Antworte dem Narren nach seiner Narrheit!’ Das Speculum stultorum
des Nigellus von Canterbury,” Reinardus 3 (1990): 48.
83
Maximilian Wick
Et simul abstracto denudans corpora tergo,

Increpat his miserum vocibus ille pecus:
Forsitan ignotos imitato murmure fallas,
At mihi, qui quondam, semper asellus eris.6
Although both donkeys prefigure Burnell, only Avianus’ donkey is
given a lesson directly, and, significantly, from an observer familiar with
the donkey and its nature. The main difference between the two stories,
however, lies in their epistemological structure, wherein that of Nigel’s
‘fable’ can serve as a reading key for deciphering the fables in the
Speculum. Even if they are consciously used by their narrators for a
(persuasive) purpose and their form suggests something else, they are not
instructive in a strictly moral sense. No clear instructions for action can
be derived from them; instead, they exemplify a fixed rule in a
cosmologically determined world, in which it is always wrong or simply
too late to intervene. In this sense, the donkey as a stupid animal
symbolizes a stupid person just as much as a stupid person symbolizes a
donkey.
In addition, this specific fable is not used here as an arbitrary example
of the persistence of donkey nature. Talking about the lion’s skin also
makes it possible to play with the contemporary concept of integumentum.7
6 Avianus, “De asino pelle leonis induto,” in Les fabulistes latins 3: Avianus et ses anciens
imitateurs, ed. Leopold Hervieux (Paris: Firmin Didot, 1895), 267 (15-18): ‘And while he
was detaching the skin and stripping the body, he scolded the unfortunate beast, saying:
“Perhaps you may deceive those who don’t know you, by your mimic roar, but to me, as
before, you will always be an ass.”’ In the Speculum, this precise moral is given in advance
(and is put in the third person singular): semper asellus erit (v. 58).
7 Introductory cf. Frank Bezner, Vela veritatis. Hermeneutik, Wissen und Sprache in der
intellectual history des 12. Jahrhunderts (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2005). A contemporary

definition is offered by Bernardus Silvestris in his commentary on Martianus Capella’s
epic De nuptiis Philosophiae et Mercurii: Genus doctrine figura est. Figura autem est oratio quam
involucrum dicere solent. Hec autem bipertita est: partimur namque eam in allegoriam et integumentum.
Est autem allegoria oratio sub historica narratione verum et ab exteriori diversum involvens intellectum,
ut de lucta Jacob. Integumentum vero est oratio sub fabulosa narratione verum claudens intellectum, ut
de Orpheo. Nam et ibi historia et hic fabula misterium habent occultum, quod alias discutiendum erit.
Allegoria quidem divine pagine, integumentum vero philosophice competit. Bernardus Silvestris,
Commentum in Martianum, ed. Haijo Jan Westra (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval
Studies, 1986), 45 (2,70-78). It should be noted, however, that Macrobius, to whom the
integumentum doctrine goes back, already excludes (Aesopian) fables from philosophical
use. Cf. Macrobius, Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis, ed. James Willis (Stuttgart/Leipzig:
Teubner, 1963), 5-7 (1.2,6-14).
84
The basic idea is that ancient philosophers and poets would have
conveyed their secret teachings (misteria occulta) dressed as fabulous
stories (fabulosae narrationes) in order to protect them from being accessed
by the unworthy. Here, the lion’s skin as a physical symbol for the
reference to Avianus’ fable functions as a special case of an integumentum.
Similarly, there is no deeper truth hidden under the skin, but an eternal
donkey that shows the tragic persistence of its ‘literary species’.
Earlier in the prologue, this common concept of a hidden meaning
(sensus)8 is clearly invoked and linked to the telling of fables: Saepius
historiae brevitas mysteria magna/Claudit, et in vili res pretiosa latet.9 On the one
hand, fables are a prime example of historiae brevitas; on the other, verse
13 “is clearly an echo of the Romulan fable of the cock and the jewel
[…], the fable which was moved to first position in the Romulus vulgaris
because it could be read as offering a prefatory warning of the need for
a deeper understanding in the reader.”10 An anaphoric duplication of
saepius connects this distich with the next one: Saepius admiror, dum tempora
lapsa revolvo,/Quam fuerint nobis quamque notanda tibi.11
Just four verses after the alleged regularity (saepius) of successful
integumental exegesis, the narrator refers to his regular (saepius)
questioning of an – apparently causal and therefore predictable –
connection between past and present and, thus, unsettling the status of
8 Non quod verba sonant, sed quae contraria verbis/Insita sensus habet sunt retinenda magis (v. 9-10:
“Let him forget the verses’ outward sound,/And keep the inward sense with them
unbound.” (A Mirror for Fools, 1) The ornate, but itself worthless exterior (here the sonus
of the verba) is subordinated to the instructive meaning (sensus), whereby the moral – as is
typical for satire – only occurs via the ironic relationship between verbum and sensus (cf.
Thomas Haye, Das lateinische Lehrgedicht im Mittelalter. Analyse einer Gattung (Leiden/New
York/Köln: Brill, 1997), 286).
9 V. 13-14: “Great mysteries oft in simple tales lie hid, / And precious truth is cheaply
garmented.” (A Mirror for Fools, 1)

10 Jill Mann, From Aesop to Reynard: Beast Literature in Medieval Britain (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2009), 102.

11 V. 17-18: “I marvel, pondering on antiquity,/How well we do to note it, you and I;”
(A Mirror for Fools, 1) Mozley’s free translation interprets verse 18 rather optimistically. It
could also be translated as: ‘How should those be noteworthy for me and for you?’ The
same applies to the next verse (“How present times from past are altered quite” (ibid.);
Nil cum praeterito praesens mihi tempus habere (v. 19)), which could also be translated like this:
‘The present seems to me to have nothing in common with the past.’
85
Maximilian Wick
history as a teacher.12 In contrast to the contingent history, in which Cato

can at least theoretically become dull and Ulysses speechless,13 characters
in beast fables remain constant and, therefore, instructive14 – of course
only if they are not told to donkeys, but who would tell a donkey a fable?
I. A Fable of Two Cows

The fable of the two cows that Galen tells Burnell in order to dissuade
him from executing his plan to extend his tail shows how pointless this
can be. This story is highly questionable for three reasons: first, Galen
tells an animal a beast fable, for which it is of course not a beast fable,
but the story of a relative; second, the doctor presents this fable as a true
story from his childhood and not a fabulous disguise of a moral truth;15
and, finally, its moral lesson is unclear, which means that no instructions
12 The text thus contradicts the assumption of a higher validity of the factual (“höhere
Kraft des Faktischen” (Hans Robert Jauss, “Negativität und Identifikation. Versuch zur
Theorie der ästhetischen Erfahrung,” in Positionen der Negativität, ed. Harald Weinrich
(München: Wilhelm Fink, 1975), 311), which the exemplum has in comparison to the fable.
13 Fit Cato mentis hebes, linguam facundus Ulixes/Perdidit instabiles non habet aura vices;/Plusque
Catone sapit, magis est facundus Ulixe (v. 23–25): “Cato grows dull in wit, no longer
ready/Ulysses’ tongue, the shifting breeze grows steady;/Who late was dumb, Ulysses
doth surpass,/And Cato yields to him who witless was.” (A Mirror for Fools, 1) As
exemplary figures of wisdom and eloquence, Cato and Ulysses lose their distinctive
virtues to show that anyone can lose their virtue; an option they have ahead of animals
in beast fables.
14 “Animals are chosen as the main actors because – from the negative point of view –
they remove any expectations of psychological individuality or moral complexity. From

the positive point of view, they are chosen because their actions can be assumed to be
dictated by nature, and this lends a quasi-inevitability to their actions, even when they are
not such as the ‘natural animal’ would commit.” (Mann, From Aesop to Reynard, 39)
15 Cf. v. 273-282. According to the asserted claim, the fable actually happened that way
and is therefore (pursuant to the Rhetorica ad Herennium) as an exemplum part of the historia.
Cf. Markus Schürer, Das Exemplum oder die erzählte Institution. Studien zum Beispielgebrauch bei
den Dominikanern und Franziskanern des 13. Jahrhunderts, (Münster: LIT Verlag, 2005), 67-
69. Of course, the assignment is only permissible because speaking animals are possible
in this narrative world. Since the contemporary definition of exemplum is anything but
unequivocal, it must be noted that the term is used here to denote a function rather than
a genre. Cf. Klaus Grubmüller, “Fabel, Exempel, Allegorese. Über
Sinnbildungsverfahren und Verwendungszusammenhänge,” in Exempel und
Exempelsammlungen, eds. Walter Haug and Burghart Wachinger (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer
Verlag, 1991), 60-61.
86
for action can be drawn from the story, and Burnell, like the donkey from
the prologue, will not draw any.
The fable is about two cows, Brunetta and Bicornis, whose tails
suddenly freeze in the ground one night. When she hears her calf calling
for her, Bicornis ponders the advantages and disadvantages of her tail,
which was long ago damaged by dog bites. Finally, she decides to cut off
her tail with a dagger:
[…] Quod superest canibus placet hoc impendere natae,
Hocque pium satis est, hocque salubre mihi.
Ergo quid ulterius quae sum factura morabor?
Casibus in duris accelerare juvat.’
Dixit, et arreptam caudam pugione recidit,
Festinansque domum carpere coepit iter.
Ante tamen studuit ferrum praestare sorori,
Posset ut a simili solvere vincla sibi.
Sed minus haec praeceps prudensque magis patienter
Verba tulit, cohibens a pugione manum.16
Referring to this capricious fate, her fellow sufferer Brunetta refuses
to use the dagger and explains that she would rather wait patiently. And
indeed: while she is still speaking, it suddenly thaws and she is free, too.17
Next summer, Bicornis dies miserably from mosquito bites, because she
can no longer defend herself without her tail.
As clear as the moral seems at first (Do not interfere with nature!), it
becomes problematic at second glance. First, there is Bicornis’ calf,
which distinguishes her from Brunetta, who has no childcare obligations.
The dilemma in which she has to make a decision and decides in favor
of her motherly duties, however, remains unaffected. Accordingly, her
argument for using the dagger amounts to nothing, while Brunetta’s
16 V. 273-282: “[…] ‘What they [the dogs] have spared, to her [the calf] I sacrifice,/Both
duty this and profit in my eyes./Why then delay what I’m resolved upon?/An urgent case
needs action quickly done.’/She spoke, and knife in hand cut off her tail,/Then started
homeward; yet first made avail/The knife, ere going, to Brunetta’s use,/Her body from
detainment thus to loose./But she, less headstrong or more prudent made,/Heard out
her sister, but refused the blade.” (A Mirror for Fools, 9-10)
17 Talia dum memorat, modico recreata sopore,/Flante levi Zephyro tempora versa videt/Sol calet, et
superas clarus devexus in auras/Diffusis radiis temperat omne gelu. (v. 449-450): “Even while she
speaks the season changes,/Refreshed by its brief winter drowse/The earth revives; the
sun now ranges/Higher in heaven with searching rays” (A Mirror for Fools, 15).
87
Maximilian Wick
counter-argument – to sit out Fortuna’s mood – wins. The remarkable

thing about the fable, however, is that Brunetta’s victory depends to a
large extent on contingency and is precisely not due to any particular
wisdom (sapientia).18 The fact that it thaws immediately after the cows’
discussion and Brunetta’s nap clearly shows how unpredictable the
outcome of the fable and the associated moral was; at least if the outcome
was not already determined based on the narrator’s experience and his
intention.
But what was Galen’s intention again? Immediately before telling the
fable, he notes: Firmiter ergo tene quod habes, quia conditionem/De facili posses
damnificare tuam.19 And, right after the fable, he concludes: Sufficiat quod
habes; quoniam, si vera fatemur,/Stulta petis, salvo semper honore tuo.20 The
personalized ‘promythion’ can be linked to the fable with little effort. If
Bicornis had kept her tail, she would have been spared death. However,
it does not fit Burnell’s concern to lengthen his tail, just as a comparable
concern does not play a role in the fable. The ‘epimythium’, in turn, fits
Burnell’s desire, but not the fable. In general, the fable seems to be very
vaguely linked to Burnell’s situation via the tertium comparationis of the
tail – and of course the general creed not to interfere with nature. The
fact that Burnell has nothing to do with the morality of the fable may be
due to his asinine foolishness (stultitia) or him being a namesake of
Brunetta, who may incorrectly identify himself with her and feel safe.
If you believe Galen and take the fable to be a true story from his
childhood, its intricate nature can be explained by the contingency of his
life (if you don’t, it’s merely an oddly unconvincing story).21 In any case,
the question remains why he tells Burnell this fable and not another,
simpler one. The reason can be seen in the narrative situation, because,
18 Cf. Waltenberger, “Socrates Brunellus est”, 76-77.

19 V. 203–204: “So then my advice/Is to hold firmly on, nor sacrifice/That which you
have; because your present state/Might, if you do so, soon deteriorate.” (A Mirror for
Fools, 6)
20 V. 597-598: “What you hold/Let that suffice, for if the truth be said,/Saving your
honour, you’re a muttonhead,/And your scheme’s folly.” (A Mirror for Fools, 20)
21 The ‘quality criterion’ for exempla could be a successful ratio of necessary
unambiguousness and carefully used decorative surplus of meaning. In the case of stories
founded in the historia, the adjustment usually takes place at the expense of the authority
of historia that gives the story validity. Cf. Walter Haug, “Exempelsammlungen im
narrativen Rahmen: Vom ‘Pañcatantra’ zum ‘Dekameron’,” in Exempel und
Exempelsammlungen, eds. Walter Haug and Burghart Wachinger (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer
Verlag, 1991), 264-270.
88
as previously pointed out, Galen tells an animal a beast fable. That would
actually raise the problem that he tells a being that is, by its nature,
predetermined, about other beings for which the same is true. Yet
Burnell is a hybrid,22 even if that doesn’t help him much, because his
consistently resounding animal nature means that he will always use his
human-like freedom of choice to his disadvantage. So, Galen tries an
inversion and tells the rather fabulous donkey a story that is less a beast
fable than contingent history. Accordingly, it is irrelevant that the fable
is specifically about cows. The fable even has to cross the borderline of
‘cowiness’ in order to allow Bicornis to grip the knife. And at the very
moment when she most clearly acts like a human, she dooms herself.
In this respect, the fable can also be read as a warning against breaking
with anthropological differences. Galen advises his patient to behave like
an animal (like Burnell’s napping namesake Brunetta does), leading to a
dilemma, because if he followed this advice, he would not be allowed or
even able to follow it because of his stupid, donkey-like nature. However,
when viewed as a person, Burnell can choose to act in a human way and
to interfere with nature, which animals cannot, even if it will inevitably
go wrong. But since doing the wrong thing is part of his nature, the
decision is obvious and Burnell remains stubborn in his decision to have
his tail extended.
This may sound simple, but it has far-reaching consequences for the
epistemological approach of the text, which reflects its own reception by
not only blending pseudo-allegorical and hermeneutic methods of
interpretation, but also by mixing the interpretations of the narrator, the
22The term ‘hybrid’ is used here in an abstract manner and not to denote a mixture of
species. Burnell is hybrid insofar as he constantly shifts between his animal nature and
his human-like ratio that is, of course, limited by his natural, asinine stultitia (for
contemporary discourses on the demarcation between animals and humans, cf. Udo
Friedrich, Menschentier und Tiermensch. Diskurse der Grenzziehung und Grenzüberschreitung im
Mittelalter (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009)). At the same time, Burnell is also
a hybrid of an animal from a beast fable and an animal from a beast epic. On the one
hand, he can be compared, for example, with the rooster from the well-known fable of
the cock and the jewel. Jill Mann notes, this fable can be regarded as a “fable about fables”
(Mann, From Aesop to Reynard, 34), since the cock’s disregard for the jewel can only be
moralized, once the cock is related to a human in the epimythium. However, Burnell goes
through this “animal-human shift” (ibid.), which is usually unique and irreversible in beast
fables, more than once, in both directions and not always consistently. On the other hand,
this makes him comparable to animals from beast epics, but compared to them as a bearer
of an alleged, unambiguous morality he is too much figurative.
89
Maximilian Wick
characters, and the paratext. The text can switch between the mode of
telling a beast fable and the mode of telling stories, anecdotes, or even
history, while also adapting the respective rules of its narrative worlds.
While the fable of the two cows, which is shaped less by animality and
more by contingency, is not very instructive for Burnell, his story, the
story of an unteachable donkey, can be highly instructive for a person in
the world of contingency.
Contrary to what is customary in the allegorical practice of medieval
bestiaries, according to Nigel’s letter to his dedicatee, William de
Longchamp, the donkey does not symbolize a certain type of monk, but
actually is a monk,23 whereas the cows, for example, symbolize two types
of monks in a traditional way.24 While the second provision seems
completely arbitrary and lacks any narrative basis, Burnell later decides
to join an order by establishing his own. This leads to an absurd situation
that once again demonstrates Burnell’s hybridity. Strictly speaking, he is
simultaneously the ‘general donkey’ acting foolishly in a determined fable
world by planning to establish an order, a morally depraved monk who
tries in vain for advancement, and the hero in a more beast epic-like
23 Asinus iste monachus est, aut vir quilibet religious in claustro positus, qui tanquam asinus ad onera
portanda Domini servitio est deputatus, qui non contentus conditione sua, sicut nec asinus cauda sua,
quod naturaliter non accepit vel repugnante natura nequaquam potest accipere, amplius affectat, ad illud
modis omnibus anhelat, et consulit medicum, id est quemcunque putat id sibi posse conferre, quod mente
captus aestimat esse possibile. Nigel Longchamps, “Epistola ad Willelmum,” ed. John H.
Mozley, Medium Aevum 39 (1970): 17 (25-31). The verb esse in the place of the expected
significare is a clear break with the tradition of allegorical interpretation, to which the
following comparisons (the duty of the donkey corresponds to that of the monk) seem
to be more indebted. On Nigel’s technique of “allegoresis” or even “‘imposed allegory’”,
cf. Mann, “Does an Author Understand his Own Text?”: 6-7. Following Burnell’s traces
in the bestiaries, Diane Heath stresses, Burnell is “both a short-tailed ass and a monk”
(Diane Heath, “Burnellus Speaks: Beast Books and Beastliness in Late Twelfth-century
Canterbury,” South Atlantic Review 81, no. 2 (Summer 2016): 40). Like an onager, he
has roamed the world without a master since his escape and simultaneously as “a form
of Onocentaur (part human and part ass)” he “harbors the very human failings attributed
to this creature in the bestiary: the two natures, inconstancy, and having only the
appearance of godliness” (idem, 43).
24 Hae duo vaccae duo genera hominum significant in religione viventium. Nigel Longchamps,
“Epistola”, 18 (59–60). For the problematic validity of the interpretations in the cover
letter, cf. Mann, “Does an Author Understand his Own Text?”. Knapp simply calls them
“Überinterpretationen” (over-interpretations) (Fritz Peter Knapp, “Das mittelalterliche
Tierepos. Zur Genese und Definition einer großepischen Literaturgattung,” Sprachkunst
10 (1979): 59).
90
world of contingency which cannot be reduced to a one-dimensional

morality.25 To his chagrin, both roles end tragically.
As the explanatory letter in the Speculum points out, the fools see the
wisdom of the wise without learning anything from it, while the wise see
the fools’ folly and at least gain a tiny amount of knowledge from it:
Dicitur ergo Speculum Stultorum, vel quia stulti inspecta
sapientia statim obliviscuntur eam vel quia sapientes ex eo
etiam proficiunt quod stultorum stoliditatem dum aspiciunt
seipsos componunt, et ex trabe conspecta in oculo alieno
festucan eiciunt de proprio. Haec de titulo sufficiant.
Introducitur autem asinus, animal scilicet stolidum, volens
caudam aliam et ampliorem quam natura contulerat contra
naturam sibi inseri…26
What the wise see is the same folly (stoliditas) that, according to the
next sentence, is the central quality of the donkey as an animal. In other
words, they see donkeys like Burnell and at the sight of them try to rid
themselves of their own last bit of ‘donkeyism’.27 In doing so, they do
not change, which would interfere with nature. Instead, they become
even more themselves. Meanwhile, the fools also remain fools, and, as
such, they, and especially their pointless instruction, serve to teach the
wise; even if this teaching consists only of the fact that a donkey will
always be a donkey: Semper asellus erit!
25 On the ontic of ‘animal’ characters from beast epics, cf. Jan Glück, Animal homificans.
Normativität von Natur und Autorisierung des Politischen in der europäischen Tierepik des Mittelalters
(Heidelberg: Winter, 2021), 64-100. The results of the analysis of Glück’s first example,
the Ecbasis captivi (idem, 73-81), are particularly compatible with our analysis of the
Speculum, insofar as the status of the Ecbasis as a beast epic is questionable in a similar way
to that of Nigel’s poem.
26 Nigel Longchamps, “Epistola”, 17 (17-23).
27 The metaphor of trabs and festuca used here alludes to Matthew 7:3-5: Quid autem vides
festucam in oculo fratris tui et trabem in oculo tuo non vides aut quomodo dicis fratri tuo sine eiciam
festucam de oculo tuo et ecce trabis est in oculo tuo hypocrita eice primum trabem de oculo tuo et tunc
videbis eicere festucam de oculo fratris tui. Nigel changes the perspective in a significant way.
While, in the Bible, the fools look at the wise (with a trabs in their eye) and want to change
them despite being much more in need of change themselves, here they even don’t see
their festuca. As donkeys, they are naturally hopeless cases.
91
Maximilian Wick
II. A Cock’s Revenge

The student Arnold, whom Burnell meets on his way to Paris, tells the
second fable. Just as he remains shadowy and disappears from the story
without a trace after the fable, the intention with which he tells the
donkey about a priest’s son named Gundulf and his rooster is also
unclear. After Burnell has told him his own story – from the planned tail
extension to the unsuccessful acquisition of the ingredients, the dog
attack, and the death of their owner – Arnold replies:
Quam variis vicibus humanae res variantur,
Non est res facilis dinumerasse mihi.
Quam minima causa magnum discrimen oriri
Possit, ab effectu res manifesta docet.28
At first, it appears that Arnold intends to tell a counter-narrative to
Burnell’s life story, by contrasting the consequences of the constant
donkey nature with the unsteadiness of human affairs (humanae res). His
story is supposed to exemplify the problematic observability of the
causality that lies behind the changes, without being proportional to
them. Since it is often only perceived too late – or, as in this story, which
is non-fiction,29 not at all – the prologue’s reservation of the less
instructive nature of history applies.
One day, while herding chickens on his father’s farm, the priest’s son
Gundulf beats a male chick too hard with a rod. Six years later, when
Gundulf is to be ordained a priest, the animal, now a stately rooster, sees
the time has come for his revenge. The night before the ordination,
Gundulf and his comrades celebrate and drink, relying on the early cock
crow in the morning. But the rooster refuses to crow, and his hen,
outraged by her husband’s negligence, tries to crow herself, but fails to
wake the revelers. Gundulf, who has a nightmare that night about the
rooster celebrating the bizarre perversion of a never-ending mass, finally
wakes up too late and, despite all of his efforts, does not make it to
28 V. 1251-1254: “The various turns of Fortune and of Fate/In human life ’twere hard to
enumerate./The vast events from causes small that spring/Stand plain to see, when facts
fulfilment bring.” (A Mirror for Fools, 41)
29 Contigit Apuliae celebri res digna relatu,/Tempore Willelmi principis hujus avi. (v. 1255-1256:
“There happened in Apulia (some time since)/In William’s day, the grandsire of our
prince,/A memorable thing.” (A Mirror for Fools, 41)) This indication makes the story like
the cow fable (and with the same restrictions) an exemplum.
92
church in time. While the rooster triumphs over his enemy, Gundulf,
instead of being ordained a priest, is chased away in disgrace after the
death of his parents, which, to make matters worse, happens shortly
afterwards.
Considering that the rooster drastically violates the supreme
commandment of the text not to interfere with the order of nature, his
triumph is more than strange. As Gundulf’s servants notice when their
master wakes up briefly at night after his nightmare and is surprised that
it is not yet day, the rooster naturally cannot help but crow. Being the
one qui quamvis vellet subticuisse nequit,30 he is involved both cosmologically,
as an indicator of the hours, and in the history of salvation, as an
admonisher.31 The fact that this rooster refrains from crowing shows a
problematic hybridity that would make him an ideal target for moral
criticism, especially in comparison with Bicornis.32 But the story, which
the cover letter considers self-explanatory,33 has no interest in a
moralization of the rooster that is compatible with the rest of the text.
Just as the fable of the two cows might as well have shown a moral
mistake on the part of the waiting Brunetta, here, too, the culprit to be
punished is certain from the start.
Accordingly, the cock’s misconduct, which he accepts in the course
of his revenge, is no more cited against him than Bicorni’s valid childcare
argument is cited in her defence. In addition, Gundulf’s misconduct is
30 V. 1416: “… he/Although he wished could never silent be.” (A Mirror for Fools, 46)
31 For the rooster’s cosmologically function cf. Plinius, Naturalis Historiae, ed. Roderich
König (München/Zürich: Artemis & Winkler, 1986), X.XXIV; Isidorus Hispalensis,
Etymologiae, ed. Wallace M. Lindsay (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1911), V.XXXI;
Alanus ab Insulis, “De Planctu Naturae,” in Literary Works, ed. Winthrop Wetherbee
(Cambridge/London: Harvard University Press, 2013), 2.21. For its role in Salvation
History cf. Ansgar Franz, Tageslauf und Heilsgeschichte. Untersuchungen zum literarischen Text
und liturgischen Kontext der Tagzeitenhymnen des Ambrosius von Mailand (St. Ottilien: EOS,
1994), 161-179; Stefan Freund, “Von Hahnenschrei und Osterspeise. Zur Entstehung
und Gestalt von Reflexionsfiguren in der christlichen lateinischen Dichtung,” in
Ästhetische Reflexionsfiguren in der Vormoderne, ed. Annette Gerok-Reiter [et al.] (Heidelberg:
Winter, 2019), 169-172.
32 Unlike the rooster, the hen does not have the power to start the day: Quamvis gallina
nocturno tempore cantet,/non ideo citius lux oriunda venit (v. 1379-1380: “No quicker comes the
light to flood the sky/Because a hen has lifted up her voice.” (A Mirror for Fools, 45)) The
fact that she tries anyway could also be viewed as a violation of the laws of nature, but
she remains unpunished, just like her husband.
33 Quod autem sequitur de filio presbyteri et pullo gallinae qui postea pro tibia fracta reddidit talionem,
quia per se satis elucet, expositione non indiget. Nigel Longchamps, “Epistola”, 19 (120-122).
93
Maximilian Wick
punished selectively. Neither his inglorious descent, nor the bribe, which
granted him access to the priesthood in the first place,34 lead to his
misfortune. It stems solely from the marginal misconduct in childhood,
the minima causa, that, according to Arnold’s narrative intention, leads to
drastic consequences. His story is not a beast fable for that reason alone,
since the break with predictable animal nature is fundamental to it. It
could even be described as an anti-fable, insofar as the servants rely on
precisely this steadiness, and the tragedy results from the breach of their
expectations. As such, the story has no moral either,35 because Gundulf
never learns how he earned his bad fate. Although some of his friends
later accuse the rooster, that remains one accusation among many: Arguit
hic vigiles, causatur et ille bibentes,/Impetit hic gallum, damnat et ille merum.36
From Burnell’s point of view, the story could also be described as a
‘human fable’. Just as the farmer in Avianus’ fable serves as an
unquestionable moral authority to expose the misconduct of the donkey
under the lion’s skin, the rooster, an animal, punishes the misconduct of
Gundulf, i.e., that of a person. While the wise recipient of the beast fable
identifies with the farmer, the donkey could identify with the rooster
here. After all, he has also just had an act of revenge, which he had
previously told Arnold about: like the rooster, growing beyond his
nature, he killed Fromund,37 whose dogs robbed him of his precious
34 Praesul enim victus precibus meritisque beati/Ruffini vota censuit esse rata (v. 1317-1318): “For
to his prayers the bishop had acceded,/(Nor did blest Rufyn’s merits plead in vain)” (A
Mirror for Fools, 43).
35 If one learns anything from this story, it should be an uneconomic paranoia that
contradicts moral law by deconstructing any reliable and proportional relations between
misconduct and punishment. And yet Arnold closes his story with the fact that it is passed
on patrilinearly to admonish constant moderatio: Mansit apud multos tamen hoc memorabile
factum,/Hocque patres natis saepe referre solent,/Ut memores facti sic se moderentur ubique,/Ne de
post facto paenituisse queant (v. 1499-1502): “Yet many mindful how poor Gundulf fell/Did
to their sons the doleful story tell,/That they might learn their passion’s force to
abate/Nor know repentance only when too late.” (A Mirror for Fools, 49)
36 V. 1449-1450: “Some blame the watch and some the drinking,/Says one, ‘No, ’tis the
cock, I’m thinking.’” (A Mirror for Fools, 47)

37 Burnell describes the fact that he acted contrary to his slowness and folly on an epitaph
that he affixes to Fromund’s grave: Quem celer et sapiens stultum tardumque parabat/Fallere
praeveniens ipse fefellit eum./Sic tardus celerem, sic sic stultus sapientem/In saltu celeri desipuisse
dedit./Sic fraus fraude perit, sic ars deluditur arte,/Sic dolus et fraudes praemia digna ferunt (v. 1103-
1108): “Clever and quick was he, and thought to cheat/The slow and stupid, but himself
94
cargo and a part of his tail. The lesson he could draw from the fable
would be that, as an animal in a human world of contingency, he can get
away with his vengeance without the fear of facing any punishment.
III. A Donkey’s Fable

The last fable is told by Burnell himself, who uses it to persuade Galen
to join the order he is about to establish; especially since the doctor
doesn’t really show interest in being subordinate to the donkey. Burnell
appeases him by first declaring such a perversion to be the norm within
the church (in religione; v. 3271) and then further developing this image
into a law of nature, which declares the mundus perversus to be the norm.38
Thinking of people who act according to this law reminds Burnell of an
exemplum (v. 3279) that his mother often told him and that does not
include a single animal:
Three divine sisters of fate (sorores resp. deae fatales; v. 3281f.) set out
to make up for the mistakes of Nature and to help those to whom she
has given too little and too generously.39 On their journey, they first
encounter an incredibly beautiful woman crying miserably. While two
sisters want to alleviate her suffering, the third contradicts the others,
explaining that this woman has been given such rich gifts that they could
hardly give her anything better and she should simply use the gifts of
nature to her satisfaction. The sisters move on and then meet a paralyzed
woman, who greets them decently. As with her predecessor, the two
was beat/At his own game, and so was foolish shown/By the quick leap which drowned
him in the Rhone./So cunning outdoes cunning, fraud gives way/To fraud, and each due
retribution pay.” (A Mirror for Fools, 36)
38 Digna sub indignis vivunt, rosa sub saliuncis,/Lilia sub tribulis, ne movearis in his./Opprimit
ingenuum servus stultusque disertum,/Injustus justum, nox tenebrosa polum (v. 3273-3276): “What’s
worthy to unworthiness yields room,/Roses ’neath thorns, lilies ’neath thistles
bloom;/Freeborn to slave, wise man to dolt gives way,/Just to unjust and light to night’s
dark sway.” (A Mirror for Fools, 111)
39 Unus erat cultus tribus his eademque voluntas,/Naturae vitiis ferre salutis opem./Et quod avara
minus dederat vel prodiga multum,/His emendandi plurima cura fuit (v. 3283-3286): “One purpose
in all three alike the same;/To mend the faults of Nature did they aim,/Where she had
lavished bounties in excess,/Or else withheld from oversparingness.” (A Mirror for Fools,
112-113) For the cosmological foundation of the episode, cf. Knapp, “Antworte dem
Narren,” 63-66. Introductory to the concept of a personified nature (a ‘Mother Nature’)
in medieval literature cf. George Economou, The Goddess Natura in Medieval Literature
(Cambridge, Mass.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1972).
95
Maximilian Wick
sisters want to help and the third objects, declaring that although she
could not walk, she was blessed with a beautiful voice and skillful hands
that made up for her disability. Finally, they meet a peasant woman, who
pulls down her trousers and relieves herself in front of them. While the
two helpful sisters turn to flee, the third holds them back and speaks out
in favor of providing her with great fortunes. Since she had received so
little from nature, she should be given treasures, honors, and power.
Burnell closes his story by repeating that his mother often told it, too,
which (or whom?) he fondly remembers without shame: Haec mea
multotiens genitrix narrare solebat,/Cujus me certe non meminisse pudet.40 This
duplication emphasizes the origin of the exemplum, which is not only told
by a donkey, but also comes from one. The origin of the narration is even
more problematic, since, after Fromund’s death, Burnell calls his mother
even more stupid than his father41 and, after his failed studies, declares
that, although she was clever and always interpreted his dreams, his
astronomically trained father used to claim the opposite of her beliefs.42
Yet, it is highly questionable whether Burnell correctly remembers the
story – after all, his studies fail because of his natural forgetfulness.43
Even if this question cannot be answered, it unsettles the validity of
the exemplum and its moral, that seems so much clearer than those of the
two previous fables. This instructive clarity probably results from the fact
that the exemplum, unlike the fables, is not presented as a piece of
40 V. 3433-3434: “This tale I often heard my mother tell,/Nor blush that I remember it
so well.” (A Mirror for Fools, 118)
41 Non sum Burnellus sapiens, sed iners et asellus/Semper, et in primis stultus hebesque nimis;/Stultus
ego natus sum, stultus et ante creatus,/Quamque diu fuero non nisi stultus ero;/Stultus et ipse pater
meus et stultissima mater,/Dat natura mihi desipuisse mea (v. 1119-1124): “No sage am I Burnel,
[…]/But lazy and a muttonhead,/Dull-witted, slow to move, an ass/In primis – so I ever
was,/So born, so till my life expire/Shall I remain. Stupid my sire,/My mother too, most
stupid she,/Our Nature’s gift stupidity.” (A Mirror for Fools, 36)
42 Sicut erat prudens atque diserta nimis,/Mater ob hanc causam litem cum patre frequenter/Instituit,
super his plurima verba serens,/Ipse tamen matri semper contraria sensit,/Et sua dicebat dogmata falsa
fore;/Utpote qui fuerat astrorum lege peritus,/A puero doctus signa notare poli (v. 1650-1656): “Such
exposition did my mother use,/For knowing in such things she was and wise;/Much
wordy warfare had she with my sire/Thereon, for that by contrarieties/They too did go:
nor did they ever tire/Of sparring thus; her theories, he maintained,/Were false; for as a
boy, in observation/And science of the stars he had been trained/And knew all of them
and their interpretation.” (A Mirror for Fools, 55)
43 On his way back from Paris, he even forgets the name of the city (cf. v. 1920).
96
authenticated historia.44 This means that, although the story lacks the
authority of what is historically guaranteed, it may be freely designed for
the purpose of its unambiguous teaching, stating that those who have
been given too few virtues by nature have at least earned rich earthly
goods. For the stupid, short-tailed, and forgetful donkey, this must sound
like a promise of salvation, which he later remembers with as little shame
as the peasant woman shows when she follows her nature in the face of
the goddesses.45
As a figure of identification for Burnell, she exemplifies the kind of
fate that the donkey seeks to achieve by founding his own order, knowing
full well that he can only succeed under the conditions of a mundus
perversus, in which a just Fortuna compensates for the grievances of an
arbitrarily acting Natura. His previous detailed consideration of the
existing orders shows that the rules of such a mundus perversus apply in his
narrative world as well.46 The fact that he still fails is due to another
difference between his narrative world and that of the exemplum. The
peasant woman, like Burnell, only acts according to her nature. Yet, as a
figure in a very clear example, she is spared any contingency that might
resist narrative intent. Functionally, she resembles an animal figure in a
beast fable, from whom Burnell, as a hybrid, should not take any
instruction. Corresponding to the ambiguity of exemplum as a function
and/or a genre, the story itself isn’t even foolish, it was simply foolish
that his mother kept telling it to him. Consequently, Burnell does not fail
at the end of his journey because of his nature, but instead because of a
chance encounter with his master, Bernard, who captures him again and
cuts off his ears.47
44 In this regard, the two fables fit the definition of exempla better than the following story,
provided that exemplum is related to the genre. According to the Rhetorica ad Herrenium, the
(reliable!) source must be named for an exemplum, which is not missing here, but is highly
questionable. Cf. Schürer, Das Exemplum, 68.
45 Urbis in introitu, quae prope forte fuit,/Exiit in bivium ventrem purgare puella/Rustica, nil reverens
inverecunda deas (v. 3386-3388): “Lo, from the town a country maiden came/To ease her
belly, where the roads divide; /Before the heavenly ones she showed no shame” (A Mirror
for Fools, 116).
46 Cf. v. 2051-2412.
47 Et ne forte fugam rursus meditetur iniquam,/Subtrahat et domino debita pensa suo,/Funditus
abscidit aurem Bernardus utramque,/Cautior ut fieret cauteriatus ita (v. 3505-3508): “And lest
once more a crafty bid he make/For flight and freedom, as he did before,/And from his
97
Maximilian Wick
IV. From Hybrid Beasts to Animals

One crucial point of the text is certainly that the story does not end with
Burnell’s recapture. Rather, another episode is told afterwards, in which
Bernard is fortunate enough to achieve great wealth in a fabulous way:
out of sheer greed,48 he rescues a rich and stingy merchant and three
animals (a lion, monkey, and snake) from a pit and is rewarded first by
the animals and later, at the king’s insistence, by the merchant as well.
This last episode is a special case, because it is not told as an internal
narrative, but as a subsequently added part of the framework story,49 in
which Burnell merely plays an extra. While he remains mute and passive,
his presence is referred to repeatedly. Being initially introduced as part of
the family and their sole breadwinner (cf. v. 3569-3574),50 Burnell’s
position becomes more and more marginal as the story progresses. In
the end, he’s nothing more than Bernard’s appendage (cf. v. 3787).
Although the other animals in the episode also lack the ability to speak,
their non-verbal communication with Bernard is elaborately narrated
instead.51 They act less beastly than Burnell, now reduced to his animality,
but they are also less hybrid than he was before. The transition to the
final episode thus marks another change in the fundamental order of the
narrative world, which no longer revolves around the hybrid donkey
Burnell, but the one-dimensional human Bernard, who cannot speak to
master his due toil withdraw,/Old Bernard cut off both his ears, that he/Might learn
some caution from his cautery.” (A Mirror for Fools, 120) Ironically, this solves Burnell’s
problem, as the shortened ears now match the short tail (cf. v. 3510).
48 Cf. v. 3611; v. 3629; v. 3639.
49 Fama takes the place of an internal narrator, but its function is not to remember, but
to commemorate: Contigit interea Bernardo res memoranda,/Quae satis in tota nota Cremona
fuit./Fama frequens populi, ne tempore gesta senescant,/Annorum senio consuluisse solet./Fama
frequens populi rerum facies redivivas/Suscitat, et veteres res facit esse novas. (v. 3561-3566): “A
strange adventure Bernard now befell,/Whereof Cremona’s city oft doth tell./For
people’s talk lets not past history fade,/To past time’s weakness ready to bring aid./Thus
people’s talk renews that feeble state,/And will old histories rejuvenate.” (A Mirror for
Fools, 122).
50 At least if one refers allebat (v. 3574) to Burnell, which is by no means mandatory.
Shortly before, it was said that Bernardus has to feed his wife, children and the donkey
(habuit […] alendos; v. 3569). While the translation quoted chooses the first option,
Waltenberger offers an interpretation based on the second (cf. Waltenberger, “Socrates
Brunellus est”, 84-85).
51 Cf. v. 3703-3704; 3713-3714; 3721-3722.
98
animals and whose narrative presence generally seems to prevent animals

from speaking.
The moral, explained in the epimythium, that services should be
adequately and happily rewarded,52 subsequently has little relation to the
actions of the animals involved. At least the animals do not benefit from
rewarding Bernard for his involuntary help (he only wanted to save the
merchant) and thus even break the global law of the text, with impunity,
to behave according to one’s own nature. Bernard, in turn, is not
punished for his greed, for this is his story, in which his moral integrity
and that of characters acting in his favor are beyond question. Just like
Brunetta, the rooster, or the peasant woman, he seems to be the ‘moral
winner’ from the start, who determines the rules of their respective
narrative world, making it impossible to derive a globally valid moral
from the respective story.
V. Conclusion
This uncertainty can be seen as the essential element of the text, in which
the incoherent conception of a world has repeatedly been noted by
scholars.53 Not only are the boundaries of the naturally possible unstable,
as is usual with fables, but the boundaries of the fabulous dissolve as well.
Following the metaphor of the text as a mirror, this perpetual uncertainty
also leads the reader to feel uncertain about their own status. Since the
text only makes this decision (at best) situationally and thus without
obligation for the recipient, one can ask, like Burnell, whether one should
follow the example of Brunetta or Bicornis, the cock or Gundulf, one of
the beautiful ladies or the peasant woman. Insofar as the framework
rather than the morality conveyed in it is at stake, this decision is also
decisive for the distinction between sapientia and stultitia; but while a wise
man will always make the right decision, a natural fool like Burnell will
always fail, even if he becomes a narrator himself.
Significantly, the fable in which the powers of fate appear and which
makes the clearest statements about the cosmic order is told by Burnell,
who, in turn, has it from his mother, who is also a donkey. In this respect,
the whole Speculum is not only a lesson about the ambiguity of morality
Cf. v. 3867-3878.
52
Cf. Mann, From Aesop to Reynard, 103-106; Knapp, “Antworte dem Narren,” 52-53;
53
Knapp, “Das mittelalterliche Tierepos,” 68.
99
Maximilian Wick
derived from narratives, but also about the power of the narrative
perspective over mediated morality. The fact that Burnell ultimately fails
at the exact moment in which he becomes a narrator himself shows that,
despite his hybridity, he, as a donkey in a human world of contingency,
lacks this power and will therefore always remain a donkey.
References
Alanus ab Insulis. “De Planctu Naturae.” In Literary Works, edited by
Winthrop Wetherbee, 21–217. Cambridge/London: Harvard
Avianus. “De asino pelle leonis induto.” In Les fabulistes latins 3: Avianus
et ses anciens imitateurs, edited by Leopold Hervieux, 267. Paris: Firmin
Didot, 1895.
Bernardus Silvestris. Commentum in Martianum, edited by Haijo Jan
Westra, Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1986.
Isidorus Hispalensis. Etymologiae, edited by Wallace M. Lindsay.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1911.
Macrobius. Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis, edited by James Willis.
Stuttgart/Leipzig: Teubner, 1963.
Nigel de Longchamps. Speculum stultorum, edited by John H. Mozley and
Robert R. Raymo, Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California
Press, 1960.
–––. A Mirror for Fools. Translated by John H. Mozley. Notre Dame, IN:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1963.
–––. “Epistola ad Willelmum,” edited by John H. Mozley. Medium Aevum
39 (1970): 13-20.
–––. Narrenspiegel. Translated by Karl Langosch. Leipzig: Insel, 1982.
Plinius. Naturalis Historiae, edited by Roderich König. München/Zürich:
Artemis & Winkler, 1986.
Bezner, Frank. Vela veritatis. Hermeneutik, Wissen und Sprache in der
intellectual history des 12. Jahrhunderts. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2005.
Economou, George. The Goddess Natura in Medieval Literature. Cambridge,
Mass.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1972.
Franz, Ansgar. Tageslauf und Heilsgeschichte. Untersuchungen zum literarischen
Text und liturgischen Kontext der Tagzeitenhymnen des Ambrosius von
Mailand. St. Ottilien: EOS, 1994.
Freund, Stefan. “Von Hahnenschrei und Osterspeise. Zur Entstehung
und Gestalt von Reflexionsfiguren in der christlichen lateinischen
100
Dichtung.” In Ästhetische Reflexionsfiguren in der Vormoderne, edited by

Annette Gerok-Reiter [et al.], 169-172. Heidelberg: Winter, 2019.
Friedrich, Udo. Menschentier und Tiermensch. Diskurse der Grenzziehung und
Grenzüberschreitung im Mittelalter. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, 2009.
Glück, Jan. Animal homificans. Normativität von Natur und Autorisierung des
Politischen in der europäischen Tierepik des Mittelalters. Heidelberg: Winter,
2021.
Grubmüller, Klaus. “Fabel, Exempel, Allegorese. Über
Sinnbildungsverfahren und Verwendungszusammenhänge.” In
Exempel und Exempelsammlungen, edited by Walter Haug and Burghart
Wachinger, 58-76. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1991.
Haug, Walter. “Exempelsammlungen im narrativen Rahmen: Vom
‘Pañcatantra’ zum ‘Dekameron’.” In Exempel und Exempelsammlungen,
edited by Walter Haug and Burghart Wachinger, 264-287. Tübingen:
Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1991.
Haye, Thomas. Das lateinische Lehrgedicht im Mittelalter. Analyse einer Gattung.
Leiden/New York/Köln: Brill, 1997.
Heath, Diane. “Burnellus Speaks: Beast Books and Beastliness in Late
Twelfth-century Canterbury.” South Atlantic Review 81, no. 2 (Summer
2016): 33–54.
Jauss, Hans Robert. “Negativität und Identifikation. Versuch zur Theorie
der ästhetischen Erfahrung.” In Positionen der Negativität, edited by
Harald Weinrich, 263-339. München: Wilhelm Fink, 1975.
Knapp, Fritz Peter. “‘Antworte dem Narren nach seiner Narrheit!’ Das
Speculum stultorum des Nigellus von Canterbury.” Reinardus 3 (1990):
45–68.
–––. “Das mittelalterliche Tierepos. Zur Genese und Definition einer
großepischen Literaturgattung.” Sprachkunst 10 (1979): 53-68.
Mann, Jill. From Aesop to Reynard: Beast Literature in Medieval Britain. New
York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
–––. “Does an Author Understand his Own Text? Nigel of Longchamp
and the Speculum stultorum.” The Journal of Medieval Latin 17, no. 1
(2007): 1-37.
Schürer, Markus. Das Exemplum oder die erzählte Institution. Studien zum
Beispielgebrauch bei den Dominikanern und Franziskanern des 13.
Jahrhunderts. Münster: LIT Verlag, 2005.
101
Maximilian Wick
Waltenberger, Michael. “Socrates Brunelles est, oder: Aspekte asininer

Narrativik. Zum Speculum stultorum des Nigellus von Canterbury.” In
Tierepik und Tierallegorese, edited by Bernhard Jahn and Otto Neudeck,
71-100. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2004.
102
BEASTS ALONG BOUNDARIES:
ELEPHANTS IN THE MEDIEVAL WEST
KIWAKO OGATA*
I. Introduction
According to Greek geography and in medieval mappæ mundi, imaginary
beasts and monsters were generally collocated at the edge of the known
world.1 None, even in medieval Europe, may have doubted the existence
of elephants, but they were one of the “wonders of the Orient,” a marvel
for their size, physical strength, and intelligence that sometimes evoked
fear and awe. Indeed, with their improbable appearance, they were
considered almost to be “monsters.”2 There was no clear distinction
* Okinawa Prefectural University of Arts, Japan.

1 Danielle Lecoq illustrates how the margins of early medieval mappae mundi were
occupied by dragons, serpents, and cruel beasts, and from the 12th century started to be
populated also by monstrous races, “Les marges de la terre habitée. Géographie et
histoire naturelle des confins sur les mappemondes des XIIe et XIIIe siècles,” Cahiers du
Léopard d’or 10 (2001): 99-186. For medieval mappae mundi, see also Margriet Hoogvliet,
Pictura et Scriptura. Textes, images et hérmeneutique des mappae mundi (XIIIe-XVIe Siècles)
(Turnhout, Brepols: 2007); Patrick Gautier-Dalché, Géographie et culture. La représentation de
l’espace du VIe au XIIe siècle (Aldershot, Ashgate: 1997).
2 As for the concept of monsters in the Middle Ages, I discussed it fully in Kyōkai no
kaibutsutachi. Romanesuku no zuzōgaku [Monsters in church: Iconology of the Romanesque] (Tokyo,

Kōdansha, 2013). Here, I quote Chet Van Duzer’s definition of monster, by which he
addresses not only the Middle Ages, but also Classical and Renaissance times: “a creature
that was thought astonishing and exotic (regardless of whether in fact it was real or
mythical).” He states that most often the astonishing and exotic aspects of monsters
imply both physical and moral deformity (defined in terms of then-current European
norms). Chet Van Duzer, “Hic sunt dracones: The Geography and Cartography of
Monsters,” in The Ashgate Research Companion to Monsters and the Monstrous, eds. Asa Simon
Mittman and Peter J. Dendle (Abingdon/New York: Routledge, 2013), 388.
Kiwako Ogata
between real animals and fabulous (sometimes monstrous) creatures in

the Middle Ages. Monsters and non-existent fabulous animals were
equally part of a “reality” in medieval people’s imaginations.3
The elephant has its solid position in Christian symbolism, on the
whole conveying positive significations: a pair of elephants as Adam and
Eve in Paradise before the Fall, a small elephant raising a fallen large
elephant as a symbol of Christ, the chaste and virtuous elephant as a
symbol of the Virgin Mary, and so on.4 It was praised as an example of
God’s marvelous Creation. However, the elephant, too, has ambiguous
significances, as do other animals. Sometimes it represents the vice of
superbia (pride), in sinful or careless man. Sometimes it is compared to
uncivilized people lacking in intelligence, or to heretics. In this paper, I
will concentrate on visual and textual representations of the elephant as
a marginalized animal from late Antiquity through the Middle Ages up
to the 13th century in the West.
II. The Elephant as a Marvel of the East

The Liber monstrorum de diversis generibus [Book of Monsters of Various
Kinds] of the 7th-8th centuries, considered as one of the encyclopedias of
the early medieval period,5 includes an entry on the elephant. That entry
does not occur in Book 1, dedicated to monsters and monstrous races,
but in Book 2, among the wild animals (beluis). Book 2 also treats of
prodigies, such as a horse with only two legs, a beast with two heads, the
chimera and cerberos, alongside existing beasts. Thus, the elephant, too,
may have been considered a kind of monstrous beast. In the Middle
Ages, people believed in the existence of many fantastic animals, such as
the unicorn, griffin, and basilisk, which were often depicted in the scene
3 See for this account Jacques Le Goff, L’imaginaire médiéval (Paris, Gallimard, 1985);
Rudolf Wittkower, Allegory and the Migration of Symbols (London: Thames & Hudson,
1987).
4 I discussed elephant allegories in another paper, “Seiyō chūsei ni okeru zō no gūi to
shōchō [The Allegories of the Elephant in the Middle Ages],” Bulletin of Okinawa Prefectural
University of Arts 23 (2015): 1-20.
5 The author was possibly an Anglo-Saxon priest who lived in Ireland. Some maintain
that the Liber monstrorum has many similarities in tone and style to the work of Aldhelm
of Malmesbury. The book may have circulated under Aldhelm’s name or the author could
possibly be identified as someone in Aldhelm’s circle. As for the connection of the Liber
monstrorum with Aldhelm, see Andy Orchard, Pride and Prodigies: Studies in the Monsters of the
Beowulf-Manuscript (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2003), 94-95.
104
Beasts along Boundaries: Elephants in the Medieval West
of God’s Creation of the animals (Fig. 1), among those named by Adam
and in Noah’s Ark (Fig. 2). The elephant, very different from other
animals and appearing almost improbable, could be considered as one
among such monsters, testifying to the marvelous operations of God’s
Creation.6 Even if the elephant as an animal does not actually appear in
the Holy Scriptures,7 except in 1 Maccabees,8 it was often selected by
artists for those scenes. The chapter on the elephant in Liber monstrorum
reads as follows:
Elefanti autem, licet sibi leones timeant, omnibus tamen
cognitis maiores sunt animantibus. Qui apud Gangaridos et
Indos et inter Nilum fluuium et Brixontem nasci
perhibentur. Quorum Pyrrhus in Romaniam .XX. primus ad
auxilium belli deduxit, quia turres ad bella cum interpositis
iaculatoribus portant et hostes erectis promuscidibus
caedunt. Quorum quoque Alexander Macedo innumerabiles
albo, nigro, et rubicundo, uarioque colore se in India uidisse
ad Aristotelem philosophum descripsit.9
6 The elephant, and its trunk in particular, were conceived as a marvelous product of
Nature as early as in Aristotle (Part of Animals, 629b; History of Animals, 497b) and Galen,
among others. Galen states, “When I also learned that in crossing a river or lake so deep
that its entire body is submerged, the animal raises its proboscis high and breathes
through it, I perceived that Nature is provident not only because she constructed
excellently all parts of its body but also because she taught the animal to use them…,”
Galen, De usu partium, 17.2.439, trans. Margaret Tallmadge May (Ithaca NY: Cornell
University Press, 1968), 725.
7 Ivory is sometimes mentioned, though, especially in the Old Testament.
8 In 1 Maccabees, Antiochus IV uses war elephants in the battles against the Jews.
9 But elephants, even if they themselves fear lions, are however bigger than all known
living things. They are said to be born among the people of Gangeris and the Indians
and between the river Nile and the Brixontis. And Pyrrhus first brought twenty of them
to Romania to help in battle, because they carry towers to war with archers interspersed,
and strike the enemy with outstretched trunks. Alexander of Macedon described to the
philosopher Aristotle that he had seen innumerable ones of white, black, red, and various
colours in India, Liber monstrorum, 2.2 (ed. and trans. Orchard, Pride and Prodigies, 290-291.)
In the Liber monstrorum, the name of the river is Brixontis, while in the De rebus in Oriente
mirabilibus, the Latin version of the Wonders of the East, it is Brixontes.
105
Kiwako Ogata
Fig. 1. Ivory plaque showing God creating the animals, 1084,

New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Fig. 2. Noah’s Ark, Facundus Beatus-Beato de Liébana: códice de Fernando I y Dña.

Sancha, 1047, Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de España, MS Vitrina 14-2, fol. 109
106
The anonymous author of the Liber monstrorum provides zoological,

geographical, and historical information (some of it incorrect)10 about
the elephant in an objective tone, as he does in general. He is rarely
hostile in his descriptions of monsters or beasts but remains rather
impartial. However, these terrible beasts and monsters in the Liber
monstrorum are all found somewhere in the East, places extraneous to the
Christian world.11 They live far beyond Christian domains.
Another text which narrates a series of marvels in the Orient is the
Wonders of the East (Marvels of the East, De rebus in Oriente mirabilibus). Three
illustrated manuscript copies are extant.12 One Old English text,
compiled between 997 and 1016, is now included in Cotton Vitellius
A.XV., the so-called Beowulf-manuscript.13 Cotton Tiberius B.V., dating
from the middle of the 11th century, contains the Old English text along
with the Latin text. The last manuscript, Marvels of the East, in Bodley 614
(36r-48r), from the early 12th century, has only the Latin text provided
with a Christian commentary.
The Wonders of the East contains data on a great variety of fantastic
places, monsters, plants, strange animals, and monstrous human races
with strange habits. The anonymous author concentrates on the physical
description of these creatures and provides extensive information on
their quantity, location, distance, length, and height.14 The passage on the
10 As for the various colors of the elephant, which seem improbable, see Kiwako Ogata,
“The Iconography of the Elephant in the Middle Ages: Some Observations on its
Anatomy in Visual Arts,” Collection of Essays in Commemoration of the 30th Anniversary of
Okinawa Prefectural University of Arts (2018), 28-30.
11 The author’s critical tone may be directed not towards monsters themselves, but
towards the pagan past, full of monsters, and his aim may have been to stress “the
superiority of the Christian to the pagan,” Lisa Verner, The Epistemology of the Monstrous in
the Middle Ages (New York-London: Routledge, 2005), 57, 65.
12 On the manuscripts of Wonders of the East, see Orchard, Pride and Prodigies, 2-27; Asa
Simon Mittman and Susan M. Kim, Inconceivable Beasts: The Wonders of the East in the Beowulf
Manuscript (Tempe AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2013) 5-9;
John Block Friedman, “The Marvels-of-the-East Tradition in Anglo-Saxon Art,” in
Sources of Anglo-Saxon Culture, ed. Paul E. Szarmach, (Kalamazoo MI: Medieval Institute,
Western Michigan University, 1986), 321.
13 The miscellanea Cotton Vitellius A.XV. is called the Beowulf-manuscript as it binds
together various books, primarily on monsters, including the Beowulf text.

14 Verner, The Epistemology of the Monstrous in the Middle Ages, 67.
107
Kiwako Ogata
elephant is similar to that in the Liber monstrorum if much shorter, stating

only geographical information on the place where elephants are born.15
Inter duas has amnes colonia est Locothea quae inter Nilum
et Brixontem posita est; nam Nilus est capud fluuiorum et
per Aegiptum fluit, quam Aegipti Archoboleta uocant, quae
est ‘aqua magna.’ In his locis nascitur multitudo magna
elephantorum.16
The narrative tone of this text is also notably neutral. But we
understand how the elephant seemed extraneous and “inconceivable”17
if we examine how it was illustrated. Remarkably enough, in the most
ancient illustrated text in Old English found in the Beowulf-manuscript,
the “camel” appears instead of the “elephant,” whereas the elephant has
occurred in other texts. On folio 101v, there are no elephants, but instead
two camels in the upper frame (Fig. 3). In point of fact, the text in Old
English in the Beowulf-manuscript runs, “In these places are born great
multitudes of ‘camels (olfenda)’ instead of ‘elephants (ylpenda)’.”
In two other manuscripts, the Latin text reads multitudo magna
elephantorum, and in Old English (in Cotton Tiberius B.V.), this is
correctly translated as menigeo ylpenda.18 It is improbable that the translator
confused camelos and elephantos, but if the Old English text of the Beowulf-
manuscript had as a model another Old English version, the confusion
between ylpenda and olfenda might have been possible, especially to an
Anglo-Saxon scribe who probably had no knowledge of either animal. It
is also interesting that the two camels depicted on folio 101v, remarkably
similar to real camels, are different from the camels depicted on folio
15 The Liber monstrorum borrows extensively from different manuscript versions of the
Wonders of the East or they may all have used the same sources, Giuseppe Tardiola ed., Le
meraviglie dell’India (Rome: Archivio Guido Izzi, 1991), 23-24.
16 Between these two rivers is the settlement of Locothea, which is situated between the
Nile and the Brixontes. The Nile is the head of the great rivers, and flows through Egypt.
They call the river the Archoboleta of Egypt, which means “great water.” In these regions
are born great multitudes of elephant (trans. K.O.), Wonders of the East, 10 (ed. Orchard,
Pride and Prodigies, 177). The Old English version is almost the same, except for Cotton
Vitellius A.XV. which does not mention the elephant, but the camel.
17 Adopting the expression used by Mittman and Kim.
18 Orchard, Pride and Prodigies, 190, §10 note m...m; Mittman and Kim mainly examine
monstrous races and pay less attention to animals, and are silent on this point.
108
101r (Fig. 4), where a story about ants as big as dogs that dig and guard
gold continues from the previous folio 100v.
Camels used as decoys on folio 101r and without earlobes are
somehow similar to the illustrations of the elephants depicted in Cotton
Tiberius B.V. (fol. 81r) (Fig. 5) and in Bodley 614 (fol. 39v) (Fig. 6),
except for the tusks and the strange trunk coming out of the mouth.
As the corresponding part of the chapter on the elephant is found in
the Beowulf-manuscript on the same folio 101r, under the illustration of
ants and camels, some confusion may have occurred in the process of
copying the texts and illustrations. Both camels and elephants were
animals known to exist in the Orient, but their anatomies were most
probably not known to the illustrators of the Wonders of the East
manuscripts. They must have been aware, however, that both the
elephant and the camel were beasts of burden. The mare camel depicted
with a container of gold on her back might recall the figure of an elephant
bearing a turret or a howdah.
Cotton Tiberius B.V. and Bodley 614 represent elephants as beasts
more similar to bears than real elephants. They turn to the left and are
covered with short hair. They have two tusks pointing upward (which
does not occur in the elephant) and clawed paws. They each have a
strange proboscis coming out of their mouths, as if it were a long, coiled
tongue. The elephant in Cotton Tiberius B.V. is depicted in a reddish
color and has tiny ears like those of a seal, while the other, in Bodley 614,
is not colored and has no ears. The reason as to why many medieval
illustrations depicted the elephant with small ears or even without them
may be found in the absence of any textual mention of its ears.19
Elephants and camels are not monsters, but they were as unfamiliar as a
satyr or onocentaur, especially for Anglo-Saxon peoples, and thus as
“wondrous” as monsters and “inconceivable” beings.
19Only Aretaeus seems to have mentioned the form of the elephant’s ear, see Ogata,
“The Iconography of the Elephant in the Middle Ages,” 20.
109
Kiwako Ogata
Fig. 3. Two elephants,

resembling camels, Marvels of the
East, 1000-1010, London, British
Library © British Library Board,
Cotton MS Vitellius AX V, fol.
101v
Fig. 4. Three gold-mining, dog-

like ants attacking a tethered
camel, with a man, left, in a tunic
with a camel and a young camel
tied to a tree, Marvels of the East,
1000-1010, London, British
Library © British Library Board,
Cotton MS Vitellius A XV, fol.
101r
110
Fig. 5. Elephant, Wonders

of the East, c.1050,
London, British Library
© British Library Board,
Cotton MS Tiberius B
V/1, fol. 81r
Fig. 6. Ants the size of

dogs with camels, and an
elephant, Marvels of the
East, mid-12th century,
Oxford, Bodleian Library,
MS. Bodley 614, fol. 39r
111
Kiwako Ogata
The Wonders of the East and the Liber monstrorum were compiled in the
guise of an encyclopedia or a list of monsters in order to put such
horrible creatures under man’s (i.e., Christian) order and dominion. Man
makes catalogs of deformities and abnormalities, one purpose of which
is to reassure him of “normality”20 or to sweep away fears.21 The elephant
is one of the wonders of the world which rivalled monsters and thus was
also caught in the Orientalist bias and seen with reservation. The
elephant served to reassure Western people of the boundary between the
European world and the dangerous countries inhabited by monsters,
wild beasts, and “others.” It appears as one of the wondrous, but
dangerous and monstrous creatures beyond the Christian realm in the
Liber monstrorum and Wonders of the East.
This tradition of considering the elephant as an exotic beast or a
wonder of the East can also be seen on a fragment of the so-called
Souvigny pillar, produced in the 12th century, where the elephant was
carved alongside monstrous races and prodigies (Fig. 7). There is a
dragon (without caption), a griffon (GRIFO), a unicorn (VNICoRNIS),
an elephant ([ ]FANS), a fish-tailed siren (SERENA), and a manticore
(MANTICoRA). The pillar features both monstrous races, such as
Ethiopians with four eyes, and zodiac signs.22 Here we may note a change
in the attitude towards monsters. The elephant was already included in
the program of salvation in Physiologus and other writings, but, from the
12th century, other wonders of the world and monsters, too, came to be
conceived in a Christian worldview.23 The cosmos including all these
wonders was considered to be redeemed by Christ. This Christian
cosmological scheme can be seen in the Souvigny pillar and on the
tympana at Vezley and Autun, and in world maps.24
20 Mittman and Kim, Inconceivable Beasts, 14.

21 As for the role of such images, see Ogata, Kyōkai no Kaibutsutachi. Romanesuku no
Ikonorojī, 228-231.
22 On the Souvigny pillar, see Neil Stratford, Chronos et cosmos. Le pilier roman de Souvigny
(Souvigny: Musée de Souvigny, 2005).

23 The Gesta Romanorum from the early 14th century, for example, interprets cynocephali as
ascetic preachers, and Panotii as people willing to hear the word of God (175).
24 Naomi Reed Kline points out also that the Wonders of the East (Marvels of the East)
manuscripts in Cotton Tiberius B.V. and Bodleian 614 indicate the integration of the
wonders of the world into a Christian cosmological context, as they contain
computational tables and explanations of celestial bodies, the zodiac, comets, winds etc.,
Naomi R. Kline, Maps of Medieval Thought: The Hereford Paradigm (Woodbridge: Boydell,
2001), 158-159.
112
Fig. 7. Souvigny pillar, Musée de Souvigny, 1130-1150

© Paul Saccard - Musée et jardin du prieuré de
Souvigny (Allier - Auvergne - France)
III. The Elephant in the Tradition of the Romance of Alexander:

Comparison of the Indians to Their War Elephants
While the Liber monstrorum takes the form of an encyclopedia, there is a
series of texts in the guise of a letter narrating the expedition of
Alexander the Great in India. One of them, Epistola Alexandri ad
Aristotelem Magistrum suum de situ et mirabilibus Indiae [The Letter of
Alexander to Aristotle on the terrain and marvels of India], was compiled
in Latin in the 7th century and translated into many vulgar languages. The
text is based on the Res gestae Alexandri Macedonis [The Deeds of
Alexander of Macedonia], a Latin translation by Julius Valerius (3rd-4th
centuries) of the romance in Greek written in the 3rd century by Pseudo-
Callistenes.
In the Letter of Alexander to Aristotle, the part relating to the exploration
deep into India, beyond the River Hydaspes (a historical invention),
became more important and occupies much more space than the battle
with Darius, which was of great importance in the Res gestae. In
comparison with the original Greek version or with Julius Valerius’ Latin
version, Alexander’s itinerary in India is enriched with more fabulous and
113
Kiwako Ogata
unbelievable accounts in the Letter of Alexander to Aristotle. It occurred

during the expeditions to the East undertaken by Alexander the Great,
when Western forces confronted war elephants for the first time in
history.25 The impact of the Indian war elephants must have been so
great that the scene of the combat with the elephants was narrated by
many historians, and it became one of the highlights in later narratives of
Alexander’s adventures. However, in the Letter of Alexander to Aristotle,
the battle with the Indian King Porus is not described in detail. It only
states that Macedonian troops beat Porus with amazing swiftness,
despite the powerful enemy assembly including captisque elephantis.
CCCC.tis qui superpositas cum armatis iaculatoribus turres gestauerunt.26
The historical fact is that, after the victory over Porus, Alexander’s
men did not want to go further eastward, and Alexander had to abandon
his desire to continue the expedition. But in The Letter of Alexander to
Aristotle, after the victory over Porus, and responding to his generals’
desire to see the interior of India, his troops continued to advance
through the boiling sands and rough places devoid of water, with their
animals including 400 tamed, turret-bearing elephants complete with
spearmen captured from Porus.
After many hardships, the troops reached a deep forest, where they
encountered an immense herd of wild elephants which came to attack
their camp. Alexander ordered the Taxile cavalry to mount up and take
pigs with them because he knew that elephants were afraid of the pigs’
squeal (The Letter of Alexander to Aristotle, 28).27 They killed at least 980
elephants and got much ivory (DCCCC.LXXX. occidimus, detractisque
cornibus et dentibus insigni).28 We notice here that wild elephants and
domesticated war elephants are distinguished from each other. Alexander
worries about his elephants suffering from thirst, but kills wild elephants
and extracts ivory from them.
25 In the battle of Abelia Gaugamela against King Darius III, the elephant did not appear
in combat, John M. Kistler, War Elephant (Westport CT-London: Praeger, 2006) 26-30.
26 …and four hundred tamed (captured) elephants which bore towers with armed
spearmen inside (trans. K.O.), The Letter of Alexander to Aristotle, 8 (Orchard ed., Pride and
Prodigies, 205).
27 This stratagem indeed was used against the elephants of Pyrrhus some 50 years after
Alexander’s expedition.
28 We killed 980 (of them) and extracted their horns and teeth in evidence (trans. K.O.),
The Letter of Alexander to Aristotle, 28 (Orchard ed., Pride and Prodigies, 215).
114
Besides Porus’s war beasts, stories of the explorations of Alexander’s

troops are full of accounts of dangerous wild beasts living everywhere in
India: leopards, lions, elephants, hippopotamuses, scorpions, vipers,
lynx, tigers, and buffalo. The notion that India is a barbaric (even if a
fabulous and yearned-after) place is stressed by the presence of
dangerous wild animals. In Book 3 of the Res gestae, Porus sends a letter
to Alexander in which he shows pride in his troops and their use of
trained war beasts such as leopards, lions, and elephants. The idea of
unusual barbarian styles of warfare and all sorts of savage beasts made
Macedonian soldiers shiver. But Alexander encourages them, sneering at
the Indian war beasts. He states that such beasts rely only on their
instincts and the swiftness of their bodies, and thus are easily
subordinated to human intelligence. Alexander then continues by
remarking that Indians, confident of their being large in number,
completely lack intelligence, and thus would be easily defeated and
conquered by the Macedonians, just as human beings can easily take
control of animals (Res gestae Alexandri Macedonis, 3.2). Here we may
already see a theory justifying colonialism, paralleled to man’s dominion
over the animal world. A quite new field of intersection between critical
animal studies and colonial studies finds a linkage between racism and
speciesism in modern colonialism,29 theories about which could also be
applicable to the non-modern era.30
In the 10th century, archpriest Leo of Naples made a free Latin
translation of Pseudo-Callistenes’ text, which he had found in
Constantinople (951-958/959). This work, titled Nativitas et victoria
Alexandri Magni (Historia de Preliis Alexandri Magni) [The Birth and Victory
of Alexander the Great], was one of the most important sources of
transmission of Alexander stories into the Medieval Alexander
Romances. This text contains details of the tactics used by Alexander
against Porus’s elephants with the use of heated bronze statues. Many
bronze statues having simulacra human faces were heated and placed
behind the first front line so that before joining battle, the enemy would
29 Colin Salter, “Animals in the Military,” in Animals and Human Society, eds. Colin G.
Scanes, Samia R. Toukhsati, (London: Academic Press, 2018), 205-206.
30 As for the problem of anachronism in using the term “racism” for medieval issues, see
Debra Higgs Strickland, “Monstrosity and Race in the Late Middle Ages,” in The Ashgate
Research Companion to Monsters and the Monstrous, eds. Asa Simon Mittman and Peter J.
Dendle (Abingdon/New York: Routledge, 2013), 365-366.
115
Kiwako Ogata
not notice them. When the battle started, the elephants tried to grapple
with and bite the statues, but they were soon burned and started to
collapse or run away and were no longer serviceable to their masters.
Here, Leo mentions only elephants as war beasts in Porus’s army as
follows:
Ferebat enim secum Alexander statuas aereas et sapienter
cogitans mittens eas in ignem, ut calefierent, faciensque
receptaculum ferreum ignium, ut sustineret eas et portaret
ante elefantos.31
The Res gestae Alexandri Magni recounts the same strategy used against
all kinds of war beasts and not limited to the elephant: insolentiam eiusmodi
proelii quod una esset cum hominibus barbaris et omnigenis bestiis.32 In the mind
of Leo of Naples, the elephant may have been somehow the exotic
martial beast par excellence, and thus he may have omitted from his
translation the other beasts from this episode of Alexander’s astute
tactics.33
We do not know the reason why the elephant alone appears in Leo’s
version; whether it was because the text that Leo copied in
Constantinople had already excluded other beasts, or whether it was
because Leo did not see the elephant in person, it remained a frightening,
unknown beast to him, or rather, because he saw it and was powerfully
impressed. We know that until the 12th and 13th centuries there was a
tradition in the Byzantine empire of keeping wild animals in seraglios,34
but the elephant remained rare among them. More than one hundred
years after Leo’s visit to the Byzantine court, Emperor Constantine IX
31 Alexander took statues with him and, wisely aware, put them into fires to heat them
and made iron receptacles to carry them and then brought them before the elephants
(trans. K.O.), Leo of Naples, Historia de Preliis Alexandri Magni, 3.3 (Friedrich Pfister ed.,
Der Alexander Roman des Archipresbyters Leo [Hiedelberg: C. Winter, 1913])
http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/leo.html (accessed June 2, 2019).
32 …the unfamiliarity of that kind of warfare of which one was the use of barbaric men
and all kinds of wild animals (trans. K.O.), Julius Valerius, Res gestae Alexandri Macedonis,
3.3. (Jean-Pierre Callu ed., Julius Valère. Roman d’Alexandre. Texte traduit et commenté
[Turnhout: Brepols, 2010], 158.)
33 Later, also Jacques de Vitry refers only to the elephant in this episode, Jacques de Vitry,
Historia Orientalis, 88.

34 Eric Baratay and Elizabeth Hardouin-Fugier, Zoo: A History of Zoological Gardens in the
West (London: Reaktion Books, 2004), 19.
116
Monomachos received an elephant as a gift from Egypt in 1053, and

Michael Psellos records with admiration how the elephant knelt before
the emperor.35 The elephant has always been the most outstanding and
impressive among exotic animals.36
IV. The Elephant as a Sinner or a Pagan

The elephant was known for chastity, intelligence, and other virtues in
Christian symbolism, though some ecclesiastics considered the elephant
to be an animal with negative characteristics. St. Eucherius of Lyon
(c.380-c.449) clearly designates the elephant as a sinner. In his Liber
formularum spiritalis intelligentiae [Book of Formulae of Spiritual
Intelligence], he dedicates Chapter 5 of volume 4 to Christian animal
allegories. There he calls the elephant Elephas, peccator immanis. In Regum:
Et adducebant ad Salomonem simias et elephantos (III Reg. x, 22).37 Eucherius
has interpreted “ivory” as “elephant” in the passage in 1 Kings which
runs: quia classis regis per mare cum classe Hiram semel per tres annos ibat in
Tharsis deferens inde aurum et argentum dentes elefantorum et simias et pavos (1
Kings 10:22). When Eucherius interpreted dentes elefantorum not as a
material deriving from the elephant, but as the animal itself, he
considered the animal a sinner because the ivory here is a symbol of
luxury, something to be condemned. Furthermore, apes are the most
frequently cited exotic animals, alongside elephants, apes being the
common allegory for sinners. An Orientalist view may have caused
writers to attribute more negative connotations to exotic animals and
exotic, luxurious items. Eucherius tends to interpret wild carnivorous
beasts as devils or, in some way, creatures connoting negativity.
Eucherius’ definition of the elephant, a herbivorous animal, as a sinner,
might have been influenced by early Jewish writers who considered the
35 Nancy P. Ševčenko, “Wild Animals in the Byzantine Park,” in A. Littlewood et al. eds.,
Byzantine Garden Culture (Washington D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 2002), 77-78.
36 Thierry Buquet states (albeit referring to records of the 14th century onward) how
medieval Western travellers were struck first by two of the most spectacular animals,
namely the elephants and giraffes when they visited the Cairo menageries, Thierry
Buquet, “ANIMALIA EXTRANEA ET STUPENDA AD VIVENDUM. Describing
and Naming Exotic Beasts in Cairo Sultan’s Menagerie,” in Francisco de Asís García
García et al. (eds.), Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines
(Oxford: Archaeopress, 2013), 31.
37 Eucherius, Liber formularum spiritalis intelligentiae, 5. P.L. 50, Paris, 1844, col. 751.
117
Kiwako Ogata
elephant as an extremely wild animal, or by transmitted ancient memories

of war elephants.
Another ecclesiastic holding a negative view of the elephant was
Aldhelm of Malmesbury (c.639-709), who wrote Enigmata [Riddles], a
series of 100 poetic riddles.38 They ask, “What does my name mean?”
and thus, riddles about beasts can be compared to Adam’s naming of the
animals in Paradise.39
Aldhelm, too, considers the elephant as almost identical to ivory. The
elephant is ugly in its lifetime (Quamquam me turpem nascendi fecerit auctor),40
but it will receive the glory of beauty only at its death, when it becomes
ivory. Under Aldhelm’s negative view of the living elephant might be
lying his hostility to pagan classical times, since for the Greeks and
Romans the elephant had been a beast of war. In fact, the first half of
the poem describes how the elephant lives as such with the sounds and
sights of grim battles. Aldhelm’s hatred of war is clear.41 At the end,
Aldhelm adds the false but long-credited information that elephants have
no knee joints. For Aldhelm the elephant might also have been sinful
because it could not kneel. This same notion can also be found in the
12th century in Hugh of Fouilloy, for example, as we shall see later.
Bishop Rabanus Maurus of Mainz (c.780-856) compiled his De rerum
naturis, in 22 volumes, between the years 842 and 847. He basically copied
and repeated almost to the letter passages from Isidore of Seville (c.560-
c.636). As was the case in other entries, Isidore explains the etymology
of the elephant and terms relative to it (Ethymology, 12.2.14-16). He
continues with the elephant’s alias boves lucas derived from Lucretius, its
use in war by Pyrrhus, Persians, and Indians, the tower on its back, its
intelligence and its birth in water or on an island, its inimicality to
serpents, and other information, taken from Pliny, Solinus, and others.
Rabanus adds, however, some allegorical interpretations at the end, as
follows:
38 Aldhelm reinterpreted Isidore’s encyclopedia and rewrote it as Christian praise of the

Creation, Verner, The Epistemology of the Monstrous in the Middle Ages, 47.
39 Ibid., 46.
40 Though the creator made me ugly from birth (trans. K.O.), Aldhelm, Enigmata, 96.
James Hall Pitman ed. and trans., The Riddles of Aldhelm. Text and Verse Translation with
Notes (North Haven, CT: Archon Books, 1970), 58.
41 Ibid., 78.
118
Elephas autem significat peccatorem immanem sceleribus, et

facinorum deformitate squalidum: attamen tales saepe ad
Christum convertuntur. Unde scriptum est in libro Regum,
quod adducerentur ad Salomonem simiae et elephanti (III
Reg. X), qua, ipse est pax nostra, qui fecit utraque unum
(Eph. II), et in sanguine suo mundavit conscientiam nostram
ab operibus mortuorum.42
The first part, peccatorem immanem, is similar to the passage in
Eucherius. The addition of the words deformitate squalidum for the
elephant’s appearance may indicate echoes of Aldhelm, ancient historical
reports of war elephants, and scientific works. Lucretius (c.99-c.55 BCE)
called the elephant teatras,43 and Aretaeus of Cappadocia (1st century CE),
who explained at length the unique physical features of the animal, writes
that the elephant and the disease elephantiasis are similar, and that the
elephant’s skin is black and lurid “like to night and death.”44
Rabanus Maurus clearly compares apes and elephants to sinful men,
according to 1 Kings, 10.22, in which no elephant but rather ivory is
mentioned. He, too, committed an error, as did Eucherius in Liber
Formularum. Jacques Voisenet states that, for Rabanus, deformity of body
means sin, as in the case of apes.45 When Rabanus describes apes, he
states Unde et simias dicimus, quod suppressis naribus sint, et facie foeda, fugis
turpiter follicantibus.46
42 ‘Elephant’ signifies a sinner, monstrous with crimes, and squalid from the deformity
of his misdeeds: nevertheless such people are often converted to Christ. Whence it is
written in the book of Kings that apes and elephants were led to Solomon, since (Eph.
2.14) “He is our peace, who hath made both one,” and with his blood he cleansed our
conscience of works of the dead, (trans. Priscilla Throop, Hrabanus Maurus: De Universo:
The Peculiar Properties of Words and Their Mystical Significance, vol. 1 [Charlotte VT: Medieval
MS, 2009], 238), Rabanus Maurus, De rerum naturis, 8.1 (P.L. 111, Paris, 1864, col. 222).
43 Lucretius, De rerum natura, 1.1302.
44 Aretaeus, On the Causes and Symptom of Chronic Diseases, 2.13, in Francis Adams,
trans. The Extant Works of Aretaeus, the Cappadocian (London: Sydenham Society,
1856), 366.
45 Jacques Voisenet, Bêtes et hommes dans le monde médiéval. Le bestiaire des clercs du V e au XXe
siècle (Turnhout: Brepols, 2000), 64-66.

46 We also call them simiae, since they have pressed-in nostrils and a repugnant face with
repulsively baggy wringles (trans. Throop, Hrabanus Maurus: De Universo, 241) Rabanus
Maurus, De rerum naturis, 8.1 (P.L. 111 Paris, 1864, col. 221.)
119
Kiwako Ogata
Rabanus may have received this notion of the elephant as a sinful man
from Eucherius and Aldhelm,47 but differs in that, for him, the elephant
can be atoned for through penitence. The elephant here is considered to
be a penitent rather than a sinner: “nevertheless such people are often
converted to Christ.”48 In Rabanus Maurus’ account of both the ape and
the elephant, we see an evident notion of conversion and penitence.
When writing of the apes, he concludes:
Simiae autem callidos mente, et peccatis fetidos homines
significant. Qui aliquando per conversionem et poenitentiam
ad pacificum nostrum deducuntur, et ejus agunt servitium,
sicut supra dictum est de elephantis et simiis, qui
adducebantur ad Salomonem.49
The allegorical characteristic that Peter Damian (1007-1072) ascribes
to the elephant is “carelessness.” Peter Damian sent a letter to Abbot
Desiderius (1058-1087) and the monks of Montecassino, a part of which
is titled De naturis animalium (De bono religiosi status et variorum animantium
tropologia) [On the nature of animals (Of the good religious state and the
tropology of various animals)]. The De naturis animalium is a bestiary in
which Peter Damian explains animal natures as allegories to warn monks
not to let themselves become caught up in vices. In the same letter, the
elephant’s chastity and its antagonism toward the dragon are also
explained (chapter 23), but in chapter 26, the elephant’s strength in
carrying a tower is contrasted to its carelessness. He says that the
elephant can carry a turreted castle (turrita castra) containing thirty-two
armored soldiers, but it can collapse with the tree against which it leans.
He explains that it happens because the elephant often sleeps leaning
against a tree, and also because someone who wants its ivory makes cuts
47 Jacques Voisenet attributes another reason as to why Rabanus connected the idea of
sinfulness with the elephant: the elephant has an exclusive role in war in 1 Maccabees,
Voisenet, Bêtes et hommes dans le monde médiéval, 64.
48 Rabanus Maurus, De rerum naturis, 8.1 (trans. Priscilla Throop, Hrabanus Maurus: De
Universo, vol.1, 238.)

49 ‘Apes’ signify the people who are clever in mind and fetid with sins. They are sometimes
led, by conversion and penitence, to our peaceful One, and carry out his service (as was
said above about apes and elephants, which were led to Solomon) (trans. Throop,
Hrabanus Maurus: De Universo, 242), Rabanus Maurus, De rerum naturis, 8.1.
120
into the trunk to make it fall due to the elephant’s enormous weight.50
Such traps made by Ethiopians in hunting elephants were reported from
Antiquity by Agathalchides (On the Red Sea), Diodorus Siculus (Bibliotheca
historica, 3.27.1-4), and Strabo (Geography, 16.4.10), among others.
This notion could also have been transmitted to the monks of the
Abbey of Santa Maria on San Nicola Island (Tremiti Islands) in Apulia,
that house having a strong relationship with the Abbey of
Montecassino.51 In the church of Santa Maria, a pair of elephants with
turrets on their backs is found surviving in fragments of a floor mosaic
created toward the end of the 11th century (Fig. 8.) It is worth posing the
question as to whether similar elephant iconography existed in the now
destroyed Abbey of Montecassino as a model for this mosaic. The pair
of elephants adorning the floor mosaic may have been chosen as a
warning from Peter Damian.52
From the 11th century, we find numerous representations of
elephants with towers or howdahs on their backs also in Apulia and in
Campania.53 The Crusades led to a deeper interest in Eastern affairs,
including the elephant, which came to be used as an emblem of Crusader
activities.54 In that period, episodes from the First Book of Maccabees
recounting the revolt of the Jews against Seleucid dominion became
popular. The story of the death of Eleazar, a brother of Judas Maccabeus,
50 Peter Damian, De naturis animalium (De bono religiosi status et variorum animantium tropologia),
26 De lupo et ove.
51 Santa Maria is a house of Benedictine monks which became so important and
prestigious that Abbot Alberico projected construction of a new building, consecrated in

1045. The expanded abbey received guests such as Abbot Desiderius of Montecassino in
1058. Desiderius tried to bring the abbey under his control, but it managed to retain its
independence, accepting only a formal protection, Luisa Derosa, “Tremiti, Isola di San
Nicola, chiesa di Santa Maria a mare,” Mondi medievali, www.mondimedievali.net/
Artemedievale/pavimenti/tremiti.htm (accessed May 6, 2019).
52 The elephants are surrounded by a stylized plant which also grows beneath them. This
plant may represent the mandrake, and allude also to the Tree of Life in Paradise, or the
tree against which the elephant leans to sleep. As such the elephants might represent
Adam and Eve or penitents.
53 Wolfgang Fritz Volbach suggests the influences of Oriental art, such as Sassanidian
silver plates, Persian silk and Persian chessmen, Wolfgang Fritz Volbach, “Oriental
Influences in the Animal Sculpture of Campania,” The Art Bulletin 24 (1942), 174.
54 Debra Hassig, “The Ideal Spouse. The Elephant,” Medieval Bestiaries: Text, Image, Ideology
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 135, 138.
121
Kiwako Ogata
caused by an elephant crushing him in the Battle of Beth- Zechariah, was

known and depicted in many art forms (Fig. 9).
Fig. 8. Elephant, floor mosaic, Abbey of Santa Maria a Mare

(Tremiti Islands), c.1050 (Pina Belli D’Elia, Alle sorgenti del romanico.
Puglia XI secolo, Bari, Dedalo, 1975, p. 186)
Fig. 9. Eleazar, Elefantes, floor mosaic, Bobbio,

Abbey of San Colombano, late 12th century
122
Hugh of Fouilloy (early 12th century-c.1173), a cleric, interprets the

elephant as superbia mundi in contrast to the humble Eleazar, in his De
claustro animae [On the Cloister of the Soul] as follows: Per Eleazarum illi
designantur qui mundi fastus repudiant per humilitatem. Per elephantum superbia
mundi designatur.55 Of the nature of the elephant, he explains that it cannot
kneel because of its lack of knee joints, a long-credited legend. Then he
passes to an explanation of the method of capturing the elephant that
falls with the tree against which it sleeps. According to Hugh of Fouilloy,
the elephant is also a “proud beast” because it cannot kneel, comparable
to the proud man who resigns himself to his desire (the tree in the case
of the elephant) and falls.
Already in the Physiologus, the tree trap is an allusion to the Tree of
Knowledge which led Adam and Eve to the Fall, but the idea has become
clear in Hugh of Fouilloy.56 His interpretation of the elephant as superbia,
the worst of the vices, may be noted in particular. As already stated, the
tree against which the elephant leans was interpreted as being the
“world,” but now the elephant itself came to represent the “world.” In
the background of this superbia interpretation, despite the well-known
virtues of the elephant, we may bear in mind influences from the zealous
atmosphere of the Crusades, which generated hatred against Islam and
heresy, even if it opened new contacts with the East.
Jacques de Vitry (1170-1240), a theologian and historian who became
Bishop of Acre in Palestine, wrote a history of Jerusalem, Historia
Hierosolymitana. He compares the Jewish heroes of 1 Maccabees to
Christian soldiers, specifically the Templars, and called them the alteri
Machabei (the other Maccabees). Elephants in 1 Maccabees belonged to
the Seleucids, enemies of the Jews. Jacques de Vitry instances the
elephant’s well-known physical features and its habitual use in Persian
and Indian armies. He adds that it is ardent in battle when it is shown
blood.57 He described the elephant even as a man-eater, as follows:
55 Those men are signified by means of the example of Eleazar, and they repudiate the
arrogances of the world due to their humility, whereas the elephant signifies worldly pride
(trans. K.O.), Hugh of Fouilloy, De Claustro animae, 1.7 (P.L. 176, Paris, 1889, col. 1030).
56 In the 13th century the trend intensifies, as in the Tuscan (Tusco-Venezian) Bestiary, where
the tree is clearly an allegory of the world. Maximilian Goldstaub and Richard Wendriner
eds., Ein Tosco-Venezianischer Bestiarius (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1892), 60.
57 In 1 Maccabees the elephant receives encouragement from grape and mulberry juice.
In the 12th century, modifying the story, Alexander Neckham states that the elephant is
incited to battle when the blood of Christ is shown to it, in Suppletio defectuum.
123
Kiwako Ogata
Habent autem rostra maxima prominentia quasi ampla intestina, que appellant
proboscides, cum quibus homines capiunt, devorant et transglutiunt.58 The elephant
must have been conceived as a very fierce monster when used by enemy
troops. A 14th-century manuscript of the Speculum humanae salvationis in
the Kremsmünster Abbey Library, Codex Cremifanensis 243 fol. 30r
(1325-1330), we find an elephant with a red-ringed mouth (Fig. 10).
According to Nona C. Flores, it is a proof that the miniaturist
emphasized the satanic interpretation of the elephant.59 We might with
some justification consider it an echo of Jacques de Vitry’s report of the
man-eating elephant. The elephant, in any case, became a symbol of
paganism and heresy, and thus an animal hostile to Christians.
Fig. 10. Eleazar under the belly of Antiochus IV’s elephant,

Speculum humanae salvationis, 1325-1330, Kremsmünster, Stiftsbibliothek
Kremsmünster, Codex Cremifanensis 243 fol. 30r
Photo courtesy of Stiftsbibliothek Kremsmünster
58 Elephants have remarkably large projecting snouts which resemble an extensive bowel,
which they call a proboscis and with which they capture, chew up and swallow men (trans.
K.O.), Jacques de Vitry, Historia Orientalis, 1.88 (Jean Donnadieu, ed. [Turnhout: Brepols
Publishers, 2008], 354).
59 Nona C. Flores, “The Mirror of Nature Distorted. The Medieval Artist’s Dilemma in
Depicting Animals,” in Joyce E. Salisbury, ed., The Medieval World of Nature, A Book of
Essays (New York: Garland, 1993), 21.
124
V. The Elephant as a Wild Beast

In very rare cases, the elephant is counted among beasts living in Europe,
as found in the following poem, Vie de saint Gilles, written by Guillaume
de Berneville in about 1150. It describes a territory between the Rhône
and Montpellier as a country with an immense desert and woods full of
beasts, as follows:
Entre le Rodne e Munpellers
Ert le pais large e pleners
De granz deserz e de boscages ;
Assez i out bestes sauvages,
Urs e liuns e cers e deims,
Senglers, lehes e forz farrins
Olifans e bestes cornues
Vivres e tygres e tortues,
(…)60
The woods were situated in the wilderness beyond village margins.61
People may have imagined barren and wild places filled with dangerous
monsters and beasts, and thus elephants, tigers, and lions were conceived
as living there. The concept of dangerous forests may have mirrored the
actual expansion of cultivated areas in the 12th century and the
consequent marginalization of forest areas. The woods became one of
the allegories of a perilous world.
We may here allow for a small consideration on the domestication of
the elephant. Anna Contadini observes that, in Arabic illustrations, the
elephant is usually described as domesticated.62 In a manuscript of Kitāb
Na‘t al-Hayawān [the Book of Animal Characteristics] (London, British
Library, Or. 2784), probably produced in Baghdad (c.1255), the elephant
wears a cap, a broad saddle blanket, a bell hung from the neck, and an
60 Between Rhône and Montpellier/is a broad land full of/immense deserts and
woods./There are many wild beasts/bears, lions, deer and fallow deer,/boars, wild sows
and many game animals/elephants and horned animals/vipers, tigers and tortoises (trans.
K.O.), Guillaume de Berneville, Vie de saint Gilles, v. 1229-1240 (Gaston Paris and
Alphonse Bos eds. [Paris: Librairie de Firmin Didot et Cie, 1881], 38.)
61 After all, a tree, when serving as a trap for the elephant, was considered as a “world
full of danger.”
62 Anna Contadini, A World of Beasts. A Thirteenth-Century Illustrated Arabic Book on Animals
(the Kitāb Na‘t al-Hayawān) in the Ibn Bakhtīshū‘ Tradition (Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2012), 88.
125
Kiwako Ogata
anklet on every leg. Here is a significant difference between the Western

and Eastern representations of the animal. The Bactrian-Greek Diadokoi
minted coins with a figure of an elephant with a bell under its neck. Later
in the West, the elephant was often depicted harnessed (Fig. 11) and
burdened with a turret or howdah, but it does not allude to the closeness
between the man and the animal. The howdah on an elephant’s back
became a standard bestiary motif by the 13th century,63 but that may
sometimes be only an iconographical attribute. However, as the elephant
on a capital of the church of Saint-Engrâce is accompanied by a figure
of a soldier with a spear on another face of the same capital, it may stress
the elephant’s military use. And the tower on the elephant’s back is
associated with Eastern enemies,64 especially as it has Islamic windows
as on some Spanish Romanesque capitals, on some German bronze
candlesticks representing the elephant with a turret and in the Ripoll Bible
(Biblioteca Vaticana, vat. Lat. 5729, fol. 342r) where high towers on
elephants’ backs have a conical roof topped by a ball, resembling
pagodas. The elephant in Western representations does not wear bells,
but from the 13th century is often tied by cords or chains which rather
indicate its state of subjection to men as in the Ashmole Bestiary (Fig. 12)
or on one capital in the Abbey of the Trinity in Caen.
Even though the elephant has its solid position in Christian
symbolism and allegory, it never loses its Oriental or non-European
identity.65 In the poem of Guillaume de Berneville, the elephant was
63 Elizabeth Morrison (ed.), Book of Beasts. The Bestiary in the Medieval World (Los Angeles:
Getty Publications, 2019), 239.
64 Sherry C.M. Lindquist and Asa Simon Mittman (eds.), Medieval Monsters: Terrors, Aliens,
Wonders (New York: The Morgan Library & Museum, 2018), 127.
65 Thierry Buquet states that, as with the lion, dragon, and unicorn, whose precise
geographical origins were not mentioned, the elephant came to lose its exotic provenance,
as is seen in Thomas de Cantimpré (1201-1270), who does not mention its geographical
origin. Thierry Buquet, “Les animaux exotiques dans les ménageries médiévales,” in
Fabuleuses histoires des bêtes et des hommes, dir. Jacques Toussaint (Namur: TreM.a, 2013), 99.
However, Thomas de Cantimpré mentions the Indian and Persian use of the elephant in
war (Liber de natura rerum IV.33.17-19). If we look at other 13th-century encyclopaedists,
Bartholomaeus Anglicus mentions a way of hunting the elephant in Ethiopia (De
proprietatibus rerum, XVIII.43), and Brunetto Latini states that Frederick II was presented
with an elephant from India by Prester John (Tresor, 187).
66 Debra Higgs Strickland, Saracens, Demons, & Jews: Making Monsters in Medieval Art
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), 45-47; Michael Camille, Image on the Edge:
The Margins of Medieval Art (London: Reaktion Books, 1992), 48.
126
supposed to live in French territory, but its habitat was on the margins
of civilisation, and thus it remained “alien.” A similar idea can be found
in an illustrated page of a treatise on vices from the mid-14th century,
where the marginal figures of wild or exotic animals such as a camel, a
giraffe, and an elephant, as well as a scene of cannibalism, allude to the
wilderness outside the city wall depicted at the top.
Fig. 11. Elephant, Church of Sainte-Engrâce, late 12th century
Fig. 12. Elephant, The Ashmole Bestiary, 1201-1225, Oxford,

Bodleian Library, MS. Ashmole 1511 fol. 15v
127
Kiwako Ogata
VI. Conclusion
Hitherto we have seen images and texts that represent the elephant as a
proof of God’s marvelous creation, one of the animals named by God
or Adam, or one of the beasts in Noah’s ark, but it is also an unfamiliar
exotic animal almost like a monster, whose status as such easily
connected it to moral deformity and vices such as superbia. Its oriental or
African origin made it a symbol of heresy and an enemy of Christians.
Moreover, it was often referred to as a justification of man’s
domination of the animal world. The Jewish philosopher Philo (c.13-
c.54 BCE) interprets Genesis in an anthropocentric way. According to
him, man, who is made in God’s image and has an erect posture, with his
head in the highest position, differs from dumb animals, which bend
their heads toward the ground. Everything in the world is made for man’s
sake, and even the intelligent elephant, which can learn tricks, lacks man’s
rationality. Scenes of Adam’s naming of the animals often show the
elephant smaller than Adam, indicating man’s dominion over animals.
The idea that such a huge and marvelous animal as the elephant can be
disciplined by the rod continues in Christian writings such as the
Hexameron. Such an anthropocentric attitude towards the animal world
is revived and developed in Scholastic theology, especially in Thomas
Aquinas, who puts man at the top of the hierarchy. In a sense, the
elephant is a symbol of man’s hegemony over the animal kingdom. It is
an animal which indicates boundaries between human and animal or
rational and irrational.
Furthermore, the justification that man can control and make use of
animals because the latter lack reason and the comparison of Indian
people to their war beasts, including elephants, can be associated with
colonialism, even if anachronistically so. Illustrations of elephants tied by
chains or cords and an illustration of an elephant which is about to be
beaten by its keeper’s bludgeon to make it kneel in front of a king,
discussed in another paper,66 would demonstrate an oppression by
violence and fear common in racism, especially when we consider that
the elephant was often conceived in an Orientalist gaze.
66 Amarginal illustration in a manuscript of De animalibus of Albertus Magnus (Paris BnF.

Latin 16169, f. 280, 14th century). Ogata, “The Iconography of the Elephant in the
Middle Ages: Some Observations on its Anatomy in Visual Art,” 37.
128
The elephant, an animal considered to represent Christian virtues, an

exotic animal worthy of being presented to kings and still used as a gift
to cement friendship between countries, is also something which alludes
to various boundaries, and symbolizes the marginalization of animals in
man’s world, implying also the alienation of other cultures.
Acknowledgements
This paper is based on part of my Ph.D. thesis presented to the U.L.B.
in 2017. I wish to express words of gratitude to my supervisor, Professor
J. Leclercq, and members of the examination jury. Acknowledgements
are also addressed to Professor A. P. Jenkins, for his careful and
extensive help, and to the reviewers for their valuable comments and
suggestions. I am grateful to various manuscript-holding libraries for
granting me permission to use manuscript pictures from their digital
collections, to Mr. Paul Saccard of Musée et jardin du prieuré de
Souvigny and to Dom Petrus Schuster of Stiftsbibliothek Kremsmünster
for sending me images.
References
Primary Sources
Abbreviation:
P.L. J.P. Migne, Patrologiae cursus completus, series latina, Paris.
Aldhelm. Enigmata. James Hall Pitman, ed. and tr. The Riddles of Aldhelm.
Text and Verse Translation with Notes. North Haven, CT: Archon Books,
1970.
Alexander Neckham. Suppletio defectuum. Christopher J. McDonough ed.
Suppletio defectuum. Book I. Alexander Neckam on Plants, Birds and
Animals. A Supplement to the Laus Sapientie Divine. Bottai (Firenze):
SISMEL-Edizione del Galluzzo, 1999.
Aretaeus. On the Causes and Symptoms of Chronic Diseases. Francis Adams,
tr. The Extant Works of Aretaeus, the Cappadocian. London: Sydenham
Society, 1856.
Bartholomaeus Anglicus. De proprietatibus rerum. Bernard Ribémont, ed.,
Jean Corbechon, tr. Le livre des propriétés des choses: une encyclopédie au
XIVe siècle. Paris: Stock, 1999.
129
Kiwako Ogata
Brunetto Latini. Tresor. Pietro G. Beltrami, Paolo Squillacioti, Plinio

Torri, Sergio Vatteroni, ed. Torino: Giulio Einaudi editore, 2007.
Eucherius, Liber formularum spiritalis intelligentiae, 5. De animalibus.
www.ccel.org/ccel/eucherius/formulae.vi.html (accessed March 7,
2023).
Galen. De usu partium. Margaret Tallmadge May, tr. Galen on the usefulness
of the parts of the body. Peri chreias morion. De usu partium. Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 1968.
Guillaume de Berneville. Vie de saint Gilles. Gaston Paris, Alphonse Bos,
ed. Paris: Librairie de Firmin Didot et Cie, 1881.
Hugh of Fouilloy, De Claustro animae, 1.7. P.L. 176, 1889, col. 1030.
Jacques de Vitry. Historia Orientalis. Jean Donnadieu, ed. Turnhout:
Brepols, 2008.
Julius Valerius. Res gestae Alexandri Macedonis. Jean-Pierre Callu, ed. Julius
Valère. Roman d’Alexandre. Texte traduit et commenté. Turnhout: Brepols,
2010.
Epistola Alexandri regis magni Macedonis ad magistrum suum Aristotelem.
—Andy Orchard, ed. and tr. “The Letter of Alexander to Aristotle.”
Pride and Prodigies. Studies in the Monsters of the Beowulf-Manuscript.
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995, pp. 204-223.
—Giuseppe Tardiola, ed. and tr. “Lettera di Aslessandro ad
Aristotele.” Le meraviglie dell’India. Rome: Archivio Guido Izzi, 1991,
59-91,145-162.
Liber monstrorum.
—Andy Orchard, ed. and tr. Pride and Prodigies, Studies in the Monsters of
the Beowulf-Manuscript. Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2003, 254-
317.
—Franco Porsia, ed. Liber monstrorum. Bari: Edizioni Dedalo, 1976.
Leo of Naples. Historia de Preliis Alexandri Magni. Friedrich Pfister, ed.,
Der Alexander Roman des Archipresbyters Leo. Hiedelberg: C. Winter,
1913. www.thelatinlibrary.com/leo.html (accessed June 2, 2019)
Peter Damian. De naturis animalium (De bono religiosi status et variorum
animantium tropologia, XXIII, XXVI, P. L.145, 1853, col. 783-784, 785-
786.
Tosco-Venezian Bestiary. Maximilian Goldstaub, Richard Wendriner, ed.,
Ein Tosco-Venezianischer Bestiarius. Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1892.
Rabanus Maurus, De rerum naturis, 8.1.
—P. L. 111, 1864, col. 222.
130
—Priscilla Throop, tr. De Universo: The Peculiar Properties of Words and

Their Mystical Significance, vol. 1. Charlotte, VT: Medieval MS, 2009.
Thomas de Cantimpré. Liber de natura rerum IV.33.17-19.
—Helmut Boese, ed. Liber de natura rerum. Editio princeps secundum codices
manuscriptos. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1973, 176.
—Codex Granatensis C.67, Biblioteca universitaria de Granada. Granada:
Universidad de Granada, 2002 (on CD rom).
Secondary Sources
Baratay, Eric and Elizabeth Hardouin-Fugier. Zoo: A History of Zoological

Gardens in the West. London: Reaktion Books, 2004.
Block Friedman, John. “The Marvels-of-the-East Tradition in Anglo-
Saxon Art.” In Sources of Anglo-Saxon Culture, ed. Paul E. Szarmach,
319-341. Kalamazoo, MI: Western Michigan University Medieval
Institute, 1986.
Buquet, Thierry. “ANIMALIA EXTRANEA ET STUPENDA AD
VIVENDUM. Describing and Naming Exotic Beasts in Cairo
Sultan’s Menagerie.” In Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages:
Perspectives Across Disciplines, ed. Francisco de Asís García García,
Mónica Ann Walker Vadillo, María Victoria Chico Picaza, 25-34.
Oxford: Archaeopress, 2013.
–––. “Les animaux exotiques dans les ménageries médiévales.” In
Fabuleuses histoires des bêtes et des hommes, ed. Jacques Toussaint, 97-121.
Namur: TreM.a, 2013.
Camille, Michael. Image on the Edge: The Margins of Medieval Art. London:
Reaktion Books, 1992.
Contadini, Anna. A World of Beasts. A Thirteenth-Century Illustrated Arabic
Book on Animals (the Kitāb Na‘t al-Hayawān) in the Ibn Bakhtīshū‘
Tradition. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2012.
Derosa, Luisa. “Tremiti, Isola di San Nicola, chiesa di Santa Maria a
mare.” Mondi medievali, www.mondimedievali.net/Artemedievale/
pavimenti/tremiti.htm (accessed May 6, 2019).
Flores, Nona C. “The Mirror of Nature Distorted. The Medieval Artist’s
Dilemma in Depicting Animals.” In The Medieval World of Nature: A
Book of Essays, ed. Joyce E. Salisbury, 3-45. New York: Garland, 1993.
Gautier-Dalché, Patrick. Géographie et culture. La représentation de l’espace du
VIe au XIIe siècle. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1997.
131
Kiwako Ogata
Hassig, Debra. “The Ideal Spouse. The Elephant.” In Medieval Bestiaries:

Text, Image, Ideology, 129-144, 244-251. Cambridge: Cambridge
Hoogvliet, Margriet. Pictura et Scriptura. Textes, images et hérmeneutique des
mappae mundi (XIIIe-XVIe Siècles). Turnhout: Brepols, 2007.
Kistler, John M. War Elephant. Westport, CT and London: Praeger, 2006.
Lecoq, Danielle.“Les marges de la terre habitée. Géographie et histoire
naturelle des confins sur les mappemondes des XIIe et XIIIe siècles.”
Cahiers du Léopard d’or 10 (2001): 99-186.
Le Goff, Jacques. L’imaginaire médiéval. Paris: Gallimard, 1985.
Lindquist, Sherry C.M. and Asa Simon Mittman, ed. Medieval Monsters:
Terrors, Aliens, Wonders. New York: The Morgan Library & Museum,
2018.
Mittman, Asa Simon and Susan M. Kim. Inconceivable Beasts: The Wonders
of the East in the Beowulf Manuscript. Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for
Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2013.
Morrison, Elizabeth, ed. Book of Beasts. The Bestiary in the Medieval World.
Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2019.
Ogata, Kiwako. Kyōkai no kaibutsutachi. Romanesuku no zuzōgaku [Monsters
in church: Iconology of the Romanesque]. Tokyo: Kōdansha, 2013.
–––. “Seiyō chūsei ni okeru zō no gūi to shōchō [The Allegories of the
Elephant in the Middle Ages].” Bulletin of Okinawa Prefectural University
of Arts 23 (2015): 1-20.
–––. “The Iconography of the Elephant in the Middle Ages: Some
Observations on its Anatomy in Visual Art.” In Collection of Essays in
Commemoration of the 30th Anniversary of Okinawa Prefectural University of
Arts, 5-49. Naha: Okinawa Prefectural University of Arts, 2018.
Orchard, Andy. Pride and Prodigies: Studies in the Monsters of the Beowulf-
Manuscript. Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2003.
Reed Kline, Naomi. Maps of Medieval Thought: The Hereford Paradigm.
Woodbridge: Boydell, 2001.
Salter, Colin. “Animals in the Military.” In Animals and Human Society, ed.
Colin G. Scanes and Samia R. Toukhsati, 195-223. London: Academic
Press, 2018.
Ševčenko, Nancy P. “Wild Animals in the Byzantine Park.” In Byzantine
Garden Culture, ed. Anthony Littlewood, Henry Maguire, Joachim
Wolschke-Bulmahn, 69-86. Washington D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks,
2002.
132
Stratford, Neil. Chronos et cosmos. Le pilier roman de Souvigny. Souvigny:

Musée de Souvigny, 2005.
Strickland, Debra Higgs. Saracens, Demons, & Jews: Making Monsters in
Medieval Art. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003.
–––. “Monstrosity and Race in the Late Middle Ages.” In The Ashgate
Research Companion to Monsters and the Monstrous, ed. Asa Simon
Mittman and Peter J. Dendle, 365-386. Abingdon and New York:
Routledge, 2013.
Tardiola, Giuseppe, ed. and tr. Le meraviglie dell’India. Rome: Archivio
Guido Izzi, 1991.
Van Duzer, Chet. “Hic sunt dracones: The Geography and Cartography of
Monsters.” In The Ashgate Research Companion to Monsters and the
Monstrous, ed. Asa Simon Mittman and Peter J. Dendle, 387-435.
Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2013.
Verner, Lisa. The Epistemology of the Monstrous in the Middle Ages. New York
and London: Routledge, 2005.
Volbach, W.F. “Oriental Influences in Animal Sculpture of Campania.”
The Art Bulletin 24 (1942): 172-180.
Wittkower, Rudolf. Allegory and the Migration of Symbols. London: Thames
& Hudson, 1987.
133
ANIMALS ON THE EDGE OF
LATE MEDIEVAL HEBREW MANUSCRIPTS
ANDRÁS BORGÓ*
I. Hebrew vs Latin book art

We can consider works of Hebrew book art the little brothers of
illuminated Latin manuscripts – and for not one, but two reasons. First,
they are little brothers because of the comparatively small number of
pieces left, but they are still brothers, that is close relatives as regards the
imagery of the miniatures. Their artistic approach which is, in many
aspects, very similar, could lead to the conclusion that the evolution of
Hebrew manuscript illumination followed the example of Christian
manuscripts. This is, from a sociological point of view, evident, because
the Jewish minority living in a Christian environment formed part of the
population of settlements that did not segregate completely from those
living around them.1 This is true even if both the Christian and the Jewish
population were keen to avoid mingling with the other, which resulted
in the formation of so-called Jewish quarters. Later this culminated in the
involuntary withdrawal into ghettos.2
* Independent scholar, Austria.

1 “... Jews in Italy – from at least the late thirteenth until early in the sixteenth century –
lived and worked as an accepted minority within the Christian majority in a network of
close relationships in all spheres ... safeguarding their principles, their own culture, and
their religious observances.” Mortara Ottolenghi: 86. “...Jewish images are not merely
passive responses to an assumed monolithic and unchanging Christian image culture, but
... each changes in relation to the other’s culture…” Frojmovic: 282.
2 The tendency to expel Jews from towns is a historical fact, but they were also regularly
asked to return. Rüdiger, the bishop of Speyer invited Jews to Speyer so that their
presence would “multiply the image of the town a thousand times” Drabek: 54. n. 2. On
the Iberian Peninsula in the 13th and 14th centuries the ruler of Aragon referred to Jews
András Borgó
Christian illuminated manuscripts were created in the scriptoria of

monasteries before copying profane (scientific or literary) works became
common. The copying workshops were operated as an industry and
employed lay miniators who applied for a “job” in ever-increasing
numbers.
The error-free copying of Hebrew manuscripts was undertaken by
Jewish scribes and copiers who were acquainted with the characters used
in Hebrew writing.3
The spaces to be occupied by more or less ornate paintings were left
blank of writing on the pages in line with the page layout defined in
advance. The illustrations of Hebrew manuscripts were also ordered
from lay illuminators4 who followed a previously agreed layout.5
Works created by Christian artists sometimes featured illustrations
that were contrary to Jewish (religious) ideology or practice, e.g. in
illustrations depicting the process of writing the text flows from left to
right as opposed to right to left as in Hebrew writing,6 or there were
images of Jews with disparaging features (contorted, angry faces or
stereotypically hooked noses).7
The ideal solution was to employ Jewish scribes and miniators.8
Those who ordered illuminated manuscripts were inevitably rich people.
Mortara Ottolenghi even names a few of them, all members of the Italian
financial aristocracy of the 13th-15th centuries.9 The same work mentions
as “nostre cofre e tresor”, which of course alluded to the fact that Jews meant a significant
source of income for the court. See Románo: 35. (in German).
3 “Unlike Latin manuscripts, Hebrew manuscripts were not produced in institutional
copying centres, such as scriptoria or university stationers ... Hebrew manuscripts were
always initiated individually and in most cases produced by one single hand.” Beit-Arié,
1993: 78.
4 Shalev-Eyni compared Hebrew and Latin manuscripts made in the Lake Constance
(Bodensee) region and based on stylistic features arrived at the conclusion that books
used in Jewish liturgy were made in the same secular workshop as the manuscript of a
Graduale in St. Katharinenthal. Shalev-Eyni: 21.
5 “... I have found Latin instructions for the illuminator also in the Laud Mahzor.”
Frojmovic: 292, n. 27.

6 Beit-Arié 1993: 187, n. 13.
7 Mellinkoff presents several illustrations of this kind in her book written on the topic.
8 One of the most fortunate cases related to the entirety of the manuscript is connected
to Joel ben Simeon (Feibusch Aschkenasi) who worked in Germany and Northern Italy
in the second half of the 16th century as a scribe-artist.
9 Mortara Ottolenghi: passim.
136
Animals on the Edge of Late Medieval Hebrew Manuscripts
learned Christian humanistic “patrons” (one of them was the Convent

of Saint Dominick in Fiesole), who commissioned Hebrew manuscripts
around 1450.10
The empty margin around the illuminated initials and the text itself
of illustrated manuscripts started to be filled with various, mostly
humorous or profane images, drôleries and human, humanoid or animal
figures in the 13th century.11 Camille explains this by the contemporary
ideas of the unknown, undiscovered edges of the world that were
populated by imaginary creatures and quotes Piero Camporesi as follows:
“the outskirts are perceived as infected zones, where all kinds of
monstrosities are possible...“12 The painting illustrating this comes from
a psalter book made around 126013 and depicts the world as a circle with
the Creator presiding over it, flanked by two angels and two dragon-like
creatures at the bottom, i.e. “under” the world.
This type of marginal illustration is part of the thematic content of
illuminated pages. Illuminations were based partly on discussions with
the client and partly on the content of the text itself. Small marginal
drawings or sketches lack careful design because their primary purpose
was to fill in blank spaces and they were partly not even drawn by the
illuminators themselves but by the scribes who copied the text.14
II. Ashkenaz vs. Sepharad

The first remaining illuminated Hebrew manuscripts come from the 10th
century but these works were, as far as we know, mainly made between
the 13th-15th centuries in the region between the Iberian Peninsula
10 Two Bibles (Florence, Medico-Laurentian Library, Conv. Sopp. 268 and Plut. 1, 31),
one psalm book (Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Hamilton 547), and maybe one more
manuscript. See: Mortara Ottolenghi: 95.
11 Bräm refers to the Chludov psalter from the 9th century as one of the prime examples
of marginal illuminations. See Bräm: 45. The illuminations accompanying the manuscript
tend to occupy a larger part of the page than the text itself.
12 Camille: 14.
13 World map. Psalter. British Library, London. Add. ms.28681 fol. 9r. See: Camille: fig. 2.
14 A seemingly contradictory statement by Lilian M.C. Randall may primarily refer to the
marginal illuminations that relate to the theme of the page: “In many instances both
miniatures and marginal décor were done by the same hand.” Randall: 19.
137
András Borgó
(“Sepharad”) and today’s Germany (“Ashkenaz”) and Italy.15 It is the

miniatures created there and then that we are going to discuss here.16
Our selection is not defined by chronology but by the aspects of how
the pictures are structured. Accordingly, the first image we are about to
discuss is a later one, the title page of the Book of Isaiah with some
exuberant Renaissance decorations from the 15th century.17 (Fig. 1.)
Fig. 1. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, cod. heb. 15, fol. 251r
The Hebrew text that was created in Lisbon occupies a relatively small
area and is surrounded by a thick frame on all four sides. The richly
decorated page is the work of an Italian (Florentine) book illuminator
and is directly comparable to the numerous illuminated book pages of
15 Sephardi book art prevails in the part of France close to the Iberian Peninsula and in
parts of Italy while Ashkenazi illuminations appear in the North-Eastern part of France
an in Northern Italy, too.
16 Similar creations made in Syrian, Palestinian and Egyptian territories are not discussed
here.
17 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, cod. heb. 15, fol. 251r.
138
the period.18 Compared to one19 of the pieces of the Corvinas, the

famous book collection (Bibliotheca Corviniana) of King Matthias
Corvinus from the 15th century, we can detect structural similarities that
were not a consequence of the “Zeitgeist”, but of the common workshop
itself: the Budapest codex (Fig. 2) was created by the same Florentine
master20 as the illumination of our Hebrew manuscript. This also
highlights the fact that neither the real-life fence nor the virtual barriers
separating Jews from Christians were impenetrable.
Apart from the Hebrew text, most of which is situated in the area
between the pilasters of a tabernacle, there are no significant stylistic
differences between the two illuminated pages. The rich decoration
comprising meandering foliage, various objects, shapes and human
figures (putti) and beasts only bears aesthetic significance.
The Mahzor (prayer book for the festivities) made in the early 14th
century,21 also features an architectonic structure (Fig. 3). Dragons with
their necks entwined form the bases of the columns that, above the
cincture, turn into Gothic windows and taper away in a turret on both
sides with shofar players22 leaning out of the windows to the right and
left. This will enhance the symmetrical layout of the page. Shofar is an
instrument used in liturgy to this day (but still not considered a musical
instrument).23 The image of the instrument shows the moment when the
shofar is sounded after the closing prayer of Yom Kippur.
On the front of the building, we can see oversized letters24 forming
the first words of the text of the folio – this is the Hebrew equivalent of
the elaborate initials of Latin manuscripts. In the horizontal strip
between the words there is the image of a four-legged animal. The whole
picture illustrates the beginning of the prayer begging for the opening of
the Gate of Mercy, therefore the architectonic structure with the trefoil
gate is closely related to the content but also serves the purpose of
18 “Die hebräischen Bibeln des 15. Jh.s sind infolge ihres reichen Renaissancedekors
nicht von denjenigen aus christlichen Ateliers zu unterscheiden.” Schubert 1983: 97.
19 Philostratus (II.), probably 1485. Budapest, Országos Széchényi Könyvtár (Hungarian
National Library), clmae 417, f. 1v.

20 Workshop of Attavante degli Attavanti (1452- ca. 1517) or Boccardino Vecchio (1460-
1529). See Narkiss: 156; Csapodi: after VIII.

21 Southern Germany, ca. 1320-1330. Leipzig, Universitäts Bibliothek, Ms. V 1102 II.
22 The two figures wearing Jewish hats have no human nose in their faces.
23 “In OT we find no case of the shofar being used as a musical instrument.” Finesinger: 56.
24 P’TAKH LANU SHA’AR (“Open the gate for us”).
139
András Borgó
framing the text, similarly to our previous examples.
Fig. 2. Budapest, Hungarian National Library, clmae 417, fol. 1v
Fig. 3. Machsor Lipsiae II. Leipzig, University Library,

Ms. V 1102 II., fol. 176r
140
The dragon, a large and aggressive animal with a long tail and
sometimes wings, is, in medieval thinking, the embodiment of Evil.25
One of the evil figures of the Bible is Leviathan, a serpent-like
amphibian, a kind of dragon. “The Jews of medieval France and
Germany would have easily associated fabulous dragons in the
surrounding Christian milieu with the supernatural serpent-like
malevolent beasts from the Bible.”26
One picture from the Ashkenazi Laud Mahzor27 shows another
framework structure of sorts, with twin-bodied bulls and lionesque
beasts sharing the same head on both sides underneath.
Between them, there is a man in a pointed hat, the compulsory head-
gear for Jewish males of the time. The figure is holding a baker’s peel,
placing a mazzah bread into the baking oven.28 The figure busying
himself with a baker’s peel appears in Christian book paintings, too.29
The pillars of the gate are lined with winged phantasy creatures both
inside and out. The illuminator depicted the winged figure handing over
the two tablets or Torah rolls without facial features; the three kneeling
Israelite figures on the right have bird- or fox-like heads and wear pointed
Jewish hats. Under the arch of the vault, the figure of Moses sprinkling
blood as an offering30 has a bird’s beak, just like the baker at the bottom
of the page. Human figures with similar beaks appear in the Worms
Mahzor, too31. Based on the place and time of its creation the so-called
Bird’s Head Haggadah32 is also related to these two manuscripts. Its
25 Rodov gives a detailed description of the related medieval rabbinic idea.

26 Rodov: 69.
27 South-German, approx. 1290, Oxford, Bodleian Library, ms. Laud or. 321, f. 127v.
28 Mazzah is eaten primarily at Pesakh, the festivity of the Jews’ deliverance from Egypt,
but here we see an illustration of Shavuot, a feast occurring fifty days after Pesakh. It
celebrates, on the one hand, the day when God gave the Torah to the nation of Israel
and the spring wheat harvest on the other. The bottom part of the illuminated page
probably depicts the making of the bread baked from such wheat.
29 e.g. New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, M 754, f. 48v. For the image of the baker
illustrated as a monkey. Elsig: pict. 4.5.18: “singe boulanger.”

30 Exodus 24:8.
31 Southern German (Rhine region), 1272. Jerusalem, Jewish National and University
Library, ms. heb. 4°781/1.

32 Southern Germany, ca. 1300, Jerusalem, Israel Museum Ms. 180/057. Several other
manuscripts made at that time in Southern Germany also show humans with animal
heads or attempt to conceal the facial features, sometimes simply by leaving the face
blank, i.e. unpainted.
141
András Borgó
name refers to the fact that instead of human heads this Haggadah
generally depicts birds’ heads.
Other animals can also serve as a base and they do not necessarily
support an architectonic structure on their backs.
In the picture of the First Kennicott Bible, La Coruña, 1476 (Oxford,
Bodleian Library, Kenn.1. fol.120v), the Menorah, a multi-branched
candelabrum that is a key symbol of Judaism, is seen resting on the back
of a lion-like beast lying curled up on the ground. The Menorah is an
object used during religious rituals in the sanctuary. Here we can see two
fire tongs and two censers hanging from its branches.
One of the characteristics of Sephardic manuscripts are pages
showing one single scene or those that serve ornamental purposes only
– the latter are called carpet pages. Such book paintings were used as title
pages for chapters or larger sections of text.
III. Bible, Mahzor, Haggadah

The manuscripts we have seen so far either contained Biblical texts or –
the Mahzor, to be specific – were a collection of various prayers.
However, the majority of our illustrations come from Haggadah
manuscripts.33 This Hebrew word means “tale” or “storytelling”. The
exact words of the Haggadah were consolidated in the 12-13th centuries
but had been created a thousand years earlier to be recited on the Seder-
evening, the eve of the Spring Passover. Seder means “order” or
“arrangement.” The text basically tells about the deliverance of the Jews
from Egypt, complete with prayers, verses and short songs. The festive
evening spent at a spread table has its own “seder” that follows the text
of the Haggadah with dishes and drinks consumed at the right moment.
On fol. 26v of the Barcelona Haggadah34 only a frame remains from
the structure that surrounded our earlier examples, and the text is flanged
by leaves or vines at the bottom and on either side.
Inside the frame, on the right, there are two water birds with long legs
and beaks facing each other and, at the bottom, two symmetrically
placed, winged dragons having human heads that support the soaring
33 “... the books most common in the library of a Jew were a siddur a prayer book for the
whole year, a mahzor a prayer book for the high holidays, a Passover Haggadah (all three
of which it was customary to decorate), and sometimes halakhic works.” Zirlin: 287.
34 Catalonia, mid-14th century. London, British Library Add. 14761.
142
column of leaves with one of their hands. At the top, there is an animal
scene: the figure on the right, probably a wolf, standing erect on two legs
and wearing a cloak covering its entire body, is extending a cup to the
rabbit in front of it.
There is a dog sitting between the two and the rabbit is beating its
head (or is holding a stick above the head of the dog).35 In the decorative
field beneath this scene there is the word ‫ ברון‬barukh (“blessed”), the first
word of one of the prayers of the Haggadah.
In the top part of fol. 34v of this richly illuminated Sephardi
manuscript there is a dragon standing on the border of the initial word
panel.
A dog is sitting on the dragon’s tail that is curling upwards and there
is a long-beaked bird, looking backwards, inside the flame emanating
from the fantasy creature’s mouth. The word ‫ אף׳קומן‬afikoman below the
dragon’s tail is the name of the dish – actually, a piece broken from the
mazzah, the unleavened bread – that is distributed at the end of the
festive Seder evening when the Haggadah is recited.36 Surrounded by the
twining leaves of the plant that is running along the text there are dogs,
a bear’s head and various other indefinable animals. The initial word ‫רשע‬
rasha (“evil”) is the name of one of the four “sons” referred to in the
Haggadah. This figure is normally depicted as a man wielding a weapon.
Here, seen with a spear, the facial features of the evil have been scraped
off subsequently.
As far as its place and date of its creation, the Barcelona Haggadah is
related to the Kaufmann Haggadah.37 In this illumination (Fig. 4) there
is a remarkable figure, also above the frame of the initial word. This
hybrid creature is a variation of the Centaurs of Greek mythology. In
Jewish art, Centaurs are starting to appear from the 4th century onwards.38
In this image, we can see the lower body and legs of a running horse that
bears a human torso. The man with a beard and a head-gear is facing the
rear of the animal, as if riding the horse backwards. He is playing a
bagpipe, one of the wide-spread instruments of the time the manuscript
35 Schubert interprets the object in the hare’s paw as a sceptre. Schubert 1983: 251.
36 “The afikoman matzah ... marks the climax of the seder as a symbol of Redemption”
Yuval: 239.
37 Catalonia, 1360-70. Budapest, Hungarian Academy of Scienses, Kaufmann Collection,
A 422.
38 Weiss: 26.
143
András Borgó
was created.39 This hybrid creature has decorative purposes only – the
text on this page is a prayer from the Haggadah. However, the panel with
the initial word ‫ ברוך‬barukh and the man in an adorned attire, holding a
cup, are directly related to the prayer. This scene depicts the moment of
the festive evening when one of the four cups of wine needs to be
emptied.
Fig. 4. Budapest, Hungarian Academy of Sciences,

Kaufmann Collection, A 422, fol. 44r (det.)
IV. Micrography
A characteristic feature of Hebrew manuscripts is micrography, a script
comprising very small letters. It is mainly used to place the comments of
the Masorah (massoret = tradition)40 next to the main body of text, but
also as a decoration when the flow of the text imitates the contours of
39 E.g. Cantigas de Santa Maria, Madrid, Escorial, J.b. 2, fol. 235v (c. 1260); Maastricht
Book of Hours, BL Stowe MS17 f. 44v (1300-1325); Barcelona Haggadah, BL Add.
14761, fol. 61r (mid-14th Century).
40 “The Masorah (or massoret) is, in a broad sense, a compilation of information which
preserves the biblical text from corruption: it includes details on the vocalization and
accentuation of the consonantal text, as well as Masoretic notes and hand-books. ... This
textual apparatus includes the Masora Parva (the ‘small Masorah’ located on the side
margins), ... the Masora Magna (the ‘great Masorah’, written on the upper and lower
margins...)” Attia: 2-3.
144
an object or an animal. In some cases, the text itself is written in

micrography forms letters, too.41
The smallest letters in the early 14th century Ashkenazi bible42 are only
decipherable because the manuscript comprises almost 50 cm tall
parchment pages.43
The word, ‫ חזון‬khazon44 appears in front of a multi-colored
background that is supported by four columns.
There are micrographic sections at the bottom and at the top. The
top left part of the panel containing the initial word forms a dog’s head
and the illuminator also added the image of a bird to the bottom right
edge of the page. On the roof of the “building” there are two dogs
chasing a unicorn that is highlighted with green stripes. The unicorn is a
replacement of the stag or rabbit (both chased to death), two beasts often
depicted in this situation. Hunting scenes are recurring themes of both
Hebrew and Christian miniatures. However, images of hunting have a
special meaning in Hebrew manuscripts: they symbolize the persecution
of Jews.
An Ashkenazi Bible manuscript45 also has on fol. 1v an architectonic
structure (Fig. 5). The interior of the building is filled with columns of
text with rounded corners. These columns partly conform to the shape
of this interior space. On the left, the gable under the roof is occupied
by a gilded word ‫ בראשית‬b’reshit,46 which is surrounded by tondi inside a
space decorated with blue and red filigree scrolls. Inside the tondi there
are various hybrid creatures. Immediately below the roof, in the middle,
there is a rabbit with a long tail playing a bagpipe. We have already seen
this instrument earlier (Fig. 4.), in the hands of a Centaur. Above the roof
there is a bird-like creature. The beginning of the column of text to the
41 ÖNB (Austrian National Library) Wien, Cod. hebr. 16, fols. 249r-268v. “Die in
Mikroschrift geschriebene Massora bildet neuerlich grosse Buchstaben, die von der
blutigen Judenverfolgung in Süddeutschland im Jahre 1298 berichten.“ Schubert 1983:
148. The margins of the manuscript are decorated by other figurative micrographical
illustrations, too.
42 Parma Bible. Upper Rhine area, early 14th century. Parma, Biblioteca Palatina, ms. 3287,
f.92v.
43 49.6 x 36.5 cm. Narkiss: 112.
44 “vision.” This is the first word of the Book of Isaiah of the Bible.
45 Torah, Haftarot, Megillot. 14./15. century, from the Rhine region. Staatsbibliothek zu
Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Ms. or. quart. 1.

46 “At the beginning,” the first word of the book Genesis.
145
András Borgó
right is also a biblical b’reshit with a smaller bird having a long beak above.
In the top section of the illumination there are three more round fields,
with a fantasy creature in two of them.
Fig. 5. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz,

Orientabteilung Ms. or. quart. 1, fol. 1v
The text that normally takes the form of columns, here has a rounded,
disc-like shape. However, letters that fill pre-defined spaces can, apart
from geometric ones, take vegetal or zoomorphic contours, too.
We can take a closer look at micrography as one of the methods of
producing images on the bottom section of one of the pages of the
Ashkenazi Bible created at the end of the 13th century.47
It was entirely created using this technique (masora figurata) is
connected to its own frame and occupies the bottom part of the page.
It comprises six tondi containing various animal figures. Even the
spaces between the tondi are filled with beasts and plants made up of
meandering letters.
47 Bible, 1294. Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Cod. Vat. Urb. Ebr. 1., f. 743r.
146
The use of letters for the shaping of the contours of various objects
and living things has a long history.
The carmen figuratum, i.e. a poem whose text body takes the shape of a
certain object has been known since the 3rd century B.C. Charlemagne’s
cultural reforms revived this antique tradition as well and it even
appeared in some of the illuminations of Hebrew manuscripts. A
micrographic patch of text forming a circle and flowers already appears
in a remaining page fragment of a 9th century Hebrew book from
Palestine.48
An example of micrographic text shaping various beasts occupying
the entire margin is seen among the illuminations of the Sephardi Rylands
Haggadah.49 On fol. 41r (“39”) (Fig. 6.), to the left of the main text there
is a panel whose frame itself is made up of tiny letters. Inside the panel
we can discern the heads of four indefinite beasts and various floral
shapes whose contours are made up of a text discussing legal matters.50
The illuminated Codex Maimuni is an Ashkenazi manuscript made at
the very end of the 13th century.51 Its marginal illustrations are often
playful shapes and figures made up from letters (Fig. 7).
The delicate contours of a four-legged animal above the right column
of text are filled with letters. A similar method was used for the
decoration on the left margin, next to the third column, where a fantasy
creature with claws on its legs “grows” from the upper section of a leaved
plant inserted into a vase.
48 Moses ben Asher Codex, Palestine, 895 (Cairo, Karaite Synagogue). See Gutmann: 13.
Abb. VI.
49 Catalonia, 3rd quarter of 14th century. Manchester, The John Rylands Library, Heb.
MS 6, fol. 41r.
50 See Loewe: 21.
51 Moses Maimonides’ Code of law. Budapest, Hungarian Academy of Sciences,
Kaufmann Collection A 77/I-IV.
147
András Borgó
Fig. 6. Rylands Haggadah, Manchester,

The John Rylands Library, Heb. MS 6, fol. 41r (det.)
Fig. 7. Hungarian Academy of Sciences,

Kaufmann Collection A 77, vol. IV, fol. 149r
148
V. Illustrations on three sides

The text of an Ashkenazi Bible made in the 13th century in Germany is
surrounded by animal illustrations on three sides.52
In the top right corner, there is a dog that is, similarly to the deer at
the bottom of the page, running in the opposite direction as the right-to-
left Hebrew writing. Scribes traditionally devote close attention to the
order of the starting and ending points of lines of text below and above
each other and also to the order of the columns of text. They make the
last letters of lines wider if necessary, and if two long words would reach
beyond the edge of the column then the second one is shifted to the next
line.53 There are examples of these methods in the top margin here. It is
also worth mentioning that the starting points of the three lines behind the
dog are shifted to the right from top to bottom in order to follow the
oblique angle of the hind legs of the jumping animal. Thereby the endings
of the last words of all three lines are still somewhat in line on the left.
The middle section of the right margin of the page is occupied
by the micrographic image of a tree, with two birds sitting on its
branches. The head, neck and front legs of the deer at the bottom of the
page are under the tree. We can only suspect that the animal dashing to
the right is chased by the dog on the next page to the left.
The specialty of this illumination is that the middle section of the
extended body of the deer, spanning almost the entire width of the page,
is made up of four lines of text – this renders the outlines and the
appearance of this micrographic animal entirely unrealistic.
We have already discussed some examples of illuminated initial words
occupying the top part of folios. These words may appear on the
margins, too, as seen on a number of pages of the Kaufmann Haggadah54
we have mentioned earlier.
VI. Passover
Folio 35v (Fig. 8) features a thanksgiving prayer to be recited at Passover.
The recurring themes of the prayer set the rhythm of both the text and
its illustration. The sample sentence goes like this: “If God had gotten us
52 London, British Library Add. 21160, f.187v.

53 See Beit-Arié 1993: 260 ff.
54 See n. 37.
149
András Borgó
out of Egypt and not punished our enemies, it would‘ve been enough.”
The size and decoration of two recurring words of the verse, ‫ אלו‬illu
and ‫ דינו‬dayyenu, i.e. “if (only)” and “enough (for us)” are different from
those of the other words. Another specialty of the highlighted word illu
is that the first two of the three letters (the alef and the lamed) are
contracted. Here, the illuminator decided to use four lines starting with
illu, with rich filigree-work around the letters painted in gold. In between,
there are creatures of various sizes. At the bottom we recognize a
peacock, with its tail feathers closed. On the top of the lamed of the
uppermost illu there is another, less ornately drawn bird. Underneath,
there is a bearded creature with the body of a bird but the head of a
human with a three-pronged plant sticking out from its mouth. To the
left of this creature the word dayyenu forms a line of its own. The next
lines of text become increasingly dense, so the second and third illu on
the right are so close to each other that the human head hiding among
the vines can hardly be discovered. The writing which is ordered in
accordance with the interpretation of the text and the related decorations
are tell-tale signs of the order they were created – the latter occupies the
area left vacant by the text. As the scribe copying the text and the artist
creating the attached paintings and decorations were, in most cases,
different persons, each page of the manuscript was made in at least two
steps.55
Of course there are also drawings on the margins that, as they are
connected to the topic of the page, can rightfully be called illustrations.
Let us take a look at one of the pages of the ashkenazi Mahzor Lipsiae
as an example56 (Fig. 9). The top of the page is dominated by the framed
initial word ‫ מלך‬melekh (“king”) on a blue background with white vines.
The letters are accompanied by a crown, also painted in gold. Under the
second and the third letter there is the anguine body of a four-legged
animal. On the left, a humanoid figure is holding a golden wind
instrument to its mouth with both hands. It wears a red cloak and its
head is covered by a pointed hat and its face is depicted without a nose.
This is a tell-tale sign of the place and time the manuscript was created.
Most of the right edge of the page is occupied by a hoofed, four-legged
animal. One of the horns of the fleecy ram, painted blue, is caught by the
55 e.g. the Kaufmann Haggadah is the work of five illuminators. See Sed-Rajna: 15.
56 See n. 21.
150
trunk of a tree bearing colorful leaves. This image is obviously a reference

to lines 22:13 of Genesis, where Abraham spots the animal and offers it
as a sacrifice instead of his son, Isaac.

Kaufmann Collection A 422, fol. 35v
Fig. 9. Leipzig, University Library Ms. V 1102, fol. 26v
151
András Borgó
The ram/ewe/sheep family used to be an important part of the

economic and religious life of the region today known as the Middle East.
Lamb is still the main dish of the Seder eve and the shofar, a wind
instrument made from a ram’s horn plays an important role in Jewish
liturgy. The so-called Hispano-Moresque Haggadah is a Castilian
manuscript.57
Folio 21r is dominated by an initial word panel in the approximate
form of a letter T, whose vertical part reaches down to the bottom of the
page and is flanked not only by the text but on the right also by a horned
four-legged animal. The miniator painted the big letters against a red and
blue decorated background. The third letter of the word ‫ רבן‬rabban58
appears as a long stem bearing leaves. The animal to the right of the longer
part of the panel represents the Passover lamb. The Haggadah text quotes
Rabban Gamliel who reminds the reader to observe the ceremonial order
of the festivity and also of what meals they should consume.
The Kaufmann Haggadah evokes the prescribed meals in a different
manner (Fig. 10). The ornate word is the name of the festivity itself: ‫פסח‬
pesakh,59 with the words (in the line above) mazzah and maror60 naming
the dishes to be eaten this evening. They are the unleavened bread and
horse radish, both essential parts of the Haggadah. Owing to their shapes
(the disc of the mazzah and the approximately oval contours of the
maror) they are eminently suitable to be used as the centerpiece of an
illuminated page.61 In this illumination of the right-hand margin, among
the leaved branches painted in blue and red there are two rabbits at the
bottom and a bird and a sheep above. Under the initial word panel a
bearded man wearing a cloak is leading a passah lamb on a leash.
In the picture of the Sephardi Kennicott Bible62 we can see a Biblical
text and its direct illustration. On the right-hand margin of fol. 88v there
is a red heifer next to the lines of Numeri 9:2 that declare that purification
shall be accomplished by sacrificing a red heifer. In the image of the cow
we can see the word ‫ פרה‬parah63 on white background.
57 13th-14th century. London, British Library, Or. 2737.

58 Rabbi.
59 Passover.
60 Exodus 12:8, Numeri 9:11, et al.
61 In the Kaufmann Haggadah: fol. 39r (mazzah) and fol. 40r (maror).
62 First Kennicott Bible, La Coruña, 1476. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Kenn.1.
63 “cow.”
152

Kaufmann Collection, A 422, fol. 38r
Fig. 11. Leipzig, UL Ms. V, 1102/II., fol. 181v
153
András Borgó
On the right-hand and bottom margin of the fol. 181v of the Mahzor
Lipsiae,64 there are three figures painted in bright colors. (Fig. 11.) On
the right there is a man wearing a Jewish hat. His face is dehumanized
the same way as we have seen earlier: his nose resembles the beak of a
bird. The figure wearing the blue and red clothes has a citrus fruit and a
palm leaf in his hands, both symbols of the Sukkot, the Autumn Festival
of Tabernacles. The text is a piyyut, a religious poem appropriate for the
occasion. The lower one-fifth of the page is occupied by the images of
two animals. On the right, we can see a red bovine animal, and in the left
corner, there is a fish with blue scales and golden fins. The four-legged
beast is called Behemoth, the fish is Leviathan. These creatures are often
mentioned in the Bible65 and are also characteristic features of Hebrew
mythology. According to rabbinical literature they will, in the future, fight
each other in deadly battle. They are frequently featured in Hebrew book
illuminations. In a 13th-century manuscript from Ulm in Germany on the
top section of a two-part illustration66 Behemoth and Leviathan appear in
the company of Ziz, a griffin, and at the bottom half of the picture there
is a laid table where the flesh of the three creatures will be served as a
meal at the banquet to the righteous.
VII. Transforming letters into living creatures

The Mocatta Haggadah serves as an example of transforming letters into
living creatures in a unique way. Next to the micrography forming
rhomboids along the right margin of the folio 40v67 we can detect illu
words that are also laid out vertically in gilded letters. The middle of the
page is occupied by the main text body divided into three times three
lines. In the six rectangles of the left-hand side section there are
alternating pictures of imaginary beasts and the letters of the word
dayyenu. We have already touched on the ligature of the letters alef and
lamed.68 These we can see here in the second vertical section from the
right, appearing as prancing creatures. The illuminator exploited the
morphology of the ligature to create (undefined) beasts, complete with
64 See n. 21.
65 E.g. Behemoth: Job 40:15, Leviathan: Isaiah 27:1.
66 Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana Ms. B 32. INF, fol. 136r.
67 Mocatta Haggadah, from 1300 in the Kingdom of Castile. University College London,
Library Services, Special Collection, Ms. Mocatta 1, fol. 40v.

68 Fig. 9.
154
red tongues even.

In general, we could refer to manuscript illuminations as the unity of
letters and images that combines practicality with an appealing
appearance. The last illumination we are examining in this paper offers a
concise summary of all that we have seen before.
VIII. Catchwords
Grasping the sense of the written word can be hindered by a number of
factors, such as the turning of the page, because such distractions may
derail the reader from following the story. We may lose track of what we
are reading by accidentally turning two pages at once. To prevent this,
and also as a technical necessity of bookbinding, so-called catchwords were
used. The solitary word at the end of a page heralds the first word we
will see on the next one after we have turned the page.69
Fig. 12. Budapest, Academy of Sciences,

Kaufmann Collection, A 77/III, fol. 48v (det.)
69 “There are two ways to implementing catchwords. The most common way is by repeating
the first word ... at the foot of the preceding page. The second way is repeating the last word
... at the beginning of the following page.” See Beit-Arié, 1981: 51. (Beit-Arié uses the word
catchword for the first way only. He refers to the second one as a repeated word.)
155
András Borgó
The small dragon in the bottom left corner of an Ashkenazi

manuscript70 from the end of the 13th century combines practicality with
aesthetics.
The two-letter catchword is surrounded by the bending goose-neck
of this tiny, winged creature with pointed ears and a curly tail. A useful
little figure – this may have been the idea of the illuminator – or rather
scribe – of the text, who drew this fantasy creature around the catchword
to facilitate easier reading and also to brighten the day of the reader.
IX. Hebrew vs. Christian manuscripts

Finally, we need to ask the question of why a manuscript written in
Hebrew qualifies as a Hebrew manuscript. After all, it is so closely related
to Christian books – on account of the tools needed to make it, the
division of labor and even the persons who created them.
What is immediately obvious is the difference between Latin and
Hebrew letters. This difference is rooted in the writing that conveys
idiosyncratic content. The words need to be understood – but that is not
enough: we must be aware of the links beyond the words to understand
the meaning of the entire page created by one or more contributing
artists.
The text and the illumination – even if they are not always directly
linked – work together to convey the ethos, the spiritual direction, or, if
you like, the message of the manuscript. Any unintentional similarities
with or the intentional and pre-meditated copying of the images of
Christian manuscripts are subjugated to this new and different ethos. It
is transformed and given a new meaning. The purpose and the direction
are different – as are, presumably, the results and the effects, too.
What then, makes Hebrew manuscripts different from their Christian
counterparts? On the one hand, it is their purpose, i.e. their intention.
On the other, it is the underlying idea, the point of view, i.e. the concept.
We have tried to accomplish the objective set out in the introduction,
i.e. highlighting the characteristics of Hebrew manuscript illustrations to
show their differences compared to their Christian counterparts, by way
of presenting a few features of illuminated pages, i.e. architectonic
structures, letters forming part of the imagery, or letter games etc. Even
70 See n. 51.
156
if these may not be exclusive innovations of Hebrew book art, they still
reflect certain specialities of Jewish religious life in areas such as the
presentation of festive prayers, texts and situations, characters used as
part of the image, and direct illustrations.
Bibliography
Attia, Élodie. The Masorah of Elijah ha-Naqdan. Berlin/Boston: 2015.

Beit-Arié, Malachi. Hebrew Codicology. Jerusalem: 1981.
Beit-Arié, Malachi. The Makings of the Medieval Hebrew Book. Studies in
Palaeography and Codicology. Jerusalem: 1993.
Bräm, Andreas. “L’Évolution de la mise en page et du décor marginal.”
In Les marges à drôleries des manuscrits gothiques, ed. Jean Wirth: 45-47.
Genève: 2008.
Camille, Michael. Image on the Edge. The Margins of Medieval Art. London:
1992.
Camporesi, Piero. Bread of Dreams: Food and Fantasy in Early Modern Europe,
(trans. D. Gentilcore). Chicago: 1989.
Csapodi, Csaba and Csapodiné Klára Gárdonyi. Biblioteca Corviniana. A
Corvina könyvtár története (The History of the Corvinas). Budapest:
Magyar Helikon, Corvina, 21976.
Drabek, Anna. „Judentum und christliche Gesellschaft im hohen und
späten Mittelalter“ In Das österreichische Judentum, ed. Drabek, Häusler,
Schubert, Stuhlpfarrer, Vielmetti, 25-57. Wien, München: 31988.
Elsig, Frédéric. “La ridiculisation du système religieux” In Les marges à
drôleries des manuscrits gothiques (1250-1350), ed. Wirth, 276-326.
Genève: 2008.
Finesinger, Sol Baruch. “Musical Instruments in OT.” Hebrew Union
College Annual, vol. III. (1926): 21-76.
Frojmovic, Eva. “Jewish Scribes and Christian Illuminators.” In Between
Judaism and Christianity, ed. Katrin Kogman-Appel, Mati Meyer, 281-
305. Leiden, Boston: 2008.
Gutmann, Joseph. Buchmalerei in hebräischen Handschriften. München:
Prestel, 1978.
Kogman-Appel, Katrin, Mati Meyer. Between Judaism and Christianity.
Leiden, Boston: 2008.
157
András Borgó
Loewe, Raphael. Introduction notes on the Illuminations. The Rylands Haggadah,

A Medieval Sephardi Masterpiece in Facsimile. London: 1988.
Mellinkoff, Ruth. Antisemitic Hate Signs in Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts
from Medieval Germany. Jerusalem: 1999.
Mortara Ottolenghi, Luisa. “Scribes, Patrons and Artists of Italian
Illuminated Manuscripts in Hebrew.” In Jewish Art (1993/4, vol. 19-
20): 86-97.
Narkiss, Bezalel. Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts. Jerusalem: 21974.
Randall, Lilian M.C. Images in the Margins of Gothic Manuscripts, Berkeley
and Los Angeles: 1966.
Rodov, Ilia. “Dragons: A Symbol of Evil in European Synagogue
Decoration?” Ars Judaica (2005): 63-84.
Románo, David. „Die jüdische Geschichte in den Staaten der Krone
von Aragón“ In Spharadim – Spaniolen. die Juden in Spanien – Die
sephardische Diaspora (Studia Judaica Austriaca XIII, 1992), ed.
Felicitas Heimann-Jelinek, Kurt Schubert. Eisenstadt: 23-44.
Schubert 1983, = Schubert, Ursula und Kurt Schubert. Jüdische Buchkunst,
Erster Teil. Graz: 1983.
Sed-Rajna, Gabrielle. Kaufmann Haggáda, Budapest: 1990.
Shalev-Eyni, Sarit. Kunst als Geschichte. Zur Buchmalerei hebräischer
Handschriften aus dem Bodenseeraum, Trier: 2011.
Yuval, Israel Jacob. Two Nations in Your Womb. Berkeley, Los Angeles,
London: 2006.
Weiss, Ze’ev, Ehud Netzer. Promise and Redemption. A synagogue
Mosaic from Sepphoris. Jerusalem: 1996.
Wirth, Jean. Les marges à drôleries des manuscrits gothiques (1250-
1350), Genève: 2008
Zirlin, Yael. Meir Jaffe and Joel ben Simeon. “Working Relations
between Jewish Scribes and a Christian Atelier.” In Auskunft 26
(2006): 287-294.
158
ANGELA OF FOLIGNO,
IN LOVE, WITH ANIMALS
WILLIAM ROBERT*
“Historians, like the fishes of the sea, regurgitate fragments.”

(Caroline Walker Bynum)
I am following a love-story. Like so many love-stories, this one – Angela

of Foligno’s Memorial – is complicated.1 It is a complicated story, about a
complicated love. Like so many love-stories, this one happens at and
across edges. Edges are where things touch. They are sites of
interactions. Edges enact relations with differences.
The edges involved in this love-story are textual and contextual,
affective and ontological. They are the site of interactions among and
across humans, animals, and a three-in-one God. I am moving obliquely
along these edges, toward one interactive edge – of a God, a human, and
animals – to tell a story about part of a love-story.
Iam telling a story. It is one among many possible stories. And Iam
telling a story that, in Caroline Walker Bynum’s words, “could be told in
another way.”2 The story I am telling is, I know, my story. It is a
* Syracuse University, USA.

1 Memorial, in Angela of Foligno, The Complete Works, trans. Paul Lachance (Mahwah, NJ:
Paulist Press, 1993), 121-218. For convenience, citations of Memorial give page numbers
in English and then Latin texts. For the Latin text, I follow the critical edition in Memoriale,
ed. Enrico Menestò (Firenze, IT: Edizioni Del Galluzzo, 2013), and I modify Lachance’s
translations accordingly. For reasons that I explain, I cite Memorial without authorial
attribution. Memorial uses two ways of counting its twenty-six steps: as twenty steps plus
seven supplementary steps. (Memorial double-counts step #20 as, also, the first
supplementary step.)
2 Caroline Walker Bynum, “In Praise of Fragments: History in the Comic Mode,” in
Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and the Human Body in Medieval Religion (New
York: Zone Books, 1992), 25.
William Robert
contrivance, based on my interests and my interpretive practices. (That

makes me a character in it.)
The story I am telling is doubly partial. It is interested, and it is
incomplete. Working historically, that seems inevitable. “No one of us,”
Bynum writes, “will ever read more than partially, from more than a
particular perspective.”3 And we, Catherine Mooney writes, “must
acknowledge our particular, partial, and circumscribed perspectives.”4
Acknowledging that, I am working historically in a comic mode.
“Comic” here does not mean humorous or pleasant. It means partial,
in both senses. A comic mode is comic, Rachel Fulton and Bruce
Holsinger write, “precisely because it is perspectival and partial.”5 A
comic mode, Bynum writes, “embraces the partial as partial.”6 It
recognizes that, Bynum writes, “there is, in actuality, no ending (happy
or otherwise).”7 An ending – in scholarly terms, an interpretation – is a
comic contrivance.
So is a past. “There is no past,” Fulton and Holsinger write, “except
insofar as we are alive to think about it.”8 A past is shaped, in Fulton’s
and Holsinger’s words, “by our potential as a species and by the stories
that we live and tell.”9
*
Let me offer a bit of backstory: about Angela of Foligno (c. 1248-1309)
and about Memorial.
Angela was a lay Christian woman who became a mystic, a widow,
3 Bynum, “In Praise of Fragments,” 23. “My understanding of the historian’s task,”
Bynum writes, “precludes wholeness” (“In Praise of Fragments,” 14).
4 Catherine M. Mooney, “The Changing Fortunes of Angela of Foligno, Daughter, Wife,
and Mother,” in History in the Comic Mode: Medieval Communities and the Matter of Person, ed.
Rachel Fulton and Bruce W. Holsinger (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007),
67.
5 Rachel Fulton and Bruce W. Holsinger, “History in the Comic Mode,” in History in the
Comic Mode, 281.

6 Bynum, “In Praise of Fragments,” 25. “The comic mode,” Rachel Fulton and Bruce
Holsinger write, “takes fragments qua fragments as its raison d’être, its motivating
inspiration, and its methodological limit” (“History in the Comic Mode,” 281).
7 Bynum, “In Praise of Fragments,” 25.
8 Fulton and Holsinger, “History in the Comic Mode,” 288.
160
Angela of Foligno, in Love, with Animals
and a third-order Franciscan.10 Her subject-position located her along

gendered, sexual, social, and religious edges of her culture. I have
intentionally ordered these subject-positions. The first three affect the
fourth. Angela’s gendered, sexual, and social positions affected her
religious possibilities and performances.11 And they affected Memorial’s
composition and narrative.
As a woman, Angela was, religiously, without institutional authority
or autonomy. Female mystics like Angela, Alison Weber writes,
“struggled with the issue of authority in ways that were not required of
male clerics.”12 That is because, in Angela’s contexts, ecclesiastical and
especially sacerdotal authority was, John Coakley writes, “in the hands of
the friars.”13 So Angela had to rely, religiously, on men. That affected
10 Angela’s backstory is, here, very truncated. For introductions to Angela, see Sergio
Andreoli, “Angela da Foligno,” Consacrazione e Servizio 49, no. 9 (2000): 62-79; Paul
Lachance, “Panorama of the Life and Times,” in Angela of Foligno, The Complete Works,
15-46; Cristina Mazzoni, “Angela of Foligno,” in Medieval Holy Women in the Christian
Tradition c.1100-c.1500, ed. Alastair J. Minnis and Rosalynn Voaden (Turnhout, BE:
Brepols, 2010), 581-600; and Catherine M. Mooney, “Angela of Foligno,” in Women and
Gender in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia, ed. Margaret Schaus (New York, NY:
Routledge, 2006), 21-22. On Angela as a third-order Franciscan, see Sergio Andreoli,
“Una figura emblematica del Terz’Ordine Francescano,” Analecta Tertii Ordinis Regularis
35 (2004): 481-501. For an overview of Christian mysticism, see Amy Hollywood,
introduction to The Cambridge Companion to Christian Mysticism, ed. Amy Hollywood and
Patricia Z. Beckman (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012), esp. 1-8.
11 For a performative reading of parts of Memorial, see Molly Morrison, “A Mystic’s
Drama: The Paschal Mystery in the Visions of Angela da Foligno,” Italica 78, no. 1 (2001):
36-52. Morrison interprets some of Angela’s visions, in Memorial’s fourth and fifth
supplementary steps, “as an ‘acting out’ of the paschal mystery,” in Angela’s body (“A
Mystic’s Drama,” 36). On Angela’s mystical performance as a passionate imitatio, see
Robin O’Sullivan, “Model, Mirror, and Memorial: Imitation of the Passion and the
Annihilation of the Imagination in Angela of Foligno’s Liber and Marguerite Porete’s
Mirouer des simples âmes” (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 2002). On relations of body
and mysticism, see Mary Ann Sagnella, “Carnal Metaphors and Mystical Discourse in
Angela da Foligno’s Liber,” Annali d’Italianistica 13 (1995): 79-90.
12 Alison Weber, “Gender,” in The Cambridge Companion to Christian Mysticism, 317. “In
patriarchal societies,” Weber writes, “this [gendered] binary opposition assigns women
to the place of a depreciated ‘Other,’ whose perceived difference is fundamental for
establishing male identity and dominance” (“Gender,” 316).
13 John Coakley, “Gender and the Authority of the Friars: The Significance of Holy
Women for Thirteenth-Century Franciscans and Dominicans,” Church History 60, no. 4
(1991): 449. For a reading of Angela in her contexts, including Angela’s relation to Francis
of Assisi, see Michel Cazenave, Angèle de Foligno (Paris, FR: Éditions Albin Michel, 2007),
34-87.
161
William Robert
Memorial’s composition and narrative.

From 1285 to 1296, Angela advanced along a multistep mystical
itinerary of an intense, intimate, impassioned relation with divinity. This
itinerary was full of extraordinary experiences. For example, Angela
denuded herself before a cross. She saw eyes appear in eucharistic bread-
bodies. She drank blood from, and later entered, Christ’s side wound.
Angela’s mystical itinerary was crucifixed, on Christ – and Christ’s
humanity. That was a vital element of Franciscan spirituality, especially
in Angela’s contexts.
Memorial tells a story about this itinerary. Whose story is it? That is a
question of interpretation. Memorial has three narrators, three co-
protagonists, and three potential authors: God, Angela, and Brother A.
Brother A was a Franciscan friar and a relative of Angela’s who
became her confessor, counselor, and scribe [scriptor].14 “Brother A, not
Angela,” Catherine Mooney writes, “instigated the recording of her
experiences by compelling her to speak.”15 Memorial, Mooney writes,
“was his [Brother A’s] idea, and the subject matter of Angela’s first
dictated entry was determined by his particular interests.”16
This dictated entry was first compositionally but twentieth narratively.
So, Memorial’s composition, in relation to Angela’s experiential itinerary,
began in mediis rebus. But “dictated” is probably not the best verb to
describe Memorial’s compositional process.
“Trans-scripted” might be better. “Scripted” suggests dramatic
qualities that Brother A infused into Memorial. And “trans” gestures
toward multiple translations occurring in Memorial’s composition. They
involved translational passages from God to Angela to Brother A into
Memorial. And they included translations across languages (Umbrian and
14 Brother A identifies himself in Memorial as Angela’s “confessor and blood-relative

[consanguineas] and even her principal and singular counselor” (Memorial, 136/18-19,
translation modified). He refers to himself throughout Memorial (with one exception) as
“brother scribe [frater scriptor]” (Memorial, 133/15).
15 Catherine M. Mooney, “The Authorial Role of Brother A in the Composition of Angela
of Foligno’s Revelations,” in Creative Women in Medieval and Early Modern Italy: A Religious
and Artistic Renaissance, ed. E. Ann Matter and Joan Coakley (Philadelphia, PA: University
of Pennsylvania Press, 1994), 46. Angela’s “status as a woman,” Mooney writes, “and
especially as confessee to the priest Brother A undoubtedly included her and possibly
even frightened her to respond fully to his demand” (“The Authorial Role of Brother A
in the Composition of Angela of Foligno’s Revelations,” 47).
16 Mooney, “The Authorial Role of Brother A in the Composition of Angela of Foligno’s
Revelations,” 46.
162
Latin), linguistic modes (speech and writing), voices (first-person and

third-person), genres (embodied experience and written text), genders
(feminine and masculine), religious roles (saint and hagiographer),
institutional locations (laywoman and mendicant), penitential relations
(confessee and confessor), and exposures (private and public).
These translations, like any others, interpret. They are interpretations:
Brother A’s interpretations of Angela’s interpretations of her experiential
interactions with God.17 Angela’s interactions, and her body, acted as
texts that she interpreted by telling them to Brother A. Then Brother A
interpreted Angela’s interpretations, via translations, in Memorial.
These translations re-raise compositional questions. Whose text is
Memorial? Brother A questioned Angela. “Questioning her,” Catherine
Mooney writes, “formed part of his standard practice.”18 And questions,
“through their very articulation,” Rachel Fulton and Bruce Holsinger
write, “suggest the form that their answers should take.”19
Brother A suggested topics. He accentuated themes. He interrupted
Angela.20 He pressed Angela for details. Brother made choices and trans-
scripted selectively. He reorganized and renumbered Angela’s itinerant
steps, from thirty into twenty-six.21 “These editorial decisions,” Mooney
writes, “necessarily entail interpretation.”22 For Brother A, interpretation
17 Writing, John Coakley writes, “was for him [Brother A] not simply a matter of
transcribing her [Angela’s] words but of somehow translating them into his
understanding” (“Hagiography and Theology in the Memorial of Angela of Foligno,” in
Women, Men, and Spiritual Power: Female Saints and Their Male Collaborators [New York, NY:
Columbia University Press, 2006], 121).
18 Mooney, “The Authorial Role of Brother A in the Composition of Angela of Foligno’s
Revelations,” 51. Brother A, on Dino Cervigni’s reading, might be called scriptor,

compilator, commentator and questioner (“Angela da Foligno’s Memoriale: The Male Scribe, the
Female Voice, and the Other,” Italica 82, no. 3-4 [2005]: 342).
20 “Those interruptions are, for the friar himself,” Coakley writes, “an essential element
of the work” (“Hagiography and Theology in the Memorial of Angela of Foligno,” 115).
They serve, Coakley writes, “to frame his [Brother A’s] presentation of Angela in terms
of his own perceptions” (“Hagiography and Theology in the Memorial of Angela of
Foligno,” 114). And they make Memorial’s reception part of Memorial’s text.
21 “From the nineteenth step on,” Memorial tells us, “I [Brother a] was not sure how to
distinguish and enumerate the remaining steps. I have been diligent to force [coactare] this
remaining material into seven steps or revelations” (Memorial, 133/15, translation
modified).
22 Mooney, “The Changing Fortunes of Angela of Foligno, Daughter, Wife, and Mother,”
63.
163
William Robert
led to interpolation. He interpolated his voice and made himself a

character in his trans-scripted text.23
So Memorial, I think, retells Angela’s love-story. And it tells Brother
A’s story: the story he decided to tell, about himself and Angela and God
and their relations.24 That dis-locates Angela, to Memorial’s compositional
edges. Angela is on the edges of “her” text. She’s not even named in it.
Memorial refers to her as “Christ’s faithful one [fidelis christi].”
*
With this backstory in place, I will turn, or return, to the story I am
telling: about an animal-edge in Memorial.
This animal-edge comes, in Memorial’s fifth supplementary step, at
relational edges. Memorial’s previous twenty-three steps are, mostly,
ecstatic. They focus on Angela’s passionate relation with God. Memorial’s
last two steps are, mostly, apophatic. They focus on Angela’s fusional
23These interpolations, Coakley writes, “draw the reader’s attention away from Angela’s
narrative itself to his [Brother A’s] own interventions” (“Hagiography and Theology in
the Memorial of Angela of Foligno,” 116). Memorial’s narrative “calls attention to itself,”
Coakley writes, “as the friar’s narrative” (“Hagiography and Theology in the Memorial of
Angela of Foligno,” 120). Brother A’s narrative, Coakley writes, “contains hers [Angela’s]
within it” (“Hagiography and Theology in the Memorial of Angela of Foligno,” 116).
Brother A “speaks as the narrator [of Memorial],” Coakley writes, and “also appears as a
character in the story he tells” (“Hagiography and Theology in the Memorial of Angela of
Foligno,” 122). For an examination of a contemporaneous case in which a male
hagiographer (Thomas of Cantimpré) wrote himself into the story of a female mystic
(Lutgard of Aywières), see Rachel J.D. Smith, Excessive Saints: Gender, Narrative, and
Theological Invention in Thomas of Cantimpré’s Mystical Hagiographies (New York, NY:
Columbia University Press, 2019), 156-79.
24 Memorial “is minimally,” Catherine Mooney writes, “a co-authored text” (“The
Changing Fortunes of Angela of Foligno, Daughter, Wife, and Mother,” 58). But “one
could cogently argue,” Mooney writes, “that he [Brother A] is the sole author of the
Memorial” (“The Changing Fortunes of Angela of Foligno, Daughter, Wife, and Mother,”
58). Brother A “makes clear,” John Coakley writes, “that the words are his, and not
necessarily Angela’s, and that, in this sense, he himself is the writer of the Memorial”
(“Hagiography and Theology in the Memorial of Angela of Foligno,” 120). Brother A’s
authorship of Memorial might raise questions about Angela’s historical existence. For a
reading of Memorial that considers these questions, see Jacques Dalarun, “Angèle de
Foligno a-t-elle existé?,” in Alla signorina: Mélanges offerts à Noëlle de la Blancherdière (Rome,
IT: École Française de Rome, 1995), 59-97.
164
relation with God.25

Memorial’s fifth supplementary step is both: ecstatic and apophatic.
It’s the transition, the hinge, between ekstasis and apophasis as mystical
modes.26 And it’s, mystically, a sexualized hinge. Mystical sexuality is,
Constance Furey writes, “about the intense pleasure and pain that bodies
inflict and receive and about the ecstasy, standing outside oneself, the
breathless arousal and rhythmic satisfactions that come from, and in, this
experience.”27
Memorial recounts this kind of experience in its fifth supplementary
step. Only Holy Saturday 1294, Angela found herself, mystically, with
Christ’s dead body in his sepulcher.28 Their bodies interacted with
eroticized intensity. Christ, still dead, told Angela, “‘Before I was laid in
the sepulcher, I held you to me so substantially [astrictam].’”29 Angela’s
joy, Memorial tells us, “was untellable.”30
This sexual ekstasis satisfied. It passed into apophasis. And it dislocated.
Both ekstasis and apophasis dislocated Angela – but differently. Ekstasis
dislocated Angela corporeally, affectively, temporarily. Apophasis
dislocated Angela subjectively, totally, lastingly. Both realized modes of
mystical sexuality.
25 For more detailed readings of Memorial’s steps, see Coakley, “Hagiography and
Theology in the Memorial of Angela of Foligno,” 117-25; Emily A. Holmes, Flesh Made
Word: Medieval Women Mystics, Writing, and the Incarnation (Waco, TX: Baylor University
Press, 2013), 95-97; and Bernard McGinn, The Flowering of Mysticism: Men and Women in the
New Mysticism (1200–1350) (New York, NY: Crossroad Herder, 1998), 144.
26 This mystical shift also shifts Angela’s role and Memorial’s genre. In Memorial’s last 3
steps, Coakley writes, “she [Angela] appears most clearly in the role of theologian”
(“Hagiography and Theology in the Memorial of Angela of Foligno,” 125). Angela
analyzed her experiences’ meanings. She became reflective and pedagogical. And
Memorial pushed past genre bounds of hagiography or autohagiography, into theology.
That happens in Memorial’s fifth supplementary step. Responding to one of Brother A’s
questions, Angela articulated seven ways in which God, as Pilgrim [peregrinus], comes into
a human soul (Memorial, 187-92/71-76). For an examination of mystical rapture, closely
related to ekstasis, see Dyan Elliott, “Raptus/Rapture,” in The Cambridge Companion to
Christian Mysticism, 189-99.
27 Constance Furey, “Sexuality,” in The Cambridge Companion to Christian Mysticism, 331.
28 For a reading of this date’s performative significance, see Morrison, “A Mystic’s
Drama,” 46-47.
29 Memorial, 182/66 (translation modified).
165
William Robert
This transition happened in loving union.31 In its fifth supplementary

step, Memorial tells us, “from two was made one.”32 This two-made-one
named Angela and God. Their union came, Memorial tells us, through
“the mercy of the one who did the conjoining [coniungimentum].”33
Their conjoining was of wills. Angela, Memorial tells us, “could not
will anything except as he [God] himself willed.”34 Angela’s will had been
dislocated. It had given way to God’s will. Angela’s subjectivity had
started to give way.
This willing union became a loving union. Angela discovered that,
Memorial tells us (in Angela’s voice), “it was not I who loved, even though
I was totally in love, but what loved in me was solely from God.”35
Angela was no longer a loving agent. What loved in Angela was of or
from God. Angela became a vessel, or a portal, but not an agent, of love.
In other words, Angela no longer loved. God loved through Angela.
Angela’s subjectivity gave way further. It was further dislocated. It started
to come undone, in a dislocating, subjective apophasis.36
Another conjoining followed.37 Memorial tells us, in Angela’s voice,
that “God’s love and mine converged [readunavit].”38 That, Memorial tells
us, “conferred a greater and more burning love.”39 This other love, the
most burning of all, was, Memorial tells us, a “deathly love.”40 It pushed
Angela to her amorous, and mortal, edges.
Between these loves – the divinely converged love and the deathly
31 On mystical union, see Bernard McGinn, “Unio Mystica/Mystical Union,” in The

Cambridge Companion to Christian Mysticism, 200-10. On mystical union in Angela’s case, see
Carol Slade, “Alterity in Union: The Mystical Experiences of Angela of Foligno and
Margery Kempe,” Religion and Literature 23, no. 3 (199): 109-26.
32 Memorial, 181/65-66 (translation modified).
34 Memorial, 181/66.
36 For examinations of apophasis in medieval Christian mystical contexts, see Michael A.
Sells, Mystical Languages of Unsaying (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1994); and
Denys Turner, The Darkness of God: Negativity in Christian Mysticism (Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press, 1995).
37 There’s an intervening scene in Memorial: when, on Holy Saturday 1294, Angela finds
herself in the sepulcher with Christ’s dead body. This scene, arguably Memorial’s ecstatic
climax, is complicated and calls for more attention than I can give it here. For one reading
of this scene, see Cazenave, Angèle de Foligno, 287-94.
39 Memorial, 183/67-68 (translation modified).
166
love – was another love, an in-between love “of which,” Memorial tells
us, “nothing can be told.”41 So Angela became an embodied, experiential
vessel for a trinity of loves.42 These loves supervened other experiences,
other discourses, other texts. Undergoing them, Angela wanted to hear
nothing about Christ’s passion, nothing about God’s name, nothing
about the gospels or any other locution. Angela had seen something,
Memorial tells us, “still greater.”43
When these loves left Angela, at this mystical hinge, animals appeared
in Memorial.
And after I [Angela] remain from that love I remain so
contented, so angelic, that I love reptiles [boctos] or toads
[bufones] and serpents [serpentes] and even devils [demones]. And
whatever I see happen, even mortal sin, does not displease
me. I have no displeasure, believing that the just God permits
it. And even if a dog [canis] were to devour me, I would not
care. It does not seem to me that I would suffer pain from
this.44
Here, animals appeared in Memorial when Angela was on edges: an
ecstatic-apophatic edge of her mystical itinerary and a subjective edge of
her identity.45 After her willing and then loving unions, Angela became
no longer only. Angela was no longer only one thing, or one identity. Angela
was no longer only human. Angela was no longer only Angela.
The “I” that remained after this love was not the same “I” as before.
It is not clear who or what this “I” was, because it is not clear who or
what “remains.” This “I” no longer referred to a human subject named
41 Memorial, 184/68 (translation modified). On different senses of love in Memorial, see

Roberto Fusco, Amore e compassione: L’esperienza di Angela da Foligno (Rome, IT: Istituto
Storico dei Cappuccini, 2001).
42 On Memorial’s trinitarian dimensions, see Diane V. Tomkinson, “‘In the Midst of the
Trinity’: Angela of Foligno’s Trinitarian Theology of Communion” (PhD diss., Fordham

University, 2004). We might also read Memorial’s narrative voices – of God, Angela, and
Brother A – as forming a kind of textual trinity.
45 One way to read Angela, particularly on this edge of identity, would be as queer. For a
reading of Angela as queer, see Karma Lochrie, “Mystical Acts, Queer Tendencies,” in
Constructing Medieval Sexuality, ed. Karma Lochrie, Peggy McCracken, and James A. Schultz
(Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1997), 180-200.
167
William Robert
“Angela.” It is no longer clear that there was still a discernible identity

that “Angela” referred to. “Angela” now referred to a textually embodied
location, or dislocation, of loves’ movements.
This “I” that “remains,” following a mystically threeway love, was “so
contented” that displeasure has become impossible.46 Nothing, not even
being devoured by a dog, could make this “I” suffer. That seems, to me,
remarkably nonhuman. And being or becoming nonhuman indicates
different possibilities of relating: with animals, with “I,” with God.
This “I” was now “so angelic.”47 It was on an edge between humanity
and divinity. Being angelic reiterates that Angela’s (or “Angela’s”) divine
union had already begun. Angela’s will and Angela’s love had been
conjoined with, and replaced by, God’s will and God’s love. Angela’s
identity had already come undone.
That seems integral, maybe even causal, to loving these animals. This
“I” who remained after these loves was “so contended, so angelic, that I
love reptiles or toads and serpents and even devils.”48 But “love” here is
not an active verb. It does not name an activity that Angela performs
autonomously. “Love” here names a way of relating that happened, or
passed, through Angela. In this scene in Memorial, God loved animals
through Angela.
And “love” here names more than one thing. Love came to, into, and
through Angela five ways, effecting five dislocations, in this scene. The
first way of love was a gift from God. The second was a conjoining, of
God’s and Angela’s love(s). The third was an immediacy, admitting no
words. The fourth was a deathly passion. The fifth was relations with
animals.
So, loves’ movements, from God and through Angela, engendered
Angela’s loving relations with animals. In loves’ terms, with animals came
only after with God. Here with marks being, in love.
Memorial’s animal-edge, in its fifth supplementary step, is more than
one edge. It is where God’s, Angela’s, and animals’ edges touched,
crossed, mingled – in love – with each other.49 It is where God’s love-
46 Memorial, 184/68 (previously cited).

47 Memorial, 184/68 (previously cited).
48 Memorial, 184/68 (previously cited, my emphasis).
49 In this touching, crossing, and mingling, Angela underwent a transformation. It might
be apophatic, undoing her previous identity. Or it might be metamorphic, changing
168
edge and Angela’s identity-edge interacted with animals. These

interactions opened, for Angela, new possibilities of relating. They
remade Angela’s relational nexus, into another loving trinity: of animals,
with Angela, with God.
*
This loving threesome was really a foursome: with Francis of Assisi.50
Memorial is a markedly Franciscan text. In its contexts, “Franciscan” often
meant “Francis-like.” And Memorial’s itinerary follows a via francisci. It
does so by ways of a via pauperis and a via animalis.
In good Franciscan fashion, Memorial tracks Angela’s desire for
poverty.51 That desire led, Memorial tells us, to Angela’s “stripping myself
of all things, and of all men and women, and of all friends and relatives
and all others, and of my possessions and myself.”52 Angela’s poverty
progressed, and increased, as Memorial’s itinerary advanced. It advanced,
ultimately, into an apophatic process of subjective undoing.
By the time Angela encountered animals, in Memorial’s fifth
Angela into something other. (Or it might be both.) If Angela’s transformation was
metamorphic, Angela might have become a kind of mixture, or even monster. For
explorations of mixtures and monsters in medieval Christian contexts, see Caroline
Walker Bynum, Metamorphosis and Identity (New York, NY: Zone Books, 2005), esp. 113-
62.
50 Francis makes multiple appearances in Memorial. He doesn’t appear textually on
Memorial’s animal-edge. But he appears contextually. On Angela’s relation to Francis of

Assisi, see Bernardo Commodi, Francesco d’Assisi e Angela da Foligno (Assisi, IT: Edizioni
Porziuncola, 2001). On Angela as an alter franciscus, see Sergio Andreoli, Angela da Foligno:
“Alter Franciscus” (Rome, IT: Editrice Franciscanum, 2008).
51 On Angela’s relation to poverty, see Costanzo Cargnoni, “La povertà nella spiritualità
di Angela,” in Vita e spiritualità della Beata Angela da Foligno, ed. Clement Schmitt (Perugia,
IT: Serafica Provincia di San Francesco, 1987), 341-54. For a consideration of this theme
in Angela’s contexts, see Malcolm D. Lambert, Franciscan Poverty: The Doctrine of the Absolute
Poverty of Christ and the Apostles in the Franciscan Order, 1210-1323 (Saint Bonaventure, NY:
Franciscan Institute, 1998). Questions of poverty entwined with contemporaneous issues
related to the Spiritual Franciscans. On the Spiritual Franciscans, see Stefano Brufani,
“Angela da Foligno e gli Spirituali,” in Angela da Foligno terziaria francescana, ed. Enrico
Menestò (Spoleto, IT: Centro Italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, 1992), 83-104; and
David Burr, The Spiritual Franciscans: From Protest to Persecution in the Century After Saint
Francis (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001), esp. 261-77.
Angela, it seems, sympathized with the Spiritual Franciscan movement. And Ubertino of
Casale, a Spiritual Franciscan leader, credited Angela with his conversion.
169
William Robert
supplementary step, she had divested herself of things, of humans, and

of herself. Having stripped herself of everything human, Angela could
relate only to nonhumans: animals and God.
Relations with animals and God, especially together, were hallmarks
of Francis’s life and of Franciscan traditions. Francis understood creation
as, Timothy Johnson writes, “both a sacrament mediating the presence
of God in a tangible fashion and an illuminated text narrating and
depicting the wonders of God.”53
These wonders included animals. For Francis, André Vauchez writes,
“all creatures are worthy of respect because they reflect the All-
Powerful.”54 Francis beheld in animals, Johnson writes, “the beauty of
his Beloved and ascended through the consideration of creatures
upwards to the source of his desire.”55
For Francis, Johnson writes, “men and women are joined in prayerful
ministry by other creatures, who are all brothers and sisters.”56 Naming
animals as siblings recognizes that they, Johnson writes, “are not objects
but subjects in a wide-ranging network of relationships.”57 It also
recognizes animals’ agency.
Francis performed this recognition when he preached to birds. Birds
are not the only animals who appeared in thirteenth-century
hagiographies of Francis. Fish, hares, rabbits, sheep, wolves, and worms
also appeared. Francis’s relations, and so Franciscan traditions, were full
of animals. But Francis’s preaching to birds is the most iconic, and
53 Timothy J. Johnson, “Francis and Creation,” in The Cambridge Companion to Francis of

Assisi, ed. Michael J.P. Robson (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 153.
54 André Vauchez, Francis of Assisi: The Life and Afterlife of a Medieval Saint, trans. Michael
F. Cusato (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), 274. “In his [Francis’s] eyes,”
Vauchez writes, “the human person was not radically distinguishable from animals”
(Francis of Assisi, 274).
55 Johnson, “Francis and Creation,” 149.
56 Johnson, “Francis and Creation,” 143. “Creatures,” Johnson writes, “were called forth
from the shadows by Francis and rendered transparent in the light of God’s grace, and
set free to reclaim their divine birthright as brothers and sisters to humanity” (“Francis
and Creation,” 156).
57 Johnson, “Francis and Creation,” 145. Francis best articulated this vision in his Canticle
of the Creatures, in Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, vol. 1, ed. Regis J. Armstrong, J.A.
Wayne Hellmann, and William J. Short (New York, NY: New City Press, 2001), 113-14.
Canticle of the Creatures, André Vauchez writes, “constitutes a kind of ‘mass for the world’
spoken by Francis while joining himself to the cosmic office sung by nature” (Francis of
Assisi, 281).
170
canonic, of Francis’s interactions with animals. This episode appears in

Thomas of Celano’s Life of Saint Francis, in Henri of Avranche’s Versified
Life of Saint Francis, and in Bonaventure of Bagnoregio’s Major Legend of
Saint Francis.58 It is an episode of Francis’s loving interaction with
animals.
Memorial’s animal-edge, already more than one edge, is also a
contextual, Franciscan edge. Angela’s loving relations with animals
followed a Franciscan tradition of via animalis as via francisci. Loving
animals located Angela in a Franciscan lineage, performing a Franciscan
act. In this scene in Memorial, Angela was, in love, with animals.
So, the story I am telling, about part of Memorial’s love-story, is also a
Franciscan story. It is a story of loving relations across divine, human,
animal divisions.
References
Andreoli, Sergio. “Angela da Foligno.” Consacrazione e Servizio 49, no. 9

(2000): 62-79.
Andreoli, Sergio. Angela da Foligno: “Alter Franciscus.” Rome, IT: Editrice
Franciscanum, 2008.
Andreoli, Sergio. “Una figura emblematica del Terz’Ordine
Francescano.” Analecta Tertii Ordinis Regularis 35 (2004): 481—501.
Angela of Foligno. The Complete Works. Translated by Paul Lachance.
Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1993.
Angela of Foligno. Memoriale. Edited by Enrico Menestò. Firenze, IT:
Edizioni Del Galluzzo, 2013.
Armstrong, Regis J., J.A. Wayne Hellmann, and William J. Short, eds.
Francis of Assisi: Early Documents. Vol. 1. New York, NY: New City
Press, 2001.
58 Thomas of Celano, Life of Saint Francis, in Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, vol. 1, 234-
35; Henri of Avranches, Versified Life of Saint Francis, in Francis of Assisi: Early Documents,
vol. 1, 488-90; and Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, Major Legend of Saint Francis, in Francis of
Assisi: Early Documents, vol. 2, ed. Regis J. Armstrong, J.A. Wayne Hellmann, and William
J. Short (New York, NY: New City Press, 2000), 592-93. “When we read the medieval
Lives of the Poor Man of Assisi,” André Vauchez writes, “we are struck by the place that
animals have there” (Francis of Assisi, 271). In Bonaventure’s text, Timothy Johnson
writes, “every creature is then a syllabus in a song, or a vestige of God, a word in the
Book of Creation” (“Francis and Creation,” 152).
171
William Robert
Brufani, Stefano. “Angela da Foligno e gli Spirituali.” In Angela da Foligno

terziaria francescana, ed. Enrico Menestò, 83–104. Spoleto, IT: Centro
Italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, 1992.
Burr, David. The Spiritual Franciscans: From Protest to Persecution in the Century
After Saint Francis. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University
Press, 2001.
Bynum, Caroline Walker. Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender
and the Human Body in Medieval Religion. New York: Zone Books, 1992.
Bynum, Caroline Walker. Metamorphosis and Identity. New York, NY: Zone
Books, 2005.
Cargnoni, Costanzo. “La povertà nella spiritualità di Angela.” In Vita e
spiritualità della Beata Angela da Foligno, ed. Clement Schmitt, 341–54.
Perugia, IT: Serafica Provincia di San Francesco, 1987.
Cazenave, Michel. Angèle de Foligno. Paris, FR: Éditions Albin Michel,
2007.
Cervigni, Dino S. “Angela da Foligno’s Memoriale: The Male Scribe, the
Female Voice, and the Other.” Italica 82, no. 3-4 (2005): 339–55.
Coakley, John. “Gender and the Authority of the Friars: The Significance
of Holy Women for Thirteenth-Century Franciscans and
Dominicans.” Church History 60, no. 4 (1991): 445–60.
Coakley, John. Women, Men, and Spiritual Power: Female Saints and Their Male
Collaborators. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2006.
Commodi, Bernardo. Francesco d’Assisi e Angela da Foligno. Assisi, IT:
Edizioni Porziuncola, 2001.
Dalarun, Jacques. “Angèle de Foligno a-t-elle existé?” In “Alla signorina”:
Mélanges offerts à Noëlle de la Blancherdière, 59–97. Rome, IT: École
Française de Rome, 1995.
Elliott, Dyan “Raptus/Rapture.” in The The Cambridge Companion to
Christian Mysticism, ed. Amy Hollywood and Patricia Z. Beckman,
189–99. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Fulton, Rachel, and Bruce W. Holsinger. “History in the Comic Mode.”
In History in the Comic Mode: Medieval Communities and the Matter of Person,
ed. Rachel Fulton and Bruce W. Holsinger, 279–92. New York:
Collumbia University Press, 2007.
Fusco, Roberto. Amore e compassione: L’esperienza di Angela da Foligno.
Rome, IT: Istituto Storico dei Cappuccini, 2001.
172
Furey, Constance M. “Sexuality.” In The The Cambridge Companion to

Christian Mysticism, ed. Amy Hollywood and Patricia Z. Beckman,
328–40. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Hollywood, Amy. Introduction to The Cambridge Companion to Christian
Mysticism, ed. Amy Hollywood and Patricia Z. Beckman, 1–33.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Holmes, Emily A. Flesh Made Word: Medieval Women Mystics, Writing, and
the Incarnation. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2013.
Johnson, Timothy J. “Francis and Creation.” In The Cambridge Companion
to Francis of Assisi, ed. Michael J.P. Robson, 143–58. Cambridge, UK:
Lambert, Malcolm D. Franciscan Poverty: The Doctrine of the Absolute Poverty
of Christ and the Apostles in the Franciscan Order, 1210-1323. Saint
Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute, 1998.
Lochrie, Karma. “Mystical Acts, Queer Tendencies.” In Constructing
Medieval Sexuality, ed. Karma Lochrie, Peggy McCracken, and James
A. Schultz, 180–200. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota
Press, 1997.
Mazzoni, Cristina. “Angela of Foligno.” In Medieval Holy Women in the
Christian Tradition c.1100-c.1500, ed. Alastair J. Minnis and Rosalynn
Voaden, 581–600. Turnhout, BE: Brepols, 2010.
McGinn, Bernard. The Flowering of Mysticism: Men and Women in the New
Mysticism (1200–1350). New York, NY: Crossroad Herder, 1998.
McGinn, Bernard. “Unio Mystica/Mystical Union.” In The Cambridge
Companion to Christian Mysticism, ed. Amy Hollywood and Patricia Z.
Beckman, 200–10. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press,
2012.
Mooney, Catherine M. “Angela of Foligno.” In Women and Gender in
Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia, ed. Margaret Schaus, 21–22. New
York, NY: Routledge, 2006.
Mooney, Catherine M. “The Authorial Role of Brother A in the
Composition of Angela of Foligno’s Revelations.” In Creative Women
in Medieval and Early Modern Italy: A Religious and Artistic Renaissance, ed.
E. Ann Matter and Joan Coakley, 34–63. Philadelphia, PA: University
of Pennsylvania Press, 1994.
Mooney, Catherine M. “The Changing Fortunes of Angela of Foligno,
Daughter, Wife, and Mother.” In History in the Comic Mode: Medieval
Communities and the Matter of Person, ed. Rachel Fulton and Bruce W.
173
William Robert
Holsinger, 56–67. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.

Morrison, Molly. “A Mystic’s Drama: The Paschal Mystery in the Visions
of Angela da Foligno.” Italica 78, no. 1 (2001): 36–52.
O’Sullivan, Robin. “Model, Mirror, and Memorial: Imitation of the
Passion and the Annihilation of the Imagination in Angela of
Foligno’s Liber and Marguerite Porete’s Mirouer des simples âmes.” PhD
diss., University of Chicago, 2002.
Sagnella, Mary Ann. “Carnal Metaphors and Mystical Discourse in
Angela da Foligno’s Liber.” Annali d’Italianistica 13 (1995): 79–90.
Sells, Michael A. Mystical Languages of Unsaying. Chicago, IL: University of
Chicago Press, 1994.
Slade, Carol. “Alterity in Union: The Mystical Experiences of Angela of
Foligno and Margery Kempe.” Religion and Literature 23, no. 3 (199):
109–26.
Smith, Rachel J.D. Excessive Saints: Gender, Narrative, and Theological
Invention in Thomas of Cantimpré’s Mystical Hagiographies. New York, NY:
Columbia University Press, 2019.
Tomkinson, Diane V. “‘In the Midst of the Trinity’: Angela of Foligno’s
Trinitarian Theology of Communion.” (PhD diss., Fordham
University, 2004.
Turner, Denys. The Darkness of God: Negativity in Christian Mysticism.
Vauchez, André. Francis of Assisi: The Life and Afterlife of a Medieval Saint.
Translated by Michael F. Cusato. New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 2012.
Weber, Alison. “Gender.” In The Cambridge Companion to Christian
Mysticism, ed. Amy Hollywood and Patricia Z. Beckman, 315–27.
174
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
CORAL LUMBLEY, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of English at

Macalester College, where she teaches courses on global medieval literary
history and culture. Her research focuses on Welsh literature and its
resistance to English colonialism, race in the Middle Ages, and medieval
animals. Recent publication venues for her work include Journal of World
Literature, Literature Compass, postmedieval, and the Journal of English and
Germanic Philology.
ETLEVA LALA has a Ph.D. in Medieval Studies from the Central

European University. Her Ph.D. thesis “Regnum Albaniae and the Holy
See: The Western Visions of a Borderline Nobility” was largely based on
her archival research in the Vatican Apostolic Archives. Since 2012, Dr.
Lala has been teaching at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary
and since 2022 Latin Palaeography at the Summer Schools organized by
the University of Tirana. Starting from Oct. 2023, Dr. Lala is invited to
teach as a visiting professor at the University of Regensburg.
ANTHA COTTEN-SPRECKELMEYER holds a Ph.D. in Old and

Middle English literature. She regularly presents and publishes on early
English religious poetry and the medieval figure of Robin Hood. She is
a member of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University
of Kansas where she teaches courses in World Literature and Western
Civilization.
MAXIMILIAN WICK studied comparative and German literature at the

Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt am Main, where he also completed his
doctorate in 2020. From 2016 to 2019, he was as a research fellow at the
LMU München with the DFG-funded FOR 1986 project, Natur in
politischen Ordnungsentwürfen: Antike – Mittelalter – Frühe Neuzeit. From 2019
William Robert
to 2021, he was a research assistant at the Goethe-Universität, and from

2021 to 2023 at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum. After returning to
Frankfurt am Main, he is currently a post-doctoral researcher at the
Goethe-Universität.
KIWAKO OGATA, PhD, is Professor at the Art Studies Department,

Okinawa Prefectural University of Arts, Japan. She has a PhD (history,
art history and archaeology) from the Université Libre de Bruxelles with
her thesis “Elephant in Antiquity and the Middle Ages.” Her publications
include: Monsters in church: Iconology of the Romanesque (in Japanese) (Tokyo,
Kōdansha, 2013), “From the Wonder to the Warning: The
Representation of Monsters in the West,” in Yōkai of East, Monsters of West
(in Japanese) (ed. Kazuo Tokuda, Tokyo, Bensei Shuppan, 2018),
“Migration of Fantastic Creatures: The Stories of the Pygmaioi and
Cranes,” in Fantastic Beasts in Antiquity: Looking for the Monster, discovering
the Human (eds. Sarah Béthume and Paolo Tomassini, Louvain-la-Neuve,
Presses Universitaires de Louvain, 2021).
ANDRÁS BORGÓ studied violin at the Academy of Music of Budapest,

Hungary and then musicology and art history at the University of
Innsbruck, Austria, where he gained his PhD. As a researcher, he is
working on the music of minorities in Central Europe and on the
iconography of music in Hebrew manuscripts.
WILLIAM ROBERT, PhD, is professor and chair of religion at Syracuse

University.
176

Animals On The Edge - Ebook

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Animals On The Edge - Ebook

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Animals on the Edge in NLW MS Peniarth 32 15

The Goat of Scanderbeg 41

Semper asellus erit? Hybrid Animals in Nigel de Longchamps’

Beasts along Boundaries: Elephants in the Medieval West 103

Animals on the Edge of Late Medieval Hebrew Manuscripts 135

Angela of Foligno, in Love, with Animals 159

Notes on Contributors 175

Hark! Hark! His matin praise

2/1 (2011): 1--12.

Professor Gerhard Jaritz,

GERHARD JARITZ is professor emeritus at the Department of Medieval

in Medieval Europe, ed. Aleksander Pluskowski et al., Animals as Material Culture 3

movement, and the exploitation and killing of animals, in general, have a

Hebrew traditions and Christian traditions. Borgo presents some

notion of the materiality of the image can also be connected to the

of multiple meanings. In Ogata’s article, the elephant acts as an

1 Macalester College, USA.

concerned with hunting dogs.2

II. Manuscript, Text, and Marginalia

archives.library.wales/index.php/y-llyfr-teg. Accessed 11/19/2021.

X91; 1-112); an abbreviated version of the Latin chronicle Epitome

11 “Peniarth 32: An Electronic Edition, TEI Header.”

information in “Peniarth 32: An Electronic Edition, TEI Header.”

Cited in Ben Guy, “Epitome Historia Britanniae”, Welsh Chronicles, croniclau.bangor.ac.

Iorwerth recension of Cyfraith is attributed to Llywellyn ap Iorwerth of

There is a professional regularity to X91’s portion of Peniarth 32, which

28 Sara Elin Roberts, “Iorwerth”, Cyfraith Hywel, http://www.cyfraith-hywel.org.uk/

Table 1. Naturalistic Marginalia, NLW Peniarth 32

Marginal Image Folium

32 Huws makes this suggestion about Hywel on 106.

and one creature, possibly a dog, in Peniarth 19.36 He or another scribe

III. Word-Licking Dogs

Fig. 1. Word-Licking Dog 1, f. 64r.

Fig. 2. Word-licking Dog 2,

Fig. 3. Word-licking Dog 3,

Dog 1 of f. 64r, or page 128, (Fig. 1) appears in the right margin of

Line 26: Pob prenn ny ordiwedho frwyth; pedeir

Line 23: O d[eruyd] torri llog kyn talu toll o honei;

IV. Theorizing Signs

47 William H. Sherman, Used Books: Marking Readers in Renaissance England (Philadelphia,

“phallic pointers” or “sprout[ed] leaves and flowers”.52 These signs bleed

52 Sherman, Used Books, 37.

operate as a nearly universally-recognized visual sign meaning “look

Press, 2003), 12.

ms24/f19r. Accessed 8 June 2022.

on universal confession. However, Aesop’s ancient claim that dogs will

59 Aberdeen Bestiary, f. 19v.

unpublished dissertation (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2017), 38.

Scribe X91’s word-licking dogs sport collars, indicating their tamed,

63 Carruthers, The Book of Memory, 323-24.

thinking of a past or future hunt. The addition of collars (and their

Huws, Daniel. Medieval Welsh Manuscripts. Cardiff, UK: University of

Roberts, Sara Elin. “Iorwerth.” Cyfraith Hywel. http://www.cyfraith-

I. The Helmet of Scanderbeg with the Horned Goat on It

* Eötvös Loránd University, Department of History of Eastern Europe, Hungary.

Castello, 1904), 148-149: pileum ensemque militarem.

commanding significance in the history of fifteenth-century

Wolfgang of Stubenberg (ϯ1597), whereas the other sword was in the

Fig. 1. The Helmet of Scanderbeg

6 Matthias Pfaffenbichler, “L’elmo e la spada di Giorgio Castriota detto Scanderbeg,”

namely a gesture of humiliation and distrust on the part of Pope Paul II

II. The Goat and Its Symbolic Meaning to Scanderbeg