Animal Husbandry: Bestiality in Medieval Culture

Buch | Hardcover

296 Seiten

2025
Brill (Verlag)
978-90-04-42966-6 (ISBN)

Artikel merken

Bestiality is always fraught with great meaning. Depending on the context, having sex with an animal may contaminate a man or bless him, give him offspring that are demigods or monsters, condemn him to death or make him a king.

How was bestiality perceived in the Middle Ages? The answer is far from simple. Depending on the context, it might be a kingmaking ritual, a boys’ game, a pact with the devil, a peccadillo or a capital offense. As dangerous as it could be to be suspected by one’s own neighbors of committing bestiality, medieval literature and art are full of often exhilarating erotic interspecies encounters. In the end, this volume suggests that there is a zoophilic streak in all humans – the medievals as well as ourselves.

Contributors are Crystal Beamer, Bailey Flannery, Katherine Leach, Marian E. Polhill, Anna Russakoff, Joyce E. Salisbury, Andrea Schutz,
Jacqueline A. Stuhmiller, Larissa Tracy, and Tess Wingard.

Jacqueline A. Stuhmiller, Ph.D. (2005), Cornell University, is Associate Teaching Professor in the Honors College at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She has published articles on medieval hunting and poaching, trial by combat, and giants.

Acknowledgments

PrefaceIi

List of Figures

List of Contributors

Introduction: the Stallion and the Unicorn, or, Animal Lovers

Jacqueline A. Stuhmiller

Part 1: Bestiality in Theory

1 Contra naturam: Bestiality in Medieval Scientific Discourse

Marian E. Polhill

2 “Between the Paws of a Tender Wolf”: Medieval Influences and Other Tales (Un)Told in Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber

Bailey Flannery

Part 2: Bestiality in Practice

3 The Animality of Man: Sexual Transgression and Animal Transformation in a Middle Welsh Prose Tale

Katherine Leach

4 Bestiality, Confession and Social Control in Late Medieval England

Tess Wingard

5 Bestial Intercourse in Cheuelere Assigne

Crystal Beamer

Part 3: Marrying the Beast

6 Sympathizing with the Werewolf’s Wife: the Dynamics of Trust, Betrayal, and Bestiality in Bisclavret

Larissa Tracy

7 “Wulf, min wulf”: Animal Others and Animal Lovers in “Wulf and Eadwacer”

Andrea Schutz

Part 4: The Pleasures of Bestiality

8 Bestiality in Medieval Art: Cross-cultural Reflections on a Lascivious Lacuna

Anna Russakoff

9 “Shame to Him Who Thinks Evil”: the Deviant Pleasures of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Jacqueline A. Stuhmiller

Conclusion: Bestiality: Some Things Stay the Same. …

Joyce E. Salisbury

Bibliography 267

Index 275

Erscheinungsdatum	24.06.2025
Reihe/Serie	Explorations in Medieval Culture ; 26
Verlagsort	Leiden
Sprache	englisch
Maße	155 x 235 mm
Gewicht	617 g
Themenwelt	Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Mittelalter
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Ethnologie
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
ISBN-10	90-04-42966-2 / 9004429662
ISBN-13	978-90-04-42966-6 / 9789004429666
Zustand	Neuware