Kathryn L. Smithies (Author)
University of Wales Press
Physical Details: 128
Language: English
Introducing the Medieval Ass presents a lucid, accessible, and comprehensive picture of the enormous socioeconomic and cultural significance of the ass, or donkey, in the Middle Ages and beyond. In medieval times, the ass was a vital, utilitarian beast of burden, rather like ubiquitous white delivery vans today. At the same time, however, the ass had a rich, paradoxical reputation. Its hard work was praised but its obstinacy condemned. It exemplified the good Christian, humbly bearing Christ to Jerusalem, but also represented sloth, a mortal sin. It had a potent sexual reputation—in one literary work, an ass had sex with a woman—even as it was simultaneously linked to sterility. Over time, the ass also became synonymous with human idiocy, a comic figure representing foolish peasants, students too dull to learn, and their asinine teachers. This trope of foolishness was so prevalent that by the eighteenth century the word “ass” began to be replaced by “donkey.” Introducing the Medieval Ass offers a wide-ranging account of the importance, and often surprising cultural prevalence, of this common domesticated animal.
...MoreReview John Block Friedman (2022) Review of "Introducing the Medieval Dragon". Archives of Natural History (pp. 218-219).
Similar Citations
Book
Thomas Honegger;
(2020)
Introducing the Medieval Dragon
(/isis/citation/CBB573529632/)
Article
Anne Milne;
(2016)
The pollen of metaphor: Box, cage, and trap as containment in the eighteenth century
(/isis/citation/CBB685686051/)
Book
Kemp, Martin;
(2007)
The Human Animal in Western Art and Science
(/isis/citation/CBB000773341/)
Book
Kalof, Linda;
Pohl-Resl, Brigitte;
(2007)
A Cultural History of Animals
(/isis/citation/CBB001033492/)
Book
Jeff Karnicky;
(2016)
Scarlet Experiment: Birds and Humans in America
(/isis/citation/CBB488937827/)
Book
Salisbury, Joyce E.;
(2011)
The Beast Within: Animals in the Middle Ages
(/isis/citation/CBB001033386/)
Chapter
Bruckner, Matilda Tomaryn;
(2013)
The Lady and the Dragon in Chrétien's Chevalier au lion
(/isis/citation/CBB001201719/)
Book
Cribb, Robert. B.;
Gilbert, Helen;
Tiffin, Helen;
(2014)
Wild Man from Borneo: A Cultural History of the Orangutan
(/isis/citation/CBB001552198/)
Thesis
A. V. Aylin Malcolm;
(2023)
Every Living Soul: Literature and Zoology in England, 1100–1400
(/isis/citation/CBB566382843/)
Book
Animal Studies Group, ;
(2006)
Killing Animals
(/isis/citation/CBB000774293/)
Chapter
Guynn, Noah D.;
(2013)
Hybridity, Ethics, and Gender in Two Old French Werewolf Tales
(/isis/citation/CBB001201721/)
Chapter
McCracken, Peggy;
(2013)
Nursing Animals and Cross-Species Intimacy
(/isis/citation/CBB001201718/)
Book
Crane, Susan;
(2013)
Animal Encounters: Contacts and Concepts in Medieval Britain
(/isis/citation/CBB001201601/)
Book
Obermaier, Sabine;
(2009)
Tiere und Fabelwesen im Mittelalter
(/isis/citation/CBB001200352/)
Thesis
Steel, Karl;
(2007)
Defining the Human: Medieval Discourses and Practices of Animal Subjugation
(/isis/citation/CBB001560612/)
Article
Stijn De Cauwer;
Kim Hendrickx;
(2017)
Introduction: Immunity, Society, and the Arts
(/isis/citation/CBB177523472/)
Book
Howard Marchitello;
Evelyn Tribble;
(2017)
The Palgrave Handbook of Early Modern Literature and Science
(/isis/citation/CBB406832825/)
Thesis
Julie Mccormick Weng;
(2016)
Irish Modernism and the Machine
(/isis/citation/CBB846154995/)
Article
Mangoubi, Sandra;
(2001)
La surdité volontaire de l'aspic. Un cas exemplaire du bestiaire augustinien
(/isis/citation/CBB000640604/)
Article
Andrea Rabassini;
(2004)
L'ombra della iena. Un animale magico nella cultura filosofica del Rinascimento
(/isis/citation/CBB270297435/)
Be the first to comment!