tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4176769156825838190.post3492734023532002229..comments2022-04-11T01:28:17.873-07:00Comments on A Blog of Beasts!: Participants or Possessions Animals in the Middle Ageshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10809281152134119502noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4176769156825838190.post-71239841909756351802015-04-27T11:59:45.885-07:002015-04-27T11:59:45.885-07:00While it is temping to approach this topic—what we...While it is temping to approach this topic—what were sheep in relation to people in the Middle Ages?—by imposing guidelines on types of relationships between sheep and people, it may also be instructive to approach the topic from a different, less categorical point of view. That is to say, imposing two categories on these types of relationships—participants or possessions—can leave out the nuanced ways in which sheep and people interacted. Taking the relationships out of these strict categories can allow the relationships brought up both by the previous commenter and by Professor Fulton Brown to be considered. It is perhaps better to consider us and animals, and those relationships that come when species meet, on a continuum. Some medieval philosophers thought this way. As we have seen, both in medieval times and today, all of the boundaries that exist between humans and animals are not natural—they are constructed by the humans themselves. What sort of human/animal understanding could we come to if we did not categorize animals as so strictly different from ourselves, or in relationship to ourselves, e.g. participants or possessions? It seems like, if this were to be done, a significant impact would be felt by human beings. But to return to the question of sheep’s psychology. Does the assignment of psychological value or qualities—companionship, loyalty, depression—influence how we categorize animals? To conceptualize the animal outside of the category that we have assigned to it is troubling or puzzling—but is it troubling in and of itself or because it forces us to change our conceptualization of the world?<br /><br />--RABUnknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10515550350379427700noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4176769156825838190.post-62596200885730026102015-04-27T07:39:12.999-07:002015-04-27T07:39:12.999-07:00Very nice reflection on how much we can tell from ...Very nice reflection on how much we can tell from our records about how much medieval shepherds thought about the feelings of their sheep! The difficulty here, as with all our sources, is that we cannot assume that medieval shepherds or estate managers did not worry about their sheep getting homesick or being affected by bad shepherding simply because they did not write about it. Stephanie is right to worry about imputing modern concerns onto medieval practices, but there is also the possibility to consider that we have the concerns that we do as heirs of these practices--i.e. might it not be the case that we (in the Anglophone world) worry about the feelings of sheep is because estate managers like Walter did, too? Very good use of our readings to puzzle over a tricky question! RLFBAnimals in the Middle Ageshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10809281152134119502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4176769156825838190.post-59062976222505822122015-04-20T22:04:34.859-07:002015-04-20T22:04:34.859-07:00I find your discussion of Stone’s passage interest...I find your discussion of Stone’s passage interesting from an animal studies and multispecies ethnography point of view. I'm glad you brought this to our attention, since I entirely missed it when reading, and I think it’s something we should likely take note of more often. We have been speaking a great deal about the uses of animals, the interpretations of animals, but very little about the experiences of the animals themselves, and it’s encouraging to see an author in here give that some sort of consideration, even if only in a line about how the Black Death may have affected them as well. However, I also think you may be right to question whether this sort of attention that we (and Stone) might be inclined to give to the experiences of animals is something that would have shown up in the medieval world. I think you may be right that we should be careful in subscribing a great deal of what we might call "anthropomorphizing" tendencies to medieval shepherds, but on the other hand, as we saw in our discussion of animal cruelty last week, medieval relationships with animals were obviously complicated and potentially counterintuitive from a modern perspective. You mentioned already in your post our conversation about why medieval people may not have eaten horses; I am not sure, though, whether I entirely agree with your distinction between participants and utility animals (though I have the advantage of another day’s readings here). As we saw in the next class, horses often were eaten, at least in Scotland, and they were also regularly skinned. Dogs and cats were eaten and skinned as well. Cats were both loved as pets and tortured for fun. We may be tempted to force some sort of logical distinction between the types of animals that were there for pure utility and those who had some greater participation and emotional clout, but I’m not entirely sure that one is really there. I also think it may be questionable to assign participant agency to horses, though I think I see what you are getting at with the emotional ties and companion aspect- but then you are simultaneously removing the possibility of that emotional companionship role from sheep, which I’m not sure that we can do with any certainty (without asking a medieval shepherd), if that makes sense.<br /> I am really glad that you brought up Walter of Henley- as I was reading your post, he was pretty much all that I was thinking about. In class discussion that day, I actually meant to bring up (and maybe did- memory is fleeting) how startled I was by how thoughtful and, to risk a wildly anachronistic term, sustainable his agricultural advice was. I cannot say that his advice is modern, however, given that our policies since the industrial age at least have been very much the opposite, as seen in the factory farming industry. I suppose Sir Walter’s advice to actually invest in the well-being of one’s land and animals is a bit of a depressing alert that it has been our instinct to go for the short-term profit rather than the long-term gain since medieval times- but also that people have been advising against it since then, so that’s something!<br />SG<br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09133768034655937283noreply@blogger.com