Animal Languages in the Middle Ages: Representations of Interspecies Communication (The New Middle Ages)

The essays in this interdisciplinary volume explore language, broadly construed, as part of the continued interrogation of the boundaries of human and nonhuman animals in the Middle Ages. Uniting a diverse set of emerging and established scholars, __Animal Languages__ questions the assumed medieval distinction between humans and other animals. The chapters point to the wealth of non-human communicative and discursive forms through which animals function both as vehicles for human meaning and as agents of their own, demonstrating the significance of human and non-human interaction in medieval texts, particularly for engaging with the Other. The book ultimately considers the ramifications of deconstructing the medieval anthropocentric view of language for the broader question of human singularity. Acknowledgements 6 Contents 8 Notes on Contributors 11 List of Figures 14 Chapter 1: Introduction 15 Part I: Communicating Through Animals 19 Part II: Recovering Animal Languages 20 Part III: Embodied Language and Interspecies Dependence 21 Part I: Communicating Through Animals 24 Chapter 2: Becoming-Birds: The Destabilizing Use of Gendered Animal Imagery in Ancrene Wisse 25 I 26 II 29 III 32 IV 36 Chapter 3: “As faucon comen out of muwe”: Female Agency and the Language of Falconry 43 Chapter 4: Saints and Holy Beasts: Pious Animals in Early-Medieval Insular Saints’ Vitae 63 Chapter 5: The Speech of Strangers: The Tale of the Andalusi Phoenix 81 Part II: Recovering Animal Languages 100 Chapter 6: Bark Like a Man: Performance, Identity, and Boundary in Old English Animal Voice Catalogues 101 Chapter 7: In Briddes Wise: Chaucer’s Avian Poetics 122 Chapter 8: Understanding Hawk-Latin: Animal Language and Universal Rhetoric 142 An Unstable Boundary 144 Presence Speaks 146 Significant Squawks 148 Necessary Misapplication 151 Conclusion: Possibilities and Necessities 156 Chapter 9: “Dites le mei, si ferez bien”: Fallen Language and Animal Communication in Bisclavret 162 Part III: Embodied Language and Interspecies Dependence 181 Chapter 10: On Equine Language: Jordanus Rufus and Thirteenth-Century Communicative Horsemanship 182 Adopting Equine Language: Communication as Consideration 188 Between Abuse and Communication: Adding Human Tools to Horse Language 195 Harmonious Horsemanship: Mutual Understanding as a Path to Partnership 199 Chapter 11: No Hoof, No Horse: Hoof Care, Veterinary Manuals, and Cross-Species Communication in Late Medieval England 203 Chapter 12: Medieval Dog Whisperers: The Poetics of Rehabilitation 222 Chapter 13: Embodied Emotion as Animal Language in Le Chevalier au Lion 240 Index 265 Front Matter ....Pages i-xv Introduction (Alison Langdon)....Pages 1-9 Front Matter ....Pages 11-11 Becoming-Birds: The Destabilizing Use of Gendered Animal Imagery in Ancrene Wisse (Iva Jevtić)....Pages 13-30 “As faucon comen out of muwe”: Female Agency and the Language of Falconry (Sara Petrosillo)....Pages 31-50 Saints and Holy Beasts: Pious Animals in Early-Medieval Insular Saints’ Vitae (Sally Shockro)....Pages 51-68 The Speech of Strangers: The Tale of the Andalusi Phoenix (Michelle M. Hamilton)....Pages 69-87 Front Matter ....Pages 89-89 Bark Like a Man: Performance, Identity, and Boundary in Old English Animal Voice Catalogues (Robert Stanton)....Pages 91-111 In Briddes Wise: Chaucer’s Avian Poetics (Angela Jane Weisl)....Pages 113-132 Understanding Hawk-Latin: Animal Language and Universal Rhetoric (Carolynn Van Dyke)....Pages 133-152 “Dites le mei, si ferez bien”: Fallen Language and Animal Communication in Bisclavret (Alison Langdon)....Pages 153-171 Front Matter ....Pages 173-173 On Equine Language: Jordanus Rufus and Thirteenth-Century Communicative Horsemanship (Elizabeth S. Leet)....Pages 175-195 No Hoof, No Horse: Hoof Care, Veterinary Manuals, and Cross-Species Communication in Late Medieval England (Francine McGregor)....Pages 197-215 Medieval Dog Whisperers: The Poetics of Rehabilitation (Jamie C. Fumo)....Pages 217-234 Embodied Emotion as Animal Language in Le Chevalier au Lion (Monica Antoinette Ehrlich)....Pages 235-259 Back Matter ....Pages 261-272