How to Make a Human: Animals and Violence in the Middle Ages (Interventions: New Studies in Medieval Culture)

__How to Make a Human: Animals and Violence in the Middle Ages__ tracks human attempts to cordon humans off from other life through a wide range of medieval texts and practices, including encyclopedias, dietary guides, resurrection doctrine, cannibal narrative, butchery law, boar-hunting, and teratology. Karl Steel argues that the human subjugation of animals played an essential role in the medieval concept of the human. In their works and habits, humans tried to distinguish themselves from other animals by claiming that humans alone among worldly creatures possess language, reason, culture, and, above all, an immortal soul and resurrectable body. Humans convinced themselves of this difference by observing that animals routinely suffer degradation at the hands of humans. Since the categories of human and animal were both a retroactive and relative effect of domination, no human could forgo his human privileges without abandoning himself. Medieval arguments for both human particularity and the unique sanctity of human life have persisted into the modern age despite the insights of Darwin. __How to Make a Human__ joins with other works in critical animal theory to unsettle human pretensions in the hopes of training humans to cease to project, and to defend, their human selves against other animals. "How to Make a Human: Animals and Violence in the Middle Ages tracks human attempts to cordon humans off from other life through a wide range of medieval texts and practices, including encyclopedias, dietary guides, resurrection doctrine, cannibal narrative, butchery law, boar-hunting, and teratology. Karl Steel argues that the human subjugation of animals played an essential role in the medieval concept of the human. In their works and habits, humans tried to distinguish themselves from other animals by claiming that humans alone among worldly creatures possess language, reason, culture, and, above all, an immortal soul and resurrectable body. Humans convinced themselves of this difference by observing that animals routinely suffer degradation at the hands of humans. Since the categories of human and animal were both a retroactive and relative effect of domination, no human could forgo his human privileges without abandoning himself. Medieval arguments for both human particularity and the unique sanctity of human life have persisted into the modern age despite the insights of Darwin. How to Make a Human joins with other works in critical animal theory to unsettle human pretensions in the hopes of training humans to cease to project, and to defend, their human selves against other animals".-- Provided by publisher Acknowledgments ix Introduction • Human Limits 1 Chapter 1 • How to Make a Human I. “Elles were Beest Lich to Man”: Dominance, Human Reason, and Invocations of Likeness in Sidrak and Bokkus 29 II. The Reasonable Body 44 Chapter 2 • Mastering Violence I. The Legitimized Use of Force: Animal Acquiescence 61 II. Carrion in the Penitentials: The Filth of Animal Appetites 67 Chapter 3 • In and Out of Mortal Flesh I. Animal Resurrection: Opening and Shutting the Gates of Heaven 92 II. Half Man, Half Pig?: Meat, Digestion, and the Resurrection of the Body 108 III. How Delicious We Must Be 118 Chapter 4 • Domesticating Beasts: Cynocephali, The Wild Herdsman, and Prudentius’s Indomitable Sheep I. Cynocephali: How a Dog Becomes Human 136 II. The Wild Herdsman 151 III. Sympathy’s Consolations 162 IV. The Good Conscience of a Sheep: Prudentius’s “Ante Cibum” 169 Chapter 5 • Pigs, Butchers, and The Ends of Humanity I. Dirty Pigs 179 II. Making Mastery in The Avowyng of Arthur 189 III. Interlude: Grunnius Corocotta Porcellus, euersor domi 203 IV. Butchers 207 V. Conclusion: Blood in the River 217 Epilogue I. The Noise of Animals in the Last Days 221 II. The Peasant’s Oxen and Other Worldly Animals 232 Works Cited 247 Index 281 How To Make A Human -- Mastering Violence -- In And Out Of Mortal Flesh -- Domesticating Beasts : Cynocephali, The Wild Herdsman, And Prudentius's Indomitable Sheep -- The Ends Of Humanity : Pigs, Butchers, And Other Animals. Karl Steel. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.