IMC 2004: Sessions
Session 1503: Negotiating through Beasts: European Appropriations of Strange and Familiar Creatures from Distant Lands, I
Thursday 15 July 2004, 09.00-10.30
| Sponsor: | Clare College, University of Cambridge |
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| Organiser: | Aleksander G. Pluskowski, Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge |
| Moderator/Chair: | Elaine C. Block, Misericordia International, Paris |
| Paper 1503-a | From Lions to Unicorns: Moving Strange Animals and their Body Parts across High Medieval Europe (Language: English) Index terms: Archaeology - General, Economics - Trade |
| Paper 1503-b | The Ostrich Transformed into Vulture: When Symbolism Comes to the Aid of the Imagination, or the Problem of Representing Exotic Animals in Medieval Manuscripts (Language: English) Index terms: Art History - Decorative Arts, Manuscripts and Palaeography |
| Paper 1503-c | Representations of Exotic Creatures in Medieval England (Language: English) Index terms: Archaeology - General, Art History - Decorative Arts |
| Abstract | Animals from distant lands held a particular fascination for medieval western societies. From heraldic motifs and ecclesiastical sculpture to travellers’ tales and living specimens in menageries, the appropriation of exotic species – from distant countries, the corners of the earth and even the depths of the oceans – represented an ongoing and exemplary process of cultural negotiation and transformation. These two sessions aim to explore this process through a series of comparable and contrasting case studies. |