| Paper 520-b | From Wildness to Domestication: An Interdisciplinary Study of Medieval Horse-Training as a Transition from Feral Beast to Ideal Destrier in the French Translations of Jordanus Rufus' De medicina equorum, 13th-15th Centuries
(Language: English)
Camille Mai Lan Vo Van Qui, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Exeter
Index terms: Language and Literature - French or Occitan, Manuscripts and Palaeography, Mentalities, Military History |
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| Abstract | Paper -a:
Discussion of John Trevisa as a translator has tended to characterise the Gospel of Nicodemus as both an early work and an outlier within his corpus. This paper, by the editor of a new edition of Trevisa's translation, argues that it is neither. On the contrary, close reading of the text suggests it post-dates the Polychronicon, whilst the apocryphal, but nonetheless authoritative, nature of the Latin Evangelium Nicodemi makes a translation into English an undertaking akin to the Wycliffite Bible. Such a project was wholly in keeping with Trevisa's pattern of translating key Latin authorities into English.
Paper -b:
A defining characteristic of medieval horse-training, as described in the French translations of Jordanus Rufus' De medicina equorum (c. 1250), is that it is applied on a colt raised in feral conditions for the first two to three years of his life. Unlike antique methods that focussed on foals domesticated since birth, this approach is fraught with difficulties linked to handling an adult-sized wild animal. An overview of contemporary literature shows that wildness and even monstrosity were components of the ideal warhorse, one example being the anthropophagous Bucephalus. Destriers had to be entirely faithful to one master but inapproachable by other men. Rufus's training method appears to attempt to realise this literary ideal. An interdisciplinary study of his method, comparing the French manuscripts with a practical experimentation, on real feral horses, of the advice given, will help to understand the reasons behind this approach and to determine its effects.
Paper -c:
The translation of hagiographic sources on the history of Gaul in the 6th century, in particular Vita Caesarii, Vita Dalmatii, Vita Germerii, which were published in Russian in 2016, demands understanding how much the source reflects the realities of the period described. Regarding this, the entire corpus of hagiographic sources of the 6th century is of our interest because considering it as a whole shows the border when the hagiographic genre itself acquires a new function. After crossing this time border (the advent of the Carolingian era), the hagiographic texts, dedicated to the saints of the 6th century, can no longer be considered as sources of 6th century and be used in a different historical context about this period.
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