IMC 2024: Sessions

Session 348: Whales in the Middle Ages, II: Medieval Thought

Monday 1 July 2024, 16:30-18:00

Organisers:	Marie Ulrike Jaros, Institut für Geschichtswissenschaften, Humboldt-Universität, Berlin Vicki Szabo, Department of History, Western Carolina University
Moderator/Chair:	Vicki Szabo, Department of History, Western Carolina University
Paper 348-a	Jonah's Beast: Charting the Medieval Evolution from Leviathanic Sea Monster to Ordinary Whale (Language: English) Ryan Denson, Ancient Greek & Roman Studies Program, Trent University, Ontario Index terms: Art History - General, Language and Literature - Latin and Mentalities
Paper 348-b	Dona Baleia da Costa: Whales Ruling the Waves of the Ocean - Of Bestiaries and of Natural History Treatises (Language: English) Cristina Brito, Centro de Humanidades, Universidade Nova de Lisboa Index terms: Archives and Sources, Maritime and Naval Studies and Science
Paper 348-c	Ketil Hængs saga: The Spectre of the Whale, and the Fate of Fisheries (Language: English) Sarah Harlan-Haughey, Department of English, University of Maine Index terms: Folk Studies, Language and Literature - Scandinavian and Maritime and Naval Studies
Abstract	The papers in this session highlight the complex conceptual frameworks within which cetaceans were understood in different regions of Europe from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages. The changing perceptions and theologies of monstrous and ordinary whales will be analysed using a heterogeneous source base ranging from critical early textual and artistic traditions on whales to biblical texts, maps, bestiaries and folklore accounts. The session shows how much whales were abstracted and instrumentalised in the imagination, how climate and resource anxieties fuelled the legends, while in parallel (scientific) knowledge about whales was available and further developed.