IMC 2025: Sessions

Session 110: Animals Teaching Humans, I

Monday 7 July 2025, 11:15-12:45

Sponsor:	Medieval Animal Data-Network (MAD), Central European University, Budapest/Wien
Organiser:	Gerhard Jaritz, Department of Historical Studies, Central European University, Budapest/Wien
Moderator/Chair:	Gerhard Jaritz, Department of Historical Studies, Central European University, Budapest/Wien
Paper 110-a	Detractio and Envy through Animal Images (Language: English) Andrea Vanina Neyra, Instituto Multidisciplinario de Historia y Ciencias Humanas, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Buenos Aires / Instituto de Historia Antigua y Medieval 'Profesor José Luis Romero', Universidad de Buenos Aires Index terms: Daily Life, Language and Literature - Celtic, Learning (The Classical Inheritance)
Paper 110-b	Teaching Animals in French and Spanish Benedictine Cloisters: Symbolic and Spiritual Meaning of Monastic Life (Language: English) María-Laura Figueras, Independent Scholar Index terms: Architecture - Religious, Art History - Sculpture, Religious Life
Paper 110-c	Animals Teaching Viewers: Reflections on Stone Carvings in Medieval Livonian Churches and Monasteries (Language: English) Anu Mänd, Kunstiajaloo osakond, Tartu Ülikool Index terms: Architecture - Religious, Art History - Sculpture, Religious Life
Abstract	Animals and their expected natural and culturally ascribed behavior in turn, has always had the potential to influence how human beings learn to organize their religious and daily lives as well as their economic strategies. There are a wide variety of textual and visual sources in bestiaries, natural encyclopedias, sermons, inventories, rules and laws. The recognized characteristics and activities of the animals regularly served, on the one hand, as positive models to be taken over and followed by humans or, on the other hand, as a warning, negative, example that could lead women and men to misbehavior and sin.