This book explores the connection between saints and animals, and how the power over animals has been a characteristic of saints from their beginnings in the Early Church.
The connection between saints and humans is examined, with the saint as a human rising beyond humanity, touching the divine, and the non-human animal as a creature, which is connected to and yet removed from humanity and which may have a connection to the sacred itself. This volume transcends traditional religious boundaries by including Christian saints as well as similar figures in Islam and Norse religions. It operates on the cusp of two exciting and innovative fields: hagiographic and animal studies. It shows the complexities of human-animal interaction and the sacred: authorities clashing with experiential knowledge, metaphorical animals as opposed to real, animals ranging from helpers or opponents of saints, disguises of demons, or identity markers of a human community.
Companion Species will be of value to scholars and students interested in medieval history, Europe, and religion, as well as social and cultural history.
Table of Contents:
1. Introduction
Mathilde van Dijk
2. Canes Domini? ‘Saint’ Guinefort, popular devotion, hierarchies and Animalité
Stephen Molvarec
3. Contested Popular Rituals in Late-Medieval Italy: Franciscan saints and animal baptism
Bianca Lopez
4. Hundheiðinn and Heathen Hounds: Dogs and the Authority of Saints in Old Norse Literature
Ashley Castelino
5. Wondrous birds in Old Norse-Icelandic Literature
Eric-Ania Haley-Halinski
6. Wonderful animals in the biographies of the prophet Muhammed
Nicolas Payen
7. ‘Too large for calm consumption’: Spiders as silken saviours and venomous villains in the medieval lives of saints
Sven Gins
8. ‘I am like the cat’: Human-Animal encounters in Devotio Moderna biographies
Mathilde van Dijk
9. Saints and animals on medieval seals: a religious bestiary for moral purposes and identity
Caroline Simonet
10. Martinus vs. Lupus: Martin of Tours as a Protector against Wolves in European Folkways and Folklore.
Martin Walsh
11. Holy Cat! Virtuous Felines, Medieval saints and their appropriations
Ann Martinez
About the Author :
Mathilde van Dijk teaches History of Christianity at the University of Groningen. She specializes in the history of late medieval reform as well as in the connection between the Middle Ages and popular culture and heritage studies, focusing on the Devotio Moderna, Carthusians, and saints.
