2025/01/01 by Alison Hudson · 1 voice
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Animal Law and Welfare #English culture #Feature (linguistics) #Literary Analysis and Cultural Studies #Medieval Literature and History #Middle Ages #Project commissioning #Reign
paper · doi:10.1353/pgn.2025.a976655
published in Parergon 42(2), 81-113 (Australian and New Zealand Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies)
openalex publication_date 2025/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/12/09 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
Abstract: For animals that are not known to have lived on the island of Britain until the reign of Henry III, elephants feature in a notable number of English texts and artworks before the thirteenth century. Moreover, carvers continued to use elephant ivory throughout the early Middle Ages. However, English speakers' knowledge of elephants' anatomy was limited before the late twelfth century. Building on previous literary, art historical, and historical scholarship, this article uses elephants to examine the limits of early English speakers' understandings of the wider world.