How to Make a Human: Animals and Violence in the Middle Ages

Acknowledgments ix
Introduction • Human Limits 1

Chapter 1 • How to Make a Human
I. “Elles were Beest Lich to Man”: Dominance,
Human Reason, and Invocations of Likeness in
Sidrak and Bokkus 29
II. The Reasonable Body 44

Chapter 2 • Mastering Violence
I. The Legitimized Use of Force: Animal
Acquiescence 61
II. Carrion in the Penitentials: The Filth of
Animal Appetites 67

Chapter 3 • In and Out of Mortal Flesh
I. Animal Resurrection: Opening and Shutting
the Gates of Heaven 92
II. Half Man, Half Pig?: Meat, Digestion, and the
Resurrection of the Body 108
III. How Delicious We Must Be 118

Chapter 4 • Domesticating Beasts: Cynocephali, The Wild Herdsman, and Prudentius’s Indomitable Sheep
I. Cynocephali: How a Dog Becomes Human 136
II. The Wild Herdsman 151
III. Sympathy’s Consolations 162
IV. The Good Conscience of a Sheep: Prudentius’s
“Ante Cibum” 169

Chapter 5 • Pigs, Butchers, and The Ends of Humanity
I. Dirty Pigs 179
II. Making Mastery in The Avowyng of Arthur 189
III. Interlude: Grunnius Corocotta Porcellus,
euersor domi 203
IV. Butchers 207
V. Conclusion: Blood in the River 217

Epilogue
I. The Noise of Animals in the Last Days 221
II. The Peasant’s Oxen and Other Worldly Animals 232

Works Cited 247
Index 281