Introducing Medieval Animal Names

A study of the relationship between people and animals in the Middle Ages.

What did medieval people call the animals they lived and worked with? Why did they choose those particular names? This book sets out to answer these questions. Drawing evidence from literary, documentary, and material sources, Introducing Medieval Animal Names surveys the surviving evidence of pet names from the period, along with the labels given to livestock and working animals, and the folk names given to wild birds and beasts. It also thinks about the conventions that directed animal naming in the Middle Ages and how proper nouns behaved when given to non-human organisms. Through this inquiry, the book seeks to lay bare the period’s larger attitudes towards animals and their functions and identities. It also sheds light on how those in the Middle Ages conceived the natural world as a whole and its relationship with human beings and their culture.

Ben Parsons is associate professor at the University of Leicester. He is the author of Punishment and Medieval Education and Two Middle English Prayer Cycles.