Book of Beasts: The Bestiary in the Medieval World
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Re: Book of Beasts: The Bestiary in the Medieval World
#2How can I have reached my "article limit"? I don't remember having visited "lrb.co.uk" before.
Having to have subscriptions for individual websites is just such annoying idea, if all those subscription based websites would band together and require ONE subscription to allow visiting them all, or there would be some simple system where you can pay some amount of cents (and really it's not worth much more than that for an individual article) to view this article then maybe it might be worth it...
Re: Book of Beasts: The Bestiary in the Medieval World
#3How can I have reached my "article limit"? I don't remember having visited "lrb.co.uk" before. Having to have subscriptions for individual websites is just such annoying idea, if all those subscription based websites would band together and require ONE subscription to allow visiting them all, or there would be some simple system where you can pay some amount of cents (and really it's not worth much more than that for…
I am luckier, I was able to read it :D
Re: Book of Beasts: The Bestiary in the Medieval World
#4> Who in 12th-century England would have seen an elephant or a crocodile? Tales filtered back from Crusaders and distant travellers of a giant herbivore with a nose so long and pliable that it could pick up men and seat them on its back, and of an armour-plated carnivore that lurked in water and could be mistaken by the unwary for a log of wood. These were as improbable – and therefore as possible – as a white horse with a long horn in the middle of its forehead
I wonder if there's anything similar today? Subatomic particles or astronomical objects? Mental health seems to be an area where we currently have no idea how things really work in the brain.
Re: Book of Beasts: The Bestiary in the Medieval World
#5> Who in 12th-century England would have seen an elephant or a crocodile? Tales filtered back from Crusaders and distant travellers of a giant herbivore with a nose so long and pliable that it could pick up men and seat them on its back, and of an armour-plated carnivore that lurked in water and could be mistaken by the unwary for a log of wood. These were as improbable – and therefore as possible – as a white horse…
I know that the context of your statement pertained to modern globalized society, but if you consider isolated peoples [1], then it might be the case that exactly the same phenomenon that inspired medieval beastiary exists today.
Re: Book of Beasts: The Bestiary in the Medieval World
#6> Who in 12th-century England would have seen an elephant or a crocodile? Tales filtered back from Crusaders and distant travellers of a giant herbivore with a nose so long and pliable that it could pick up men and seat them on its back, and of an armour-plated carnivore that lurked in water and could be mistaken by the unwary for a log of wood. These were as improbable – and therefore as possible – as a white horse…
I know that the context of your statement pertained to modern globalized society, but if you consider isolated peoples [1], then it might be the case that exactly the same phenomenon that inspired medieval beastiary exists today. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncontacted_peoples
Going out on a limb, you could argue that cryptozoology is alive today in out interconnected world. I would be surprised if a bigfoot were found today, but it wouldn't upend my worldview. Comparable creatures (gigantopithecus) have existed in human prehistory, and we still find previously undocumented animals today. I don't think we'll find evidence of a bigfootesque creature existing in historical times, but if presented with the evidence in 1818 I might have bet on it. There is still popular media being produced that is profitable because people want to see Survivorman find a bigfoot, and they think he might.