The Thirteenth-Century Animal Turn: Medieval and Twenty-First Century Perspectives
Thinking about Animals in Thirteenth-Century Paris: Theologians on the Boundary between Humans and Animals

Most philosophers today know the thirteenth century as the age of Thomas Aquinas and debates about human nature and the rational soul; fewer are aware of the thirteenth century as an important turning point in western European attitudes toward non-human animals. The two themes are intimately connected, however—the same Aristotelian texts that, newly translated into Latin, were generating controversy about the ifs and hows of the immortality of rational animals were also packed with speculation about the nature of other animals. It was clear that some animals (such as pigs, horses, and monkeys) were extremely clever, for instance, and that any number of others had powers that exceeded those of human beings (such as dogs’ ability to track and falcons’ ability to perceive and retrieve prey). Tales of ravens who spoke even challenged the linguistic line thought to separate human beings from their fellow creatures. As two recent books—Nigel Harris’s...