Seeing beyond seeing: the idea of figurative exposition in the High Middle Ages

Thesis

Medieval exegetes composed figurative expositions on animals and the created world that were shaped and informed by the authority of scripture and the Fathers (‘auctoritas scipturae et auctoritas patrum’). Despite this observation, the historiographical framing of works such as Isidore of Seville’s Etymologiae, Alexander Neckam’s De naturis rerum, and second- and transitional-family bestiary manuscripts, have often been misrepresented as either proto-scientific, pseudo-scientific, or encyclopaedic. Whilst it is generally acknowledged that each of these works (and related medieval literature) had a strong moral element and figurative connotations, persistent scientific and encyclopaedic framing in historiography inhibits more creative and sympathetic engagements with the expositions they contain.

In response to scientific framings of medieval figurative expositions, especially ones that feature animals, this thesis proposes a re-evaluation of significant texts produced in the High Middle Ages according to proper theological context. Noting the inheritance of patristic exegetical practice, and considering the moral and material dimensions of the created world medieval theologians inhabited, such a re-evaluation recognises seemingly absurd or bizarre ideas about animals as significant contributions to medieval religious practice. Conforming to an established and authoritative mode of writing that used the created world to expose a deeper intention of meaning, figurative expositions on animals became a way of articulating the hidden things of God. This was especially the case through expositions on fish and birds. In this sense, medieval ideas about animals and the created world were closely connected to the idea of scripture as sound, and the communicative ability of the sacraments (‘sacramenta’) to transform the believer through faithful engagement with corporeal things. Through five chapters, this thesis not only demonstrates the religious sophistication underpinning figurative expositions on animals, but it also reveals the interconnected nature of religious devotion and medieval life through what is termed a ‘deeper sense of seeing’, or a ‘seeing beyond seeing’.

Authors: Farrant, TJ

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-9rwybgzob
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English