Abstract
Stanton examines early-medieval catalogues of animal noises (Latin ouis balat, Old English scep blæt, English sheep bleat), which were intended to teach formal aspect of poetry and language theory. But they also explored and tested problematic differences and boundaries between rational, articulated human speech and instinctive, inarticulate nonhuman noise, and hence the very concept of the animal. Interrogating species boundaries and overlaps animated the intellectual world of Anglo-Saxon England, a culture deeply preoccupied with the playful signification of language. The animal noise of list of Aldhelm (seventh century) provides a link between grammatical and poetic theory and the vivid onomatopoeia of Old English and Latin riddles that gave animal subjects barking, bleating, and shrieking voices of their own.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
See Derek Abbot’s “Animal Sounds,” which is one of the largest available online lists of animal sounds in different linguistic traditions. I am indebted for this reference to Jonathan Hsy , “Between Species: Animal-Human Bilingualism and Medieval Texts,” in “Booldly bot meekly”: Essays on the Theory and Practice of Translation in the Middle Ages in Honour of Roger Ellis,The Medieval Translator 14, ed. Catherine Batt and René Tixier (Turnhout: Brepols, forthcoming).
- 2.
For the fullest treatments of the voces animantium, see Wilhelm Wackernagel , Voces variae animantium: Ein Beitrag zur Naturkunde und zur Geschichte der Sprache, 2nd ed. (Basel: Bahnmaier, 1869); Karl-Ernst Klenner , “Der Tierstimmen-Katalog als literarisches Phänomen” (PhD diss., Westfälischen Wilhelms-Universität zu Münster, 1958); Maurizio Bettini , Voci: Antropologia sonora del mondo antico (Turin: Giulio Einaudi, 2008); Hsy , “Between Species.”
- 3.
Klenner , “Der Tierstimmen-Katalog,” 6.
- 4.
Suetonius , C. Svetoni Tranqvilli Praeter Caesarvm Libros Reliqviae, ed. August Reifferscheid (Leipzig: Teubner, 1860), 247–54, 436–40, 448–50; Klenner , “Der Tierstimmen-Katalog,” 21–22. Suetonius’s list survives only in the later catalogues that depend upon it, foremost among them that of Huguccio of Pisa, who claims to quote it from a lost work of “Sydonius” (presumed to be an error for Suetonius ) entitled Liber de naturis rerum; for a detailed explanation of the complex textual tradition of the animal catalogues, see M. Marcovich, “Voces Animantium and Suetonius,” Živa Antika/Antiquité Vivante 21 (1971): 399–416, and Bettini , Voci, 265–66.
- 5.
Bettini , Voci, 12.
- 6.
Patrizia Lendinara , “Contextualized Lexicography,” in Latin Learning and English Lore, Vol. 2, ed. Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe and Andy Orchard (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), 108–31.
- 7.
George N. Garmonsway, Ælfric’s Colloquy, rev. ed. (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1978), 27–28. Quoted by Lendinara , “Contextualized Lexicography,” 110.
- 8.
It is clear, in fact, that Ælfric took a relatively sophisticated attitude towards animals, handling their symbolic qualities with some care, and taking pains not to equate non-English animals with magic or superstition. See Emily Thornbury , “Ælfric’s Zoology,” Neophilologus 92 (2008): 141–53.
- 9.
Robert T. Oliphant, The Harley Latin-Old English Glossary Edited from British Museum, MS Harley 3376, Janua linguarum, Series practica 20 (The Hague: Mouton, 1966), C1385. Lendinara , “Contextualized Lexicography,” 118, notes also the following: “In Cambridge, Trinity College O.1.18, 1v, there is a list of terms for the sounds made by various kinds of animals and birds ‘Ovis balat …’ Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 730, has an interesting group of animals’ sounds on 144v. One late example of uoces animantium, ‘Accipter pipat,’ occurs in a pair of manuscripts dating from the early thirteenth century: Cambridge, Sidney Sussex College 75 (45ra–45rb), and Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 186 (S.C. 2088), at 96ra–96va. Another late example of such compositions is CUL, Ll.1.14, 46r–46v, which has ‘Aquila clangit, accipiter pipilat.’”
- 10.
Aldhelm , De metris et enigmatibus ac pedum regulis, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi 15, ed. Rudolf Ehwald (Berlin: Weidmann, 1919), 179. For a brief introduction to this work, see Michael Lapidge and Michael Herren, trans., Aldhelm: The Prose Works (Ipswich: D.S. Brewer, 1979), 31–33. Lapidge and Herren do not translate De pedum regulis ; unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own.
- 11.
R. E. Latham, D. R. Howlett, and R. K. Ashdowne, eds., Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources (Oxford: British Academy, 1975–2013), s.v., “rudibundus, boare.” [Subsequent definitions, unless otherwise noted, are drawn from this dictionary.] Boare in its present participial form (boans/boantis) was occasionally used as a divine epithet, “the Booming One”, for the Christian God. (Aldhelm and others frequently used Tonans, “the Thunderer,” in the same way.) In fact, Boantis is used in a charter from 680 CE in which the Mercian nobleman Cenfrith grants land to Aldhelm himself, in very Aldhelmian prose that is “a confection of phrases from Aldhelm’s other works carefully stitched together” (Lapidge and Herren, Aldhelm’s Prose Works, 173). For the charter and four others from the tenth century using the same epithet, see “The Electronic Sawyer: Online Catalogue of Anglo-Saxon Charters,” http://www.esawyer.org.uk/searchfiles/do_charter_search.html?q=text:boantis%20AND%20NOT%20id:MS*&start=0&rows=20&hl=on&hl.requireFieldMatch=true&hl.fl=text&hl.snippets=10&sort=sawyer_num%20asc.
- 12.
Huguccio of Pisa (Reifferscheid 247n), Klenner , “Der Tierstimmen-Katalog,” 22–26. It may be that the infinitive plus genitive plural form favored by the early Latin listmakers occurred because of an assumed “proprie est” picked up by Aldhelm ; alternatively, Aldhelm’s formulation may have influenced Huguccio of Pisa and other later listmakers. It may also be that the infinitive plus genitive plural form reflects an assumed phrase such as “[the voice] of lions is to roar,” etc.
- 13.
Caelius Sedulius , Carmen paschale, I.161–62; Johann Huemer, ed., Sedvlii opera Omnia, Corpvs Scriptorvm Ecclesiastocorvm Latinorvm 10 (Vienna: Gerold, 1885), 27.
- 14.
See Richard Sorabji , Animal Minds and Human Morals: The Origins of the Western Debate (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993).
- 15.
Priscian, Prisciani grammatici Caesariensis institutionum grammaticarum libri XVIII, Grammatici Latini 2, ed. Martin Hertz (Leipzig: Teubner, 1855; repr., Hildesheim: Olms, 1961), I.1; 5.9–6.2, https://archive.org/details/priscianigramma00hertgoog.
- 16.
Omnis vox aut articulata est aut confusa. Articulata est quae litteris conprehendi potest; confusa quae scribi non potest (“Every voice is either articulated or confused. Articulated is what can be comprehended in letters; confused is what cannot be written”). Donatus , Probati Donati Servii Qui Feruntur De Arte Grammatica Libri, Grammatici Latini 4, ed. Heinrich Keil (Leipzig: Teubner, 1864), 367, https://archive.org/details/grammaticilatini04keil.
- 17.
Andrea Tabarroni , “On Articulation and Animal Language in Ancient Linguistic Theory,” in Signs of Antiquity/Antiquity of Signs, ed. Giovanni Manetti, Versus 50/51 (1988): 103–21. Tabarroni explains the fourfold and twofold systems at 104–108. In mapping theoretical articulation onto the physical articulation of hand and stylus, Aldhelm seems to align less with Priscian than with Ammonius, whose rival theory of voice understands articulation “not as a principle of intelligibility, but rather a principle of distinction” (Tabarroni , “On Articulation,” 105).
- 18.
On the sources of Aldhelm’s animal catalogue, see Max Manitius , “Zu Aldhelm und Baeda,” Sitzungsberichte der phil.-hist. Classe der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Wien 112 (1886): 535–634, at 606–10, https://archive.org/details/zualdhelmundbae00manigoog.
- 19.
“† grue, v.2,” “† crunkle, v.2,” OED Online (Oxford: Oxford University Press, March 2016). These obsolete words, which are exclusively used of cranes, are both contained in the OED on the strength of some seventeenth-century lists in a similar genre .
- 20.
Bettini , Voci, 62.
- 21.
Latham et al., Dictionary of Medieval Latin, s.v. “clangere.”
- 22.
Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary (New York: Harpers, 1879), s.v. saevire. Perseus Project, Tufts University, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3atext%3a1999.04.0059.
- 23.
Bettini , Voci, 79, 82–84.
- 24.
Latham et al., Dictionary of Medieval Latin, s.v. “puer.”
- 25.
Aldhelm , De Virginitate (Carmen), in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi 15, ed. Rudolf Ehwald (Berlin: Weidmann, 1919), 365. For all Bible versions, see Bible Gateway, https://www.biblegateway.com/.
- 26.
Hsy , “Between Species.”
- 27.
Cearcian occurs in a gloss to Aldhelm’s De laude virginitatis, brastlian in the Harley Glossary , and cracian in both places, all glossing crepare. Antonette diPaolo Healey et al., Dictionary of Old English (Toronto: University of Toronto, 1986–), s.v. cracian, brastlian.
- 28.
Bettini , Voci, 94–100.
- 29.
Monte Cassino MS 439.1 (11th century), f. 83v; Klenner , “Der Tierstimmen-Katalog,” 32.
- 30.
Craig Williamson, ed., The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), no. 23, 82 (Williamson numbers the riddles differently from the older edition of Krapp and Dobbie in the Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, but the latter’s numbering [here, Riddle 24] is the standard).
- 31.
Robert Stanton, “Mimicry, Subjectivity, and the Embodied Voice in Anglo-Saxon Bird Riddles,” in Voice and Voicelessness in Medieval Europe, The New Middle Ages, ed. Irit Ruth Kleiman (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 31–33.
- 32.
Dictionary of Old English, s.v. beorcan.
- 33.
Dictionary of Old English, s.v. blætan.
- 34.
Dictionary of Old English, s.v. grædan.
- 35.
E. M. Treharne, ed., The Old English Life of St. Nicholas with the Old English Life of St. Giles, Leeds Texts and Monographs New Series 15 (Leeds: University of Leeds, 1997), 143, l. 419.
- 36.
Dictionary of Old English, s.v. giellan.
- 37.
Ælfric , Ælfrics Grammatik und Glossar, ed. Julius Zupitza (Berlin: Weidmann, 1880), 128–29, https://archive.org/details/aelfricsgrammat00aelfgoog.
- 38.
Ælfric , Ælfrics Grammatik, 4.
- 39.
Melinda Menzer , “Ælfric’s English Grammar,” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 103 (2004): 115–16.
- 40.
See Robert Stanton, The Culture of Translation in Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2002), chap. 4 (“Ælfric and the Rhetoric of Translation”), 144–71.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Stanton, R. (2018). Bark Like a Man: Performance, Identity, and Boundary in Old English Animal Voice Catalogues. In: Langdon, A. (eds) Animal Languages in the Middle Ages. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71897-2_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71897-2_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-71896-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-71897-2
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)