1 - Sound Milieus: Memory and Sound in Philippe de Thaon’s Bestiary

Summary

MEDIEVAL BESTIARIES ARE noisy texts. Creatures in Latin versions of the Physiologus, and in French bestiaries from the second half of the twelfth century onward, contribute to a tapestry of sound in these texts. This tapestry is a network of related sonic phenomena expressing the cries, brays, and songs that animals and birds produce. Although readers have often highlighted the visual appeal rather than the sonic qualities of bestiary soundscapes, creatures in illuminated Latin and French bestiaries do not just appeal to the visual sense. If we listen to bestiaries, we hear a number of sounds that situate creatures in relation to other creatures and to humans: the panther roars and emits a sweet smell to entice its prey; the chicks of the partridge recognize their estranged biological parents by their calls; the wild ass brays, signaling the arrival of the equinox. Creatures cry and sing, establishing literal relationships between themselves and others, while emitting sounds that suggest meanings for readers to use as spurs for meditation and memorization.

Bestiaries interpret animal sounds in ways that frequently identify such phenomena with central tenets of Christian Scripture or moralizations. In this way they follow patterns of medieval thinking about animals that have influenced the popular interpretation of animal behavior ever since. The Bible was subject to a four-fold model of interpretation from the third and fourth centuries onward, and bestiaries generally imitated this in applying literal, allegorical, tropological (or moral), and eschatological interpretations to the creatures and stones that feature in their pages. These layers of interpretation included references to Christ and his Church, drawing on episodes of biblical history. The bestiaries reorganized chapters of the late antique Physiologus and integrated supplementary material, such as etymologies and observational explanations for animal behaviors, thus giving the texts a broad appeal as compendia of all sorts of knowledge about the animate world. The collation of various types of knowledge in these texts emphasized the interpretation of the names and natures of creatures as examples of ‘visible, temporal phenomena that could point toward invisible, eternal realities’. As such, the roar of the panther represents Christ's incarnation drawing his followers to him, the calls of the partridge those of Mother Church, and the bray of the wild ass the lament of the devil when he loses the converted.