In medieval Europe beavers have been hunted extensively, which led, by the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, to their extinction in England and Wales, and in Denmark by the tenth century. The animals have been killed not just for their fur, but in addition for his or her scent glands. Regardless of being current in each genders, the glands have been mistaken for the male beaver’s genitalia. They contained castoreum, which was used as an nearly common drugs for many situations. Bestiaries – medieval books containing descriptions of real-life and imaginary animals, accompanied by moralising tales – said {that a} beaver might supply his genitalia to hunters in trade for his life. If the identical beaver encountered hunters once more, he would lie on his again, demonstrating that his testicles had already been taken.
One other issue which additionally contributed to the extinction of beavers in a lot of Europe was the unusual properties of their meat – and of their souls. Many manuscript illuminations depict the beaver with a fish tail. This displays a perception that has its origins with Pliny the Elder, who wrote that the beaver has ‘the tail of a fish and the remainder of the physique resembles an otter’. The Fifteenth-century Swedish scholar Bero Magni, or Björn Magnusson, writing concerning the half-beast half-fish nature of the animal argued that the fish tail is grafted to the beaver’s physique in the identical manner a pear could be grafted to an apple tree. Bero additionally puzzled if sensations could possibly be transmitted between the beaver’s ‘terrestrial’ and ‘fish’ components. Would a beaver know if somebody stepped on its tail?
All through the medieval and early fashionable interval the beaver was due to this fact understood to be a hybrid beast, with every physique half residing in keeping with its nature. For instance, a vignette accompanying A Description of the Northern Peoples written within the late sixteenth century by the Swedish scholar Olaus Magnus depicts a hunter who tries to catch a bunch of beavers with a web. Whereas the beavers sit on the financial institution, their tails are dipped into the water – the pure setting for fish. The beaver isn’t the one creature which was thought of hybrid within the Center Ages. Barnacle geese have been believed to develop from goose barnacles – crustaceans that are discovered hooked up to rocks and driftwood. Due to the latter, barnacle geese have been typically described as rising on timber.
The character of beasts was essential: for medieval thinkers, the organic was inseparable from the non secular. Every physique needed to be animated by some form of a soul. The beaver’s composite physique made medieval and early fashionable students wonder if the creature’s soul was partly the soul of the beast and partly the soul of a fish. As thinker and theologian Thomas Aquinas defined within the thirteenth century, terrestrial animals had ‘residing souls’, whereas fish have been our bodies animated solely with ‘one thing of a soul’. In different phrases, terrestrial animals’ souls have been understood to be extra superior than these of fish. When it got here to beavers’ supposedly hybrid our bodies, the query was whether or not their souls consisted of a ‘superior’ terrestrial and an ‘inferior’ fish half.
This had sensible implications in addition to theological, because the Christian Church forbade consuming flesh throughout fasting intervals – about 30 per cent of the 12 months – however allowed the consuming of fish. All residing creatures have been positioned in a hierarchy, which culminated with people as essentially the most excellent beings. These hierarchies are seen, for instance, within the preparations of bestiaries and scientific works. Dwelling non-humans have been often grouped within the following manner: entries on mammals have been adopted by birds, then got here fish adopted by serpents, and the final part was devoted to crops. Positioned under terrestrial animals and above crops, fish have been seen as semi-vegetative beings, and consequently acceptable to eat throughout fasts.
The semi-aquatic semi-plant nature of the barnacle goose meant that it could possibly be consumed during times of fasting. Imaginary hybrid creatures, which resembled people, is also edible. The 14th-century French chivalric romance Perceforest described incredible anthropomorphic fish, which appeared like miniature knights. These offered an ethical dilemma for the human protagonist, who, ravenous, was tempted by the fish knights’ white flesh.
So, might one eat beaver? Bero argued that the entire beaver could possibly be labeled as a fish somewhat than a beast. Nevertheless, he suggested in opposition to consuming the beaver’s ‘terrestrial’ physique half throughout fasts and instructed that one ought to restrict one’s appetites to the beaver’s tail. As Bero defined, the remainder of the beaver’s physique tasted an excessive amount of like flesh: consuming a fish which tastes like flesh throughout quick can be dishonest. Quite the opposite, Olaus Magnus thought that not solely the tail, however the beaver’s hind legs could possibly be consumed. Olaus’ reasoning was most likely primarily based on the truth that whereas the beaver’s entrance paws resemble human arms, its hind legs are webbed, showing somewhat amphibian. Nevertheless, Olaus additionally warned that catching a beaver could possibly be a probably harmful process: the beast’s very sturdy enamel might crack bones.
The medieval debate surrounding beavers was actually about people. Would God be annoyed if one ate beaver throughout fasting? The talk was not simply resolved. As gradual secularisation occurred within the following centuries, fewer individuals continued to quick and the flesh versus fish difficulty was not so essential. But, after the Center Ages, beavers continued to be hunted in these components of Europe the place they nonetheless could possibly be discovered, resembling Scotland and Sweden. Following beavers’ full elimination, a number of European states have re-introduced them: Sweden, from Norway, between 1922 and 1939 and, within the UK, as late as 2002.
Polina Ignatova is a postdoctoral researcher at Linköping College.
