Pig

Monkey on a pig, Book of Hours, France, Paris, ca. 1460, MS M.282 fol. 77r

Let’s imagine spending a moment or two in the Middle Ages. What are the images that come to mind? Turreted castles, ladies in rose-coloured gowns and pointy hats, peasants gathering sheaves of wheat, monks in black cassocks.........and pigs! Flick through the pages of any Book of Hours or look at any medieval tapestry and there they are, wandering in alleyways or grubbing for acorns in oak-leafy woods, always in tilted profile, like the animals in bestiaries, and always with that mona lisa smile and those knowing human eyes. The jolly pig, rotund and self-satisfied.1


Footnotes

  1. Mathews, Freya. “Without Animals Life Is Not Worth Living.” Between the Species: A Journal of Ethics 13, no. 7 (2007): 1–28.˄