La chèvre ou la femme. Parentés de lait entre animaux et humains au Moyen Âge.
This article launches an investigation about images of interspecies breast-feeding in the Middle Ages. Thought as a transmission of humors and features, milk kinship was higlhy rated at the time, and was often questioned about fostering practices. Breast-feeding of human children by animals allows t...
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| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | fra |
| Published: |
Centre d´Histoire et Théorie des Arts
2012-01-01
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| Series: | Images Re-Vues |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/imagesrevues/1621 |
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| Summary: | This article launches an investigation about images of interspecies breast-feeding in the Middle Ages. Thought as a transmission of humors and features, milk kinship was higlhy rated at the time, and was often questioned about fostering practices. Breast-feeding of human children by animals allows to reconsider both human/animal forms of relationship, definition of lineage, and their eventual transgressions. As hagiographical topic, and sign of election, breast-feeding by wild beasts appears as a deviant practice but paradoxically positively valued. On the contrary, sequels of fostering by tame animals are regularly denounced. And women breast-feeding animals often appear as a proof of the animalship of their gender. The symbolic images of Terra breast-feeding the animals are presented until the XIIth century as positive images of fertility, however from the XIIIe century onwards, proximity between human and animal through breast-feeding appears highly transgressive. By the XIVth century, taste for Antiquity’s historical and heroical narratives associated with hagiographic images, reveal the savage child, fed by animals as a paragon of greatness |
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| ISSN: | 1778-3801 |