Wolves Outside, Inside, and at the Medieval Door

Sponsoring Organization(s)

Special Session

Organizer Name

Laura D. Gelfand

Organizer Affiliation

Utah State Univ.

Presider Name

Kathleen Ashley

Presider Affiliation

Univ. of Southern Maine

Paper Title 1

Hagiography and Historical Encounters with Canis Lupus Lupus

Presenter 1 Name

Laura D. Gelfand

Paper Title 2

Saint Norbert and the Wolves of Prémontré

Presenter 2 Name

Ellen M. Shortell

Presenter 2 Affiliation

Massachusetts College of Art and Design

Paper Title 3

Wolf versus Lion: The Princely Avatars of Orleans and Burgundy

Presenter 3 Name

Elizabeth J. Moodey

Presenter 3 Affiliation

Vanderbilt Univ.

Start Date

11-5-2017 7:30 PM

Session Location

Bernhard Brown & Gold Room

Description

Wolves were a common presence in the medieval landscape: restricted to liminal spaces, they inhabited the borderlands between town and country. The stuff of nightmares, wolves were considered vicious and ruthless. Systematic eradication of wolves across Europe began in the Early Middle Ages, and these efforts were so effective that wolves were either completely extinct, or very rare, in England by around 1500. While they were somewhat more common on the Continent, institutional demonization of wolves was widespread and it is within this context that the papers in this session will consider the embedded, symbolic, and polyvalent meaning found in later medieval and Early Modern representations of human/wolf encounters.

Laura D. Gelfand