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Consequently, the swan was projected as an icon of courtly and eventual royal status. The book’s third chapter looks at the swan as icon of the Lancasters, particularly important during the reign of Richard II and the War of the Roses, and the final chapter examines the swan as an important item of feasting, focusing on cookery and husbandry to argue that over time the right to keep swans became an increasingly restricted right controlled by the English crown. Each of the swan’s medieval associations are explored as they developed over time to the modern day.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49745961353489,"sku":"NGR9781786838391","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52341697839377,"sku":"NLS9781786838391","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53149377102097,"sku":"GOR014780320","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1786838397.jpg?v=1751345123"},{"product_id":"introducing-the-medieval-fox-book-paul-wackers-9781786839886","title":"Introducing the Medieval Fox","description":"This book is an entertaining, informative and enchanting introduction to its subject – just as those medieval banes of the farmyard, the Fox and the Vixen, were enchanting in escapades from fables and funny tales, from beastly epic poems and bestiaries, and from medieval material culture (in Danish wall-paintings and Dutch manuscript illustrations and statues, stained-glass and Italian mosaics). There exist books on medieval fox stories and on the animal’s iconography, which are important themes in this study, but this book is the first holistic approach to all types of manifestations of foxes in medieval culture – from medical recipes and fur trade, to Bible commentaries and hunting manuals.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49746649612561,"sku":"NGR9781786839886","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50451738067217,"sku":"GOR013957366","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52689033560337,"sku":"NLS9781786839886","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1786839881.jpg?v=1751248138"},{"product_id":"hebrew-physiologus-book-vered-tohar-9781837722433","title":"The Hebrew Physiologus","description":"An annotated edition of Leon Modena’s Hebrew Musar book Tsemaḥ Tsaddik (‘Pious Plant’), originally published in Venice in 1600. Tsemaḥ Tsaddik follows the format of a medieval Physiologus, where each chapter corresponds to a specific animal and addresses various human behaviors, traits, vices or virtues. Additionally, each chapter features an explanation of its theme, evidenced by quotes from the Old Testament, Greek and Roman philosophers, Rabbinic Sages and fathers of the Church – along with at least one folktale. The translation is accompanied by a thorough and comprehensive introduction to describe the world of Musar pre-modern books, and offers insights into Modena’s cultural context.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51216196829457,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":51216199516433,"sku":"NGR9781837722433","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52592890020113,"sku":"NLS9781837722433","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1837722439.jpg?v=1751411779"},{"product_id":"introducing-medieval-animal-names-book-ben-parsons-9781837722617","title":"Introducing Medieval Animal Names","description":"What did medieval people call the animals they lived and worked with? Why did they give them the names they did? 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When a bear attacks, the contemporary response is typically to blame human beings’ failure, either to signal their presence in bears’ habitats or to bear-proof their backyards. For climate change activists, the polar bear has become emblematic of the threat posed by humans to the natural world, even though the polar bear’s population has steadily increased in recent times. At two extremes, bears have been objects of predation or pity.    In medieval times, however, bears were not objects but subjects viewed as creatures of God. They were seen as being in possession of something analogous to rationality, which enabled them to display surprising intelligence: as warriors endowed with both strength and courage to which humans could only aspire; as fierce competitors in bear-baiting spectacles, like prize-fighters engaged in a bloody sport; or as lovers, inclined to abduct women and have children with them. People treated bears as they expected to be treated themselves, and expected them to behave as humans would; not as passive victims of human action, but as active subjects.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":53005865484561,"sku":"NGR9781837723751","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53468783345937,"sku":"NLS9781837723751","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781837723751.jpg?v=1777714406"},{"product_id":"introducing-the-medieval-snail-book-julia-pineau-9781837723720","title":"Introducing the Medieval Snail","description":"When one thinks about medieval animals, snails rarely come to mind. Just as history has long had its biases, so has the study of animals – both have long focused on the ‘crowned heads’. A focus on the seemingly insignificant, on the small and the frail, offers a fresh point of view. This book studies the uses and representations of medieval snails, spanning material culture, medicine and gastronomy as well as a great variety of texts and images – taking into consideration bestiaries, sermons, poems and insults, as well as marginalia, sculpture, paintings and painted ceilings. Observing the Middle Ages from the viewpoint of a snail can be surprising, and lead us to delve into material everyday life as well as the core of culture-building. This study concludes with a novel reading of the famed ‘snail-combat motif’, in which a knight cowers faced with a ferocious mollusc, making a connection between Gothic marginalia and a new, most malleable cultural expression: the meme.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53132049416465,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":53132049482001,"sku":"NGR9781837723720","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781837723720.jpg?v=1771288165"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/medieval-animals-book-series.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}