The Monstrous Races in Medieval Art and Thought

by John Block Friedman

During the Middle Ages, travelers in Africa and Asia reported that monstrous races thrived beyond the boundaries of the known world. This work offers an introspective look at these races and their interaction with Western art, literature and philosophy.

Genres: History, Art, Nonfiction, Medieval, Race, Monsters, Read For School

308 pages, Paperback

First published May 28, 2000

Reviews

[Heather · Rating 2 out of 5]

A decently thorough and readable introduction to the monstrous races in the medieval world, but nothing special. Much more enjoyable was reading the actual sources themselves. In addition, Friedman exhibits (though perhaps not as badly as some scholars) the chronological bias so prevalent in modern thought, whereby it is assumed that we of the 21st century are much more enlightened about everything than the Medievals were.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

That was quite interesting. The book talks about the views of the medieval Europeans towards the monstrous races (ranging from the dog headed Cynocephali to the single footed Sciopod to the scholastic Gymnosophists to the Amazons).

Starting out I suspected that the monstrous races were a folktale or metaphor that people used but didn't actually believe in. Considering how seriously the medieval peoples took the discussions about them I don't think I can hold that position anymore though.

And those discussions were really interesting. The medievals tackled things like, "where did the monstrous races come from?", "do they have souls? how do they fit into God's plan?", "are they human?"

Surprisingly often that last answer was yes. And the theories about how the monsters came to be when they were also descended from Adam and Eve like humans were quite interesting. Most often as a punishment for some past sin.

And that gets into the most interesting part of the book to me. The past really is an alien world. They seem to have just thought different back then. For example, occasional references are made to people who actually went to the Holy Land and when they returned and wrote about it included accurate descriptions of places they'd seen along with repeating claims of monstrous peoples.

Which is just odd to me, you didn't see any dog headed men on your trip, why on earth are you telling me you did?

And the reasoning was interesting. I was surprised how often people would determine, "yes, these are human, regardless of how different they look". Especially when they leaned on similarity of behavior. The dog headed men were a common one here, they would be argued not human because they didn't seem to use language, instead barking to communicate (I suppose 'barking' could be a different language). But, others would argue that because they farmed and wore clothes, they had some form of reason and thus were human.

It was quite interesting how the medieval peoples would reason and discuss based on the first principles and reported information.

[Maggy L · Rating 5 out of 5]

an excellent intro to medieval monsters

[Thom Dunn · Rating 5 out of 5]

p. 44, a world map to compare with the Ebstorf (see Morris Bishop, the Middle Ages) . Here the figure of Christ stands behind the map, flanked by two angels {AND HOLDING IN HIS HANDS THE UMIM AND THURIM ?! --IF NOT,THEN WHAT ?} While Jerusalem is positioned and called "The navel of the World".