Thinking About Animals in Thirteenth-Century Paris: Theologians on the Boundary Between Humans and Animals by Ian P. Wei (review)

The last decade has seen a number of significant new studies of animals in medieval vernacular literature, including the work of Susan Crane, Peggy McCracken, and Karl Steel, all of whom draw primarily on literary texts to trace the boundaries between humans and animals in the medieval imagination. Now Ian P. Wei is bringing the same thoughtful attention to Latin Scholastic texts. Confining his investigations to the work of thirteenth-century theologians at the University of Paris, Wei delves into close and nuanced readings, teasing out the complications and contradictions present beneath the apparent uniformity and conservatism of texts by William of Auvergne, Alexander of Hale, Bonaventure, Albert the Great, and Thomas Aquinas.

Humans are rational; animals are not. To medieval theologians and philosophers, this was the defining distinction between man and the rest of the animal world. However, Wei argues that this deceptively simple formulation served less as a dead end than an open field: within the confines of this basic premise, theologians were able to use animals in wildly imaginative ways.

The book is structured around a series of theological texts; all but one (Albert the Great's De animalibus) are not primarily about animals, but rather use animals to define and refine what makes humans unique among God's creation, to tease out the differences between humans and animals, and to investigate the nature of difference itself. This work-by-work structure allows Wei to dig deeply into each text, while also drawing suggestive connections between the works of thinkers, Wei reminds us, who all lived and worked within the same small world of the Paris schools, though their work held far wider implications as well. (Wei's inclusion of extensive footnotes with the original Latin passages for each text assures the book will do double duty as a useful primary resource.)

Supporting Wei's argument that the apparent theological consensus surrounding human and animal difference was productive rather than restrictive, each of these texts' assertions only leads to more and more interesting questions. All agree that God created animals for the use of humans, but then why did God create wild animals that are useless or even harmful to humans? What will happen to animal life after the Last Judgment, when animals are no longer needed by humankind? All agree that humans are superior to animals, but then why do some animals possess senses and abilities better than our own? All agree that humans are the only animals capable of reason, but then how do animals acquire their instinctual knowledge? Are they capable of learning? Of discrimination? Of memory?

Elsewhere animals serve as models for explaining and prescribing human behavior: Thomas Aquinas looked to birds to justify human marriage, and the human love of animals prompted Bonaventure to elucidate the different types of affection. Alexander of Hale found evidence of human dignity in bipedalism. William of Auverge used the example of disciplining animals to call for the execution of heretics. The contemplation of animals led theologians to meditate on free will and divine providence, creation and the fall, and the nature of angels, demons, and prophets. Along the way, they make a number of fascinating digressions into vegetarianism, animal sacrifice, and augury. Always sensitive to the tensions present in these texts, Wei points to the places where their arguments break down, contradicting one another or themselves. Here he finds evidence of the ingenuity and playfulness often overlooked by modern readers.

Wei concludes with the suggestion that understanding the differences between humans and animals allowed medieval theologians to better understand other boundaries: between material and immaterial, temporal and eternal, body and soul. As the living beings closest to humans in the hierarchy of creation, animals serve as a foil that helps us understand the what it means to be human. Speaking of Summa contra gentiles (ca. 1259–65), Wei writes, "For Aquinas … the...