FRONT MATTER

EDITORIAL NOTE

NEWS SECTION

ARTICLES

Gazing at the World Through Animals’ Eyes: Methodological Approaches to Highlighting the Animal Lens in Byzantine Literature Through the Case-Study of Theodore Hyrtakenos’s Horse

Sophia Xenophontos

Abstract

Modern scholars have recognised the role of material and symbolic animals for the Byzantines. Nonetheless, we still lack zoocentric investigations concentrating on animals as embodied subjects with their own needs and intents. This article decentres Theodore Hyrtakenos’s Letters (fourteenth century) from the human narrator, makes his horse the focus of attention, and, using insights from posthumanism, modern equine ethology, veterinary science, horse nutrition, and historical praxeology, shows that this animal is not a narrative prop but a social actor and agent. It thus highlights the dynamics of the animal lens as a source for interdisciplinary methodologies that supplement and refine our interpretation of Byzantine sources.

Horses in the Nibelungenlied and Wolfram’s Parzival: What do they Reveal about the Authors?

Conny Burian

Abstract 

The Nibelungenlied and Wolfram’s Parzival differ in their depiction of horses. In the Nibelungenlied, horses play a marginal role, but their richly adorned tack is described in detail. The focus on women’s equestrian pursuits, moreover, suggests a female perspective. Wolfram’s Parzival, by contrast, presents horses from a male perspective that foregrounds practical aspects of knightly horsemanship, such as riding in battle and tournaments, conformation, soundness, and care. The contrasting depiction of horses in these works may shed light on the enigmatic authors of these high medieval texts.  

Artist in the Holy Land: The Pilgrimage of Edward Troye

Gary A. O’Dell

Abstract 

Edward Troye was America’s most celebrated painter of animal portraits during the nineteenth century, primarily of Thoroughbred horses. During 1855-56, he accompanied wealthy Kentucky turfman Keene Richards to the Near East on an expedition to purchase horses from among the Bedouins. This paper focuses primarily upon his travel through Palestine and the circumstances in which his Oriental paintings were created, an aspect of his life which has often been overlooked in favor of his better-known work concerning animal paintings. I have made extensive use of Troye’s personal journal, which provides a day-by-day accounting of this trip. Few other writers have tapped this important resource, and even then only sparingly. Finally, a number of significant errors made by previous researchers are corrected.   

“The Best Thing that Persia Possesses:” European Views of Persian Horses throughout the Ages

D.T. Potts

Abstract

The horses of Iran have attracted discussion since antiquity. Beginning in the mediaeval era they were exported en masse to India and used as diplomatic gifts for rulers from Britain to Japan. As increasing numbers of Europeans went to Iran in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, interest grew in the specific breeds raised there, the most promising crosses and the potential for enriching the stud farms of Europe and Russia. Concerted efforts were made by the Russian and Austrian governments to acquire mares and stallions for breeding purposes.

BOOK REVIEWS

Jean-Lous Gouraud, ed. Amazones. Femmes de cheval chez tous les peuples de la Terre, depuis les temps les plus anciens jusqu’à nos jours

Reviewed by Anastasija Ropa

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS