Medieval Canine Companionship: Remarkably Early Inhabited Initial of a Dog from Twelfth Century France

Ex-Parke Bernet, 1948

Mankind has long been infatuated with dogs. The canine/human relationship goes back tens of thousands of years, and a painting of a dog as cave art from 9,000 years ago has survived. But it was only in the Middle Ages that images of dogs, especially those in context, begin to appear with any regularity.

Medieval dogs, whether they were lap-dog pets or trained hunting hounds, enjoyed a similar status in their owner’s hearts then as as they do now. Throughout the Middle Ages, important thinkers turn their thoughts towards animals, both allegorical and figural. As early as Pliny the Elder, who wrote Natural History around 70 AD, the loyalty of our canine companions has been noted, with anecdotes of dogs staying by their owner’s sides even after death. This theme is carried through the Middle Ages and the 14th century, and the “author of the Goodman of Paris also claims to have even seen with his own eyes a case of canine loyalty unto death” (Medieval Pets 9). In the 6th century, Saint Gregory the Great wrote in his Homilies on the Evangelists, comparing preachers with dogs in that the tongues of both have the power to cure. Though Isidore of Seville’s encyclopaedic text, Etamologiae, was written in the 7th century, it stands as a standard text for medieval scholarship and understanding of the natural world. Isidore’s entry for dogs underscores two qualities: bravery and speed. Chaucer includes a charming description of the Prioress, that “of small hounds she had and fed with with roasted flesh or milk or wasted-bread. But sorely she would weep if one of them were dead, or if someone hit it smartly with a stick.”

The difference between working dogs and pet dogs, primarily, was size, with lap-dogs being thought to be close to the modern Bichon, spaniels, and “small scent hounds,” such as greyhounds (Pets, 5). Though John Caius’ On canibus Britannicis (On British Dogs) appears later than our present dog, it remains an important resource for understanding pre-Modern dogs. He lists out hunting dog breeds as “the Harier, the Terrar, the Bloudhounde, the Gasehounde, the Grehounde, the Leuiner or Lyemmer, [and] the Tumbler.”

While it is difficult to identify historic breeds of dog, due to evolution and the fact that medieval illuminations were rarely labeled, the dog so finely illustrated in this illuminated initial appears to have features corresponding with a greyhound. This places our dog in a liminal state of either being a portrayal of a pet or a working dog.

Medieval illustrations often responded to the text they were included in. The images were sometimes literal depictions of the scene described in the text, sometimes allegories to be contemplated and to help guide the reader, sometimes they functioned as nemonic devices or aides to help the reader find their place in the text. Because this image has been divorced from its textual context, with only enough letters to provide palaeographic evidence to date and locate the manuscript, we cannot be sure what this dog’s function was for the manuscript or its reader.

But, even long past the manuscript’s original reader’s life time, and indeed, the manuscript’s ability to serve its original cultural function as a legible work, the dog remains loyal, anchoring the emotions humans feel for their pups.

The market rarely sees such fine Medieval depictions of dogs. Illuminated initials with animals that reach the market are usually representations of Biblical scenes. The nearly breed-specific dog outside of an explicitly Biblical context, giving us the opportunity to glimpse into the secular sphere, is exceedingly scarce.

Further Details:

[France, twelfth century], initial 42 mm. diameter, whole cutting 70 by 65mm, Fine penwork hound, his fur picked out in lappeting penstrokes, with his torso and front paws through an initial ‘O’ touched in purple-brown wash, as he turns his head to look at the text behind him, reverse with remains of single column of 8 lines of a good Romanesque hand written with a thin nib, and with a strong ct-ligature, text too slight and obscured to allow identification, mid-twentieth-century “#66” and “ABE” in pencil,

From the collection of Vladimir Gregorievitch Simkovitch (1874-1959), Russian émigré to Germany then America, professor of Economic History at Columbia University, New York. The dog jumping through the initial ‘O’ here as if it were a hoop is finely executed and suggests Parisian work in its understanding of shading and its use of penwork to create the texture of fur.

A record of sale for this appears at Parke Bernet in 1948.

See also:

Kathleen Walker-Meikle, Medieval Pets, Boydell Press, 2012

Lászlo bartosiewicz and Alice M. Choyke, Medieval Animals on the Move: Between Body and Mind, Palgrave Macmillan, 2021.

W. Cahn, Romanesque Manuscripts, 1996, no. 31 and 26