This publication has its origin in the colloquium Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages held at the Faculty of Geography and History at Complutense University in Madrid in February 2011. This publication aims to bring together scholars from a range of disciplines to consider the diverse use of animals in constructions of ‘otherness’. It encompasses not only conceptualized difference, but also physical societal differences expressed in the varied treatment of real and imagined animals. The contributions also discuss the use of animals to emphasize contrast more broadly, such as the juxtaposition between good and evil, or positive and negative features. The colloquium was organized by the Medieval Animal Data Network and the Universitad Complutense de Madrid, by Francisco de Asís García García, Mónica Ann Walker Vadillo and María Victoria Chico Picaza. (source: www.mad.hypotheses.org/78)

INDEX:

— Animalia extranea et stupenda ad videndum. Describing and naming exotic beasts in Cairo sultan’s menagerie: T. Buquet

— From the vita pauli to the legenda breviarii: real and imaginary animals as a guide to the hermit in the desert: L. Fenelli

— Animals and otherness in mamluk Egypt and Syria: Y. Frenkel

— Avicenna’s philosophy of the animal soul in context: D. González Ginocchio

— Dogs and human relationship between solidarity and otherness in the leges barbarorum: M. Iuffrida

— Draconcopedes, or, the faces of devilish virgins: G. Jaritz — Animal fables set among the biblical cycle of the nave of Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe: D. Kottmann

— The dragon’s skull: how can zooarchaeologists contribute to our understanding of otherness in the middle ages?: A. Pluskowski

— Snake pernicious and venomous. the malicious and dangerous other in medieval bulgarian and early modern charms: S. Tsonkova

— Ambiguous figures of otherness: redoubtable beasts in princely badges of the late middle ages: O. Vassilieva-Codognet.