26th November 2025: Liam Lewis

Wednesday 26th November 2025 (Week 9 of term) 1.10-2pm [with optional extended discussion time until 2.20pm]

Roaring and Crying with Animals in the Middle Ages

Dr Liam Lewis (Cardiff University)

Barking, hooting, and howling animals appear across the full range of medieval texts, from the talking dogs of medieval fables to mandrakes in bestiaries shrieking when they are uprooted from the ground. This talk traces some of the ways that animal sounds are represented for interpretation in medieval texts, focusing on English and French word lists from medieval England. Liam Lewis argues that sound representation and imitation in such contexts helped young aristocratic children to distinguish themselves from other speakers, and from the animal kingdom, by cultivating the sounds of animals in competing languages. He suggests that this positioned texts as multi-species contact zones that invited readers to think about what it means for an animal to cry, make noise, or speak.

This session takes place in Room 3.58 of the John Percival Building at Cardiff University or can be accessed via Teams using this link.