Animals and Multi-Species Considerations of Wellbeing 500 – 1100 CE

Much of the scholarship on Early Medieval English medicinal ingredients has focussed on herbal remedies and the role of plants in healing activities. This approach detracts from the significance of animals, their parts and products in medical texts and wellbeing practices and the fact that many of the actions are in fact multi-species. In this paper, we combine ideas from object-oriented methodologies commonly used in archaeology, such as chaîne opératoire and object biography, with analysis of case studies of early medieval wellbeing texts, using the pig as an exemplar species. These examples show that knowledge of an animal’s phenotype, behaviour, management and history was important to procure the right medical ingredients and that knowledge of the animals as individuals was necessary for the expected efficacy of the medical treatment. This article represents an initial step and proof of concept for using these methods to illustrate the role of animals in wellbeing practices, thereby highlighting the multi-species nature of early medieval materia medica in England.