Dogs of God and dogs of men

images in medieval narratives and iconography

Abstract

This article studies the images of the dog present in Lai de Melion, The lady with goat’s like foot and The demand for the Holy Grail, medieval narratives from the 12th-13th, 14th and 15th centuries, respectively. The comparison of these sources is justified by the fact that they present, in this time frame, singularities of meanings in relation to the canine figure, thus mirroring aspects of the view of nature that the medievals had in relation to the theme. The imagery and thematic repository for this comparative study will be sought not only in the medieval literature of bestiary books, but also in other sources in which dog images have a strong symbolic charge, as is the case of the vitae sanctorum. At certain moments of the study, a glance at the contribution of Classical Antiquity will be considered for the complementation of the meaning of the symbologies. The study has the theoretical and critical support of Jacques Le Goff (1994, 2009), Hilário Franco Jr. (2003), Fonseca (2009), among others, seeking to elaborate ideal aspects of the confrontation between the animal and the human, or rather, of how the medievals saw and meant the images of this arcane creation of God and companion of men. The study does not aim at a finalized exegetical investigation on the subject, but only a contribution to the “archaeological” nature, in which pieces fit together for the reading of the images.