The Figurative Sense and Sensing of Animals in Hugh of St Victor’s Didascalicon

Recent scholarship in medieval studies has approached the question of how the sensory processes of animals were thought to operate, according to High Medieval conceptions of both human and nonhuman animal souls. Acknowledging this important historiographical context, this chapter wishes to engage similar questions about conceptions of the animal soul as contained in Hugh of St Victor’s Didascalicon (and related literature). However, the approach adopted will consider how these conceptions worked theologically as a way of conveying figurative meaning to the human reader and auditor, rather than forming or contributing to speculative assumptions about actual or potential animal behaviour. In so doing, this chapter will argue two things. The first is that the tendency to include discussions on animals in High Medieval texts was very often prompted by exegetical, rather than zoological or even philosophical, interests – attested to by the nature of the texts in which they appear, and the conclusions they provide. The second is that medieval conceptions of both human and nonhuman animal souls corresponded with an interest in the figurative use of animal bodies. This comprised a mode of revealing and apprehending God at work in the medieval created world and indicates a broader and connected theology of creation thought to intricately bind together all created things.