Medieval Europe had a special kind of genius for imagining that the world beyond its borders was full of strange creatures that no one in their right mind would want to meet on a dark night. If you couldn’t see it with your own eyes, the logic went, it was probably teeming with things that …
Why are there so many monstrous races at the edges of the world? weiterlesen
As humans, we instinctively fear the unknown, often turning abstract fears into tangible symbols to regain control. Monsters are among the most enduring symbols humans have conceived to embody fears and unknowns. As Jeffrey Jerome Cohen explains in Monster Theory, ‘The monster is continually linked to forbidden practices, in order to normalize and to enforce. …
Long before Nigel Farage took aim at Brussels, a different kind of foreign threat was being charted in British minds. In the sixth century, Nennius of Historia Brittonum, musing on Britain’s origins, traced its lineage to the mystical first king of Britain, Brutus of Troy, who in turn was a descendent of none other than …
Monsters on the Isles: A Journey Into the British Mind weiterlesen
In an age long before GPS and satellite imagery, medieval maps served as humanity’s imaginative landscapes: A means of navigating not just physical space, but moral and spiritual worlds as well. Unlike modern maps, these works of art and thought weren’t meant to be geographically precise. Instead, they were a synthesis of faith, philosophy, and …
Of Maps and Monsters 