Century Germany Miranda K. Metcalf MA

1 When the Lion Lies Down with the Lapdog: Artists, Saints, Dogs and Men in Sixteenth- Century Germany Miranda K. Metcalf MA student, Art History, University of Arizona Canines have been companions to humans for somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000 years and are the earliest domesticated species.1 Despite dogs’ prominent presence during the development of human civilization, they have received little attention from historians. As Dorothee Brantz points out, “This omission may, however, reveal more about history as an academic discipline than it does about the past itself. After all, how could human societies have survived without the food, materials, labor and entertainment that animals supplied?”2 While there are those who question the importance of studying the presence of animals in the art and literature of the past, it is likely that this recent interest in the lives of animals is part of a steady broadening of the historical lens. This broadening expands beyond the once exclusionary focus on white, landowning men to include women, racial minorities, the impoverished, non- westerners, religious minorities, and eventually non-human animals.3 In recent years, several scholars have contributed significant research on the historical roles and the lives of animals. Erica Fudge is perhaps the most prolific contributor to this field.4 For over a decade she has published work and edited collections dedicated to the lives of animals and the way in which humans have perceived them in the early modern period. Fudge states in her publications that a history written by humans is primarily a history of humans and therefore 1 Evan Ratliff, “Mix, Match, Morph: How to Build a Dog,” National Geographic (February 2012), 39-48. 2 Dorothee Brantz, Beastly Natures: Animals, Humans, and the Study of History (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2010), 2. 3 Brantz, Beastly Natures, 2 and Juliana Schiesari, Beasts and Beauties: Animals, Gender and Domestication in the Italian Renaissance (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010), 3. 4 Erica Fudge has written and edited many titles devoted to this subject including, but not limited to: Pets (Stocksfield: Acumen Press, 2008); Brutal Reasoning: Animals, Rationality and Humanity in Early Modern England (Ithaca: Cornell University Press: 2006); and Perceiving Animals: Humans and Beasts in Early Modern English Culture (New York: Macmillan/St Martin’s Press, 2000). © 2014 The Middle Ground Journal Number 9, Fall 2014 http://TheMiddleGroundJournal.org See Submission Guidelines page for the journal's not-for-profit educational open-access policy an inherently a narrow view of history, particularly given the abundance of non-human animals within the lives of humans throughout history and that the way in which humans historically have defined themselves is often based on comparison to non-human animals.5 Another prominent animal scholar is Harriet Ritvo who began her work on animals and history in the early 1980s.6 Ritvo wrote in the introduction to her 2010 publication Noble Cows and Hybrid Zebras that her 1980s work was once introduced as “‘the weirdest’ of the ‘many weird things that have been coming out of the humanities lately.’”7 She goes on to state that animal studies is no longer considered a fringe topic and scholars now readily turn their attentions to nonhuman animals. Yet despite the work of these scholars and many others, the study of animals in the early modern period remains a popular yet marginal field within the disciplines of the humanities.8 One of the first major works to discuss animals in the early modern world was Keith Thomas’s Man and the Natural World, published in 1971. In this work Thomas examines the changes in the way the people of England viewed the natural world from 1500 to 1800. He focuses on the fact that the people of the lower classes often spent time in close proximity to animals and through their interactions formed opinions about the nature of animals which contradicted the Church’s view that animals were soulless machines.9 Thomas writes on many aspects of the natural world, including plants, and devotes several pages to the role of domestic 5 Erica Fudge, Renaissance Beasts (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004), 3; and Perceiving Animals, 1; Harriet Ritvo, Noble Cows and Hybrid Zebras (Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press, 2010), 2. 6 Harriet Ritvo, The Animal Estate: The English and Other Creature in the Victorian Age (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989). 7 Ritvo, Noble Cows and Hybrid Zebras, 1. 8 Ibid., 11. 9 Keith Thomas, Man and the Natural World (New York: Scribner, 1971), 92-99. dogs in his section titled “Privileged Species,” which is dedicated to the species most intimately involved in the lives of humans: cows, horses, falcons, cats and dogs.10 My essay explores one aspect of sixteenth-century human-canine relations and an unaddressed, notable exception to a common pattern found in sixteenth-century portraiture; the exploration of this may lead to greater understanding as to how these animals, who were so intimately involved in the forming of human civilizations, functioned in society. Expounding upon the simplistic connection between certain breeds of dogs and gender identity in sixteenth- century Germany, I assert that while there were undeniable links between hunting dogs and men on the one hand, and lapdogs and women on the other, the role that these two varieties of dogs played in the households of Renaissance nobility is more complex than simply reflecting the division between masculine and feminine. Exploration of Lucas Cranach the Elder’s 1525 and 1526 versions of Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg as St. Jerome in his Study shows that the unusual inclusion of a lapdog with a male figure in the 1525 version of this painting exposes the reality that hunting dogs and lapdogs functioned not merely as gender markers, but as indicators of the line between public and private spaces. Beginning with a brief history of canines in western Europe and addressing the ways in which domestic dogs have been connected to the gender identities of noble men and women, the examination of Lucas Cranach’s 1525 painting of Albrecht of Brandenburg illustrates how the complex social and political forces in place during the painting’s creation affected the inclusion–and subsequent removal in the 1526 version of the painting–of a lapdog. This analysis demonstrates that the placement and removal of this lapdog imagery was a reflection of the multifaceted society of the Renaissance world and was therefore more significant than just the simple representation of gender roles. 10 Ibid., 100-120. The sole author to have explored the topic of dogs and gender roles in the Renaissance is Juliana Schiesari in her book Beast and Beauties: Animals, Gender and Domestication in the Italian Renaissance. Schiesari opens her book with an exploration of the burgeoning culture of pets in sixteenth-century Italy. She focuses on the connection between noblewomen and their lapdogs, in her chapter, “‘Jewels of Women’: Ladies, Laps, and Lapdogs in Renaissance Culture.” Schiesari’s work has been extremely useful to my own research devoted to the relationship between dogs and gender roles in sixteenth-century Germany, specifically the topic of the imagery of lapdogs when they appear with men. Dogs as Household Pets in the Sixteenth Century In Germany, in the sixteenth century dogs as companion animals were a part of everyday life. This is evidenced by their presence in visual artifacts from the time, such as paintings, statues and engravings.11 Dogs appear in images with both secular and religious themes, with nobility and commoners, and as working animals and domestic cohorts. Similar to the present day, there existed a wide variety of domesticated dog breeds. Dogs resembling Pomeranians, Papillons, Great Danes, Chihuahuas, Greyhounds, Terriers, Corgis, Mastiffs, and Beagles are all found in images from sixteenth-century Europe. The existence of such a great range in the physical appearance of canine companions offered those who could afford such “designer dogs” the ability to use their pets as an expression of their own identity. The number, breeding, and strength of one’s dog could be said to reflect on one’s social status and wealth.12 Mark S. R. Jenner writes in his essay “The Great Dog Massacre,” “[male] aristocrats [of early modern 11 Simona Cohen, Animals as Disguised Symbols in Renaissance Art (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 22; Francis Catherine Johns, Dogs: History, Myth, Art (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008); Francis D. Lazenby, “Greek and Roman Household Pets,” The Classical Journal 44/ 4 (1949): 245-252; and Yi-fu Tuan, Dominance and Affection: The Making of Pets (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984). 12 Thomas, Man and the Natural World, 102-3. Europe] were expected to care for large packs of hound.”13 Similarly, the breed of dog often reflected the gender of its master.14 These gendered interpretations of dog breeds appear to be similar to modern day stereotypes. To place dogs in an accurate context one must understand the animals’ role in the society of sixteenth-century Germany. The existence of this wide spread affection and presence of dogs in sixteenth-century art may be in part connected to the rebirth of other classical traditions for which the Renaissance is named. Companion dogs were a large part of ancient Roman society. They are mentioned throughout classical writings and appear in texts written by some of the most recognized authors of the time, such as Martial and Ovid.15 It is well documented that dogs were not only beloved companions during the mortal lives of the men and women of antiquity, but were expected to accompany their owners into the afterlife as well. Statues of dogs were featured on funerary monuments and the animals were often shown at the feet of the entombed, 13 Mark S.

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