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[caption id="attachment_245" align="alignright" width="300"] The elephant at the Tower of London (London, British Library, MS Cotton Nero D I. f. 169v).[/caption]Along with the sessions organized by MAD (see the program at http://mad.hypotheses.org/225), many papers will deal with medieval animals at Leeds, International medieval congress, July 7-10 2014.Session113TitleNegotiating the Boundary between Human and Non-Human: Dogs, Warriors, and FoolsDate/TimeMonday 7 July 2014: 11.15-12.45OrganiserIMC Programming CommitteeModerator/ChairSiegrid Schmidt, Interdisziplinäres Zentrum für Mittelalterstudien (IZMS), Universität SalzburgPaper 113-aFit for a Dog?: Food Sharing and the Medieval Human/Animal Divide(Language: English)Alison L. Langdon, Department of English, Western Kentucky UniversityPaper 113-bWarriors with Animal Faces: Negotiating an Anthropological Model(Language: English)Antonella Sciancalepore, Dipartimento di Ricerca linguistica, letteraria e filologica, Università di Macerata / School of Literatures, Languages &#38; Cultures, University of EdinburghPaper 113-c'Fools' and Intellectual Disability: Modern Stereotypes and Medieval Mentalities(Language: English)Irina Metzler, Centre for Medieval &#38; Early Modern Research, Swansea University / 'Homo-debilis' Projekt, Universität BremenAbstractPaper -a:Medieval unease with human animality manifests strongly in attitudes toward and proscriptions concerning food sharing. This is particularly true with dogs, the animals with whom humans most intimately share both the procurement and consumption of food and who are routinely figured as embodying the best and worst characteristics associated with humans. This paper will explore the role of dogs and food in hunting treatises, penitential manuals, and a range of literary texts to reveal the precarious boundary between human and nonhuman animals in the medieval imagination.Paper -b:European medieval literatures occasionally feature warriors who, during battle, take the appearances of wild animals. This transformation occurs on many levels: physical, total-body metamorphosis, a facial deformation, or symbolic, using animal masks. These three configurations are variations upon the same anthropological model: that of the animal-warrior.Inside the socio-cultural process of shaping the image of the feudal knight, the universal model of the animal-warrior endured in both practice and literature, although negated, disguised and transformed.My paper will illustrate patterns of negotiation of this model in Medieval literature. It will consider mainly literature in langue d'oil, both epic and romance, but I will occasionally draw examples from Germanic and Celtic literatures.Paper -c:Medieval sources have a tendency to conflate conditions such as mental illness, epilepsy, demonic possession, and cognitive impairments. Since in modern understanding 'mental disability' tends to mean specifically intellectual impairment, plus what used to be called mental retardation or learning difficulty, the paper will aim to uncover what medieval normative texts, especially natural-philosophical texts, state about mental disability. Philosophically, and subsequently judicially, medieval intellectual impairment was considered the absence of reason, the irrational, which contrasted the mentally disabled with the Aristotelian concept of man as the rational animal. Thus in medieval culture natural fools were contrasted with the artificial.Session233TitleThe Literature of Medieval Scandinavia, II: Political, Cultural, and Mythological EmpiresDate/TimeMonday 7 July 2014: 14.15-15.45Paper 233-d Becoming-Animal in the Medieval Icelandic Imagination(Language: English)Tim Bourns, Faculty of English Language &#38; Literature, University of OxfordSession328TitleApproaches to Late Medieval ManuscriptsDate/TimeMonday 7 July 2014: 16.30-18.00Paper 328-a Visual Exegesis in Bestiaries: The Case of the Fire Stones(Language: English)Muriel Araujo Lima, Departamento de História, Universidade de São Paulo&#160;Session 504 : Animals and the Creation of Identities, I (MAD) : http://mad.hypotheses.org/225&#160;Session505TitleEngland's Immigrants, 1330-1550, I: Structures and ScopeDate/TimeTuesday 8 July 2014: 09.00-10.30Paper 505-c England's Other Immigrants: Animals and the 'Oryent' in Later Medieval English Culture(Language: English)Jenn Bartlett, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York&#160;Session 604 : Animals and the Creation of Identities, II (MAD) : http://mad.hypotheses.org/225&#160;&#160;Session631TitleMoney, Munitions, and Menagerie: The Birth of Royal Institutions at the Tower of LondonDate/TimeTuesday 8 July 2014: 11.15-12.45Paper 631-c Animal Diplomacy: The Royal Menagerie at the Tower of London and the 'Royal Beasts' Exhibition(Language: English)Sally Dixon-Smith, Tower of London, Historic Royal Palaces&#160;Session809TitleExploring 15th-Century Cyprus, III: Law and Foreign AffairsDate/TimeTuesday 8 July 2014: 16.30-18.00Paper 809-a The Maréchaussée: A Tax on Animals in 15th-Century Lusignan Cyprus(Language: English)Nicholas S. Coureas, Cyprus Research Centre, Nicosia&#160;Session1126TitleThe Pope, the Emperor(s), and the Holy Land: Rome, Byzantium, and the Holy Roman Empire at the Time of the Crusades, I - The HohenstaufenDate/TimeWednesday 9 July 2014: 11.15-12.45Paper 1126-c Elephants as Diplomatic Gifts in the 13th Century(Language: English)Klaus van Eickels, Lehrstuhl Mittelalterliche Geschichte unter Einbeziehung der Landesgeschichte, Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg&#160;Session 1404 : Round-Table about Whales (MAD) &#62; http://mad.hypotheses.org/225&#160;Session1534TitleEditing Medieval Texts: Digital PossibilitiesDate/TimeThursday 10 July 2014: 09.00-10.30Paper 1534-b Editing the Medieval Latin Bestiary(Language: English)Patricia Stewart, Independent Scholar, London