[What did pigs look like in the Middle Ages?].
The conformation of medieval swine is less well documented by written reports or osteological states. This paper evaluates the conformation of medieval pigs from about 140 pictures of various sources (books of hours, misericords, illustration of bibles text or proverbs, sculptures etc.). The pictures demonstrate that medieval pigs mainly were long legged, slender, razor backed, bristly with long snouts and prick ears (Tab. 1) well adapted for herding in forests and waste land. In mediterranean countries in early and high Middle Ages as well as in some regions of France and England in the late Middle Ages compact animals with shorts snouts and lopears were depicted. Probably these typs resulted from other housing and feeding conditions (stall feeding with wastes from fields, gardens, kitchen etc.). Medieval pigs were one-coloured white, grey, black and sometimes red, pictures from saddle-back animals came from Italy or south Germany.
Institut für Tierernährung, Tierärztliche Hochschule Hannover.
H
H
Meyer
D000822:Animal Husbandry / Q000266:history*; D000818:Animals; D000829:Animals, Domestic / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D001154:Art / Q000266:history*; D005060:Europe; D005260:Female; D049668:History, 15th Century; D049669:History, 16th Century; D049691:History, Medieval; D008297:Male; D013552:Swine / Q000033:anatomy & histology*