A Singular and Plural Beast

This chapter shows how early medieval communities bent their social and legal arrangements in order to accommodate these tricky animals. It also probes the limits of thinking about “the pig” as a stable species, because early medieval and modern commentators alike have noticed the hazards of generalizing: pigs had individual characteristics and abilities, they could learn new things, and they could change.

Salvaged Lands

This chapter demonstrates how farmers were thinking systemically, in similar and even complementary ways to the expansive analyzing of early medieval philosophers. The wealth of bioarchaeological data that have become available in recent decades makes it possible to see how early medieval communities were entangled in their environments — and how they integrated pig husbandry into these worlds. Early medieval farms and their ecologies were diverse, entangled, and constantly changing. And the flexibility of pigs’ own bodies and minds made them an asset as humans worked to exploit and accommodate different landscapes.