The Beast Within illustrates how, as property, food and sexual objects, animals in the middles ages had a distinct, and at times, odd relationship with the people and world around them. For example, animals viewed as property during the period shared in labor and increased their owners' status. However, these animals were regularly punished for the act owners were held responsible for the animals' behavior as well. When animals served as sexual objects for humans, much reflection, debate and even legislation was the result. Mythological and metaphoric animals also played important roles in the fables and religion of the day changing the views of humans about the beasts and themselves.
Joyce E. Salisbury was born in 1944 in Arizona, but grew up abroad -- 10 years in Rio de Janeiro and 5 in Mexico City. She has a PhD in Medieval History from Rutgers University, and taught history at the University of Wisconsin -- Green Bay. She is currently retired and spends time writing, traveling, lecturing, and playing with grandchildren in Green Bay, Wisconsin. In her books, Salisbury has explored her interests in the past: She focuses on early Christianity, and how Christian ideas have shaped our lives; on the relationship between humans and animals, and in her Western Civ textbook, The West in the World, she concentrates on how to teach about the past in an engaging way.
Most recently, Salisbury has traveled around the world teaching religion and history through the University of Virginia's program, Semester at Sea.
