Abstract

Interest in the study of nature in the 13th century implied also an interest in the study of animals, which served as a kind of litmus test for defining what was exclusively human. According to the encyclopaedists, human beings (homo) differ from all other animals not simply in possessing a rational soul. They also differ with regard to their sensitive faculties and organs, which were considered as well in demarcating the human/ animal divide. For this reason, some encyclopaedists wrote extensively on the senses. This is the focus of the present paper, which aims to explore this human/animal divide concerning the senses in the encyclopaedias of Thomas of Cantimpré, Bartholomew the Englishman and Vincent of Beauvais.