The Barnacle Goose Myth

One piece of evidence that supported the idea of Spontaneous Generation in the Middle Ages was the case of the barnacle goose. (See the third part of the triptych to the left.)

The barnacle goose (Branta leucopsis*) is a diving bird that flourishes in England and Northern Europe. It weighs from about three to five pounds, and is quite edible. The "myth" part springs from a riddle in the Exeter Book.

My nose was in a tight spot, and I beneath the water,

underflowed by the flood, sunk deep

into the ocean-waves, and in the sea grew

covered with waves from above, my body

touching a floating piece of wood.

I had living spirit, when I came out of the embrace

of water and wood in a black garment,

some of my trappings were white,

then the air lifted me, living, up,

wind from the water, then carried me far

over the seal's bath. Say what I am called.

The answer is, of course, the barnacle goose.

The belief was that the goose, observed coming out of the water after a dive for food, was actually being birthed from the barnacle (see the middle illustration above) which was attached to the "floating piece of wood" of the riddle and whose coloring seemed to be a precursor to the markings of the goose. Barnacles were formed on pilings of docks that were underwater, and no one saw anything creating them, so they must have arisen spontaneously from the rot experienced by wood exposed to water. This matched the theories about Spontaneous Generation.

I alluded in yesterday's post that a pope got involved in a case of Spontaneous Generation. Because the barnacle goose was thought to come from a barnacle that generated underwater, they were fair game (ha!) during Lent. Giraldus Cambrensis (Gerald of Wales) recorded:

Bishops and religious men (viri religiosi) in some parts of Ireland do not scruple to dine off these birds at the time of fasting, because they are not flesh nor born of flesh... But in so doing they are led into sin. For if anyone were to eat of the leg of our first parent (Adam) although he was not born of flesh, that person could not be adjudged innocent of eating meat.

At the Fourth Lateran Council, Pope Innocent III forbade the eating of these geese during Lent, claiming that despite their generation they lived and fed like ducks and so were to be treated as other birds during Lent. (Was this the start of the phrase "If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck..."?)

There was also an idea that they could be born on trees (see the first part of the illustration). In Judaism, Rabbeinu Tam (1100 - 1171) declared that, even if born from trees, they were kosher and should be slaughtered properly like other animals.

I find that I have mentioned and quoted Gerald of Wales many times without giving him his due. We know a lot about his time period (late 12th - early 13th centuries) because of his reporting, which I'll talk about tomorrow. See you soon.

*Quick side note on the scientific name: branta is Latinized from the Old Norse Brandgás, "burnt (black) goose"; the Latin leucopsis = "white" + "faced."

Spontaneous Generation

In the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, Anaximander looked for an origin of life that did not rely on the gods. He theorized that life arose from the "wet" when acted on by the sun. The way that small life forms appeared in puddles gave him the idea that life—including human life—started as an aquatic form and progressed. This has caused some to claim he was a "prophet" of Darwin and others.

His student, Anaximenes, thought there was a primordial slime consisting of earth and water on which the sun worked to form plants and animals—including human beings.

"Spontaneous Generation" was accepted in the Middle Ages, especially after Aristotle became widely available. His History of Animals explained that animals were generated directly from the elements. Here are some translations of his thinking:

...and of these instances of spontaneous generation some come from putrefying earth or vegetable matter, as is the case with a number of insects, while others are spontaneously generated in the inside of animals out of the secretions of their several organs.

 ...

...all testaceans [creatures having a shell] grow by spontaneous generation in mud, differing from one another according to the differences of the material; oysters growing in slime, and cockles and the other testaceans above mentioned on sandy bottoms;

... 

Other insects ... are generated spontaneously: some out of dew falling on leaves, ordinarily in spring-time...; others grow in decaying mud or dung; others in timber, green or dry; some in the hair of animals; some in the flesh of animals; some in excrements: and some from excrement after it has been voided, and some from excrement yet within the living animal, like the helminthes or intestinal worms. 

(See the illustration, where flies spring from the corpse of a quadruped.)

Some writers actually aver that mullet all grow spontaneously. In this assertion they are mistaken, for the female of the fish is found provided with spawn, and the male with milt. However, there is a species of mullet that grows spontaneously out of mud and sand.

Shakespeare refers to spontaneous generation as if it were still a known and accepted occurrence in the Elizabethan Era. "Your serpent of Egypt is bred now of your mud by the/operation of your sun. So is your crocodile." [Antony and Cleopatra]

Spontaneous Generation was eventually supplanted by the understanding that animals could be extremely tiny (and cause infection, leading to germ theory) and that small eggs or larvae could explain creatures arising from corpses or puddles or slime.

There was one anecdote about the generation of life that required the intervention of a pope to help set people straight. Next time I'll tell you about the barnacle goose myth.