Hagiography as Monstrous Ethnography:

A Note on Ratramnus of Corbies Letter Concerning the

Conversion of the Cynocephali*
by Scott G. Bruce

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.1
In the middle decades of the ninth century, Ratramnus, a monk of Corbie,
wrote a letter to a priest named Rimbert to lend his learned opinion to a
vexing missionary dilemma: the conversion of the Cynocephali, a monstrous
race of dog-headed men.2 Ratramnus and Rimbert were both prominent
* I am indebted first and foremost to Michael Herren for the patience and generosity
that he showed me when I attended his classes in Latin poetry at Glendon College and the
Center for Medieval Studies as an undergraduate at York University. I would like to assure
him that, despite the topic of this paper in his honour, I did not find the experience the least
bit monstrous. I am also grateful to Jamie Kreiner, who kindly secured photocopies of
relevant articles for me at short notice; and to Anne E. Lester and Gernot Wieland for their
attentive reading of this work in draft. Any remaining errors of fact or judgement are mine
alone.
1
Homer, Od. 9.17476.
2
Ratramni Corbeiensis Epistolae, ed. E. Dmmler, MGH Epp. 6, (Berlin, 1925),
pp. 15557; trans. Paul Edward Dutton, Carolingian Civilization: A Reader, 2nd ed.
(Peterborough, 2004), pp. 45255. On the missionary context of the letter, see Ian Wood,
Christians and Pagans in Ninth-Century Scandinavia, in The Christianization of
Scandinavia: Report of a Symposium Held at Kunglv (Sweden, 49 August 1985), ed.
B. Sawyer, P.H. Sawyer, and I.N. Wood (Alingsaas, 1987), pp. 3667, esp. pp. 6366.
General discussions of monsters in ancient and medieval thought that consider the
Cynocephali include: John Block Friedman, The Monstrous Races in Medieval Art and
Thought (Cambridge, Mass., 1981); Alexander Perrig, Erdrandsiedler oder die schrecklichen
Nachkommen Chams: Aspekte der mittelalterlichen Vlkerkunde, in Die Andere Welt:
Studien zum Exotismus, ed. Thomas Koebner and Gerhart Pickerodt (Frankfurt am Main,
1987), pp. 3187, at 35; David Gordon White, Myths of the Dog-Man (Chicago and London,
1991), pp. 2270; Alauddin Samarrai, Beyond Belief and Reverence: Medieval
Mythological Ethnography in the Near East and Europe, Journal of Medieval and
Renaissance Studies 23 (1993), 1942, at pp. 3536; David Williams, Deformed Discourse:
The Function of the Monster in Mediaeval Thought and Literature (Montreal and Kingston,
1996), pp. 28697; Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, Of Giants: Sex, Monsters, and the Middle Ages
(Minneapolis and London, 1999), pp. 11941; and Paul Edward Dutton, Charlemagne, King

45

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Bruce

figures in the intellectual circles of northern Europe in the late Carolingian

period.3 The author of treatises on the Eucharist and the doctrine of
predestination, Ratramnus (d. 868) was a respected thinker who played a key
role in important theological controversies.4 Rimbert (d. 888), for his part,
was the most accomplished protg of Saint Anskar, the apostle of the
North, whom he accompanied on missionary trips to the pagan kingdoms of
Denmark and Sweden. Upon the death of his mentor, Rimbert succeeded
him as archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen and strove to continue his
evangelizing work. When poor health prevented him from making arduous
journeys, he composed the Vita Anskarii to commemorate the virtues of the
saint and to kindle political and episcopal support for the ongoing missions
to what he considered to be the uttermost edge of the world.5
Ratramnuss letter to Rimbert was the last word in a longer epistolary
exchange (now lost) on the issue of the Cynocephali, but fortunately for
modern readers it recapitulated the salient points of the pairs previous
conversations. It seems that Rimbert had initiated this dialogue because he
was curious about the nature of the Cynocephali, in particular, whether they
were rational beings and not simply animals and therefore open to the
possibility of salvation through conversion to Christianity.6 His concern may
have been more pragmatic than fanciful. As a participant in missionary
activity in Denmark and Scandinavia, Rimbert could have anticipated
encountering Cynocephali as he preached the faith in the northernmost
regions of the world, where such creatures were commonly believed to
dwell. If so, what was he to do?
Ratramnus was not rash in his judgement of the dog-headed men. He
asked Rimbert to gather as much information as possible concerning their
of Beasts, in Charlemagnes Mustache and Other Cultural Clusters of a Dark Age (New
York, 2004), pp. 4368, at 4546.
3
The fullest discussion of these authors and their respective works remains Max
Manitius, Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters, 3 vols. (Munich, 1911
1931), 1:41217 (Ratramnus) and 1:7057 (Rimbert).
4
Further on Ratramnuss role in the controversy over predestination, see David Ganz,
The Debate on Predestination, in Charles the Bald, Court and Kingdom, ed. Margaret
Gibson and Janet Nelson, 2nd rev. ed. (London, 1990), pp. 283302, esp. 29091.
5
Further on Anskar, Rimbert, and the political context of the composition of the Vita
Anskarii, see Ian Wood, The Missionary Life: Saints and the Evangelisation of Europe, 400
1050 (Harlow, 2001), pp. 12341; and James T. Palmer, Rimberts Vita Anskarii and
Scandinavian Mission in the Ninth Century, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 55 (2004),
23556.
6
Ratramni Epistolae, MGH Epp. 6, p. 155: Quaeritis enim, quid de Cenocephalis
credere debeatis, videlicet utrum de Adae sint styrpe progeniti an bestiarum habent animas.

Conversion of the Cynocephali

47

culture and society, while he retired to Corbies rich library to investigate the
opinion of patristic authorities on the nature of this monstrous race.7 Some
time later, a visit to Corbie by an associate of Rimbert gave Ratramnus the
opportunity to learn what his friend had discovered. Comparing this
information with the findings of his own research, the monk wrote to
Rimbert with his definitive opinion: the Cynocephali were not animals; they
were, in fact, human beings with rational minds.8 This judgement is striking
in its innovation, because it marks a significant departure from the baleful
depiction of this monstrous race by ancient and early medieval authors alike,
including the patristic authorities Ratramnus consulted in his abbeys library.
This paper asks why the monk of Corbie departed so markedly from
received traditions concerning the Cynocephali. It proposes that the answer
lies in his use of a hagiographical source, the Life of Saint Christopher, as an
authoritative witness to the character of these creatures.9 The Latin account
of the martyrdom of Christopher known to Ratramnus depicted the saint as a
dog-headed human, a creature of monstrous heritage who converted to
Christianity and was martyred during the murderous reign of the emperor
Decius. By reading this work of hagiography as an ethnographical source for
the Cynocephali, Ratramnus was able to rehabilitate the image of these
maligned beings and present them to Rimbert as rational individuals fully
capable of salvation. Ratramnuss reading of the Life of Saint Christopher
suggests that hagiographical texts had a wider range of application for early
medieval readers than scholars have previously supposed.10 Although saints
lives were written primarily to provide examples that encouraged the
cultivation of Christian virtue, especially among monks, Ratramnuss use of
the Life of Saint Christopher shows that learned individuals were not limited
to reading them in this way. In an intellectual milieu like Corbie, saints
lives were more than templates for moral action. As this paper argues, they
could also serve as authoritative sources for natural and unnatural lore.
7

On the monastic library at Corbie in the early Middle Ages, see David Ganz, Corbie in
the Carolingian Renaissance (Sigmaringen, 1990).
8
Ratramni Epistolae, MGH Epp. 6, p. 156: Homo vero a bestiis ratione
tantummodo discernitur. Quae quoniam videtur inesse his de quibus loquimur, homines potius
quam bestiae deputandi videntur.
9
For a catalogue of Latin hagiography related to the cult of Christopher, see Bibliotheca
Hagiographica Latina Antiquae et Mediae Aetatis, 2 vols. (Brussels, 18981901), 1.26668
(BHL 17641780).
10
For a suggestive challenge to traditional definitions of the purpose of medieval
hagiography, see Felice Lifshitz, Beyond Positivism and Genre: Hagiographical Texts as
Historical Narrative, Viator 25 (1994), 95113.

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Bruce

In antiquity, the Cynocephali were among a host of monstrous races

believed to inhabit the outermost rim of the civilized world. Classical
authors habitually conflated the furthest reaches of India and the deserts of
Africa into one country and populated this distant realm with all manner of
exotic peoples and unusual animals. Aberrant creatures were especially
prevalent in the legends surrounding Alexander the Greats campaigns in the
East.11 The classical tradition of eastern travel narratives depicted the
Cynocephali as a bestial race of dog-headed men.12 According to Ctesiass
Indica, the earliest account of India written in Greek (late fifth century B.C.),
and Megastheness lost work of the same name (c. 350290 B.C.), the
society of the dog-headed men was extremely primitive.13 They lived in the
mountains near the Indus River and dressed in animal skins. They had no
language of their own and barked at one another like dogs. Nevertheless,
they seemed to understand human speech, but could only respond by barking
or by making gestures with their hands and fingers like deaf-mutes. Their
food of choice was raw flesh. Despite the baseness of their culture, Ctesias
claimed that they had a love of justice, just like the other inhabitants of
India, with whom they were in contact.14
The writings of these and other Greek authors on the marvels of the
East informed the work of Pliny the Elder (23/479), whose encyclopedic
Natural History became an authoritative work of reference on monstrous
races for Latin Christian thinkers such as Augustine of Hippo (354430).15
In his magisterial On the City of God against the Pagans, Augustine relied
directly on Plinys distillation of eastern knowledge about aberrant creatures
in his discussion of their place in salvation history.16 His characterization of
11

For the reception of these legends in the Middle Ages, see n. 21, below.
For a catalogue of ancient sources treating the Cynocephali, to which I am much
indebted in this paragraph, see Claude Lecouteux, Les Cynocphales: tude dune tradition
tratologique de lAntiquit au XIIe sicle, Cahiers de civilisation mdivale 24 (1981),
11728, esp. pp. 11719.
13
Ctesias, Indica 37, ed. Dminique Lenfant, Ctsias de Cnide: La Perse, lInde, autres
fragments, (Paris, 2004), pp. 17980; and C. Plinius Secundus: Naturalis Historiae Libri
XXXVII, ed. Karl Mayhoff, 2 vols. (Stuttgart, 1967), 2.89: In multis autem montibus genus
hominum capitibus caninis ferarum pellibus velari, pro voce latratum edere, unguibus
armatum venatu et aucupio vesci. For the claim that Pliny borrowed this passage verbatim
from the lost work of Megasthenes, see E.A. Schwanbeck, Megasthenis Indica (Amsterdam,
1966), pp. 6869.
14
Ctesias, Indica 37, ed. Lenfant, p. 180.
15
For Plinys remarks on the Cynocephali, see n. 13, above.
16
For what follows, see Sancti Aurelii Augustini Episcopi: De civitate Dei libri XXII,
ed. Bernard Dombart and Alfons Kalb, 2 vols. (Stuttgart, 1993), 2.13537.
12

Conversion of the Cynocephali

49

the Cynocephali was decidedly grim. Although he was dubious about the
existence of any monstrous race, the bishop of Hippo argued that such
beings should be judged solely on the basis of their rationality. If they were
rational, then they must be descended from Adam and counted as members
of the human race, irrespective of their strange appearance. If they were not
rational, then they were no better than animals and had no place in the
economy of salvation. For Augustine, language was a key attribute of
rationality. Ancient commentators from Ctesias to Pliny were unanimous in
their opinion that the Cynocephali communicated by means of barking and
were otherwise incapable of speaking human languages. For this reason, the
bishop of Hippo singled out the dog-headed men for his harshest judgement:
What am I to say of the Cynocephali, whose dogs head and actual barking
prove them to be animals rather than men?17 Lacking the capacity for
human speech, the Cynocephali were no more than beasts and were therefore
not included in Gods plan for human salvation.
As Augustines prestige as a theologian grew in the centuries after his
death, so too did the authority of this condemning statement. In the early
seventh century, Isidore of Seville repeated Augustines judgement of the
dog-headed men in the Etymologies, an influential treatise on natural lore
that became a standard repository of classical knowledge in early medieval
monasteries.18 Mediated through Isidore, this Augustinian view of the
Cynocephali retained its currency in the Carolingian period. Rabanus
Maurus, an accomplished monastic encyclopedist who lived a generation
before Ratramnus, repeated Isidores negative evaluation of the dog-headed
men verbatim in his treatise on universal knowledge.19 In the opinion of
these Christian intellectuals, the Cynocephalis dissonant barking confirmed
their bestial nature and placed them beyond the pale with respect to
salvation.20
17
Augustine, De civitate Dei 2.135: Quid dicam de Cynocephalis, quorum canina
capita atque ipse latratus magis bestias quam homines confitetur. For the translation, see St.
Augustine, Concerning the City of God against the Pagans, trans. Henry Bettenson (New
York, 1972), p. 662.
18
Isidori Hispalensis Episcopi Etymologiarum sive Originum Libri XX, ed. W.M.
Lindsay, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1911), 2.29: Cynocephali appellantur eo quod canina capita
habeant, quosque ipse latratus magis bestias quam homines confitetur.
19
Rabanus Maurus, De universo libri XXII, PL 111, cols. 196D-197A: Cynocephali
appellantur eo quod canina capita habeant, quosque ipse latratus magis bestias quam homines
confitetur.
20
The value judgement of this disparaging characterization persisted well into the
eleventh century, when Cluniac authors habitually applied the term barking to the activity

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Bruce

Early medieval books of monstrous lore reinforced the prevailing

intellectual view of the Cynocephali by depicting them as a savage race
hostile to humankind. Popular legends of Alexander the Greats travels in
the East circulated widely in this period and presented a variety of monstrous
creatures as his adversaries.21 Latin and Old English versions of Alexanders
exploits recounted a skirmish between his forces and a great multitude of
aggressive dog-headed men. After storming the Macedonian army, the
Cynocephali were repelled by a volley of arrows and took shelter in a nearby
forest.22 The Latin text of The Wonders of the East, an early medieval
collection of eastern lore, likewise portrayed the Cynocephali as inhuman
beasts with long hair, sharp tusks and fiery breath. This account dignified
them somewhat by claiming that they inhabited cities in the south of Egypt
that were filled with fabulous wealth, but this information did little to
diminish their monstrousness.23 Lastly, the catalogue of strange creatures
known simply as the Book of Monsters (written c. 700) counted the barking
of the Cynocephali alongside their penchant for raw meat as evidence of
their inhuman nature.24 According to this work, the dog-headed men barked

of opponents of orthodoxy. When Odo of Cluny expounded the Gospels at the church of St.
Martin in Tours, the resident canons raged against his presumption, their voices a beastly
barking sound; see John of Salerno, Vita Odonis, PL 133, col. 49B: Coeperunt interea rabido
latratu omnes pene canonici furere contra eum. Similarly, in 1022 the heretics of Orlans
allegedly barked like dogs in the madness of their false beliefs; see Rudolphus Glaber,
Historiarum libri quinque 3.8.27, ed. John France, Rudolphus Glaber: The Five Books of
Histories and the Life of St. William (Oxford, 1989), p. 142: Et cum universarum heresum
insanientes canum latrantes deterrima.
21
On the strong currency of Alexander legends in the Middle Ages, see George Cary,
The Medieval Alexander (Cambridge, 1956) and David J.A. Ross, Alexander Historiatus:
A Guide to Medieval Illustrated Alexander Literature (Frankfurt am Main, 1988). On the
Anglo-Saxon tradition of these stories, see Andy Orchard, Pride and Prodigies: Studies in the
Monsters of the Beowulf-Manuscript (Toronto, 1995), pp. 11639.
22
Epistola Alexandri ad Aristotelem, in Orchard, Pride and Prodigies, p. 216:
Cenocephalis deinde ingentibus plena inuenimus nemora, qui nos adlacessere temptabant et
iectis sagittis fugiebant. For an Old English translation of this episode, see Orchard, Pride
and Prodigies, p. 244.
23
De rebus in oriente mirabilibus, in Orchard, Pride and Prodigies, p. 176: Similiter
ibi nascuntur Cenocephali, quos nos Conopoenas appellamus, habentes iubas equorum,
aprorum dentes, canina capita, ignem et flammam flantes; hic est ciuitas uicina, diues
omnibus bonis plena: dexteriore parte ducitur illa terra ab Aegypto.
24
On the date of the Liber Monstrorum, see Michael Lapidge, Beowulf, Aldhelm, the
Liber Monstrorum and Wessex, Studi Medievali, 3rd series, 23 (1982), 15192, at pp. 164
65. Useful studies of this work include: L.G. Whitbread, The Liber Monstroum and

Conversion of the Cynocephali

51

as they spoke, thereby distorting every word they uttered.25 Like Augustine
before him, the author of this catalogue characterized the Cynocephali as
monsters due to their inability to speak a human language.
Although a consensus of opinion prevailed in early medieval thought
concerning the monstrous character of the Cynocephali, there was a
significant shift in this period in the understanding of what part of the world
they inhabited. Ancient authors had always populated the farthest reaches of
India and Africa with these creatures, a tradition that survived in Latin and
vernacular translations of classical works of eastern lore. By the late
Merovingian period, however, several accounts of the dog-headed men
situated them in the far north of Europe. The seventh-century Cosmography
attributed to Aethicus Ister collected all manner of information about
northern peoples and places. It maintained that the nefarious race (gens
scelerata) of dog-headed men lived on a northern island called Munitia
perhaps the Isle of Man.26 Paul the Deacons History of the Lombards,
written in the late eighth century, also depicted the Cynocephali as a
northern people. In Pauls narrative, the Lombards allied themselves with
dog-headed men, whose inhuman ferocity made them intimidating
adversaries. In particular, their inclination to drink the blood of their fallen
foes struck fear in the hearts of their mutual enemies.27
By the middle of the ninth century, when Ratramnus was considering
the place of the Cynocephali in the economy of salvation, a centuries-old
Beowulf, Mediaeval Studies 36 (1974), 43471; and Orchard, Pride and Prodigies, pp. 86
115.
25
Liber monstrorum de diversis generibus, in Orchard, Pride and Prodigies, p. 268:
Cynocephali quoque in India nasci perhibentur, quorum sunt canina capita, et omne uerbum
quod loquuntur intermixtis corrumpunt latratibus, et non homines, crudam carnem
manducando, sed ipsas imitantur bestias.
26
Die Kosmographie des Aethicus, ed. Otto Prinz, MGH Quellen zur Geistesgeschichte
des Mittelalters 14, (Munich, 1993), pp. 11415: Munitiam insolam septentrionalem scribit.
Homines Cenocefalus nimis famosa indagatione scrutans capite canino habere similitudinem,
reliqua membra humana specie, manus et pedes sicut reliqui hominum genus, procere statura,
truculenta specie, monstra quoque inaudita inter eos. Quos vicinae gentes circa eos Cananeos
appellant, nam feminae eorum non praeferunt tantum horum similitudinem. Gens scelerata,
quam nulla historia narrat nisi hic philosophus. For a recent evaluation of this difficult work,
see Ian Wood, Aethicus Ister: An Exercise in Difference, in Grenze und Differenz im frhen
Mittelalter, ed. W. Pohl and H. Reimitz (Vienna, 2000), pp. 197208, esp. 199 for the
suggested reading of Monabiam (Isle of Man) for Munitiam.
27
Paul the Deacon, Historia Langobardorum, ed. G. Waitz, MGH SRG (Hannover,
1878), pp. 5960: Simulant, se in castris suis habere cynocephalos, id est canini capitis
homines. Divulgant aput hostes, hos pertinaciter bella gerere, humanum sanguinem bibere et,
si hostem adsequi non possint, proprium potare cruorem.

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tradition had populated the imagination of northern Europeans with a race of

dog-headed men who were little more than inhuman monsters. Eaters of raw
meat and drinkers of human blood, the Cynocephali were the stuff of
nightmares. Lacking the capacity for human speech and communicating
solely by means of inarticulate barks, they showed no evidence of the
rationality that Augustine argued was the proof of descent from Adam and
the guarantee of affiliation with the human race. Nevertheless, in his letter to
Rimbert, Ratramnus was confident in his assertion that the Cynocephali
were, in fact, rational beings. His defence of their rationality and their
participation in Gods plan for human salvation rested on two pieces of
evidence that were unknown to Augustine and his emulators: first, an eyewitness account of the society of the Cynocephali, which suggested that they
had more in common with people than with beasts; and second, the
authoritative example of Saint Christopher, a dog-headed martyr of Christian
antiquity recognized by God as a human being.
Rimberts report on the culture of the Cynocephali provided compelling
evidence for Ratramnus that they were rational beings. The specificity of his
observations has led scholars to infer that the legend of the northern dogheaded men arose from eye-witness accounts of pagan villages, whose
warriors wore animal masks into battle.28 To begin with, Rimbert stated that
the Cynocephali lived together in communities. This implied to Ratramnus
that they followed what he called social contracts (societatis quaedam iura),
that is, they upheld laws that allowed individuals to live and work together.
Since the basis for law is morality, the monk of Corbie lauded their
willingness to foster the moral principles necessary to live in a community.
Even more important than the rule of law, however, was the news that the
Cynocephali practiced agriculture and wore clothing. For Ratramnus, the
cultivation of crops implied the knowledge of an art that necessitated the
application of reason. The fabrication of clothing implied this as well.
Moreover, the fact that the dog-headed men felt the need to wear clothing at
all suggested that they felt modesty, a feeling unknown to animals because it
was a property of the rational soul. If these characteristics were true, then the
Cynocephali must be endowed with reason. Lastly, Rimberts letter also
28

For what follows, see Ratramni Epistolae, MGH Epp. 6, pp. 15556. This
portion of Ratramnuss letter is treated in Friedman, The Monstrous Races, pp. 18890. On
the correlation between Cynocephali and pagan warrior masks, see Heinrich Lwe, Salzburg
als Zentrum literarischen Schaffens im 8. Jahrhundert, Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft fr
Salzburger Landeskunde 115 (1975), 11443, at p. 131; and Wood, Christians and Pagans in
Ninth-Century Scandinavia, pp. 6465.

Conversion of the Cynocephali

53

reported that the dog-headed men kept domesticated animals. Since God
ordained the subjugation of animals to humans and animals had never been
known to domesticate other animals, the Cynocephali distinguished
themselves from savage beasts by their ability to tame creatures with
mildness and put them to use in their communities.29
While the testimony of Rimbert was provocative, it was insufficient to
sway the opinion of Ratramnus without the corroborating support of
Christian authorities. The monk of Corbie found confirmation for his
friends inferences about the humanity of the Cynocephali in a little book
concerning the martyrdom of Saint Christopher, where, he said, it is made
known that [the dog-headed saint] was a member of the human race.30 The
cult of Saint Christopher enjoyed considerable popularity in early medieval
Christendom.31 The first accounts of his martyrdom were written in Greek,
but the story of his conversion to Christianity and death at the order of the
emperor Decius eventually became popular in western Europe as well.32 The
oldest Latin recension of the Life of Saint Christopher (BHL 1764) survives
in several manuscripts from the tenth and eleventh centuries. The influence
of this Latin text on the ninth-century Old English Martyrology suggests,
however, that it already had a strong currency in the late Carolingian
period.33 Although it is impossible to know for certain what version of the
text Ratramnus consulted in the Corbie library, there is every likelihood that
it bore a close resemblance to BHL 1764.
29
Ratramni Epistolae, MGH Epp. 6, p. 157: At vero Cenocephali, cum
domesticorum animalium dicuntur habere multitudinem, eis minime convenit bestialis feritas,
quorum animalia domestica lenitate mansuefiunt.
30
Ratramni Epistolae, MGH Epp. 6, p. 156: Huic intelligentiae non parum
suffragari videtur libellus de martyrio sancti Cristophori editus. Quemadmodum enim in eo
legitur, hoc de genere hominum fuisse cognoscitur, cuius vita atque martyrium claris
admodum virtutibus commendatur.
31
See n. 9, above.
32
An early Greek Life of Christopher has been edited by G. Van Hooff, Sancti
Christophori Martyris Acta Graeca Antiqua, Analecta Bollandiana 1 (1882), 12148.
33
For an edition of BHL 1764 from an eleventh-century manuscript (Paris BN MS
Nouv. Acq. Lat. 2179), see Passio Sancti Christophori Martyris, Analecta Bollandiana 10
(1891), 393405 (hereafter cited by chapter and page number). For the influence of the Latin
text on the Old English Martyrology with reference to earlier manuscripts of BHL 1764, see
Theodore H. Leinbaugh, St. Christopher and the Old English Martyrology: Latin Sources
and the Phrase hws gneades, Notes and Queries 230 (1985), 43437. Further on the Old
English witnesses to this tradition, see Joyce Tally Lionarons, From Monster to Martyr: The
Old English Legend of Saint Christopher, in Marvels, Monsters, and Miracles: Studies in the
Medieval and Early Modern Imaginations, ed. Timothy S. Jones and David A. Sprunger,
Studies in Medieval Culture 42 (Kalamazoo, 2002), pp. 16782.

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From the outset of the Life of Saint Christopher, the reader is left with
little doubt that the saint was born of monsters. First and foremost, the
author of BHL 1764 described Christopher explicitly as a man from a
distant land of cannibals who was terrifying to behold and had a head just
like that of a dog.34 In addition to his canine features, the saint had wild hair
that shone like gold, burning eyes that flashed like stars, and bestial tusks
that protruded from his mouth, all of which underscored his monstrous
heritage.35 His face was so frightening that Emperor Decius literally fell
from his throne in terror when Christopher entered his audience hall.36
Moreover, like the Cynocephali condemned as inhuman by Augustine, the
saint was not born with the capacity for human speech.37 Like others of his
kind, barking was his only means of communication. In every respect, then,
the portrait of Christopher presented in BHL 1764 conformed with the
traditional attributes of the dog-headed men of antiquity.
Nevertheless, a miraculous episode reported in the Life of Saint
Christopher affirmed for Ratramnus that, contrary to received tradition, the
Cynocephali were, in fact, human beings and therefore participants in the
economy of salvation. Following the lead of Augustine, Ratramnus was not
willing to disqualify the humanity of the dog-headed men because of their
monstrous appearance. As noted above, the bishop of Hippo was little
concerned with the aberrant physiology of the Cynocephali in his discussion
of their possible humanity. For him, the most important criterion for their
association with the human race was evidence of their rationality.
Accordingly, the inability of the Cynocephali to speak a human language
excluded them from the gift of Gods grace. Ratramnus accepted
Augustines principle of rationality, but argued against his judgement
concerning the dog-headed men based on the evidence he discovered in the
Life of Saint Christopher. Early in the account of his martyrdom, the saint
34
Passio sancti ac beatissimi martyris Christophori 1, p. 395: Quidam autem vir, cum
esset alienigena, regionis eorum qui homines manducabant, qui habebat terribilem visionem
et quasi canino capite, in bello comprehensus est e comitibus temporibus illis et perductus est
ad regem.
35
Passio sancti ac beatissimi martyris Christophori 3, p. 395: Caput ejus terribile ita
ut canis est. Capilli capitis ejus nimium expansi, rutilantes sicut aurum. Oculi autem ejus sicut
stella matutina, et dentes ejus velut apri prominentes. Compare n. 23, above.
36
Passio sancti ac beatissimi martyris Christophori 9, p. 398: Rex vero, videns vultum
ejus, properavit cadere de sede sua.
37
Passio sancti ac beatissimi martyris Christophori 1, p. 395: Cum autem
proponeretur impiissimum edictum a judice, hic ei beatissimus non poterat loqui nostrae
linguae sermonem.

Conversion of the Cynocephali

55

was miraculously granted the gift of human speech in fulfillment of his

prayers to God. Moreover, in the same episode, it was clear to the monk of
Corbie that God recognized Christopher as a human being:
Going forth from the palace, [Christopher] threw himself on his
face, praying to the Lord to be given the ability to speak through
the power of Christ. Loving the human race, God did not delay and
immediately appeared in the likeness of a man surrounded by light
and said Rise. And taking him by the hand, God lifted him up
and opened his mouth and blew into it and granted him the spirit of
understanding and [Christopher] was able to say all of the things he
wished to say.38
According to the Life of Saint Christopher, it was Gods love for the human
race that moved Him to bestow on the dog-headed saint the power of speech.
Ratramnus understood this to mean that Christopher was human after all,
despite his monstrous attributes. Moreover, it proved to the monk that the
natural inability of the Cynocephali to demonstrate their rationality by
speaking human languages could be overcome by prayer.
The unprecedented use of a saints life as an ethnographical source for
the character of the Cynocophali provided new information about this
seemingly monstrous race that subverted the authority of Augustine, who
denied any evidence of their humanity. Although the bishop of Hippo is
never mentioned by name in the text, his criterion of rationality as a defining
aspect of humanity and proof of descent from Adam pervades the letter of
Ratramnus. In the legend of Christopher, the dog-headed saint who was
recognized as a human being by God and received the power of speech in
answer to his prayers, the monk of Corbie found an authoritative
corroboration for Rimberts report that the society of the Cynocephali was
built on rational principles. Taken together, the findings of Ratramnus and
Rimbert rehabilitated the image of the dog-headed men by offering them
their rightful place in salvation history. As a result of their inquiry, these
Carolingian thinkers gained new territory for Christendom. By replacing the
38

Passio sancti ac beatissimi martyris Christophori 2, p. 395: Egrediens autem de

palatio foris, projecit se in faciem, deprecans Dominum dari sibi loquelam per virtutem
Christi. Deus autem, diligens humanum genus, non distulit, sed statim adstitit in
similitudinem viri fulgentis, dicens: Surge. Et apprehendens ei manum, erexit eum et aperiens
os ejus, sufflavit in eum et dedit ei spiritum intellectus, et loquebatur omnia quaecumque
volebat. The emphasis in the translation is mine.

56

Bruce

monsters that traditionally populated the outermost rim of the northern world
with a race of rational beings descended from Adam and receptive to the
message of the Gospel, they opened up a new field of missionary activity
and with it the hope of winning more souls for God.