Barbora took part in a one-week curatorial research micro-internship in September 2021, hosted by the University of Oxford National Trust Partnership team and co-supervised by National Trust curator Carien Kremer.
Bakke, hreremus, and rattle-mouse: You might recognise these words as the medieval names for a bat. The first documented use of the word ‘bat’ can be traced to the 16th century, but they likely would have been living in and around Bodiam Castle since it was first built. The landscape is almost perfect for bats; hiding places in the castle and the mature trees as habitats, as well as a steady supply of insects from the grassland and water surrounding the castle. When we talk to visitors about bats, we tend to do so from the position of nature conservation. But what is the historic perspective? What would the first owners of Bodiam Castle and their contemporaries have known about bats?
Bodiam Castle staff submitted this question to the University of Oxford National Trust Partnership team, who run a curatorial research micro-internship programme for projects involving National Trust properties. Barbora Sojkova, a DPhil candidate at Balliol College with a special interest in animal studies, was selected to work on the Bodiam bats project. The report she produced during her micro-internship serves as a starting point for Bodiam staff in examining the history and symbolism of bats in medieval England.
Highlights include the references in key literary sources available in the middle ages (nothing in Chaucer, but three mentions in the Bible relating to bats being ‘unclean’ and prohibited as food) and a wonderful range of depictions in illuminated manuscripts of which an example is shown here. They show that bats were understood to be nocturnal, often classed as birds, and known to live in caves and castles.
Barbora quotes from the Aberdeen Bestiary from ca. 1200 as a good example of the kind of natural history that was written in Britain of 13th century: “The bat, a lowly animal, gets its name from vesper, the evening, when it emerges. It is a winged creature but also a four-footed one, and it has teeth, which you would not usually find in birds. It gives birth like a quadruped, not to eggs but to live young. It flies, but not on wings; it supports itself by making a rowing motion with its skin, and, suspended just as on wings, it darts around. There is one thing which these mean creatures do, however: they cling to each other and hang together from one place looking like a cluster of grapes, and if the last lets go, the whole group disintegrate; it a kind of act of love of a sort which is difficult to find among men.”
Barbora Sojkova is a DPhil candidate in Oriental Studies (Sanskrit) with prior degrees in Classical Indian Religions and Religious Studies.
Find out more about the National Trust Partnership here.
Find out more about the TORCH Heritage Programme here.
