Introduction

The tale of Bisclavret written by Marie de France is about a noble baron who's name is Bisclavret. This tale describes the life of Bisclavret who is loved by all in Brittany happily living with his beautiful wife. But he holds a secret which no one knows of, he is a werewolf. Every couple of days he is cursed to turn into a werewolf and must unclothe himself. Without his clothes he loses the only key of returning back to human. Once his wife hears his secret she immediately betrays him and starts an affair with another knight who she then orders to steal his clothes. As Bisclavret banishes himself into a forest he is later found by the King himself on a hunting trip. Intrigued by the monster, the King takes him back to his castle where he is loved by everyone. He then gets his revenge against his wife and soon retreives his clothes to finally become human again. The artifacts that I've chosen are a medieval manuscript representing a wolf with a voiceless person getting naked to recover their voice from the wolf, a medieval manuscript of Pliny’s Natural History, and lastly a medieval manuscript of a wolf and other retainer’s surrounding the king’s head. These artifacts all support the idea of the symbolization of clothes being the proof of being human.