Reading: Ana L. Méndez-Oliver, “Animal Imagery and Racial Marking in Coplas Del Perro de Alva,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 56, no. 2 (2026): 371–93. https://doi.org/10.1215/10829636-12354374
This article analyzes the fifteenth-century story of a mythic black dog who devoured the Jews of the Spanish town of Alba de Tormes. While the article ultimately concludes that the dog probably symbolized the hardline Dominican order, I liked how it foregrounds the weird ambiguity of how Christians saw dogs — beloved as man’s best friend, abjured as an antisemitic symbol — in the context of medieval Spain.
“While Coplas del perro de Alva portrays the dog as the protector of Christians in the town of Alba de Tormes, its exemplary depiction is questionable, as it exposes the fissures of the boundaries between human-nonhuman as well as the human inhabitants of the town, Christians and Jews. Indeed, the poem presents a story in which the lines between human law and cultural practices, human and animal behavior, and dog as loyal protector or menacing beast are blurred.” [377]