The “Wild Beasts” of Sigismund von Herberstein and the List of Clean Ungulates in the Edited Slavonic-Russian Pentateuc

Abstract

This article analyzes the junction between the inserted chapter "De Feris" in Notes on the Muscovites by Sigismund von Herberstein, where wild beasts living in Lithuania are described, and the list of clean ungulates (Deuteronomy 14:5) from the Slavonic-Russian Pentateuch, edited in the 15th century according to the Turkic targum. The author hypothesizes that Herberstein borrowed the information about these beasts not only from his own experience of visiting Lithuania, but from the text of the edited Pentateuch. The paper also deals with other cases of the correction of animal names in the Slavonic-Russian Pentateuch according to kashrut (Leviticus 11:1-31, Deuteronomy 14:7-20). The appendix contains iconography of the "wild beasts" of Herberstein from the 16th-century editions, which were based on Herberstein's descriptions.