Medieval Piggies and More!

[Too Bo Coo]

I'm just about to get started on my animals for my SAGA game and to be honest, I have no idea what a 'Dark Ages pig' looks like, google was not much help.  Any of you chaps know of a decent reference pic or resource, or a pig painting tutorial?   An or all of the above help is most appreciated!

[dm]

Red-brown or Grey skin would be fitting. Have a look at some of the rare breed cattle and livestock websites

[Too Bo Coo]

Great idea!  I'll look up some sites.  Red/brown or gray sounds more right than 'pink'.... 

By the way, VERY happy with the Pegasus 1/48 set of livestock.  30 animals and the only ones that really dont work are the turkey's.  You even get a nice yard dog!

[dm]

Looking forward to seeing them painted and never seen that set

Dont totally rule out pink pigs as i know of at least one Medieval illustration which shows both totally brown and totally pink pigs meeting the chop at the butchers.

Pigs were used for pannage during the Medieval period in many places and helped to control and regulate woodland and it was a free way of fattening up the pigs before the mid winter feasts and the idea was to let the pigs forage for acorns in areas of fenced or banked off Oak or mixed woodlands. The pigs rooting about for acorns and edible shallow plant roots stopped the next seasons growth of soon to be new saplings and it kept both the woodlands and pigs very healthy. Imagine these pigs were often the same colour as the woodland soil after a few days of rooting about. Imagine this practice was conducted before the Medieval period in many parts of Europe.

[Mitch K]

I'm just about to get started on my animals for my SAGA game and to be honest, I have no idea what a 'Dark Ages pig' looks like, google was not much help.  Any of you chaps know of a decent reference pic or resource, or a pig painting tutorial?   An or all of the above help is most appreciated!

See:
http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=63290.0

I think it's most likely Dark Ages pigs were much like wild boar - a bit fatter, a bit shorter in the leg and a bit less hairy (and a bit less aggressive, but that won't show up on a miniature). I think it's fair to say that they probably weren't like modern Large White derived porkers!

[AndrewBeasley]

I found this reference http://archaeology.about.com/od/domestications/qt/pigs.htm that raise an interesting point or two:

The researchers argue that therefore, coat color variation was selected for by humans, which makes perfectly reasonable piggy sense. A wild pig would likely survive better on its own if it were to stay hidden; while a human might very well choose to be able to find and identify her own pigs.

If anyone is desperate I'll see if my daughter can get a copy of the paper

For me thought I think dark brown or black fits with the view of older breeds even though I maybe 100% wrong.

[Too Bo Coo]

Great stuff!  Thanks Mates!

[Dolmot]

I'd like to recommend the article "Wie sahen Schweine im Mittelalter aus?" by H. Meyer in Deutsche tierärztliche Wochenschrift 113(1), 2006, pp.15-23. Unfortunately I don't subscribe to many German veterinary journals so all I have is this (English) abstract:

The conformation of medieval swine is less well documented by written reports or osteological states. This paper evaluates the conformation of medieval pigs from about 140 pictures of various sources (books of hours, misericords, illustration of bibles text or proverbs, sculptures etc.). The pictures demonstrate that medieval pigs mainly were long legged, slender, razor backed, bristly with long snouts and prick ears (Tab. 1) well adapted for herding in forests and waste land. In mediterranean countries in early and high Middle Ages as well as in some regions of France and England in the late Middle Ages compact animals with shorts snouts and lopears were depicted. Probably these typs resulted from other housing and feeding conditions (stall feeding with wastes from fields, gardens, kitchen etc.). Medieval pigs were one-coloured white, grey, black and sometimes red, pictures from saddle-back animals came from Italy or south Germany.

The large white itself is a recent breed but apparently other white breeds have existed for a long time. Something like Tamworth might be plausible:

The breed appears among the least interbred with non-European breeds, and therefore one of the closest to the original European forest swine.

I'd assume that dark age / medieval pigs were mostly semi-feral and bristly. Northern landrace pigs, all the way until early 20th century were long, quite small and notably hairy, which makes sense because they mostly lived outdoors with only crude shelters for winter. They also roamed in forests and cross-bred with wild boars (until those became extinct in many areas).

So...I think you can get away with quite many options. If in doubt, just add mud.

[dm]

Good article Andrew

When i worked in archaeology on various Dark Age and Medieval urban sites in the 80's and early 90's it was often mooted that it was very difficult to tell if skeletal pig remains were from domestic or wild pigs. At that time bones were often graded by size of the bones, teeth and tusks but some historical domestic breeds were known to have been very big and could at times have perhaps have hefted large tusks. Considering that most of the bones were found in rubbish pit contexts and both domestic and wild animal remains got there as mixed refuse/waste it was mostly agreed that it would be very difficult to seperate domesticated from wild. If you want to see something very bizarre check out the so called Wooly Pigs

[Mitch K]

I found this reference http://archaeology.about.com/od/domestications/qt/pigs.htm that raise an interesting point or two:

The researchers argue that therefore, coat color variation was selected for by humans, which makes perfectly reasonable piggy sense. A wild pig would likely survive better on its own if it were to stay hidden; while a human might very well choose to be able to find and identify her own pigs.

If anyone is desperate I'll see if my daughter can get a copy of the paper

For me thought I think dark brown or black fits with the view of older breeds even though I maybe 100% wrong.

Coat colour in modern pigs was very much selected by humans, along with many other characteristics. And if you cross a wild boar with a domestic pig, the offspring is essentially a wild boar. All the traits labouriously bred in over generations seem to vanish in one or two generations. So, in times when there would have been significantly more interaction between domestic and wild pigs, the outcome is going to stay pretty wild boar-like. I went with Tamworth-like porkers on these grounds. Maybe not totally archaeologically sound but it works for me

Edited to add - having dissected a significant number of both domestic pigs of modern breeds and wild boar, I would not want to bet on the chances of identifying mixed bones out of context as belonging to one or the other - more especially with longer-legged breeds.

[dm]

Tamworth sounds fitting and it tastes good

[Mitch K]

Tamworth sounds fitting and it tastes good

Well it works for me! Arguably, Old Spots are even tastier, but probably less authentic

[AndrewBeasley]

Well it works for me! Arguably, Old Spots are even tastier, but probably less authentic

Old Spot rules.  Slow, long long roast with crackling done extra hot to shatter in the mouth...
Failing that, belly in chunks with shallots, mushrooms and a low oven for hours and hours...

Anyone got a towel  I seem to be drooling a lot 

[Paul]

I spent Ages looking for examples of medieval pigs....found some and that they  were HUGE!!!!
http://paulsbods.blogspot.de/2011/09/squeak-little-piggy.html

[Too Bo Coo]

I spent Ages looking for examples of medieval pigs....found some and that they  were HUGE!!!!
http://paulsbods.blogspot.de/2011/09/squeak-little-piggy.html

Very nice, they look almost a brick color with a dark wash?