History of elephants in Europe
Encyclopedia
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Ice age
An ice age or, more precisely, glacial age, is a generic geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers...
s, when mammoth
Mammoth
A mammoth is any species of the extinct genus Mammuthus. These proboscideans are members of Elephantidae, the family of elephants and mammoths, and close relatives of modern elephants. They were often equipped with long curved tusks and, in northern species, a covering of long hair...
s (various species of prehistoric elephant
Elephant
Elephants are large land mammals in two extant genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta, with the third genus Mammuthus extinct...
) roamed the northern parts of the Earth, from Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
to North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
(mastodon
Mastodon
Mastodons were large tusked mammal species of the extinct genus Mammut which inhabited Asia, Africa, Europe, North America and Central America from the Oligocene through Pleistocene, 33.9 mya to 11,000 years ago. The American mastodon is the most recent and best known species of the group...
s only occurred in North America.) There was also the dwarf elephant
Dwarf elephant
Dwarf elephants are prehistoric members of the order Proboscidea, that, through the process of allopatric speciation, evolved to a fraction of the size of their immediate ancestors...
of Cyprus (Palaeoloxodon cypriotes), Sicily-Malta (Palaeoloxodon falconeri) and mainland (Palaeoloxodon antiquus). However, these became extinct several thousand years ago, and subsequently the presence of elephants in Europe is only due to importation of these animals.
Overview
Europeans first came in contact with elephants in 327 BC327 BC
Year 327 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Lentulus and Philo...
, when Alexander the Great descended into India
Indian subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent, Indo-Pak Subcontinent or South Asian Subcontinent is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate from the Hindu Kush or Hindu Koh, Himalayas and including the Kuen Lun and Karakoram ranges, forming a land mass which extends...
from the Hindu Kush
Hindu Kush
The Hindu Kush is an mountain range that stretches between central Afghanistan and northern Pakistan. The highest point in the Hindu Kush is Tirich Mir in the Chitral region of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.It is the westernmost extension of the Pamir Mountains, the Karakoram Range, and is a...
, but Alexander was quick to adopt them. Four elephants guarded his tent, and shortly after his death his associate Ptolemy issued coins showing Alexander in the elephant headdress that became a royal emblem also in the Hellenized East. Aristotle depended on first-hand information for his account of elephants, but like most Westerners he believed the animals live for two hundred years. Roman scouts in the royal Syrian parks shortly before the last of the Seleucids fell to Rome had orders to hamstring every elephant they could capture, and while elephants performed in the circuses of Rome, Shapur's war elephants in the mid 4th century numbered in the hundreds (Fox 1973 p 338).
Elephants disappeared from Europe after the Roman Empire. As exotic and expensive animals, they were exchanged as presents between European rulers, who exhibited them as luxury pets, beginning with Harun ar-Rashid's gift of an elephant to Charlemagne
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...
.
Examples
Historical accounts of elephants in Europe include:- The 20 elephants in the army of Pyrrhus of EpirusPyrrhus of EpirusPyrrhus or Pyrrhos was a Greek general and statesman of the Hellenistic era. He was king of the Greek tribe of Molossians, of the royal Aeacid house , and later he became king of Epirus and Macedon . He was one of the strongest opponents of early Rome...
, which landed at TarentumTarantoTaranto is a coastal city in Apulia, Southern Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Taranto and is an important commercial port as well as the main Italian naval base....
in 280 BC for the first Battle of HeracleaBattle of HeracleaThe Battle of Heraclea took place in 280 BC between the Romans under the command of Consul Publius Valerius Laevinus and the combined forces of Greeks from Epirus, Tarentum, Thurii, Metapontum, and Heraclea under the command of King Pyrrhus of Epirus....
, recorded in PlutarchPlutarchPlutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...
's Lives, PolybiusPolybiusPolybius , Greek ) was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic Period noted for his work, The Histories, which covered the period of 220–146 BC in detail. The work describes in part the rise of the Roman Republic and its gradual domination over Greece...
, Dionysius of HalicarnassusDionysius of HalicarnassusDionysius of Halicarnassus was a Greek historian and teacher of rhetoric, who flourished during the reign of Caesar Augustus. His literary style was Attistic — imitating Classical Attic Greek in its prime.-Life:...
and LivyLivyTitus Livius — known as Livy in English — was a Roman historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people. Ab Urbe Condita Libri, "Chapters from the Foundation of the City," covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome well before the traditional foundation in 753 BC...
. "The most notable elephant in Greek history, called Victor, had long served in Pyrrhus's army, but on seeing its mahoutMahoutA mahout is a person who drives an elephant. The word mahout comes from the Hindi words mahaut and mahavat. Usually, a mahout starts as a boy in the 'family business' when he is assigned an elephant early in its life and they would be attached to each other throughout the elephant's life.The most...
dead before the city walls,it rushed to retrieve him: hoisting him defiantly on his tusks, its took wild and indiscriminate revenge for the man it loved, trampling more of its supporters than its enemies" (Fox 1973). Coins of Tarentum after this battle also featured elephants.
- The 37 elephants in Hannibal's army that crossed the RhôneRhône RiverThe Rhone is one of the major rivers of Europe, rising in Switzerland and running from there through southeastern France. At Arles, near its mouth on the Mediterranean Sea, the river divides into two branches, known as the Great Rhone and the Little Rhone...
in October/November 218 BC during the Second Punic WarSecond Punic WarThe Second Punic War, also referred to as The Hannibalic War and The War Against Hannibal, lasted from 218 to 201 BC and involved combatants in the western and eastern Mediterranean. This was the second major war between Carthage and the Roman Republic, with the participation of the Berbers on...
, recorded by LivyLivyTitus Livius — known as Livy in English — was a Roman historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people. Ab Urbe Condita Libri, "Chapters from the Foundation of the City," covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome well before the traditional foundation in 753 BC...
.
- The first historically recorded elephant in northern Europe was the animal brought by emperorRoman EmperorThe Roman emperor was the ruler of the Roman State during the imperial period . The Romans had no single term for the office although at any given time, a given title was associated with the emperor...
ClaudiusClaudiusClaudius , was Roman Emperor from 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, he was the son of Drusus and Antonia Minor. He was born at Lugdunum in Gaul and was the first Roman Emperor to be born outside Italy...
, during the Roman invasion of Britain in AD 43, to the British capital of Colchester. At least one elephant skeleton with flint weapons that has been found in England was initially misidentified as this elephant, but later dating proved it to be a mammoth skeleton from the stone ageStone AgeThe Stone Age is a broad prehistoric period, lasting about 2.5 million years , during which humans and their predecessor species in the genus Homo, as well as the earlier partly contemporary genera Australopithecus and Paranthropus, widely used exclusively stone as their hard material in the...
.
- Abul-AbbasAbul-AbbasAbul-Abbas, also Abul Abaz or Abulabaz, was an Asian elephant given to Emperor Charlemagne by the caliph of Baghdad, Harun al-Rashid, in 797. The elephant's name and events from his life in the Carolingian Empire are recorded in the annales regni francorum , and Einhard's vita Karoli Magni also...
, the Asian elephantAsian ElephantThe Asian or Asiatic elephant is the only living species of the genus Elephas and distributed in Southeast Asia from India in the west to Borneo in the east. Three subspecies are recognized — Elephas maximus maximus from Sri Lanka, the Indian elephant or E. m. indicus from mainland Asia, and E. m....
given to CharlemagneCharlemagneCharlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...
by Harun ar-Rashid in 797 or 802. The animal died in 810, of pneumonia.
- The Annals of Innisfallen record that King Edgar of ScotlandEdgar of ScotlandEdgar or Étgar mac Maíl Choluim , nicknamed Probus, "the Valiant" , was king of Alba from 1097 to 1107...
gave a large, exotic animal to Muirchertach Ua Briain in 1105, possibly an elephant but more probably a camelCamelA camel is an even-toed ungulate within the genus Camelus, bearing distinctive fatty deposits known as humps on its back. There are two species of camels: the dromedary or Arabian camel has a single hump, and the bactrian has two humps. Dromedaries are native to the dry desert areas of West Asia,...
. (Annals of Innisfallen, s.a. 1105; A. A. M. Duncan, Scotland: The Making of the Kingdom (1975), p. 128)
- The Cremona elephantCremona elephantThe Cremona elephant was a gift presented to Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II by Sultan of Egypt Al-Kamil, in 1229. Frederick used the elephant in his triumph parades....
was presented to Frederick II, Holy Roman EmperorFrederick II, Holy Roman EmperorFrederick II , was one of the most powerful Holy Roman Emperors of the Middle Ages and head of the House of Hohenstaufen. His political and cultural ambitions, based in Sicily and stretching through Italy to Germany, and even to Jerusalem, were enormous...
by Al-KamilAl-KamilAl-Kamil was a Kurdish Ayyubid sultan who ruled North Africa. During his tenure as sultan, the Ayyubids defeated two crusades. In a temporary agreement with the Crusaders, he ceded Jerusalem to the Christians.-Biography:He was the son of sultan al-Adil, a brother of Saladin...
in 1229.
- The elephant given by Louis IX of FranceLouis IX of FranceLouis IX , commonly Saint Louis, was King of France from 1226 until his death. He was also styled Louis II, Count of Artois from 1226 to 1237. Born at Poissy, near Paris, he was an eighth-generation descendant of Hugh Capet, and thus a member of the House of Capet, and the son of Louis VIII and...
to Henry III of EnglandHenry III of EnglandHenry III was the son and successor of John as King of England, reigning for 56 years from 1216 until his death. His contemporaries knew him as Henry of Winchester. He was the first child king in England since the reign of Æthelred the Unready...
, for his menagerie in the Tower of LondonTower of LondonHer Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress, more commonly known as the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London, England. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, separated from the eastern edge of the City of London by the open space...
in 1255 (see: Sandwich, KentSandwich, KentSandwich is a historic town and civil parish on the River Stour in the Non-metropolitan district of Dover, within the ceremonial county of Kent, south-east England. It has a population of 6,800....
). Drawn from life by the historian Matthew ParisMatthew ParisMatthew Paris was a Benedictine monk, English chronicler, artist in illuminated manuscripts and cartographer, based at St Albans Abbey in Hertfordshire...
for his Chronica MajoraChronica MajoraThe Chronica Majora is an important medieval illuminated manuscript chronicle by Matthew Paris, one of a number of redactions of his work on English history.It is currently in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. It covers the period 1240-53...
, it was the first elephant to be seen in England since Claudius' war elephant. Matthew Paris' original drawing can be found in his bestiaryBestiaryA bestiary, or Bestiarum vocabulum is a compendium of beasts. Bestiaries were made popular in the Middle Ages in illustrated volumes that described various animals, birds and even rocks. The natural history and illustration of each beast was usually accompanied by a moral lesson...
, on display in the Parker Library of Corpus Christi College, CambridgeCorpus Christi College, CambridgeCorpus Christi College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. It is notable as the only college founded by Cambridge townspeople: it was established in 1352 by the Guilds of Corpus Christi and the Blessed Virgin Mary...
. The bestiary explains that while in residence at the Tower of London, the elephant enjoyed a diet of prime cuts of beefBeefBeef is the culinary name for meat from bovines, especially domestic cattle. Beef can be harvested from cows, bulls, heifers or steers. It is one of the principal meats used in the cuisine of the Middle East , Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Europe and the United States, and is also important in...
and expensive red wine, and is claimed to have died in 1257 from drinking too much wine. The accompanying text reveals that at the time, Europeans believed that elephants did not have kneeKneeThe knee joint joins the thigh with the leg and consists of two articulations: one between the fibula and tibia, and one between the femur and patella. It is the largest joint in the human body and is very complicated. The knee is a mobile trocho-ginglymus , which permits flexion and extension as...
s and so were unable to get up if they fell over (the bestiary contains a drawing depicting an elephant on its back being dragged along the ground by another elephant, with a caption stating that elephants lacked knees – compare cow tippingCow tippingCow tipping or cow pushing is the purported activity of sneaking up on a sleeping, upright cow and pushing it over for fun. As cattle do not sleep standing up, cow tipping is a myth.-Myth and reality:...
). Europeans also interpreted descriptions of howdahHowdahA howdah, or houdah, also known as hathi howdah, is a carriage which is positioned on the back of an elephant, or occasionally some other animal, used most often in the past to carry wealthy people or for use in hunting or warfare...
s to mean that Indian elephants were capable of carrying actual stone castleCastleA castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble...
s on their backs, albeit only big enough to be garrisoned by three or four men; note that turreted war elephants were in fact used, though they did not use stone. A carving of the elephant can be found on a contemporary miserichord in Exeter CathedralExeter CathedralExeter Cathedral, the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter at Exeter, is an Anglican cathedral, and the seat of the Bishop of Exeter, in the city of Exeter, Devon in South West England....
. This animal may be the inspiration for the heraldic device 'Elephant and CastleElephant and CastleThe Elephant and Castle is a major road intersection in south London, England, located in the London Borough of Southwark. It is also used as a name for the surrounding area....
,' the arms of the Cutlers' Company of London, a guild founded in the 13th Century responsible for making scissors, knives and the like. Its heraldry survived in an 18th century pub sign that in turn gave its name to a largely modern districtElephant and CastleThe Elephant and Castle is a major road intersection in south London, England, located in the London Borough of Southwark. It is also used as a name for the surrounding area....
in South LondonLondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
.
- In the 1470s, King Christian I of DenmarkChristian I of DenmarkChristian I was a Danish monarch, king of Denmark , Norway and Sweden , under the Kalmar Union. In Sweden his short tenure as monarch was preceded by regents, Jöns Bengtsson Oxenstierna and Erik Axelsson Tott and succeeded by regent Kettil Karlsson Vasa...
founded a chivalric order, the Order of the ElephantOrder of the ElephantThe Order of the Elephant is the highest order of Denmark. It has origins in the 15th century, but has officially existed since 1693, and since the establishment of constitutional monarchy in 1849, is now almost exclusively bestowed on royalty and heads of state.- History :A Danish religious...
, and had it confirmed by Pope Sixtus IVPope Sixtus IVPope Sixtus IV , born Francesco della Rovere, was Pope from 1471 to 1484. His accomplishments as Pope included the establishment of the Sistine Chapel; the group of artists that he brought together introduced the Early Renaissance into Rome with the first masterpiece of the city's new artistic age,...
. The order is named for the battle elephants which symbolized the Christian Crusades. , it continues to be awarded under statutes established by king Christian VChristian V of DenmarkChristian V , was king of Denmark and Norway from 1670 to 1699, the son of Frederick III of Denmark and Sophie Amalie of Brunswick-Lüneburg...
in 1693, amended in 1958 to permit the admission of women to the order.
- The elephant given by Afonso V of PortugalAfonso V of PortugalAfonso V KG , called the African , was the twelfth King of Portugal and the Algarves. His sobriquet refers to his conquests in Northern Africa.-Early life:...
to René d'Anjou about 1477.
- The merchants of CyprusCyprusCyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
presented Ercole d'Este with an elephant in 1497.
- Suleyman the elephant was a present from the PortuguesePortugalPortugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
king John IIIJohn III of PortugalJohn III , nicknamed o Piedoso , was the fifteenth King of Portugal and the Algarves. He was the son of King Manuel I and Maria of Aragon, the third daughter of King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile...
to Maximilian II, Holy Roman EmperorMaximilian II, Holy Roman EmperorMaximilian II was king of Bohemia and king of the Romans from 1562, king of Hungary and Croatia from 1563, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation from 1564 until his death...
. Travelling from Spain in 1551, it arrived un Vienna in 1552, but died in 1554.
- Hanno, or Annone, was a white elephantWhite elephantA white elephant is an idiom for a valuable but burdensome possession of which its owner cannot dispose and whose cost is out of proportion to its usefulness or worth...
presented by king Manuel I of PortugalManuel I of PortugalManuel I , the Fortunate , 14th king of Portugal and the Algarves was the son of Infante Ferdinand, Duke of Viseu, , by his wife, Infanta Beatrice of Portugal...
to Pope Leo XPope Leo XPope Leo X , born Giovanni di Lorenzo de' Medici, was the Pope from 1513 to his death in 1521. He was the last non-priest to be elected Pope. He is known for granting indulgences for those who donated to reconstruct St. Peter's Basilica and his challenging of Martin Luther's 95 Theses...
on the occasion of his coronation in 1514. He died, probably of an intestinal obstruction misdiagnosed as angina, with Pope Leo at his side in 1518. His story is told in Silvio BediniSilvio BediniSilvio Bedini was an American historian, specialising in early scientific instruments. He was Historian Emeritus of the Smithsonian Institution, where he served on the professional staff for twenty-five years, retiring in 1987.-Biography:Bedini was born in the Colonial town of Ridgefield,...
's The Pope's Elephant (Nashville: Sanders 1998). At the Villa MadamaVilla MadamaVilla Madama is situated half way up the slope of Monte Mario Which faces directly north-east and because the hill is curved the part which looks towards Rome faces south and the opposite faces north-west...
, in the garden facing the loggia, the Elephant Fountain designed by Giovanni da UdineGiovanni da UdineGiovanni Nanni, also Giovanni de' Ricamatori, better known as Giovanni da Udine , was an Italian painter and architect born in Udine....
depicts "Annone", whose tomb was designed by Raphael himself.
- HanskenHanskenthumb|A sketch of Hansken by [[Rembrandt]] .thumb|Anonymous 17th century copperplate showing the tricks performed by Hansken, sold as a contemporary souvenir.thumb|[[Stefano della Bella]]'s drawing of Hansken after her death ....
, a female elephant from Ceylon that became famous in early 17th century Europe, touring through many countries demonstrating circus tricks, and sketched by Rembrandt and Stefano della BellaStefano della BellaStefano della Bella was an Italian draughtsman and printmaker known for etchings of a great variety of subjects, including military and court scenes, landscapes, and lively genre scenes...
.