Kathryn L. Smithies, . Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2020, xv, 163 pp., 7 b/w ill.

Even if we might not think much about the ass within the spectrum of medieval culture and nature, it was closely associated already with Jesus, being one of the animals in the shed where he was born. And later, when the savior rode into Jerusalem, he used an ass as a symbol of his humility. Agriculture and the transportation system during antiquity and the Middle Ages, and actually far beyond, cannot be imagined without this beast, and in times of need, such as in crusades, the ass was also eaten. Not surprisingly, the ass also appears almost ubiquitously in fable literature and in the visual arts serving as a symbolic animal. We find some references to the ass in the