Vegans In The Renaissance | The History Of Veganism Part Three

The Renaissance was a time of rediscovery,
rebirth, and renewed interest in classical

Greek philosophy. Viewed as the bridge
between the Middle Ages and modern times,

the Renaissance spurred innovation
and revolution within the fields of art,

architecture, politics, science,
astronomy, literature, and more.

With the invention of moveable type,
ideas spread faster than ever before,

and there began a general shift
away from the religion-centric thought

of the Middle Ages towards
an individual-centric humanistic thought,

valuing logic and reason at its core.

With all of this paradigm-shifting
afoot, one must wonder: “Where were the

vegans?” Okay, maybe one mustn’t wonder
that necessarily…but today we’re going to!

Hi, it’s Emily from Bite Size Vegan and
welcome to another vegan nugget.

In “The History of Veganism, Part One”
we covered veganism in ancient times,

and in “Part Two” we tackled
the Middle Ages.

If you missed them, both of those
installments are linked in the sidebar

and in the description below.

In “Part Three” we’ll be delving
into the time of the Renaissance.

Now, as always,
I need to start with a few caveats.

First, the actual start and end dates
of the Renaissance,

like all time periods, are still debated.
For the sake of this video,

we’ll be focusing on around 1500 to 1700
CE, as “Part Four” will cover the Age

of Enlightenment.

Second, as with “The Middle Ages,” “The
Renaissance” applies

almost exclusively to Europe,
with the term “The Early Modern Period"

more appropriately capturing
the time period on a global scale.

I’ve chosen the title:
“The Renaissance” for ease or recognition.

Third, due to the nature
of the information I was able to find,

and as always, historical bias,
this is a rather Euro-centric video.

Though there were most undoubtedly
worthy developments within other parts

of the world, as we’ve already seen
in the first two parts.

But there is some good news!
While still profoundly

male-centric as well,
we do finally get documentation

of an influential woman,
with many more to come

as historians slowly begin to actually
take their most assuredly long-present

contributions into account.

Fourth, as we’re now getting closer
to modern times,

and as I said in the introduction,
the 15th century saw

the invention of moveable type,
the amount of recorded information

increases dramatically from here on out.

Thus, the disclaimer I’ve given
in each history installment is

ever more valid with each video;
I will most certainly leave out

key individuals and occurrences
(as all historical accounts are bound to).

Again, this is not intentional,
but a sad fact of my human limitations

in attempting to research, write, edit
and publish what amounts

to a ten-page academic research paper,
and produce several full-length

YouTube television episodes
all within 2-4 days, every week.

♪ Sad violin playing ♪

In order to create as comprehensive
of an historical video series

and I can and to account for valuable
information that, for sake of time,

cannot fit within
the core overarching timeline,

moving forward I will be producing
“History of Veganism Spotlight” videos

on specific movements,
cultures and individuals.

Some examples will be a feminist history
of veganism, veganism in war times,

a deeper look into the traditional diet
of Native Americans prior to colonization,

“The History of Vivisection,” and more.
All of these will be housed

in "The History of Veganism Playlist.”

Fifth, and in a similar vein,
if I or anyone finds errors in this video

(or any of my videos in fact)
I will keep a log on the blog post,

which is also where you can go to find all
of my sources for everything I state today

as well as both full-length
and additional quotes.

And finally, sixth, as the term “vegan”
wasn’t coined until 1944,

historically the word “vegetarian”
most often meant what we now call “vegan.”

With all of that out of the way
--I thought it would never end

onwards to:

“The History of Veganism!”

[Part Three]

The Renaissance saw a shift
towards valuing the individual

and questioning religious beliefs
and practices.

Thus, in this video we will be focusing
on selected writings and beliefs

of individual historical figures,
rather than overarching religions,

philosophies or cultures.

Some historians assert that there was
no development of veganism,

at least from an ethical standpoint,
between Porphyry of 3rd century CE

who we covered in Part One,
and the turn of the 18th century,

leaving the Middle Ages
and the Renaissance in a black hole

of un-veganness.

However, as we saw in “Part Two,”
individuals like the Medieval blind

Arab philosopher, poet, writer
and all around vegan-truth-bomb-dropper

of the Islamic Golden age,
Abul ʿAla Al-Maʿarri,

were passionately vocal
about the rights of animals.

While the humanism of the Renaissance and
rebirth of scientific inquiry

led to assertions of human superiority
and a resurgence

and proliferation
of barbaric vivisection practices,

it also saw a growing counter movement
that viewed animals as intelligent,

sentient, and worthy
of compassion and respect.

As Professor Rod Preece states
in his text, Sins of the Flesh,

in reference to humanistic individuality:

“To recognize individual humans
as ends in themselves is a prerequisite

to recognizing individual animals as ends
in themselves. It is only when we can look

to ourselves and say ‘I’ that we can look
to animals and acknowledge their right to

be perceived, if not necessarily conceive
of themselves, as an ‘I’ too.”

While many, if not most of
the individuals we will cover today,

either weren’t themselves fully
vegan/vegetarian or there’s

not sufficient documentation
to know one way or another,

each has contributed,
through their writings, to the development

of vegan principles and ideals.

Let’s start with the quintessential
Renaissance man: Leonardo da Vinci,

who Professor Rod Preece posits was
“the first of the modern

ethical vegetarians, basing his thoughts
solely in the ethical realm”

and “the first since Porphyry
to fuse animal ethics

and principled vegetarianism.”

And again Abul ʿAla Al-Maʿarri
gets the short end of the stick.

Best known for his achievement
in the art world, da Vinci

made significant contributions to
architecture, botany, engineering,

mathematics, music, history,
cartography, geology, invention,

and more--including animal rights
and ethical vegetarianism,

though not as frequently
listed in historical accounts.

While da Vinci himself never seems to have
stated explicitly that he was vegetarian,

those who knew him and wrote about him
described da Vinci as both caring for

and not consuming animals.

Da Vinci did, however, write very
powerfully against the entitled nature

of humans in their treatment of animals
for their own gain:

"King of the animals–– as thou hast
described him–– I should rather say

king of the beasts, thou being
the greatest––because thou doest only

help them, in order that they give thee
their children for the benefit

of the gullet,
of which thou hast attempted to

make a sepulcher [grave/tomb] for all
animals; and I would say still more,

if I were allowed
to speak the entire truth.”

And in a similar vein, “Man has great
power of speech, but the greater part

thereof is empty and deceitful.
The animals have little,

but that little is useful and true;
and better is a small and certain thing

than a great falsehood.”

Da Vinci asks those insistent
on eating animals,

“Does not nature produce enough simple
[meaning: vegetarian] food

for thee to satisfy thyself?”
This is a question we will see echoed many

times by other veg-inclined thinkers
of this time.

In a rather unique display of overarching
vegan ethics for this time period,

da Vinci speaks to issues beyond diet:
naming leather for the animal skin that it is;

denouncing the destruction of bees for
beeswax and theft of their food

for honey; decrying the loss
of generations of fish;

defending animals abused for labor
and eventually slaughtered;

highlighting the thievery and “barbaric”
slaughter of “countless numbers” of “their

little children”; and even addressing the
perversity of using a knife with a ram’s

horn handle to slaughter more
of their own kind.

As a note,
if you’re visually impaired,

this particular da Vinci quote
I’m referring onscreen is on the blog post

for text-to-speech or screen-readers.

Demonstrating once again that
the arguments against veganism

haven’t changed over the centuries
is an excerpt from da Vinci

explaining why it is that plants
do not feel as animals do.

Yes, we have perhaps one of the greatest
minds of human history reduced to refuting

the poignant counterpoint, “Plants, tho.”

As a quick aside, there is a quote
frequently circulated amongst vegan

and vegetarians that
is falsely attributed to da Vinci,

namely,
“I have from an early age abjured the use

of meat, and the time will come when men
such as I will look upon

the murder of animals as they now look
upon the murder of men.”

This was accidentally misattributed to him

in anthology and actually comes
from a fictional portrayal of da Vinci.

I’ll close our coverage of da Vinci with
an account from Giorgio Vasari in 1550,

which speaks to da Vinci’s compassion
and perhaps even establishes him

as a liberator of animals.

“In all the other animals… he managed
with the greatest love and patience;

and this he showed when often passing
by the places where birds were sold, for,

taking them with his own hand out of their cages

and having paid for them what was asked,
he let them fly away into the air,

restoring them to their lost liberty.”

Many vegetarians of the Renaissance were,
like those of the Middle Ages,

ascetically-motivated.

However, unlike their Medieval
predecessors, Renaissance ascetics were,

by and large, more individualized
and secular in their pursuits,

with health and longevity, rather than religious purification, being major motivators.

Among them existed several
medical doctors interested

in reforming the practice of medicine
by aiding the body in healing itself

through proper diet and lifestyle choices.

Perhaps the first of the modern rational
and secular ascetic vegetarians

was Venitian Luigi Cornaro (1465-1566)
whose writing,

A Treatise on a Sober Life influenced
a great number of individuals

including Leonardi Lessio (1554-1623)
and Dr. Thomas Moffet.

Moffet for one was not purely motivated by
health alone, asking in his text Health’s

Improvement, “Can civil and human eyes yet
abide the slaughter

of an innocent ‘beast,’ the cutting of
his throat, the smashing him on the head,

the flaying off his skin, the quartering
and dismembering of his joints,

the sprinkling of his blood,
the ripping up of his veins,

the enduring of ill savours,
the heaving of heavy sighs, sobs,

and groans, the passionate struggling
and panting for life,

which only hard-hearted butchers
can endure to see?”

and echoes da Vinci’s query,
"Is not the earth sufficient to give

us meat, but that we must also rend up
the bowels of beasts, birds, and fishes?"

It’s important to note how Moffet,
and indeed others of his time,

began employing the term “meat”
to apply to more than animal flesh,

perhaps to indicate the substantial nature
of plant foods.

He also employs quotations
around the term “beast,” which Rod Preece

asserts, “indicates both that the term was
becoming primarily one of abuse

and that some were less than satisfied
by the prejudicial usage.”

Thus “linguistic forms as well as animal
ethics were changing” and “it was becoming

less acceptable to malign the animals
by seemingly pejorative expressions.”

Other ascetic-minded meat-decriers
included: Philip Stubbes,

who in his text Anatomy of Abuses
compared the multitude of maladies

befallen those who consumed flesh
to the health of those who did not;

Roger Crab, whose vegetarianism
was grounded in Christianity;

and Dr. George Cheyne,
one of the most esteemed

of English physicians,
and one of the first medical authorities

in this country who expressly wrote
in advocacy of the reformed diet.

Cheyne himself battled with obesity
and ill health,

which he overcame
by eliminating meat from his diet.

Even though his primary motivation
was health,

Cheyne’s writing belied
elements of an ethical bent as well,

“At what time animal food came first
in use is not certainly known.

He was a bold man who made the first
experiment. To see the convulsions,

agonies and tortures
of a poor fellow-creature,

whom they cannot restore
nor recompense,

dying to gratify luxury
and tickle callous and rank organs,

must require a rocky heart, and a great
degree of cruelty and ferocity.

I cannot find any great difference
between feeding on human flesh

and feeding on [other] animal flesh,
except custom and practice.”

Strangely enough, within this vein
of pursuing health through diet

was none other than
Sir Francis Bacon.

--YouTube “bacon” commenters,
this is your moment of glory.--

While not consistently practicing
vegetarianism himself,

Bacon commended such a way of eating
and was interested in finding

the ideal diet based on empirical fact
rather than religious dietary taboos.

While some of his writings so hint towards
an ethical bent, such as:

“Nature has endowed man with a noble
and excellent principle of compassion,

which extends itself also
to the dumb animals…

And it is certain that the noblest souls
are the most extensively compassionate,”

he was also a firm supporter of vivisection.

Bacon’s follower, Thomas Bushell,
took Bacon’s vegetarian support

into full practice, driven by the desire
for redemptive purification.

Bushell, like Bacon, had to be cautious
with his vegetable fervor;

in Protestant England, asceticism was still
seen as a vestige of Catholicism.

While Bushell was motivated by
a religious drive to reverse

the acts of Adam by returning to the vegan
diet of man before the fall,

a belief summarized by Sir John Pettus’
assertion that

“We multiply Adam’s transgression by
our continued eating of other creatures,

which were not then allowed to us,”
his efforts were also

“endorsed by scientific rigour.”
He was putting himself forth

as the “perfect experiment” of Bacon’s
belief that a vegetarian diet

would extend one’s lifespan.
Bushell lived to age 80 at a time

when the life expectancy at birth
was 35 years old.

Now, as I mentioned, the information
available for this time period

is very Euro-centric,
but let’s take a moment to venture over to

North America where the European colonization
of the continent was well underway.

This is an area I’ll be exploring
more thoroughly in a dedicated video,

but I wanted to at least
touch on it here.

In her article “Native Americans
and Vegetarianism,” Dr. Rita Laws,

herself a member of the Choctaw Nation,
explains that the stereotype

of the horse-mounted Indian hunter
dressed head to toe in animal skins,

adorned with feathers and housed
in an animal skin teepee,

did not fit the majority of Native Americans,
save perhaps the Apache tribe,

prior to European colonization.

Laws writes, “Among my own people…
vegetables are the traditional diet mainstay.

The homes were constructed not of skins,
but of wood, mud, bark and cane.

The ancient Choctaws were,
first and foremost, farmers.

Even the clothing was plant based.”

Laws pinpoints the change
in practices to the appearance

of Francisco Vázquez de Coronado y Luján,

--I did my best--

better known as Coronado,
a Spanish explorer

who led an expedition from Mexico
to what is today Kansas

from 1540 to 1542, bringing with him
an ample amount of horses,

some of whom broke free and multiplied,
later to be utilized by the Plain Indians.

In combination with the later introduction
of guns, the Age of Buffalo began

as plain Indians learned to hunt faster
and more efficiently.

As an aside and perhaps preview to
the dedicated Native American History video,

Dr. Margaret Robinson, a vegan Mi’kmaq
scholar and bisexual activist

based in Toronto who’s written
on the creation of Aboriginal veganism,

speaks to the problematic manner
in which non-native people

use the history of Native tribes
as justification

for their own consumption of animals.

Robinson emphasizes that native culture
is ever-evolving, despite the tendency of

the dominant white discourse
to want to freeze it in time.

Of course, not all Europeans
were in support of hunting.

In fact, anti-hunting literature
was common during the Renaissance.

Dutch humanist, Catholic priest,
social critic, teacher, and theologian

Desiderius Erasmus produced perhaps
the most amusingly poignant quote of all time

made all the better considering
he was a priest.

Speaking of “those who prefer before
everything else the chase of wild beasts

[and who] say they get indescribable delight
from the blast of hunting horns

and the howling of hound”
Erasmus says, “I expect such people think

even dog turds smell of cinnamon.”

[moment of appreciation]

Let’s continue.

“But what pleasure is there in slaughtering
animals in whatever numbers?...

And so when they have finished
dissecting and devouring the dead beast,

what have they accomplished except
to degrade themselves into beasts

while imagining
they are living the life of kings.”

In his work entitled “The Boar,”
poet George Granville speaks

from the perspective of a wild boar
about to be killed,

who is pointing to
the human hunter’s hypocrisy, stating:

“You murder us in sport, then dish us up
For drunken feasts, a relish for the cup.

We lengthen not our meals:
but you much feast;

Gorge till your bellies burst
- pray, who's the beast?

With your humanity you keep a fuss,

But are in truth
worse brutes than all of us.”

This ability to empathize
with non-human animals was displayed

in many Renaissance writings
and was a welcome contrast to the view

of animals as machines championed
by René Descartes.

Though Descartes never explicitly
stated that animals couldn’t feel pain,

his description of them and their reactions
as “machine-like” provided scientists

a way to justify their gruesome
animal experiments.

Given that anesthesia was not available,
all tests were carried out

on living, fully conscious animals.
And before you react in disgusted

disbelief, this barbarism is still practiced
today in animal testing labs around the world.

More on that here.

William Harvey was the first doctor
since 2nd century Greek physician Galen

to begin a research program based
on live animal experimentation.

Through cutting open conscious rabbits
and tying off their hearts before slicing

through their aorta, Harvey deduced
that the blood circulated through the body.

Well done.

Flemish anatomist Vesalius,
believed by some to be the founder

of modern anatomy, established vivisection
as part of school curricula

and was able to disprove many of Galen’s
concepts by using both

live animal experimentation
and dissecting the corpses of criminals

or those he acquired via grave-robbing.

Against such horrors as
the live evisceration of animals,

the thoughtful and empathetic writings
of other Renaissance thinkers

are quite welcome.

Shakespeare himself expressed compassion
for hunted animals, trapped birds,

overworked horses, and even beetles,
flies and snails in various works.

For example, in “Measure for Measure,”
he afforded equal validity to a beetle's

experience of pain, stating,
“the poor beetle what

we tread upon, In corporal sufferance finds
a pang as great, As when a giant dies.”

Renaissance thinkers touched on a wide array
of issues pertinent to the development of

veganism, including, as we’ve already seen,
the hypocrisy and utter presumptiveness of

man, the value inherent in non-human animals,
the fact that humans are not designed to hunt

and consume animals, and the abundance of
plant foods for the taking.

Every argument against veganism that exists
today has apparently existed since the genesis

of veganism. We’ve already seen the advent
of the “Lions, tho” argument over 1,000

years ago, fielded by Abul ʿAla Al-Maʿarri,
and of course the “Plant, tho” taken on

by da Vinci. So I thought we’d round off
the latter portion of this video by hearing

some select Renaissance quotes that speak
to common objections as well as open up new

ways of thinking about non-human animals.

Philosopher Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533-1592)
wrote, “For my part I have never been able

to see, without displeasure, an innocent and
defenseless animal, from whom we receive no

offense or harm, pursued and slaughtered.”
He cautioned parents who would think that

their child displaying violence towards animals
was a sign of strength, stating that in fact

such actions were, “the true deeds or roots
of cruelty, of tyranny, and of treason. In

youth they bud, and afterwards grow to strength,
and come to perfection by means of custom.”

Montaigne poignantly decried humanity’s
pomposity, writing: “Presumption is our

natural and original disease. The most calamitous
and fragile of all creatures is man, and yet

the most arrogant. It is through the vanity
of this same imagination that he equals himself

to a god, that he attributes to himself divine
conditions, that he picks himself out and

separates himself from the crowd of other
creatures, curtails the just shares of other

animals his brethren and companions, and assigns
to them only such portions of faculties and

forces as seems to him good. How does he know,
by the effort of his intelligence, the interior

and secret movements and impulses of other
animals? By what comparison between them and

us does he infer the stupidity which he attributes
to them?”

The latter portions of this quote displays
a very important development in Renaissance

thought: that of the unique experience and
independent lives of non-human animals and

the revolutionary concept that their worth
cannot be accurately judged by human standards.

We will see this echoed by others as we move
forwards.

Poet Francis Quarles (1592-1644) wrote succinctly
of the body count left by man’s appetite.

“The birds of the air die to sustain thee;
The beasts of the field die to nourish thee;

The fishes of the sea die to feed thee;
Our stomachs are their common sepulcher,

Good God! With how many deaths are our poor
lives patched up?

How full of death is the life of momentary
man!”

Around the same time as Quarles, French physicist
and philosopher Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655)

expertly responded to the argument that eating
animals is natural because “everyone does

it,” by pointing out that “Indeed, is
it that man is sustained on flesh. But how

many things, let me ask, does man do every
day which are contrary to, or beside, his

nature?”

He further speaks to how unnatural it is for
humans to kill other animals. “Man lives

very well upon flesh, you say, but, if he
thinks this food to be natural to him, why

does he not use it as it is, as furnished
to him by Nature? But, in fact, he shrinks

in horror from seizing and rending living
or even raw flesh with his teeth, and lights

a fire to change its natural and proper condition
… If you answer, ‘that may be said to

be an industry ordered by Nature, by which
such weapons are invented,’ then, behold,

it is by the very same artificial instrument
that men make weapons for mutual slaughter.

Do they this at the instigation of Nature?
Can a use so noxious be called natural? Faculty

is given by Nature, but it is our own fault
that we make a perverse use of it.”

In answer to the obligatory, “Well what
CAN you eat?” argument comes the veritable

verbal vegan food porn of English writer John
Evelyn (1620-1706), who speaks with great

gusto of: “The infinitely wise and glorious
author of nature, who has given to plants

such astonishing properties; such fiery heat
in some to warm and cherish, such coolness

in others to temper and refresh, such pinguid
juice to nourish and feed the body, such quickening

acids to compel the appetite, and grateful
vehicles to court the obedience of the palate,

such vigour to renew and support our natural
strength, such ravishing flavour and perfumes

to recreate and delight us; in short, such
spirituous and active force to animate and

revive every faculty and part, to all the
kinds of human, and, I had almost said heavenly

capacity.”

Got me all hot and bothered. That was like
the 17th century’s version of a vegan Instagram

account showcasing all the tasty vegan treats.

Evelyn goes far beyond laying out this literary
buffet, positing that eating animals had lead

to more bloodshed between Christians than
any other cause, as violence against other

species inevitably translates to violence
against one’s own.

And now, finally, we come to Margaret Cavendish
(1624-1674), The Duchess of Newcastle, who

wrote plays, poetry, and essays on science,
philosophy and nature, and was one of first

female authors to be printed, AND just so
happens to be the first woman ever mentioned

in the “History of Veganism” series! It’s
about time! Nothing like male historical bias

to turn even a vegan history series into a
sausage fest.

So let’s hear what the Duchess had to say.
Cavendish spoke against the concept of inherent

human superiority pointing to the wisdom within
non-human animals and arguing that it was

man’s “pride, self conceit and presumption”
that has misled him into judging other creatures

by human standards, not realizing that language
and reason could take non-human form.

“For what man knows whether fish do not
know more of the nature of water, and ebbing

and flowing and the saltness of the sea? Or
whether birds do not know more of the nature

and degrees of air, or the causes of tempests?
Or whether worms do not know more of the nature

of the earth and how plants are produced?
Or bees of the several sorts of juices and

flowers than men?…Man may have one way of
knowledge…and creatures another way, and

yet other creatures’ manner or way may be
[as] intelligible and instructive to each

other as Man’s.”

And, on the unearned entitlement of humans,
“Yet man doth think himself so gentle, mild

When he of creatures is most cruel wild.
And is so proud, thinks only he shall live,

That God a god-like nature did him give.
And that all creatures for his sake alone,

Was made for him to tyrannize upon.”

French Bishop and Theologian Jacques-Bénigne
Bossuet (1627-1704) harkened back to the days

before the Biblical fall of man to again highlight
how much humans must disguise animal products

in order to consume them. “The nourishment
which without violence men derived from the

fruits which fell from the trees of themselves,
and from the herbs which also ripened with

equal ease, was, without doubt, some relic
of the first innocence and of the gentleness

for which we were formed. Now to get food
we have to shed blood in spite of the horror

which it naturally inspires in us; and all
the refinements of which we avail ourselves,

in covering our tables, hardly suffices to
disguise for us the bloody corpses which we

have to devour to support life.”

He, like Evelyn, warns of the transference
of violence against non-human animals to violence

against fellow humans, stating that: “Life,
already shortened, is still further abridged

by the savage violences which are introduced
into the life of the human species. Man, whom

in the first ages we have seen spare the life
of other animals, is accustomed henceforward

to spare the life not even of his fellow-men.
It is in vain that God forbade, immediately

after the Deluge, the shedding of human blood;
in vain, in order to save some vestiges of

the mildness of our nature, while permitting
the feeding on flesh did he prohibit consumption

of the blood. Human murders multiplied beyond
all calculation."

Around the exact same time of Bossuet, English
naturalist John Ray (1627-1705) echoed the

arguments of Gassendi. "There is no doubt,
that man is not built to be a carnivorous

animal [as] hunt and voracity are unnatural
to him. Man has neither the sharp pointed

teeth or claws to slaughter his prey. On the
contrary his hands are made to pick fruits,

berries and vegetables and teeth appropriate
to chew them."

He again implores, "Everything we need to
feed ourselves and to restore and please us

is abundantly provided in the inexhaustible
store of Nature.” Ray closes out with what

really amounts to an “our food’s better
than your food” taunt: “In short our orchards

offer all the delights imaginable while the
slaughter houses and butchers are full of

congealed blood and abominable stench.”
[Nailed it.]

Doctor and medical reformer Philippe Hecquet
(1661-1737), who served almost exclusively

the poor, only seeing the wealthy when forced,
pointed out the obvious examples in nature

of the power of plant-based eating in answer
to those who doubted such a diet could sustain

strength. “'How,' they say, 'can we be supported
on Grains, which furnish but dry meal, fitter

to cloy than to nourish; on Fruits, which
are but condensed water?' But this … condensed

water is the same that has caused the Trees
to attain so great bulk … Besides, how can

men affect to fear failure in strength, in
eating what nourishes even the most robust

animals, who would become even formidable
to us, if only they knew their own strength."

Hecquet also comments upon how severely we
must prepare animal products in order to find

them palatable, yet how readily available
are the multitudes of fruit and other foods

from nature, which are more suited for humans.

The good doctor expresses an exasperated lament
that I daresay is still shared by many a vegan

today. “It is incredible how much Prejudice
has been allowed to operate in favour of meat,

while so many facts are opposed to the pretended
necessity of its use.”

While receiving the formal approval and commendation
of several doctors regent of the Faculty of

Medicine of Paris University, Hecquet’s
writings speaking to the merits of plant-based

eating, received much insult and ridicule
from anonymous professional critics of his

time, better known as The Trolls of the Renaissance.

Let’s close it out with Thomas Tryon (1634-1703),
an English merchant, author and passionate

vegetarian.[5] With a basis in his religious
beliefs, Tryon spoke to the ethics of consuming

animals, saying: “Refrain at all times from
such Foods as cannot be procured without violence

and oppression,” and “For there is greater
evil and misery attends mankind by killing,

horrifying and oppressing his fellow creature
and eating their flesh … than is generally

apprehended or imagined. Man’s strong inclination
after flesh and his making so light and small

a matter of killing and oppressing inferior
creatures, does manifest what principle has

got the dominion in him … It should be considered
that flesh and fish cannot be eaten without

violence and doing that which a man would
not be done unto.”

I hope that you enjoyed this look into the
development of veganism in Renaissance times.

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Now I’d love to hear your thoughts on the
Renaissance of veganism and some of the concepts

brought forth. And remember, citations to
everything I’ve covered (as well as many

further resources), are available in the blog
post.

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series. Next time we’re on to “The Age

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