The Name of the Rose
Fourth Day: Compline (pp. 307-9)
Venantius' body found in a tub of pigs' blood
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Slaughter of pigs in November: The slaughter of
pigs in November was heard in the background when William and Adso first
arrived at the monastery (p. 39), and Abbot Abo assured
them that this was no concern of their, as it was a job
for swineherds (First Day: Terce). The slaughter of pigs is one of the traditional
"labors of the months" in medieval calendars, associated
with December in about two-thirds of them, and with November
about one-third of the time. See: James Fowler, "On the
Mediaeval Representations of the Months and Seasons,"
Archaeologia 44 (1873):137-224. The pigs' blood was
being collected to use in a blood pudding, according
to a favorite Monte Cassino recipe, but to everyone's disappointment,
the blood had to be thrown out because it was contaminated
by Venantius' body. Eco here explores the boundaries
between the canonical and the marginal. The slaughter of
pigs, as part of the agricultural cycle, is "canonized"
by its inclusion in the labors of the months, while,
in contrast, the murder of Venantius, as yet one more
episode in a "serial murder" mystery, is noncanonical, and
points out that things are not right in the monastery
after all.
Fog as a cover for Salvatore's noctural activities
(p. 309): Fog on the moor at night, "when the powers of darkness
are exalted," provides cover for the
criminal activity of Stapleton at the end of The Hound
of the Baskervilles (chapters 13-14). Sir Henry
Baskerville comes close to being killed by the hound
because Sherlock cannot see well enough to protect him in
the November fog.