Medieval Hunting

183 Pages·2011·1 MB·English

by  Richard Almond

Medieval
Hunting
RICHARD ALMOND
To Anne, Rosamunde and Rohan
Front cover: LAT 1156 B f.163 November; deer hunting, from the Hours of Marguerite d’Orleans, 1426-38
by French School, (15th century) Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, France/ The Bridgeman Art Library.
First published in 2003
This edition published in 2011
The History Press
The Mill, Brimscombe Port Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG
www.thehistorypress.co.uk
This ebook edition first published in 2012
All rights reserved
© Richard Almond 2003, 2011, 2012
The right of Richard Almond, to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance
with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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EPUB ISBN 978 0 7524 7462 5
MOBI ISBN 978 0 7524 7461 8
Original typesetting by The History Press
Contents
Acknowledgements
Foreword
Introduction

One ‘Delite’ and Other Functions
Two ‘Lordes to Honte’
Three ‘Bestis’ and ‘Crafte’
Four Everyman
Five Crossing the Barriers
Six Medieval Dianas
Seven Conclusions

Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
In my research for this book, I have consulted hundreds of manuscripts and
printed sources over a period of more than eleven years. Many of these sources
feature in this publication. Obviously, over such a long period, I have received
help, advice and comment from a large number of people: I wish to thank you all
collectively. In addition, I owe a special debt of gratitude to Professor Tony
Pollard for reading this typescript and for his constant interest, sage advice and
invaluable discussion on ‘things medieval’. For the revised edition of Medieval
Hunting (2011) my grateful thanks to John Langton and Graham Jones of St
John’s College, Oxford, for the most recent figures of forests and chases. Thanks
also to Colin McKelvie for his expert comments on the habits of woodcock.
Finally, but not least, I wish to thank my family for their encouragement,
tolerance and unfailing belief in me as an author.
Foreword
Late-twentieth century historians, as a whole, disapproved of hunting. As a
result they tended to underrate its significance in the medieval centuries.
They would note its popularity, especially with the aristocracy, and pass on,
regretting the frivolity (or the cruelty), to other weightier and worthier matters.
Or, in the case of the common man hounded for poaching, highlight only his
struggle against repression. Both focuses were misleading, for hunting was
central to the lives of all classes, and enjoyed by all three estates and both sexes.
In this splendid new examination of the subject, Richard Almond brings
manuscript illustration, documentary sources and literary evidence together to
lay bare the purposes, methods, customs and rituals of the pursuit of wild game
as a shared culture.
Most of what writing there has been on hunting has focused on the
aristocracy, understandably because the surviving sources were generated for
their use and pleasure. Besides throwing new light on aristocratic hunting,
especially the under-researched participation of women, Almond here does full
justice to the hunting practised by the common man, which had its own skills
and rituals. Inevitably, since aristocrats sought to preserve a monopoly of the
best sport, hunting could be a source of social conflict. However, in the later
Middle Ages, from which centuries the greater quantity of evidence survives,
hunting was less divisive than either before or after. Broadly speaking, in an era
of low population, there was enough game to go around. Social barriers were
crossed not just in the organisation of the hunt, but also, as illustrations show, in
the aristocratic knowledge and appreciation of general practice.
Nevertheless the boar and especially the deer, were the noble quarry. The
aristocratic rituals and ceremonies developed in pursuit of the hart, the mature,
male red deer, were of deep cultural significance on several levels. The chase
was seen as a preparation for war, not only because it made men fit and hardy,
but also because the hunter put himself at risk. Going over the tusks or the
antlers for the kill was a moment of supreme danger. It was also a moment, as