Medieval Hunting Read Online Free Page B
practical experience. This formal education also produced a class which spoke its own technical language of venery and understood the huntersâ catechism of specialised vocabulary, indicating they were âlernedâ both by birth and training. 19 Because of this early instruction, the upper classes took hunting and hawking as part of their existence for granted and, in addition, the rest of society expected them to participate in these activities. In Piers Plowman William Langland makes this latter point very clearly. Peris, the farmer, agrees to labour, having been told âY shal swynke and swete and sowe for vs botheâ, 20 then says to the knight that in return he must guard the Church, protect Peris from wasters and wicked men:
And go hunte hardelyche to hares and to foxes, To bores and to bokkes þat breketh adoun myn hegges, And afayte thy faucones to culle þe wylde foules For þey cometh to my croft my corn to diffoule. 21
Other texts reinforce the knightly function of hunting. The fourteenth-century French treatise Le Livre de lâordre de chevalerie , arguably the most important chivalric manual of the late Middle Ages and probably translated from the lost Le libre del Orde de cauayleria written in about 1276 by Ramon Lull, advises that the knight âexercise upon his horse either by hunting or in other ways that may please himâ. 22 In his War in the Middle Ages , Philippe Contamine refers to the warrior element in hunting, commenting that âBecause of its role in contemporary armies, all exercise on horseback [by the knightly classes], notably hunting, could be considered as preparation for warâ. 23 King Alfonso XI, who ruled Castile between 1312 and 1350, echoed the ideas of Xenophon and wrote of the similarities between war and hunting:
For a knight should always engage in anything to do with arms or chivalry and, if he cannot do so in war, he should do so in activities which resemble war. And the chase is most similar to war for these reasons: war demands expense met without complaint; one must be well horsed and well armed; one must be vigorous, and do without sleep, suffer lack of good food and drink, rise early, sometimes have a poor bed, undergo heat and cold, and conceal oneâs fear. 24
Piers Plowman highlights another important function of the hunt. Forests, chases and parks covered much of the British Isles so virtually every town and village was near to woodland and wasteland which harboured an abundance of game and other birds and animals. Many of these creatures were regarded as enemies by a society based upon agriculture, 25 particularly by the peasants whose fields, orchards and animals were plundered. Langland refers to this problem when he comments âThy shep ben ner al shabbede, the wolf shyt þe wolleâ. 26 Foxes were a particular problem, taking lambs in the spring and geese, ducks and hens throughout the year. A marginal picture in The Luttrell Psalter shows a fox carrying off a fat goose, a considerable economic blow to its owner. 27 Hunting thus helped in protecting and preserving the food stocks and was seen as the responsibility of the Second Estate whose duty it was to protect the Church and the rest of society.
Hunting had another immediate practical use in that it provided fresh meat, especially at times when there was no other to be had. Owing to the lack of winter feed, much domestic stock was probably slaughtered in the autumn and the meat salted down for use during the cold season, 28 although this long-held theory is now in dispute. No doubt by the spring, salted meat tasted foul and fresh game held attractions for both legitimate hunters and poachers alike.
Much of the need for fresh meat was supplied by venison, the flesh of deer. In this respect, the most important species was the largest and heaviest, the red deer. As regards numbers and commercial significance fallow deer were secondary, although they became
And go hunte hardelyche to hares and to foxes, To bores and to bokkes þat breketh adoun myn hegges, And afayte thy faucones to culle þe wylde foules For þey cometh to my croft my corn to diffoule. 21
Other texts reinforce the knightly function of hunting. The fourteenth-century French treatise Le Livre de lâordre de chevalerie , arguably the most important chivalric manual of the late Middle Ages and probably translated from the lost Le libre del Orde de cauayleria written in about 1276 by Ramon Lull, advises that the knight âexercise upon his horse either by hunting or in other ways that may please himâ. 22 In his War in the Middle Ages , Philippe Contamine refers to the warrior element in hunting, commenting that âBecause of its role in contemporary armies, all exercise on horseback [by the knightly classes], notably hunting, could be considered as preparation for warâ. 23 King Alfonso XI, who ruled Castile between 1312 and 1350, echoed the ideas of Xenophon and wrote of the similarities between war and hunting:
For a knight should always engage in anything to do with arms or chivalry and, if he cannot do so in war, he should do so in activities which resemble war. And the chase is most similar to war for these reasons: war demands expense met without complaint; one must be well horsed and well armed; one must be vigorous, and do without sleep, suffer lack of good food and drink, rise early, sometimes have a poor bed, undergo heat and cold, and conceal oneâs fear. 24
Piers Plowman highlights another important function of the hunt. Forests, chases and parks covered much of the British Isles so virtually every town and village was near to woodland and wasteland which harboured an abundance of game and other birds and animals. Many of these creatures were regarded as enemies by a society based upon agriculture, 25 particularly by the peasants whose fields, orchards and animals were plundered. Langland refers to this problem when he comments âThy shep ben ner al shabbede, the wolf shyt þe wolleâ. 26 Foxes were a particular problem, taking lambs in the spring and geese, ducks and hens throughout the year. A marginal picture in The Luttrell Psalter shows a fox carrying off a fat goose, a considerable economic blow to its owner. 27 Hunting thus helped in protecting and preserving the food stocks and was seen as the responsibility of the Second Estate whose duty it was to protect the Church and the rest of society.
Hunting had another immediate practical use in that it provided fresh meat, especially at times when there was no other to be had. Owing to the lack of winter feed, much domestic stock was probably slaughtered in the autumn and the meat salted down for use during the cold season, 28 although this long-held theory is now in dispute. No doubt by the spring, salted meat tasted foul and fresh game held attractions for both legitimate hunters and poachers alike.
Much of the need for fresh meat was supplied by venison, the flesh of deer. In this respect, the most important species was the largest and heaviest, the red deer. As regards numbers and commercial significance fallow deer were secondary, although they became
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