Medieval Hunting (3 page)

In contrast, commonalty hunting lacks direct evidence and even indirect evidence is in short supply. Both textual and pictorial information on lesser men hunting tends to be marginal to the aristocratic chase. A few medieval authors acknowledge commonalty hunting methods and techniques, others ignore them completely. Much of the official evidence recording commonalty hunting refers specifically to deer poaching whereas the frequency with which other quarry was hunted is more difficult to assess. The threads of evidence showing that people from other classes hunted in their own ways constitute chapter four. As the amount of evidence is relatively small compared to that for aristocratic hunting, the systematic approach combines the structures of chapters two and three, providing some measure of comparison for the reader.

However, even the mounted aristocratic chase and its success depended upon the administration, organisation and expertise of the king's, or great magnate's, hunt establishment. This organisation consisted of a hierarchy of officials and salaried professional huntsmen, most of whom were not of gentle birth but originated in the commonalty. These men were ‘lerned' but not ‘gentle', as William Baillie-Grohman's compilation of hunt officials and their salaries in
The Master of Game
clearly indicates.
¹⁸
In
The Stag of Love
, Marcelle Thiébaux comments that ‘there is no lack of medieval evidence of the hunt's widespread practice'
¹⁹
and this can reasonably be interpreted to include the participation of those other than the nobility, that is, the employed hunt officials. Furthermore, in certain methods of hunting, the professionals employed beaters from the locality to drive game, principally deer, towards the gentle hunters waiting at their stands or trysts, bows in hand. Were these peasant beaters participators in the hunt? I think that they were and undoubtedly their experience made them knowledgeable of aristocratic hunting practices, just as modern beaters are
au fait
with every aspect of grouse- or pheasant-shooting, although they are not actually shooting the game themselves. Poaching is the great grey area of hunting. All classes were doing it, including nobles, gentry, ecclesiastics and townsmen, even women, and being prosecuted and fined by the Forest courts. Where do poachers fit into the structure of medieval society? Both occupational hunting and poaching are explored in chapter five.

Then there is the conundrum and ambiguity of medieval women hunting. Were they active participants with a true ‘lernedness' of venery or merely decorative audience on the sidelines? Why were they apparently marginalised by men and why do modern historians remain silent on this subject? What other roles did women play within the wide parameters of hunting? This complex subject is analysed in chapter six.

The traditional picture of medieval hunting is thus not as clear cut as most historians would have us believe. We need to assess a wide variety of evidence, searching in particular for three elements, participation, quarry species and methodology, in order to appreciate the universality of hunting and its essential contribution towards a better understanding of our medieval forebears. Chapter seven is thus necessarily a brief summary of the eclectic collection of evidence and my own thoughts on the interpretation of this material, together with some examples of composite pictorial evidence which support my notion of the universality of hunting.

Finally, I must make two points relating to the analysis and interpretation of the source material used in the compilation of this book. Firstly, throughout the book I have used both textual and illustrated sources and have endeavoured, wherever possible, to read them together in order to produce clear and plausible results. Secondly, the precise interpretation of any evidence, particularly illustrated material from hundreds of years ago, presents particular problems and challenges to the historian attempting to elucidate what actually happened and what constituted ‘reality'. There are almost always several levels of meaning to a medieval or Renaissance hunting illustration, whether it be from a manuscript, painting, misericord or tapestry. This multiplicity of possible meanings also often applies to medieval literature, especially romantic and imaginative texts. Although this methodological difficulty provokes issues, sometimes of an ambiguous or conflicting nature, it is also immensely stimulating to the historian and helps make the interpretation of medieval and Renaissance sources an utterly fascinating pursuit.

I
n
Livre de chasse
, a canonical manuscript begun on 1 May 1387 and completed in 1389,
¹
Gaston Fébus remarks ‘tout mon temps me suis delite par espicial en trois choses, l'une est en armes, l'autre est en amours, et l'autre si est en chasce . . . .'
²
This illustrates the importance that hunting held in the life and mind of one medieval French noble, a self-confessed hunting enthusiast and former mercenary captain who had retired from his profession to his vast estates in south-west France. However, it can be applied to a greater or lesser extent to the educated European upper classes as a genre and as a class. The Second Estate, the nobility and knights, hunted and were expected to do so. Not everybody in the establishment automatically approved, however; in his satirical work
Policraticus
, John of Salisbury derides hunting as one of the diversions and frivolities of courtiers and adopts a hostile, even socialistic, attitude towards aristocratic hunters.
³
In addition, he acidly remarks ‘Rarely is one found to be modest or dignified, rarely self-controlled, and in my opinion never temperate.'
⁴
Harsh words, although he admits his criticisms are partially for amusement's sake.

Yet in spite of the apparent monopoly of this pastime by the upper classes, hunting in its widest sense was not the preserve of the courtiers and educated élites. Owing to the various and disparate needs of medieval society, the functions of hunting ensured that it was widely engaged in throughout every community.

For the ruling classes, avoiding idleness, and therefore sin, was important and hunting provided the ideal anodyne of healthy, violent and enjoyable exercise. Edward, Duke of York, using the words of Gaston Fébus, comments on this function of venery:

The first resouns is for the game causeth oft a man to eschewe þe vii deedly synnes. Secoundly men byn bettir ryding, and more just and more vndyrstondyng, and more appert, and more esye and more vndirtakyng, and bettir knowyng of all contrees and of all passages . . . and helthe of man and of his sowle for ho that fleeth þe vii dedly synnes . . . shal be saued, than a good huntere shal be saued, and in this world haue joye ynow, and of gladnesse and of solace . . . .
⁵

He continues in the same manner, emphasising the dreadful possibilities idleness afforded for dwelling on the sins of the flesh:

for whan a man is ydul and rechless without travayle and men ben occupyed to be doyng somme þinges, and abideth ther in here oiþer in here Chambre it is a thyng which draweth men to ymaginacioun of fleishly lust an plaisire. . . .
⁶

Gentle hunters were instructed in the art of hunting from an early age and
The Master of Game
advises ‘It wilt tech a man to be a good huntere, first þe must be a childe passid vii. or viii. yere of age or litel elder . . .'.
⁷
According to Nicholas Orme, the tradition of including hunting in the curriculum of young nobles, particularly heroes, dates back to the epics of the twelfth century.
⁸
Gottfried von Strassburg's
Tristan
, written in about 1210, provides the earliest available full account of education for a young noble; its requirements include knowledge of tracking and hunting, riding, the military arts and athletics as well as the study of reading, languages and proficiency in music and chess.
⁹
Horn, a king's son and the hero of a French poem written between 1150 and 1175, learns ‘to play all the instruments under heaven, to hunt in wood and by river, to manage a horse and defend himself'.
¹⁰
In
Guy of Warwick
, a slightly later French poem of about 1235, Guy, the son of the Earl of Warwick's steward, the Lord of Wallingford, has a Master to teach him and is given experience in handling dogs and falcons.
¹¹
The education of these fictional young heroes is reflected in that of many historical figures of the late medieval period. Thus, Alexander III of Scotland, aged ten, hunted in Galtres Forest near York in 1251
¹²
and Henry VI coursed hares and foxes at Bury St Edmunds in 1433/4 when he was twelve.
¹³
This royal tradition of formalising the subjects included in the educational system was quickly adopted by all ranks of the aristocracy eager to produce educated offspring who would make their way successfully in the world. Thus Geoffrey Chaucer, son of a London vintner, received the education of a gentleman, beginning as a page in the household of Prince Lionel, second son of Edward III.
¹⁴
This education inevitably included instruction in hunting and hawking, and his poems, such as The Booke of the Duchesse and The Assembly of Foules contain many references and allusions to both aristocratic activities. Several illustrations in
Livre de chasse
show Gaston Fébus as Master, instructing young nobles in the arts of hunting.
¹⁵
This gentlemanly ideal of educating one's sons in the correct way continued into the Tudor period and beyond. Henry VIII's archbishop, Thomas Cranmer, was an active and enthusiastic athlete in his youth and his father:

was very desirous to have him learned, yet would he not that he should be ignorant in civil and gentleman-like exercises, insomuch that he used him to shoot and many times permitted him to hunt and hawk and to exercise and to ride rough horses . . . after study, he would both hawk and hunt . . . and would sometimes shoot the long bow.
¹⁶

The curriculum for girls was necessarily different in several respects, but in
Medieval Children
, Nicholas Orme comments that ‘noble and gentle girls needed to learn table manners like those of their brothers, and some of them took part in hunting of a less exacting kind'.
¹⁷

For young men of the upper classes, the three basic accomplishments – facility of address, the practice of religion and mastery of etiquette – were acquired early in life, and were followed by knowledge of literature, music and the visual arts and competence at dancing plus training for war, hunting, archery and indoor games. From hunting children learned several essential skills, including horsemanship and the management of weapons, and gained knowledge of terrain, woodcraft and strategy.
¹⁸
For the future ruling classes, the warriors and leaders in war, hunting provided invaluable lessons and practical experience. This formal education also produced a class which spoke its own technical language of venery and understood the hunters' catechism of specialised vocabulary, indicating they were ‘lerned' 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 ‘Y shal swynke and swete and sowe for vs bothe',
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 l'ordre 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 ‘exercise upon his horse either by hunting or in other ways that may please him'.
²²
In his
War in the Middle Ages
, Philippe Contamine refers to the warrior element in hunting, commenting that ‘Because of its role in contemporary armies, all exercise on horseback [by the knightly classes], notably hunting, could be considered as preparation for war'.
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 one's 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 ‘Thy shep ben ner al shabbede, the wolf shyt þe wolle'.
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.