Book description
Hunting was a major economic and leisure activity throughout the
European Middle Ages, and while aristocratic practices have featured
in studies of romantic and narrative literature, hunting in its wider
sense, across the social spectrum with attendant male and female
roles, has larged been ignored by modern medieval historians. Richard
Almond's study brings vividly to life the universality and centrality
of hunting to medieval societies, both as an economic necessity and as
an expression of medieval humanity's amost atavistic sense of oneness
with nature. Medieval Hunting dispels some of the myths and
misunderstandings about hunting, including the persistent view that it
was exclusively an aristocratic pursuit and a male one at that. Using
a wide variety of contemporary textual and art historical evidence,
Richard Almond demonstrates convincingly that hunting, including
fishing and all manner of poaching, was enjoyed by all classes, and by
women as well as men.
