Hunting developed a kind of ritual. Literary descriptions can be found from saints’
lives to romances, in which hunting sometimes became a literary motif expanded into an
elaborate metaphor. In the Tristan legend, for example, the hero reveals his aristocratic
training by teaching the huntsmen of King Marc how to divide the slain stag into portions
to be borne in triumphal procession at the conclusion of the hunt. This ceremonious
“breaking the stag” is included in the two most influential medieval hunting manuals:
Henri de Ferrières’s Livres du roy Modus et de la royne Ratio (ca. 1354–77) and Gaston
Phoebus’s Livre de chasse (ca. 1389). These describe the seasons for hunting, how
various animals should be hunted, types of hunting dogs and their care, and how to make
the traps and nets used in some kinds of hunting. The prologues emphasize that hunting
keeps the body fit and gives familiarity in the use of arms but that it also has the spiritual
benefit of occupying the mind so that the hunter is not tempted to fall into sin. Even
though many clergy shared the aristocratic enthusiasm for hunting, various learned
traditions against hunting merged in Gratian’s Decretum (ca. 1140) and formed the basis
for ecclesiastical sanctions against hunting, but these sanctions proved ineffective.
One section of Henri de Ferrières’s manual is a formal disputation between two ladies
on the virtue of hunting with dogs as compared to hunting with birds. Later chapters deal
briefly with the selection and training of birds of prey used for hunting, but this manual
does not have the detail found in the famous book on falconry written by Emperor
Frederick II in the early 13th century. References in literature and representations in art
confirm the popularity of fowling, along with hunting, as part of the aristocratic way of
life.
Charles R.Young
[See also: FERRIÈRES, HENRI DE; FISHING; GASTON PHOEBUS]
Bise, Gabriel. Illuminated Manuscripts: Medieval Hunting Scenes, trans. J.Peter Tallon. Fribourg:
Productions Liber SA and Éditions Minerva SA, 1978.
La chasse au moyen âge. Nice: Centre d’Études Médiévales de Nice, 1980.
Thiébaux, Marcelle. “The Medieval Chase.” Speculum 42 (1967): 260–74.
——. The Stag of Love: The Chase in Medieval Literature. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1974.
HUON DE BORDEAUX
. The chanson de geste of Huon de Bordeaux (10,553 mostly decasyllabic assonanced
lines) may have been composed between 1216 and 1229 or between 1260 and 1268 at the
latest. It is conserved in three manuscripts (Tours, Bibl. mun. 936, 13th c.; Paris, B.N. fr.
22555,15th c.; Turin: Bibl. naz. L. II. 14, MS fr. XXXVI, dated 1311).
Huon and Gérard, sons of Seguin, duke of Bordeaux, do not pay homage to
Charlemagne for their fief. Amauri, a traitor, accuses them of rebellion against the
emperor. Naimon intercedes and has them both summoned to court. Amauri and Charlot,
Charlemagne’s son, ambush Huon and Gérard. In the ensuing melee, Huon kills Charlot.
The peers intervene, and Huon’s life is spared on condition he undertake what appears to
be an impossible mission into Saracen land while Gérard watches over their fief. Huon is
expected to kill the first pagan he meets in Babylon, to kiss Emir Gaudisse’s daughter
The Encyclopedia 891