ABSTRACT
Hunting was a highly regarded pastime inthe Middle Ages; indeed while warfarewas undoubtedly the most prestigious physical activity, the chase came a close second. There were intimate connections between hunting and fighting. From hunting the young male royalty and nobility learned horsemanship and management of weapons, and gained an insight into woodcraft, terrain and strategy, all techniques used in war. We are told by the author of the twelfth-century Dialogue of the Exchequer that
the forests are also the sanctuaries of Kings and their chief delight. Thither they repair to hunt, their cares laid aside the while, in order to refresh themselves by a short respite. There, renouncing the arduous but natural turmoil of the court, they breathe the pure air of freedom for a little space…(Quoted in Johnson 1950, 60.)
Hunting made huge demands on the robust constitutions of its devotees; it was a valuable way of channelling the extraordinary energies of the Norman and Angevin kings. Rackham has recently questioned whether there is any truth in ‘one of the common factoids that we learnt at school…that English kings were passionately fond of the chase’ and that forests were ‘reserved to the king for hunting’ (Rackham 1989, 51). It is true that we have to rely on the generalizations of chroniclers, who rarely thought it necessary to record in detail the king’s presence or otherwise on the hunting field; but the evidence for the overwhelming importance of hunting in the lives of a number of kings seems to be con-
clusive. Royal reputations were made or unmade on the hunting field. The Anglo-Saxons could hardly credit William the Conqueror’s fanatical ardour for the chase.
