Hunting for the moral
Manuscript, thirteenth century. Given by Thomas Hatcher (died 1583). Lower Library, 372/621
Not everyone would agree that hunting is a positive example of human endeavour. Ever since the Neolithic peoples began to domesticate animals for the purpose of consumption, the activity lost its primary purpose – but its appeal did not diminish.
Following the Norman Conquest England’s new rulers redistributed land and property amongst themselves. This new hegemony was feudal, intrinsically hierarchical in structure, with the King at the apex. Crucially, as the historian R. Allen Brown (1924–1989) observed, feudal society was a society geared for warfare. Amongst the most visible manifestations of Norman rule and land tenure was the construction of castles across the land. Another, bitterly resented, was the segregation of swathes of countryside designated as royal hunting grounds, to which the commoner had little free access. We recall that Willam II was murdered in the royal demesne of the New Forest. Following his accession in 1154, Henry II, the first Plantagenet, reserved all of the eponymous Huntingdonshire as a royal enclosure. Activities such as hunting, jousting, swordsmanship and archery were, to the medieval mind, instrumental in the organisation of society for personal advancement through combat, war, conquest. Such noble feats were the embodiment of the chivalric ideal.
Bestiaries became popular in the Middle Ages. They are best described as compendiums of the characteristics and deeds of various birds and animals, real and fantastical, based on the Physiologus, a text compiled in second century CE Egypt, intended to inspire moral rectitude amongst humans. The Caius manuscript 372/621 contains an example notable for its illustrations. In one of them, a hunter, dressed in forest-green, restrains two dogs whilst a wily beaver mutilates his own glands. Is this in order to try to break the trail of its scent? Overleaf, the same hunter and his dogs appear from left. At the sound of the hunting horn a mother ape, clutching her twin youngsters, flees right.
One may sympathise with the mother but all is not as it seems. The bestiary regards apes as a creation of the Devil. It is condemning the mother for a love of material riches (represented by the youngster she clutches in her arms) that transcends the true path of spiritual righteousness, even sacrifice (represented by the unloved twin who in turn clutches her neck). The hunter could be interpreted as an embodiment of evil for his purpose of infanticide, or of moral righteousness for attempting the matricide of a neglectful parent and sinful animal. The reader must decide. Meanwhile, the beaver represents selflessness at its most noble. Beavers’ testicles were highly prized for their medicinal purposes. For this act of painful self-castration the beaver knows that the hunter will call off his dogs and claim his loot. The beaver’s life will be thereafter unthreatened and the lives of humans improved. As for the hunter, his intervention as a noble feat continues to provoke debate.
This Library holds three bestiaries. The origins of this example are uncertain but it was presented by Thomas Hatcher of King’s College. Hatcher was a friend and contemporary of Dr. Caius.
The fire to win <<>> Hunting for the moral >> Fair play
