Medieval Hunting by Richard Almond Page B

and assistants bearing a hunting-axe, useful for breaking-up large carcasses. 110
    Personal hunting weapons of royalty and the nobility, particularly crossbows, swords and hunting-knives, often became family heirlooms, and some examples from historical figures survive in European collections. Schloss Ambras, near Innsbruck in the Austrian Tyrol, has a particularly fine and extensive collection of late medieval and Renaissance hunting weaponry, including examples that belonged to Charles the Bold of Burgundy, King Louis XII of France and Emperor Maximilian I. The Hunting Gallery of the Royal Armouries at Leeds also has a small but interesting collection of aristocratic hunting weapons from this period, including hunting swords, boar-spears, crossbows, quivers and bolts, and two hunting-trousses. The trousse , or garniture , was a practical but often finely crafted and richly decorated set of cutlery carried for the special purpose of unmaking the hart or other large quarry. It typically consisted of two broad-bladed knives for severing bone, two narrow-bladed knives for cutting out the finer muscles and a two-tined fork for the handling of delicacies, all carried in a purpose-made scabbard or sheath. 111 The German garnitures in the Leeds Royal Armouries Hunting Gallery collection are excellent examples of such equipment, well-made but meant for practical use in the field.
    The horse was a vital element in the equipment of the gentle veneur and falconer. Maurice Keen remarks that to live nobly ‘Knights and Esquires should be well mounted’ and even the lesser nobleman was expected ‘to keep hawks and hounds, and to talk knowledgeably of them’. 112 The gentleman ‘type’ should have, among his many accomplishments, skill in horsemanship and on the hunting field. 113 While not synonymous with being a nobleman, enjoying the right to ride a horse was of considerable importance and related to the idea of the ‘chevalier’. The horse gave the rider rank and status, whether in the field of war or the chase. In the higher levels of the hunting profession, the huntsman was mounted, 114 as were the senior foresters in the Forest hierarchy. The gentle amateur veneurs were invariably mounted, unless the hunt was specifically on foot. The chase at speed provided ‘the personal elements of exercise, prowess and emulation of the individual distinguishing himself’. The knight was expected to show himself off to his best advantage and this apparently applied particularly to the English upper classes in the hunting field. 115 An old Welsh proverb states ‘A gentleman might be known by his hawk, his horse and his greyhound.’ 116 These personal living and expensive items were the icons of social identification which differentiated the gentleman from the ungentleman. A man could not be publicly acknowledged as a gentleman without them.
    By the eleventh century, the art of horse breeding was long established in Byzantium and especially in the Arab countries where there was a wealth of established breeds suitable as warhorses. 117 The Byzantines had long used hunting to keep their warhorses and cavalrymen fit. 118 However, at this time in Europe selective breeding appears to have been only just beginning, with few references in the available literature to breed provenance, the exception being some Spanish sources. Many good horses both from Byzantine and Moorish origins were entering Europe and these must have provided material and inspiration to horse breeders. Ann Hyland comments that the Bayeux Tapestry provides a rough guide to the European type of Norman warhorse, the size confirmed by her own researches into Norman horseshoes held at the Museum of London ‘a medium-sized animal of approximately 14. 2 –15 hh, with no particular distinguishing features, other than hinting it was fairly stocky’.
    A Persian work, the Qabus Nama of Kai Ka’us ibn Iskander, written in 1082 by the