Wolf – E.2 – II.3 Gebrauchsschrifttum

Jagdtraktate: The royal huntsman William Twiti’s Art of Hunting (c. 1327) briefly defines the wolf as one of four beasts that is hunted, whilst The Boke of St. Albans (1486) includes it in its list of beasts of venery together with the stag and hare (DANIELSSON, 31). The Master of Game describes the nature of the wolf in detail, drawing on Gaston Phébus’ influential work (see D.1 II.3), and whilst it does not explicitly designate the wolf as a beast of venery, an illumination in one version of the manuscript (MS Bodley 146, f.3v.) depicts a castle with crenellated walls enclosing a number of animals, including a wolf, within what appears to be a stylised park. In other instances, and overwhelmingly in documentary sources, wolves were categorised as vermin (see PLUSKOWSKI), although the wolf is virtually absent from Middle English literature (ROONEY, 1).

Ausg.: William Twiti, The Art of Hunting, ed. B. DANIELSSON, 1977.

Lit.: J. CUMMINS: The Hound and the Hawk. The Medieval Art of Hunting, 1998; A. G. PLUSKOWSKI: Wolves and the Wilderness in the Middle Ages, 2006; A. ROONEY: Hunting in Middle English Literature, 1993.

Aleks Pluskowski

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