De Commynes mentions one being used during a battle and I am wondering if there are others that we might be able to recognize and maybe theorize which ones might have been used for what battle commands: Advance, withdraw, etc...

The next would be, "what did these calls sound like"? (Sheet music anyone?)

I would guess that "After Him!" was probably in use as well as "Damnit, which way did he go?!?!!?"

No doubt from the Realm of ACME on the field of Onion in regard to the hunting calls. With large, unrecognizable talking dawgs saying "Duh, which way did he go George? Which way did he go?"

How could we forget one so dear to our collective memory?

I'm speaking, of course, of:

Kill da wabbit, Kill da wabbit!

"I'm hunting wabbitts"

Wait- maybe that's a statement of intent, not a hunting call.

No no, wait wait... isn't this a Dark Ages cartoon? (Suspiciously eyeing the horns on the helmet) *shrugs* and places the helmet on her head, leaping down the stairs, disappearing into the woods, spear and magic helmet echoing through the trees...

Gwen, I believe it is a statement of intent. Unless of course you stand out in the field and shout your intent "I'M HUNTING WABBITS, huhuhuhuhuhuhuh" and then everyone in earshot suddenly goes crashing through the high grass, with their spears and magic HELMUTS! looking for the wittle gway wabbits as you have given the signal.

Seriously,

Let's look at what we know was used for hunting calls...a hunting horn. They're pictured all over the place in tapestries and illustrations. Seems to me that a series of rapid and long bursts on the horn would be like morse code and could apply to the battle field too. But then again, drums are well documented on the battle field, along with something like a fife. M. Vale talks somewhat at length about drums etc leading to codified "marching in step" which may have begun in the late 1400's.

Anyway, I'm a believer in the horn on the hunt. It's very versatile for signalling the others in a hunting party, which I think was the major use of a call in medieval hunting, not for "calling" the game itself. Think of how hunting parties were organized. You didn't sit in a duck blind with the decoys out. The game was driven by "beaters" toward the hunters on horse or foot. Sometimes fences were set up to funnel the game toward the hunters.

A good source: the Gaston Phoebus hunting book. We have a copy printed in the late 60's which wasn't too hard to find.

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Cheers,

We have the Gaston book as well. Shows some interesting uses of camo. It is a facsimile copy, it has some English translation. In some cases chapters are "reader's digest" condensed versions giving an overall explanation rather than all of the detail.

Brent, check out OXBOW/David Brown Book company. It is where I obtained my facsimile.

http://www.oxbowbooks.com

quote:

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Originally posted by hauptmann:
Seriously

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Umm...no

Here you guys go, for those of you wanting to relive your childhood
http://www.geocities.com/stagepin3/whatsopera.mp3

Can you summarize what, if any, relation these calls have to modern hunting calls? I mean this in the British "hunting to hounds" sense. I made the observation to Jeff the other day that, "hunting to hounds" must be a derivative of medieval hunting on horseback, or the closest thing to medieval hunting on horseback that is being practiced in the world today.

I refer to hunting in this fashion as a sport for the elite, not hunting on horseback for sustainance as must be practiced in some parts of the world.

Were horses used for hunting by the elite who were hunting primarily for pleasure, the kill being a nice bonus but not a neccessity?

Were horses used for expediency's sake by huntsmen whose job it was to bring back meat for the table?

Who hunted on foot? Just men who hunted small game such as rabbits and birds?

This much I am pretty sure of - I will have to look in Gaston's book (assuming Jenn does not have it with her!) . You rode to the hunt regardless. Everybody participating in a hunt was of a minimum station that would be expected to ride - excepting the people handleing the hounds, beaters, what have you who were doing the unpleasant and boring tasks.

However, large & dangerous game - boar and bear specificaly, was handled a little differently. The larger hounds (Alaunts, Mastifs, Boarhounds, what have you) were used to corner and pin the boar or bear for the few minutes necessary to dismount. These few minutes could be quite costly to the pack. The dogs were withdrawn to a point, and the hunters went in with boar spear simultaniously. The angered creature would at this point normaly put his attention to this new threat and charge the hunters. This was a dangerous game for the hunters as well, and it wasn't uncommon for them to be seriously injured or killed - a famous case is one of the De Vere Earls of Oxford during Richard II's reign. He was gored to death by a boar, and as he was extremely unpopular it was seen as divine judgement against him, and celebrated in illuminations (I have a photo of one somewhere).

In the case of hunting deer or other larger, swifter but less dangerous game, I believe a hunter could and would remain mounted.

I've seen lots of illuminations of rabbits and other small prey being netted on the ground, and I don't imagine one would need a horse to shoot or net birds.

this was the kind of information I was looking for. I am also enjoying the branch off of the topic about hunting in general.

Do you have the full titles of the resources?

This link leads to the Illumination pages of The Bibliothèque Nationale de France.

The theme is Sports and Entertainment. This link is specifically for Gaston Phebus's manuscript images.

If you are interested in other types of images:

http://www.bnf.fr/enluminures/aaccueil.htm

The following link is for Georgetown University's Labyrinth. VERY cool site. Links to all sorts of Medieval societies and projects on the net. Might be a little dated but still good.
http://www.georgetown.edu/labyrinth/subjects/mss/mss.html

Yea, I've been a bit stressed lately by the election. haven't been sleeping well.

I'll do an indepth search after my latin test but the only one I can think of is Frederick II book and that is argueablly italian and is not on the chase.

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