Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of maps
- List of tables
- List of contributors
- Edward Miller: an appreciation
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Economic development in the early twelfth century
- 2 Lothian and beyond: the economy of the ‘English empire’ of David I
- 3 Boroughs, markets and trade in northern England, 1000–1216
- 4 Peasant deer poachers in the medieval forest
- 5 The growth of London in the medieval English economy
- 6 The bankruptcy of the Scali of Florence in England, 1326–1328
- 7 The English export trade in cloth in the fourteenth century
- 8 A medieval tax haven: Berwick upon Tweed and the English crown: 1333–1461
- 9 Taxation and communities in late medieval England
- 10 Peasants and the collapse of the manorial economy on some Ramsey Abbey estates
- 11 The famuli in the later Middle Ages
- 12 The great slump of the mid-fifteenth century
- 13 Lorenzo de' Medici's London branch
- 14 The trade of late medieval Chester, 1500–1550
- Bibliography of Edward Miller's published works
4 - Peasant deer poachers in the medieval forest
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of maps
- List of tables
- List of contributors
- Edward Miller: an appreciation
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Economic development in the early twelfth century
- 2 Lothian and beyond: the economy of the ‘English empire’ of David I
- 3 Boroughs, markets and trade in northern England, 1000–1216
- 4 Peasant deer poachers in the medieval forest
- 5 The growth of London in the medieval English economy
- 6 The bankruptcy of the Scali of Florence in England, 1326–1328
- 7 The English export trade in cloth in the fourteenth century
- 8 A medieval tax haven: Berwick upon Tweed and the English crown: 1333–1461
- 9 Taxation and communities in late medieval England
- 10 Peasants and the collapse of the manorial economy on some Ramsey Abbey estates
- 11 The famuli in the later Middle Ages
- 12 The great slump of the mid-fifteenth century
- 13 Lorenzo de' Medici's London branch
- 14 The trade of late medieval Chester, 1500–1550
- Bibliography of Edward Miller's published works
Summary
The records of the forest courts of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries together contain many hundreds of brief accounts of hunting expeditions; they constitute a unique source for an activity which is perhaps better known from the idealised descriptions in hunting treatises or imaginative literature. The hunters whose real-life exploits are described in forest eyres, or in the general inquisitions which replaced them during the fourteenth century, came from all ranks of society, and the interest of their stories is by no means confined to what they tell us about hunting techniques, precious though this is. In their descriptions not only of how, but of where and when and in whose company, men – and, very occasionally, women – hunted, the forest records provide scores of vignettes of English medieval rural social life. We see barons and bishops, knights and squires, the rough soldiery of castle garrisons, parish clergy, monks, servants of every type, craftsmen from the towns, local villagers and a host of others at work and at play, travelling and brawling, in the company of family and friends. We are given a unique perspective on rural life and relationships.
It is on the peasant hunters, and the light their activities throw on peasant life and experience, that I propose to concentrate here. For despite the prohibitions of forest law, the danger contained in encounters with forest officers and the severity of the penalties which might follow detection, the peasantry of forest villages continued to take deer in the royal forests.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Progress and Problems in Medieval EnglandEssays in Honour of Edward Miller, pp. 68 - 88Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1996
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