18C Allegories of Spring - Love & Bird Nests

1785 Probably Britain. Here a young man is handing a birds' nest to a young woman. He has one hand on her shoulder as she accepts the nest.  She is collecting spring flowers in her apron. The couple is passing by another woman kneeling beside a basket of flowers and hold up a garland for the couple to see. Men are sowing grain in fields in the background to left.

18C Allegories of Spring - Love & Bird Nests

1796 Spring Published by George Thompson London

 This depiction of Spring shows a family on a river bank.  The man is holding a fishing rod and displying a fish caught on the line, while the woman opens a wicker basket full of others. The little girl stands holding a basket of flowers, while the little boy kneels in the foreground, feeding birds in a nest in his hat. Behind them a team is ploughing in the background to right. 

18C Allegories of Spring - Love & Bird Nests

18C English Woodcut of Spring

Another bird's nest with chirping chicks is gently placed in the woman's apron.

1754 Allegories of Spring - In a Garden

1754 Spring from The Four Seasons published by Thomas Major London. 

People appear to work in the walled sunken garden behind the group. A man hands a flower to a young woman sitting on a terrace with her attendant standing behind them.  A boy at right has a parrot perched on his hand.  They are in a garden with a statue of a Venus & an arch at left, through which a couple can be seen in an embrace. Plants in pots dot the area around the group.

15C Forests, Chases, & Gameparks for Hunting by the Elites

Hunting deer, 15C Illuminated Manuscript

In the Middle Ages, hunting was an activity for elites. Hunting was the privilege of the nobility, closely linked to land ownership.  When agriculture emerged in the Neolithic era, active livestock farming relegated hunting to a secondary role. Hunting became primarily a defensive practice aimed at protecting farmers’ crops from hungry or destructive wild animals. While crops & livestock farming covered people’s basic dietary needs, hunting offered a wider choice of meat to the privileged classes. Noblemen performed necessary management of their lands & the peasants in their employ. They raised funding for military expeditions & social events, practiced horseback riding, hunting, & hawking. Hunting had a dual symbolic & social significance. Being invited to hunt with the King was one of the court’s great honors. In Europe, laws were devised to regulate hunting on royal territory. The elites could show off  their abilities as warriors through hunting. More than a pastime, it was an important arena for social interaction, essential training for war, & a gauge  of nobility.  Local lords maintained & monopolized the gameparks & the taking of big game in forest reserves & small game in warrens. These large sanctuaries of woodland—essentially the royal forest—where populations of game animals were kept & watched over by gamekeepers. Here the peasantry could not hunt, poaching being subject to severe punishment. The lower classes mostly had to content themselves with snaring birds & smaller game outside of forest reserves & warrens.  By the 16C, most areas of land reserved for hunting of game were of 3 kinds, according to their degree of enclosure & being subject to Forest Laws: Forests, large unenclosed areas of wilderness; Chases, which normally belonged to nobles rather than the crown; & Parks, which were enclosed & not subject to Forest Laws.

The Book of the Hunt of King Modus & Queen Ratio after 1455

Piero de' Crescenzi (1233-1321) wrote of Hunting in Book 10 of his Liber ruralium commodorum 1304-09. He advised that the gamepark should be stocked with hare, roe deer, red deer, wild boar, rabbits.  He recommended the English, French, & Spanish hare specifically.  He wrote of hunting dogs & their dietary recommendations for each season & even times of the day to feed them.  Those participating in "the hunt" lived with unique vocabularies, customs, & ancient rituals.

Piero de' Crescenzi (1233-1321) Liber ruralium commodorum 1304-09. Illuminator - Master of Fitzwilliam MS. 268 - 1470-1485 - French. Le livre des prouffis champestres et ruraux, Book 10 On hunting (folio 265r)

The Book of the Hunt of King Modus & Queen Ratio after 1455

The Book of the Hunt of King Modus & Queen Ratio after 1455

May - Falconry - Using a bird to help hunting other birds. Agricultural calendar from a manuscript of Piero de' Crescenzi (1233-1321) written c. 1306. Illumination from The Boccaccio Master Geneva (active between 1448-75) Illustration 1470-75

The Book of the Hunt of King Modus & Queen Ratio after 1455

Egerton Book of Hours Wolfgang Beurer (15C) Bear Hunting

The Book of the Hunt of King Modus & Queen Ratio after 1455

Egerton Book of Hours Wolfgang Beurer (15C) Boar Hunting

The Book of the Hunt of King Modus & Queen Ratio after 1455

Egerton Book of Hours Wolfgang Beurer (15C) Hare Hunting

Egerton Book of Hours Wolfgang Beurer (15C) Hunting

The Book of the Hunt of King Modus & Queen Ratio after 1455

Egerton Book of Hours Wolfgang Beurer (15C) Hunting

See
Joyce Salisbury, The Beast Within. Animals in the Middle Ages (New York, 1994).

Chasse L.-J. Bord and J.-P. Mugg, La chasse au Moyen Age. Occident latin, Ve–XVe siècle (Paris, 2008).

Robert Delort, Le commerce des fourrures en Occident à la fin du Moyen Age ,2 vols. (Rome, 1978).

HH J. Cummins, The Hound and the Hawk. The Art of Medieval Hunting (London, 2001).

Hunting A. Smets and B. V an den Abeele, “Medieval Hunting” in  Animals in the Medieval Age (Oxford, 2011).

Hannele Klemettilä, Animals and Hunters in the Late Middle Ages (Routledge, 2015)

Edward of Norwich, The Master of Game , ed. W. Baillie-Grohman and F. Baillie-Grohman (Philadelphia, 2005).

MH R. Almond, Medieval Hunting (Phoenix Mill, 2003).

Poétique A. Strubel and C. de Saulnier, La poétique de la chasse au Moyen Age: Les livres de chasse du XIVe siècle (Paris, 1994).