No. 207. Ladies Shooting Rabbits.
The author of the “Ménagier de Paris,” a little farther on than the place last quoted (p. 311), goes on to say, “At the end of the month of September, and after, when hawking of quails and partridges is over, and even in winter, you may hawk at magpies, at jackdaws, at teal, which are in river, or others, ... at blackbirds, thrushes, jays, and woodcocks; and for this purpose you may carry a bow and a bolt, in order that, when the blackbird takes shelter in a bush, and dare not quit it for the hawk which hovers over and watches it, the lady or damsel who knows how to shoot may kill it with the bolt.” The manuscript which has furnished us with the preceding illustrations gives us the accompanying sketch ([No. 207]) of a lady shooting with her bolt, or boujon (as it was termed in French),—an arrow with a large head, for striking birds; but in this instance she is aiming not at birds, but at rabbits. Archery was also a favourite recreation with the ladies in the middle ages, and it no doubt is in itself an extremely good exercise, in a gymnastic point of view. The fair shooters seem to have employed bolts more frequently than the sharp-headed arrows; but there is no want of examples in the illuminated manuscripts in which females are represented as using the sharp-headed arrow, and sometimes they are seen shooting at deer. This custom prevailed during a long period, and is alluded to not unfrequently at so late a date as the sixteenth century. We learn from Leland’s “Collectanea” (vol. iv. p. 278), that when the princess Margaret, daughter of Henry VII., was on her way to Scotland, a hunting-party was got up for her in the park at Alnwick, and that she killed a buck with an arrow. Similar feats were at times performed by queen Elizabeth; but she seems to have preferred the cross-bow to the long-bow. The scene represented in our cut [No. 208] is from the same manuscript; the relative proportions of the dog and the rabbit seem to imply a satirical aim. Our next cut ([No. 209]), taken from MS. Reg. 2 B. vii., represents ladies hunting the stag. One, on horseback, is winding the horn and starting the game, in which the other plants her arrow most skilfully and scientifically. The dog used on this occasion is intended to be a greyhound.
No. 208. The Lady at the Rabbit-Warren.
No. 209. Ladies Hunting the Stag.
It must be remarked that, in all the illuminations of the period we are describing, which represent ladies engaged in hunting or hawking, when on horseback they are invariably and unmistakeably represented riding astride. This is evidently the case in this group ([No. 209]). It has been already shown, in former chapters, that from a very early period it was a usual custom with the ladies to ride sideways, or with side-saddles. Most of the mediæval artists were so entirely ignorant of perspective, and they were so much tied to conventional modes of representing things, that when, no doubt, they intended to represent ladies riding sideways, the latter seem often as if they were riding astride. But in many instances, and especially in the scenes of hunting and hawking, there can be no doubt that they were riding in the latter fashion; and it is probable that they were taught to ride both ways, the side-saddle being considered the most courtly, while it was considered safer to sit astride in the chase. A passage has been often quoted from Gower’s “Confessio Amantis,” in which a troop of ladies is described, all mounted on fair white ambling horses, with splendid saddles, and it is added that “everichone (every one) ride on side,” which probably means that this was the most fashionable style of riding. But, as shown in a former chapter (p. 72), it has been rather hastily assumed that this is a proof that it was altogether a new fashion. Our next cut ([No. 210]), taken from a manuscript in the French National Library (No. 7178), of the fourteenth century, represents two ladies riding in the modern fashion, except that the left leg appears to be raised very awkwardly; but this appearance we must perhaps ascribe only to the bad drawing. It must be observed also that these ladies are seated on the wrong side of the horse, which is probably an error of the draughtsman. Perhaps there was a different arrangement of the dress for the two modes of riding, although there was so little of what we now call delicacy in the mediæval manners, that this would be by no means necessary. Chaucer describes the Wife of Bath as wearing spurs, and as enveloped in a “foot-mantle:”—
Uppon an amblere esely sche sat,
Wymplid ful wel, and on hire heed an hat
As brood as is a bocler, or a targe;
A foot-mantel aboute hire hupes (hips) large,
And on hire feet a paire of spores scharpe.
—Cant. Tales, l. 471.
