Wildcats in the forest
Cat
Wildcats in the forest.
The Hungting Book of Gaston Phébus.
Written by Gaston Phébus, count of Foix and viscount of Béarn, ca. 1387-1389.
Commissioned by Jean sans Peur, Duke of Burgundy (?) in ca. 1407.
Parchment, 370 x 280 mm.
Ms. Français 616, fol. 36.
Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France.
Description
The Hunting Book of Gaston Phébus not only described the different stages of hunting and how to hunt different animals, but it also described animal behaviour, and among the animals that were described are the wildcats. The scene in Ms. Français 616, fol. 36 represents several wild cats in the forest in different attitudes very familiar for felines: some of them are hidden among the foliage or cracks on the ground; a cat is perched on a tree while another one is climbing the tree to get to it; others are seated or laying on the ground, or hunting rats, and there is even a she-cat with three suckling kitties. The majority of the cats are brown or gray with stripes or spots, the latter one probably trying to imitate the lynx. During the times of Gaston Phébus (1331-1391) there were many wild cats in the French forests and they were known to be bigger than the common cat. It was also a known fact that at the turn of the 14th century, the indigenous lynx was almost extinct and it was necessary to find specimens from other places to repopulate the forests.
Bibliography
- Anthenaise, Claude de. Le Livre de Chasse de Gaston Phébus. Paris : Bibliothèque de l’image, Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, 2002.
- Phébus, Gaston. The Hunting Book of Gaston Phebus: Manuscript Français 616, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France. London: Harvey Miller Publishers, 1998. Facsimile of the 1405-1410 edition.
- Walther, Ingo F., and Norbert Wolf. Codices Illustres: Los manuscritos iluminados más bellos del mundo desde 400 hasta 1600. Tr. Pablo Álvarez Ellacuría. London: Taschen, 2003.
Author
Mónica Ann Walker Vadillo
