Sport and game meet in hunting, which became a popular aristocratic pastime in the Middle Ages. In the late fourteenth century, the avid sportsman Gaston III Phoebus, count of Foix (1331–91), composed a hunting manual divided into four parts: Gentle and Wild Beasts, Nature and Care of Dogs, Hunting with Dogs, and Hunting with Traps, Snares, and Crossbow. The Morgan’s copy, one of the most magnificent such manuals in the world, is lavishly illustrated with eighty-seven large paintings. The manuscript was made for Louis I, duke of Orléans and brother of King Charles VI of France.
“Deer Hunting” from Gaston III Phoebus, Livre de la chasse (Book of the Hunt), in French and Latin, France, Paris, ca. 1406. Illuminated for Louis d’Orléans possibly by the Bedford Master, MS M.1044, fol. 76 (det.), Bequest of Clara S. Peck, 1983.