Hunting and Falconry

Abstract Hunting and falconry were important sources of both power and pleasure. King John had a huge hunting establishment, with hundreds of hunting dogs, scores of birds of prey, and dozens of huntsmen, falconers, and assistants. The costs were high, equivalent to the revenues drawn from the royal forests. Yet earlier scholars, though they often discussed royal forests in detail, generally mentioned the king’s love of hunting only in passing. The chapter describes John’s hunting establishment, compiles its costs, and analyses its purposes. Hunting was an important source of soft power, showing the king’s wealth, magnificence, and capacity for violence. Yet John’s enemies used his preference for hunting over the tournament, and allegedly over warfare, to contest his power and undermine his reputation. Hunting was also for pleasure, as many contemporaries emphasized, and the production of pleasure at court was as important as the production of power.