The Incantatory Violence of the Medieval Hunt Available to Purchase

This article argues that medieval audiences and poets were sensitive to the ethical concerns inherent in aestheticizing the hunt's sounds as musical. The depiction of aristocratic hunting characterized by horns, hounds, and riders—also known as the music of the hunt—aestheticizes the sounds of violence. Such depictions use violence against animals to ennoble a privileged few. While some hunters explicitly praise this aestheticized violence, hunting was considered a vice, not only for clergy but sometimes also for courtiers. Indeed, the poets of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Sir Orfeo deliberately deploy the hunt's music in ways critical of aestheticized violence—the former portraying the hunt's music as a temptation, and the latter deliberately silencing the hunt to render its violence shocking. Ultimately, these poets demonstrate an acute awareness of how aestheticized violence inflicted on animals might give license for violence against humans as well.