Beyond the Pale

: The historical archaeology of hare hunting, 1603-1831

Abstract

This thesis uses the archaeology of hunting the brown hare as a way of exploring and understanding changes in the social and physical landscape of the 17th and 18th centuries. It addresses a lack of detailed archaeological study of hunting in the post-medieval period and is the first work to archaeologically examine hare warrens, acts of game preservation that were borne of a desire to control access to the landscape and protect noble privilege through the legislation of quarry animals. Fieldwork was undertaken at sites in Wiltshire and Surrey, the results of which are supplemented by archival research to illustrate how they were used. The sites are shown to have been wooded, generally enclosed, and sited on the edges of designed landscapes or on open land, able to curtail customary rights of common.

The archaeology of hare hunting is then examined along three themes: issues of class and poaching, the role of hunting in early modern sport, and changing human-animal relationships. As hares were classed as game, they were wild and could not be owned; the difference between a hunter and a poacher was a matter of class. As more of the countryside suitable for hare hunting was enclosed and hunting became more organised into a competitive sport, the emphasis shifted from the quarry to the hound. This saw the animal body moulded as status marker and allowed the gentry to move their attention to the fox, formerly classed as vermin. The oppression of the countryside by those in power eventually caused the rejection of rurality by those who were not, and development of regulated sport with its emphasis on competition between hounds meant a live hare was no longer even necessary for a good course around a suburban dog track.

Date of Award	2 Dec 2021
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Bristol
Sponsors	South, West and Wales Doctoral Training Partnership
Supervisor	Tamar Hodos (Supervisor), Oliver Creighton (Supervisor) & Stuart J Prior (Supervisor)