HUNTING

Hunting was a very popular pastime for people, especially the rich. Queen Elizabeth herself loved to hunt. The hunt allowed the rich nobles to show off their fine horses, hawks, clothing, and weapons. Horses were shown off by their breeding and ranked by endurance, speed, beauty, and strength.  Hunting was quite an event and would take hours.

The most popular forms of hunting were stag-hunting, falconry and hair-coursing with grey hounds.

People also enjoyed bear baiting and watching a Mastiff fight bulls, bears, lions, tigers gladiators, etc!

Hawking, otherwise known as falconry, was the sport of royalty. It was said that this was a reference to the stateliness of the birds, but it was a royal sport mainly because commoners could not afford to train the birds. They could not afford any other aspect of the sport, for that matter. The eagle was a bird reserved solely for the King and Queen, but there were no other restrictions placed upon the birds species. As was the case with the horses, there was a slight attempt to breed hawks, but interaction primarily fell upon trading, rather than breeding.