A Sporting Lexicon of the Fifteenth Century: The J.B. Treatise

Instruction manuals on sporting themes were very popular in the late medieval period although they largely drew on much earlier sources. One such source is the J.B. Treatise, elements of which are found in twenty-five later texts, twenty-one of which are 15th century fieldsports manuals. In this study Macnab examines these sources in terms of the similarity and diversity of J.B. elements in them. With the central theme of hawking and hunting the J.B. Treatise contained a range of information and instruction including choosing a hawk, breeds of dog, hunting terms, carving terms, as well as more random and more moralistic advice.