Chasse et construction identitaire de la noblesse : la place de la chasse dans l’éducation noble

Abstract

This article examines the links between hunting, noble education and noble identity. The specificity of hunting in Early Modern period is that it is not universal, but reserved for an elite: the nobility and its quintessence, embodied by the royal person. Hunting is an aristocratic activity par excellence, and both hunting treatises and treatises on morals and education insist that the nobleman should hunt. Hunting appears then as an educational activity, which produces a form of superiority and excellence, consubstantial to noble identity. How does hunting produce this superiority? What kind of excellence is produced in this activity? In what way does hunting contribute to making aristocrats superior beings, legitimising their privileges? In short, what is learned in hunting, and what social identity is forged in its practice?

Keywords

• nobility
• education
• identity
• Spain
• hunting
• Modern Age