Eric Goldberg's In the Manner of the Franks is an insightful and thorough assessment of early medieval European hunting that begins in the late Roman empire and moves through the Merovingian and Carolingian periods, concluding with the death of Louis V “in a hunting accident—in 987” (3). The focus, then, is primarily on Gaul, Germany, and Italy (with some consideration of proximate regions), where Goldberg argues that hunting “played a vital yet little-understood role in the social construction of political power, noble status, and elite manhood” (3–4). As a whole, Goldberg offers a comprehensive and well-illustrated study of these regions that will prove valuable to scholars and students alike.
In the introduction, Goldberg identifies three bodies of scholarship on which he aims to build: studies of masculinity and gender, early medieval political ritual, and environmental history. Aiming to avoid “approaching hunting narrowly” by focusing solely on “techniques and law,” Goldberg situates the phenomenon of hunting “within the broader customs, hierarchies, and habitus of early medieval society” (9). In chapter 1, he argues that the transformation of the Roman Empire and its disappearance saw the emergence of hunting as a “central element of the new Romano-barbarian aristocratic culture” (17). Goldberg considers the antecedents of classical hunting cultures and the way in which they had come, in late antiquity, to characterize various elements of “elite status and manhood: wealth, leisure, rural estates, servants, equestrianship, and skill with a bow and lance” (42). In chapter 2 Goldberg teases out seemingly contradictory approaches to the role of hunting in Merovingian politics and society, identifying the origins of later “forests” as hunting preserves. Ultimately, Goldberg makes a case for the continuation of hunting from Roman culture as a “badge of elite status and manhood” (68), though not at this stage as a marker of Frankish identity. In chapter 3, Goldberg views Charlemagne's reign as a transformative period in which royal hunting became especially prominent, tracing this through the consideration of forests and game, the works of chroniclers, the development of walled parks, and the emergence of the role of hunting officials (73). Major investment went into these developments, most fully realized in the reign of Louis the Pious, and their continued evolution placed increased importance on “the hunt as a symbol of dynastic continuity and thus royal legitimacy” (104), which is the focus of chapter 4. In this regard, the hunt had increased significance as a means of creating bonds with elites and controlling the image of rulers.
In the following three chapters, Goldberg tackles thematic topics: hunting techniques, hunting by nonelites, and hunting and the church (128). “Hounds and Hawks” (chapter 5) focuses mainly on the techniques, tools, and other cultural accretions of elite hunting, covering both the chase and hunting with birds of prey. In “Peasants and Poachers” (chapter 6), Goldberg moves away from elite hunting to consider the professionals who supported this kind of hunting, including “huntsmen, fishermen and fowlers, foresters,” and others who hunted including farmers, poachers, and “commoners who aspired to hunt like nobles” (168). Importantly, Goldberg considers the permeability of social boundaries in the transmission of hunting culture. The explicit position here is that this was a top-down process; Goldberg views techniques as “creeping down the social hierarchy and thus creating avenues for upward social mobility and claims to elite masculinity” (168). There is room for further investigation: Goldberg suggests that hunting cultures emanated from elites who endeavored to maintain firm control over practice and hierarchy and that this had a trickledown effect that allowed room for social mobility, while at the same time revealing distinct nonelite hunting cultures that—although less visible in written sources—were also clearly well developed in their own right. In chapter 7, “Bishops and Boars,” Goldberg interrogates the complex and shifting boundaries around clerical and lay hunting, with a particular focus on the “evolution of the clerical hunting ban” (191). Chapter 8, “Danger and Death,” which sees the death of Louis V, the end of the Carolingian kings, and the beginning of the Capetian monarchy, caps the book, with Goldberg showing how the “politics, infrastructure, and ideology of Carolingian hunting began to unravel as the power and authority of the dynasty waned” (215).
In a short but comprehensive concluding chapter, Goldberg identifies some of his many interesting discoveries. A primary finding, convincingly argued throughout, is that “hunting was central to the performance of aristocratic masculinity” (239). So, too, is the summation that hunting developed as a “ritual of power and authority in this period” (240), that the reign of the Carolingians was transformative in this regard, and that there was a great deal of human-driven environmental transformation as a consequence.
There is scope for further investigation in a number of the areas Goldberg addresses. For example, in chapter 2 Goldberg vividly illustrates penalties for the theft of dogs and hawks (in the Book of Constitutions), which include kissing a dog's “posterior” (in public, no less) and having meat eaten by a hawk from a man's scrotum (66–67). Degrading and dangerous as both these punishments are, there is surely an element of sexual humiliation in both that also threatens the masculinity of these hunters. Further discussion here would support the conclusion that there was no “single, dominant form of ‘hegemonic’ masculinity” (240) in the period in question. Similarly, in light of the book's implications for environmental history, it would also be interesting to give further consideration to the agency of nonhuman environmental actors (such as animals, trees, landscapes) as part of the development of forest and parkland.
In summary, In the Manner of the Franks is a valuable contribution to studies of human-environmental relationships to which readers will doubtless return both as a work of reference and as an important point of embarkation for future investigations of hunting, masculinities, and rituals of power and performance.
