The Huntsman’s Redemption - Professor William Chester Jordan
Posted on 1 July 2024
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Knighthood was a central motif of medieval courtly literature, and hunting, just like the tournament, was an undertaking characteristic of aristocratic life. Yet, although a badge of elite secular status, hunting was also a problematic or, better, fraught pastime in the Middle Ages in the minds of many earlier and contemporary commentators.
Given the longstanding vigour of criticisms of participation in the hunt in the 13th century, any saint’s life, which opened with a hunting scene, would have immediately signalled to readers or listeners that the unfolding story would reveal a deeper character flaw.
Medievalist Professor William Chester Jordan of Princeton University, USA, examined three such lives. The first is the legend of Saint Eustace, an ancient story circulating in 13th-century Europe. The second is the life of Saint Germain, a youthful aristocrat living in late antique Gaul, whose story was also popular in the High Middle Ages. The third and final set of tales relates the tragic yet redemptive story of Saint Julian the Hospitaller. The events of his extraordinary life were narrated in various genres in the 13th century and have continued to inspire many modern retellings, most famously that of Gustave Flaubert.