Editing Hunting (section)

===Pastoral and agricultural societies===
[[File:Nobleman in Hunting Costume preceded by his Servant trying to find the Scent of a Stag.png|thumb|right|[[Nobleman]] in hunting costume with his servant following the scent of a [[stag]], 14th century]]

Even as agriculture and [[animal husbandry]] became more prevalent, hunting often remained as a part of human culture where the environment and social conditions allowed. Hunter-gatherer societies persisted, even when increasingly confined to marginal areas. And within agricultural systems, hunting served to kill animals that prey upon [[List of domesticated animals|domestic and wild animals]] or to attempt to [[Local extinction|extirpate]] animals seen by humans as competition for resources such as water or forage.

When hunting moved from a subsistence activity to a selective one, two trends emerged:

# the development of the role of the specialist hunter, with special training and equipment
# the option of hunting as a "sport" for members of an upper social class

The meaning of the word ''game'' in [[Middle English]] evolved to include an animal which is hunted. As the domestication of animals for meat grew, subsistence hunting remained among the lowest classes; however, the stylised pursuit of game in European societies became a luxury. Dangerous hunting, such as for lions or [[wild boar]]s, often done on [[horseback]] or from a [[chariot]], had a function similar to [[Tournament (medieval)|tournaments]] and manly sports. Hunting ranked as an honourable, somewhat competitive pastime to help the [[aristocracy]] practice skills of war in times of peace.<ref>
Machiavelli provides a rationale, if not the origin, of noble hunting:
{{cite book
| last1                 = Machiavelli
| first1                = Niccolò
| author1-link          = Niccolò Machiavelli
| year              = 1531
| chapter               = Discourses on the first decade of Titus Livius, Book 3
| editor1-last          = Gilbert
| editor1-first         = Allan
| title                 = Machiavelli: The Chief Works and Others
| chapter-url                   = https://books.google.com/books?id=r6lROQffJ7cC
| volume                = 1
| publisher             = Duke University Press
| publication-date      = 1989
| page                  = 516
| isbn                  = 978-0-8223-8157-0
| access-date            = 27 December 2013
| quote                 = [...] hunting expeditions, as Xenophon makes plain, are images of war; therefore to men of rank such activity is honorable and necessary.
}}
</ref>

In most parts of [[medieval]] Europe, the upper class obtained the sole rights to hunt in certain areas of a feudal territory. Game in these areas was used as a source of food and furs, often provided via professional huntsmen, but it was also expected to provide a form of recreation for the aristocracy. The importance of this proprietary view of game can be seen in the [[Robin Hood]] legends, in which one of the primary charges against the outlaws is that they "hunt the King's deer". In contrast, settlers in Anglophone colonies gloried democratically in hunting for all.<ref>
{{cite book |last1       = Dunlap
 |first1      = Thomas R.
 |chapter     = Remaking Worlds: European models in New Lands
 |title       = Nature and the English Diaspora: Environment and History in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand
 |chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=UDaEZnZ093EC
 |series      = Studies in Environment and History
 |issue       = 17
 |publisher   = Cambridge University Press
 |date        = 1999
 |page        = [https://archive.org/details/natureenglishdia0000dunl/page/61 61]
 |isbn        = 978-0-521-65700-6
 |access-date  = 24 December 2013
 |quote       = The settlers adopted sport hunting, as they did other elements of British culture, but they had to adapt it. Social circumstances and biological realities reshaped it and gave it new meaning. There was no elite monopolizing access to land. Indeed, the great attraction and boast of these nations were of land for all.
 |url         = https://archive.org/details/natureenglishdia0000dunl/page/61
}}
</ref>

In medieval Europe, hunting was considered by [[Johannes Scotus Eriugena]] to be part of the set of ''[[mechanic arts|seven mechanical arts]]''.<ref>In his commentary on Martianus Capella's early 5th-century work, ''The Marriage of Philology and Mercury'', one of the main sources for medieval reflection on the liberal arts.</ref>