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By the High Middle Age the hunt was already the subject of several scientific treatises and numerous illustrations. Treatises on hunting became a popular subject for illuminated manuscripts in 14th-century France. Patrons of High and Late medieval art took pains to ensure that the codices's decorations reflected their status to the same degree as did their texts.
The present manuscript, now kept in Brussels, contains the oldest French language textbook on hunting. It deals with hunting with hounds and hawks, archery, deer-stalking, weaponry, trapping, the animals' appearance, their habitat and behaviour. The text was written by Henri de Ferrières in 1370. The text and images of this work have come down to us in numerous copies and cycles of illustrations. The Brussels manuscript contains a series of painstakingly rendered and descriptive miniatures.
The miniature on folio 18v depicts a beater after a 'battue,' holding a stag's head with huge antlers in front of the pack's lead dog.
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