© Bibliothèque nationale de France, ms fr 616.

Le livre de chasse by Gaston Phoebus, written in 1387, illuminated circa 1407.
Fol. 89 v. Hare hunting.

Politician, poet and hunting enthusiast, Gaston Phoebus was the author of The Book of the Hunt, which remains a reference manual for hunting. Hunting is traditionally divided into two types: "big-game hunting", which consists of tracking large animals such as deer, boars or wolves, and "small-game hunting", for a pack of dogs hunting small game, such as the hare here.