How did historical societies handle, arrange and imagine the environmental
space they lived in both narrative and pragmatic literature provide
abundant references on ways of structuring spatial knowledge in
medieval and early modern occident. Besides supporting elements like
the geographical map (Lestringant) the text itself has the capacity to represent,
to speak about and even to produce “spaces”. As a medium of
reflection on spatial concerns, texts offer a “place” for narrative imagination,
progress of action and literary experience.
A significant example of treating environment by producing narrative
realm of experience is a treaty on the stag hunt ('vénerie') of Renaissance
France. Originally written in Latin by the humanist Guillaume Budé in
1529 and dedicated to Francis I the “Traité de la vénerie” shows how literature can combine the discourse about space and space producing
strategies. Hunting as traditional pastime of noble elites is not thinkable
without the crucial link to two different dimensions of space. It unifies
concrete geographical space – the royal forest – and abstract performative
space − the ritual action.
The present study deals with the question how the “Traité de la vénerie”
produces and thinks both natural and cultural “spaces”: because in the act
of hunting the original function of the forest is transformed into the confrontation
place between huntsman und prey. By describing the gradual
intersection of wooded space on the track of the deer Budé evokes not
only a knowledge based space of action but a transformation of physical
space in a plural area of action.
