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History Medieval

Fishers' Craft and Lettered Art

Tracts on Fishing from the End of the Middle Ages

edited by Richard C. Hoffmann

Publisher
University of Toronto Press
Initial publish date
Dec 1997
Category
Medieval, Fishing, Medieval
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780802078537
    Publish Date
    Sep 1997
    List Price
    $37.95
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780802008695
    Publish Date
    Sep 1997
    List Price
    $80.00
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781487586782
    Publish Date
    Dec 1997
    List Price
    $39.95

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Description

Fishers' Craft and Lettered Art provides editions, English translations, and analysis from social, cultural, and environmental perspectives of the three oldest European extended tracts on fishing. Richard Hoffmann discusses the history of fishing in popular culture and outlines the economic and ecologic considerations needed to examine and understand the fishing manuals. Hoffmann further explores how continental fishing traditions were conveyed from oral craft practice into printed culture, and proposes that these manuals demonstrate a lively and complex interaction between written texts and popular culture. The tracts are presented in their original languages - Spanish and German - with facing page translations. Close attention is paid to original setting, functions, and possible range of readings, with detailed explanatory notes to help modern fishers and historians.

Fishers' Craft and Lettered Art is a fascinating look at one vital aspect of everyday life at the end of the Middle Ages.

About the author

Richard Hoffmann is Professor at York University in Toronto, Ontario, and has a long-standing interest in fishery and the history of fishing. His previous book, Land, Liberties and Lordship in a Late Medieval Countryside (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989) won the Herbert Baxter Adams prize of the American Historical Association, and honourable mention for the Wallace K. Ferguson Prize of the Canadian Historical Association.

Richard C. Hoffmann's profile page

Editorial Reviews

"..Fisher's Craft and Lettered Art is bound to delight and inform readers, whether they be anglers or not. Those who bring to it an acquaintance with fish and fishing will gain from its historical insights, and those whose interest is more historical or academic will come away with a greater appreciation of the medieval life and mind.'

The Medieval Review