
Fishers' Craft and Lettered Art
Tracts on Fishing from the End of the Middle Ages
Richard C. Hoffmann(Editor)
University of Toronto Press
Published on 13. September 1997
Book
Hardback
408 pages
978-0-8020-0869-5 (ISBN)
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.
Reviews / Votes
'Appeals to diverse readers' interests. There is no question that the author accomplishes his goal to present critical editions of various fishers' tracts from the Late Middle Ages to the Renaissance. His translations also prove to be of first rate, and so his in-depth investigation of fishing as a craft during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age. At the same time Hoffmann never forgets that also lay people, especially fishing enthusiasts, might read his book, hence never relents in his efforts to describe his subject matter in a very clear, easily readable fashion understandable both for the expert and the lay person.' -- Albrecht Classen "..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.' -- Michael ToddMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Toronto
Canada
Target group
College/higher education
Product notice
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
illustrations, maps
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
760 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8020-0869-5 (9780802008695)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
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.