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Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Question from Claire - Tudor pets

I would like help for my god-daughter (she's 8 yrs old) with what pets did the tudors have, and any information to do with animals in the tudor times (but mainly pets)
Many thanks
Claire

4 comments:

  1. As far as I can determine, there has not been a lot of study done on pets in Tudor England. I'm not even sure that they kept pets in the same way that we do today. Wealthier people did, however, keep dogs for hunting and bear-baiting, as well as falcons and hawks for hunting. You might try looking at Reeves Compton, "Pleasures and Pastimes in Later Medieval England" (Sutton Publishing, 1995). That is the only book that I know of that addresses pets and pet-keeping in or near the Tudor period.

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  2. Yes, the upper class had dogs sometimes. Women had little lap dogs. They of course had horses to get around,although I don't know if they really considered it a "pet". Also, I think they may have had some type of songbird, besides falcolns and hawks, as a pet, and I think I remember reading somewhere that a few people even had monkeys, although if they did I would imagine it was very few people.

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  3. I have read somewhere that Edward I had a pet monkey. I know that several of the wealthier ladies had lapdogs but that is all I know.

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  4. Many ladies had lapdogs, it is true. Singing birds were also common. Some, like Catherine of Aragon had monkeys, and the lords of the court had a score of hunting dogs. The men also had hunting hawks and such. There were other exceptions however. Cardinal Wolsey, for instance, had a cat.

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