This text explores views of the natural world in the late Middle Ages, especially as expressed in 'Livre de Chasse' (Book of the Hunt ), the most influential hunting book of the era. It shows that killing and maiming, suffering and the death of animals were not insignificant topics to late medieval men, but constituted a complex set of issues, and could provoke very contradictory thoughts and feelings that varied according social and cultural milieus and particular cases and circumstances.