Sculptured capital with the image of a deer, from the Church of Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomption, Tamerville, Lower Normandy, France, built in the XII century.
Medieval bestiaries and encyclopedias relate the healing properties of the deer: it never had a fever, it was the serpents’ foe and its grease served as protection against their poison. The deer was reputed to live longer than any other animal of the forest. Some treatises of the art of hunting refer to the unrestrained sexuality of the deer, which, in the fall, during the mating season, became aggressive and as they were “gone wild”. The deer hunt took, during the Middle Ages, a great prestige, until it represented the royal hunt par excellence (Pastoureau 2012, p. 72).

[Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%C3%89glise_Notre-Dame-de-l%27Assomption_de_Tamerville_-_Chapiteaux_sculpt%C3%A9s_%28chasse_au_ cerf%29.JPG]