In the fifteenth-century Liberty of Bruges, a rural castellany in the county of Flanders, a bounty system was established to promote the elimination of wolves. Prize money made the wolf not only an unwanted but also an actively tracked animal, a combination that resulted in its wholescale slaughter. Researchers who have previously examined these bounties believed that they were primarily part of a system of pest control. They did not realise, however, that the inhabitants who came forward to claim the bounty killed wolves not to clear the Liberty of Bruges of vermin but for entirely different reasons, which depended on the context in which encounters with wolves occurred. In this text, I use the records concerning the bounty system established by the Liberty of Bruges to understand the complex relationships between humans and wolves in this fifteenth-century castellany. I first introduce the long series of records; thereafter, I attempt to identify reasons for killing wolves in the Liberty of Bruges and the contexts in which such killings occurred.

中文翻译：

---

在 15 世纪的布鲁日自由中杀死狼的各种原因

在 15 世纪的布鲁日自由城，法兰德斯郡的一个乡村城堡，建立了赏金制度，以促进消灭狼群。奖金使狼不仅是一种不受欢迎的动物，而且是一种积极追踪的动物，这种组合导致了它的大规模屠杀。之前检查过这些赏金的研究人员认为，它们主要是害虫控制系统的一部分。然而，他们没有意识到，站出来要求赏金的居民杀死狼并不是为了清除布鲁日自由区的害虫，而是出于完全不同的原因，这取决于与狼相遇的背景。在本文中，我使用布鲁日自由建立的赏金制度的记录来理解这个 15 世纪城堡中人与狼之间的复杂关系。我先介绍一下长系列的记录；此后，我试图找出在布鲁日自由区杀死狼的原因以及发生这种杀戮的背景。