MEDIAEVAL ENGLISH HUNTING.*
4` THYS booke folowyng shewith to sych gentill personys the maner of huntyng for all maner of beestys, wether thay be Beestys of Yenery, or of chace, or Rascall. And also it shewith all the termys convenyent And in certayn ther be many dyverse of thaym, as it is declared in the booke folowyng." Thus, in the words of the prologue to the Boke of St. Albans (1486), might we describe the volume with which Mr. and Mrs. Baillie-Grohman present us. There should be a ready welcome for this popular and moderately priced edition of the modernised text of The Master of Game, with its twenty-four excellent plates of old hunting reproduced from the original MS. in the Paris Bibliaheque Nationale. It is a production which we fancy will appeal strongly to the taste alike of the sportsman and the lover of a "Nature book." Of its value to the student of social history it is necessary to speak more at large. The greater part of the work is an English rendering of the Livre de la Chasse of Gaston de Foix, that interesting person with whom every reader of Froissart is acquainted. But Edward, Duke of York, in writing his book in the early fifteenth century interpolated and added a number of original passages to those which be merely translated. Nevertheless, it has been asserted that the origin of The Master of Game deprives it of any value as a picture of English hunting. This view neglects the importance and extent of the added portions; moreover, it is forgetful of the chivalric intercourse between England and the Continent at that time, which tended to mutual interchange of fashions ; for this some small allow- ance must be made even in the question of hunting. Thus much being said, however, we must observe that it is not upon fashion, but upon law and custom, that the real history of old English hunting rests. In the notes to the present edition of The Master of Game the reader will find much valuable elucidatory matter. Yet we cannot fail to notice certain careless errors of fact, and some opinions with which a student of the subject cannot be expected to agree. It seems a pity, in noting the various hunting seasons, to reproduce Manwood's old mistaken rendering of the Nativity (B.Y.M.) as "Christmas Day " ; especially as the error is actually mentioned below. This is not the only case in which the notes are open to technical criticism ; in the main, however, the work of editing has been performed with conspicuous ability, and we are far from implying the contrary.
A more or less close acquaintance with the hunting customs which played so large a part in the social life of the past is essential to the student who really wishes to understand the English Middle Ages. It may surprise him to find that the ramifications of the subject bring him into touch with the
• The Master of Game ; by Edward, Second Duke of York the Oldest English Book on Hunting. Edited by W. A. and F. Baillie-Grohman. With a Foreword by Theodore Roosevelt. Photogravure Frontispiece and 23 Full-page Plates. London : Chatto and Windus. L7s. 6d. net.] )lives of more than one class, and that unexpected light is shed upon the manorial and tenurial systems, and upon other matters connected with social and institutional evolution. To such a
student The Master of Game, as the fullest and one of the most interesting of the old hunting treatises, will be a necessity. He will read it together with others such as the early-fourteenth-century Twici's Le Art de Venerie, the English version of the same work known as Tway and Gyfford, and the interesting Boke of St. Albans (which derives mainly from Twici and The Master). But we cannot too strongly insist that the history of old English bunting can only be properly appreciated if these works are read in conjunction with the documents of forest law and forest procedure.
We shall hope here to give a little picture of authentic English hunting, but we cannot do so without a brief reminder of certain facts by way of introduction. Two documents—the Assize of the Forest, 1184, and the Charter of the Forest, 1217—epitomise the law which, together with the knowledge of custom gained from other records, enables us to understand the English Royal forests. Without such understanding the history of mediaeval bunting could never be written. The forest law was designed to preserve to the King the sole right of bunting, or of granting permission to bunt, in certain localities ; and in this spirit the law was administered by local officials and the Justices in eyre. Throughout the country many large tracts of land within certain recognised metes were known as Royal forest, and were subject to forest law. These tracts, though by no means wholly tree-covered, contained numerous woods. Even though many of the lands and woods within the metes of a forest belonged to a subject, the chief object of forest law and procedure was still the preservation of the King's game (venatio) and of the vert which was at once the covert and in part the food of the deer. The legal beasts of the forest were the red, fallow, and roe deer, and the wild boar. We scarcely need to point out how vast was the influence of these forests upon the social life of the country. By the Charter of the Forest, an Archbishop, Bishop, Earl, or Baron passing through a Royal forest was permitted to take one or two beasts by view of the forester ; or in his absence should cause a horn to be sounded ne videatur furtive hoc facere ! This clause of the Carta was often pleaded subsequently when charges of venison trespass were made. It must be remem- bered, furthermore, that various lords throughout the Middle Ages were possessed in England, by grant of the King, of chases, parks, warrens, and even forests, wherein they had liberty of hunting. The forest law was, of course, only enforced in Royal forests. None the less, we have evidence that the care of game, and the customs of English hunting generally, were influenced by, if not modelled on, the law which preserved the King's venison. On the whole, the observance which had the greatest effect on mediaeval hunting was the enforcement, by forest law and general custom, of the mensis Details, close month, or " fawnson-time," fifteen days before and after Midsummer Day. Pingueclo, or grease-time of the harts and bucks, was said to begin in England on June 24th, and ended at Holyrood Day. As a matter of fact, hunting can rarely have commenced before the end of the fence-month. Fermisone, or the season when hinds and does were best hunted, began on November 11th, after the time of the rut, and lasted till Candlemas.
It is perhaps most interesting of all to try to visualise an actual hunting scene. In Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight (which, it has been suggested, was written in Lancashire about 1370) some brilliant hunting pictures are given us ; the number and correctness of the "terms of venery" there employed are very notable. These circum- stances make the fine old poem a suitable basis for a sketch of some authentic English customs. Before dawn the lord and his guests rise, horses are saddled, Mass heard, and a sop hastily eaten ; the kennel doors are opened, three bare mots " blown bigly in bugles," and the delighted hounds called forth and coupled. So the lord and his friends ride out. Meanwhile the " stable " of beaters has been set, the " fewters " with their greyhounds go to their appointed " trysts," and when all is ready hunters cast off their couples to the sound of good blasts on the horns. At the first cry of the hounds' quest, "deer drove in the dale" and fled towards the heights, but only to be turned back by the
"stable" posted there. The beaters let the harts with the high heads go, and the bucks with their broad palms (for it was " fermysoun tyme "). The hinds and does are driven with cries of " Hay!" and " Ware !" to the deep valleys. And as they fly, so fly the glinting arrows that bite upon the brown hides, while the raches, or running hounds, and hunters with cry of horns, follow after. Those deer that escape bow- men and hounds, and come to the "receipt " and the "trysts," are pulled down by the greyhounds. So in bolts and heath they hunt at barren hinds and at does till sundown. Then they " undo" the deer, each man has the fee that falls to him by right, and upon one of the best hides they make the "quarry," or reward of the hounds, of the liver, lights, and bread bathed in blood. Boldly they blow "prize," and their caches bay; the flesh is carried away, and hunters turn home- ward" stroking " (as the term was) many brave mots. The next morning the folk are forth to the wood ere the day springs. The raches are uncoupled among the thorns, and soon they " questey," or cry; the huntsman cheers them, and the other hounds fall quickly to the " fewte," clamouring so that the rocks ring. With mouth and with horn the men urge them on, and they fare to the finding among the rocks by a cliff side. There bides the beast marked by the bloodhounds, and the men beat on the bushes and bid him arise. Suddenly there swings out a great wild swine ; groaning, he throws three to the earth at the first thrust, and speeds away. They follow with halloes and cries of " Hay, hay !" and the recheat blown upon the horns. Often the boar "bides the bay " and maims the hounds, and ever as the hunters gather they ply him with arrows to break his bay, and make him move on; but the strength of the " shields " (on his shoulders) turns many shafts. Maddened by the strokes, he rushes upon the men, and then swings off again. At length when he can run no more, he makes for a hole by a rock near where the burn runs. There, with his back to the bank, he " scrapes " (" goes to soil " in the dirt); the froth foams at his mouth and wets his white tusks. Men hesitate ; but the lord coming up, alights from his courser, draws his sword, and advances. The wild boar is ware of his assailant ; his hair bristles, so hard he breathes. He sets out upon the man, and in a moment both are " on heaps in the whitest of the water." But even as they meet, the lord hits him up to the hilt, and snarling the boar yields and goes down. Men and hounds seize him and bring him to land. Then they hallo, blow " prize," their braches bay, and one wise in woodcraft begins to unlace the boar "all rough" (unflayed, that is, as the custom was). The hounds are rewarded with the entrails broiled over the fire and mingled with bread. So the boar's head is borne home before the lord, and the day is over. Thus it was five hundred years ago when they still followed the chase manfully in the heaths and wild woods of England.
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