Edward of Norwich
The Master of Game: The Oldest English Book on Hunting
O. F. eschantillon, Mid. Eng. Scantilon, Mod. Eng. scantling, mason's rule, a measure; the huntsman is continually told to take a scantilon, that is, a measure, of the slot or footprint of the deer, so as to be able to show it at the meet, that with this measure and the examination of the droppings which the huntsman was also to bring with him the Master of the Game could judge if the man had harboured a warrantable deer (see Appendix: Slot and Trace).
SEASONS OF HUNTING,
In mediæval times the consideration for the larder played a far more important part in fixing the seasons for hunting wild beasts than it did in later times, the object being to kill the game when in the primest condition. Beginning with the —
Red deer stag: according to Dryden's Twici, p. 24 (source not given), the season began at the Nativity of St. John the Baptist (June 24), and ended Holyrood Day (September 14). Our text of the "Master of Game" nowhere expressly states when the stag-hunting begins or terminates, but as he speaks of how to judge a hart from its fumes in the month of April and May (p. 30), and further says that harts run best from the "entry of May into St. John's tide" (p. 35), we might infer that they were hunted from May on. He also says that the season for hind-hunting begins when the season of the hart ends and lasteth till Lent. But as this part of the book was a mere translation from G. de F. it is no certain guide to the hunting seasons in England. The Stag-hunting season in France, the cervaison, as it was called, began at the Sainte Croix de Mai (May 3rd) and lasted to la Sainte Croix de Septembre (Holyrood Day, Sept. 14), the old French saying being: "Mi Mai, mi teste, mi Juin, mi graisse; à la Magdeleine venaison pleine" (July 22) (Menagier de Paris, ii.). And although the stag was probably chiefly hunted in England between Midsummer and the middle of September, when they are in the best condition, and it was considered the best time to kill them, they were probably hunted from May on in the early days in England as they were in France. Had this not been customary we imagine the Duke of York would have inserted one of his little interpolations in the text he was translating, and stated that although the season began in May beyond the sea, it only began later in England.
In Twety and Gyfford we read that the "tyme of grece, begynnyth alle way atte the fest of the Nativyte of Saynt Johan baptist." Later on, according to Dryden, the season of the stag began two weeks after Midsummer (July 8).
Red deer hind, Holyrood Day (Sept. 14) to Candlemas (Feb. 2) (Twici, p. 24; Man., p. 181). According to others the hind and the doe season ends on Twelfth-day or Epiphany (Jan. 6).
Fallow deer buck. According to the Forest Laws the season began at the Nativity of St. John (June 24) and ended on Holyrood Day (Sept. 14). Dryden adds a second date, i. e. two weeks after Midsummer, to the former, but does not quote the source.
Fallow doe was hunted from Holyrood Day (Sept. 14) to Candlemas (Feb. 2).
Roe deer buck was hunted from Easter to Michaelmas (Sept. 29).
Roe doe, Michaelmas to Candlemas.
Hare. According to the Forest Laws (Man., 176) the season commenced Michaelmas (Sept. 29) and ended at Midsummer (June 24); Dryden in his notes in Twici states that it commenced at Michaelmas and ended at Candlemas (Feb. 2), while the "Boke of St. Albans" gives the same date as the first-named in Manwood. According to the "Master of Game" the hare seems to have enjoyed no close season, as G. de F.'s assertion that the hunting of the hare "lasteth all the year" is also translated without comment (p. 14): Et le peut chassier toute l'année, en quelque temps que ce soit quar touzjours sa sayson dure (G de F., p. 204).
In Twety and Gyfford we also find that "The hare is alway in season to be chasyd."
In the sixteenth century in France the hare-hunting season was from the middle of September till the middle of April (Du Fouilloux, p. 51; De Noir., ii. p. 476). In England the same season seems to have been observed (Blome, p. 91).
Wild boar. According to the Forest Laws (Manwood and Twici), the boar was hunted from Christmas Day to Candlemas (Feb. 2), but we have evidence that boar-hunting usually began earlier. The boar was in his prime condition when acorns, beechmast, and chestnuts were plentiful, and was considered in season from Michaelmas to St. Martin's Day (Roy Modus, xxxi.), and by some even from Holyrood Day (Bornam, p. 100; Part, de Blois, 525).
The huntsmen of King John of England were sent to hunt in the forest of Cnappe in order to take two or three boars a day in November. King John's letter giving instructions on this point to one Rowland Bloet is dated 8th November 1215 (Jesse, ii. 32).
Wolf. According to the Forest Laws, in the book already quoted, the season during which the wolf was hunted began at Christmas and ended at the Annunciation (March 25), but considering the destruction wrought by this beast it is far more likely that it was hunted throughout the year.
Fox. According to the Forest Laws the season opened on Christmas Day and ended on March 25, but nevertheless the fox was hunted early in the autumn, for we have it on Twety and Gyfford's authority that "the sesoun of the fox begynneth at the natyvite of owre Lady, and durryth til the Annunciacion" (Sept. 8 to March 25).
The "Boke of St. Albans" gives the season of the fox and wolf from the Nativity to the Annunciation of Our Lady and that of the boar from the Nativity to the Purification of Our Lady. Manwood and other accepted authorities quote the above as alluding to the Nativity of Christ, whereas the Nativity of Our Lady, Sept. 8, was intended, thereby creating some confusion.
According to the Wardrobe Accounts of Edward I. the foxhunting season began on 1st September (Ward. Acc. Ed. I. 1299-1300).
No doubt one of the reasons why the fox was not hunted earlier in the year was on account of the fur, which was of course of less use or value if obtained in summer.
Otter. The Forest Laws give the season as from Shrove Tide (Feb. 22) to Midsummer (June 24), but we find that in King John's reign the otter was hunted in July (Close Rolls 14 John I.).
Martin, badger, and rabbit were hunted at all seasons of the year.
SNARES,
No work dealing with the chase of wild animals in mediæval times would be complete were it to omit all reference to snares, traps, gins, pitfalls, and other devices to take game other than by hunting. The "Master of Game" mentions the subject but briefly, saying, "Truly I trow no good hunter would slay them so for no good," but "Gaston Phœbus" contains seventeen short chapters in which the author as well as the miniaturist describe the various contrivances then in use, although the same disdain of these unsportsmanlike methods is expressed by G. de F. that marks the Duke of York's pages. In the first edition of the present work will be found descriptions of the principal snares used in the Middle Ages.
SPANIEL,
It is difficult to say at what date these dogs were first introduced into our country; we only know that by the second half of the sixteenth century spaniels were a common dog in England. In Dr. Caius's time the breed was "in full being." He mentions land spaniels, setters, and water spaniels, besides the small spaniels which were kept as pet and lap dogs. That the breed was not then a recent importation we may infer from the fact that, when speaking of the water spaniel and giving the derivation of the name, Dr. Caius says: "Not that England wanted suche kinde of dogges (for they are naturally bred and ingendered in this country). But because they beare the general and common name of these dogs synce the time when they were first brought over out of Spaine."
The chapter in the "Master of Game" on this dog, being translated from G. de F., unfortunately throws no light on the history of the spaniel in England, although we imagine that, had there been no such hounds in our island at the time, the Duke would have made some such remark as he has in other parts of his book of their being a "manner of" hound as "men have beyond the sea, but not as we have here in England."
In his time the spaniel had enjoyed popularity in France for some two centuries, and there was such continual communication between France and England in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that it would have been indeed strange if this most useful dog for the then favourite and universal sport of hawking had not been brought to England long before his time. We may conclude that the "gentle hounds for the hawk" of which he speaks in his Prologue were not spaniels.
SPAY,
The usual meaning of this word (castrating females) given in all dictionaries is clearly inapplicable on this occasion (p. 174), where it undoubtedly means killing a stag with a sword, probably derived from the Italian spada. When the velvet was once off the antlers the stag at bay was usually despatched with the bow, for it was then dangerous to approach him close enough to do so with the sword. When achieved by bold hunters, as it occasionally was, it was accounted a feat of skill and courage.
STABLES,
O. F. establie, a garrison, a station. Huntsmen and kennelmen with hounds in leash, whose duty it was to take up a post or stand assigned to them during the chase, were called stables. We have Stabilitiones venationis that are mentioned in Domesday (i. fol. 56b and fol. 252). In Ellis's introduction to Domesday he says: "Stabilitio meant stalling the deer. To drive the Deer and other Game from all quarters to the centre of a gradually contracted circle where they were compelled to stand, was stabilitio." Malmesbury, Scriptores, post Bedam, edit. 1596, p. 44, speaking of the mildness of Edward the Confessor's temper, says, "Dum quadam vice venatum isset, et agrestis quidam Stabulata illa, quibus in casses cervi urgentur, confudisset, ille sua nobili percitus ira, per Deum, inquit, et matrem ejus tantundem tibi nocebo, si potero" (Ellis, i. 112).
We see, however, at a later date from Twici and the "Master of Game" that the watchers or stables they allude to were stationary – and did not drive the game as described in above.
These stations of huntsmen and hounds were placed at intervals round the quarter of the forest to be driven or hunted in with hounds to move the game, so that the hounds could be slipped at any game escaping; sometimes they were to make a noise, and thus blench or head the game back. In French such a chase was called a Chasse à tître (Lav. xxviii.), the word tître meaning net or tape, but in this case used figuratively. Our "Master of Game" evidently placed these stations to keep the game within the boundaries so as to force it to pass the stand of the King. Twici describes these stations of huntsmen, using the word establie. "The bounds are those which are set up of archers, and of greyhounds (lefrers et de establie) and watchers, and on that account I have blown one moot and recheated on the hounds. You hunter, do you wish to follow the chase? Yes, if that beast should be one that is hunted up (enquillee), or chased I will follow it. If so it should happen that the hounds should be gone out of bounds then I wish to blow a moot and stroke after my hounds to have them back" (Twici, p. 6).
It was the duty of certain tenants to attend the King's hunts and act as part of the stable. In Hereford one person went from each house to the stand or station in the wood at the time of the survey (Gen. Introduction Domesday, Ellis, i. 195). From Shrewsbury the principal burgesses who had horses attended the King when he went hunting, and the sheriff sent thirty-six men on foot to the deer-stand while the King remained there.
Stable-stand was the place where these stables were posted or "set," and the word was also used to denote the place where archers were posted to shoot at driven game. Such stands were raised platforms in some drive or on some boundary of the forest, sometimes erected between the branches of a tree, so that the sportsman could be well hidden. A good woodcut of what was probably intended to represent a "stand" is in the first edition of Turbervile's "Arte of Vénerie," representing Queen Elizabeth receiving her huntsman's report.
There is no mention made of raised stands in our text, but with or without such erections the position taken up by the shooters to await the game was called his standing or tryste, and a bower of branches was made, to shelter the occupant from sun and rain, as well as to hide him from the game. Such arbours were called Berceau or Berceil in Old French, from the word berser, to shoot with a bow and arrow; they were also called ramiers and folies, from rames or branches, and folia, leaves, with which they were made or disguised (Noir., iii. p. 354).
Manwood tells us that Stable-stand was one of four "manners in which if a man were found, in the forest, he could be arrested as a poacher or trespasser," and says: "Stable-stand is where one is found at his standing ready to shoot at any Deer, or standing close by a tree with Greyhounds in his leash ready to let slip" (Man., p. 193).
STANKES,
or layes; tanks or pools, large meers. Gaston says: Estancs et autres mares ou marrhés (G. de F., p. 21). Stank house was a moated house. A ditch or moat filled with water was called a tank.
TACHE,
or tecche, Mid. Eng. for a habit, especially a bad habit, vice, freak, caprice, behaviour, from the O. F. tache, a spot, a stain, or blemish; also a disgrace, a blot on a man's good name. In the older use it was applied both to good as well as bad qualities, as in our text.
TAW,
to makes hides into leather; tawer, the maker of white leather. In the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, in the days of the strict guilds, a sharp line was drawn between tawers and tanners, and a tawer was not allowed to tan nor a tanner to taw (Wylie, vol. iii. p. 195). No tawers were allowed to live in the Forest according to the ancient forest laws.
"If any white Tawer live in a Forest, he shall be removed and pay a Fine, for they are the common dressers of skins of stolen deer" (Itin. Lanc. fol. 7, quoted by Manwood, p. 161).
TEAZER,
or teaser. "A kind of mongrel greyhound whose business is to drive away the deer before the Greyhounds are slipt," is the definition given by Blome (p. 96). These dogs were used to hunt up the game also when the deer was to be shot with the bow. The sportsmen would be standing at their trysts or stable-stand in some alley or glade of the wood, and the hounds be put into the covert or park "to tease them forth."
TRACE,
slot, or footprint of deer. In O. F. and Ang. – N. literature the word trace seems to have been used indifferently for the track of the stag, wild boar, or any game (Borman, notes 147, 236, 237). G. de F. expressly says that the footprint of the deer should not be called trace but voyes or piés (view or foot), yet the "Master of Game" in his rendering says: "Of the hart ye shall say 'trace,'" so evidently that was the proper sporting term in England at the time. When slot entirely superseded the word trace amongst sportsmen it is difficult to determine. Turbervile uses slot, and in the beginning of the seventeenth century it seems the general term for the footprint of deer (Man., p. 180; Stuart Glossary, vol. ii.; Blome, p. 76). Slot, it may be contended, is as old a word as trace, but in Mid. Eng. it was employed as a general term for a foot-track or marking of any animal. The trace or slot was one of the signs of a stag, that is the mark by which an experienced huntsman could recognise the age, size, and sex of the deer.
The old stag leaves a blunter print with a wider heel than a hind, but it is difficult to distinguish the slot of a hind from that of a young stag. Although the latter has invariably a bigger heel and makes deeper marks with his dewclaws, yet his toes are narrow and pointed, their edges are sharp, and the distance between his steps is somewhat unequal, all of which may lead his slotting to be mistaken for the tracks of a hind. "He has found what he wanted," says Dr. Collyns, when speaking of the harbourer, "the rounded track, the blunted toe point, the widespread mark, the fresh slot, in short, of a stag" ("Chase of the Red Deer").
The huntsman of old used to consider that any slot into which four fingers could be placed with ease belonged to a warrantable stag (some declared a stag of ten). That would mean that the slot would be about three inches wide, if not more. I believe two and a half inches is considered a fair measurement for mark of the heel by Devonshire stag-hunters, who alone in England concern themselves with the differences in the slot, as they only chase the wild deer. No such woodcraft is necessary for the chase of the carted deer, and as long as the master and huntsman can distinguish the footprint of a deer from that of any other animal, that is all that is required of them in this matter. The stepping or gait of a stag is also a sign that was taken into consideration. The old stag walks more equally, and generally places the point of his hind feet in the heel of his fore feet. The gait of a hind is more uncertain; it is said she misprints, that is sometimes the hind foot will be placed beside the fore foot, sometimes inside or in front of it. She is not even so regular in her gait as a young stag, unless she is with fawn, when she will place her hind feet constantly outside her fore feet. A hind walks with wide-spreading claws, so does a young stag with his fore feet, but those of his hind feet will be closed. The larger the print of the fore feet are in comparison to the hind feet the older the stag.
The underneath edge of the claws round the hollow of the sole was called the esponde (sponde, edge or border). In older stags they were blunter and more worn, and in hinds and younger deer sharper, unless indeed the stag inhabited a damp and mossy country, where the esponde would not be so much worn down as if he lived on a rocky or stony ground. (G. de F., 155, 129-145; Lav., p. 246; Stuart, p. 58; Fortescue, p. 133). And thus did the woodmen of old study the book of nature, which told them all they wished to know, and found for them better illustrations than any art could give.
TRYST,
in the language of sport, was the place or stand where the hunter took up his position to await the game he wished to shoot. The game might be driven to him by hounds, or he might so place himself as to shoot as the game went to and from their lair to their pasturing (see Appendix: Stables and Stable-stand). In French it was called shooting à l'affut, from ad fustem, near the wood, because the shooter leant his back to, or hid behind a tree, so that the game should not see him.
In our MS. we are told that Alaunts are good for hunting the wild boar whether it be with greyhounds, at the "tryst," or with running hounds at bay within the covert. The tryst here would be the place where a man would be stationed to slip the dogs at the wild boar as soon as he broke covert, or after the huntsman had wounded the boar with a shot from his long or cross-bow (p. 118).
VELTRES,
velteres, veltrai. A dog used for the chase, a hound. Probably derived from the Gaelic words ver, large or long, and traith, a step or course, vertragus being the name by which according to Arian, the Gauls designated a swift hound (Blanc, 52).
WANLACE,
Winding in the chase (Halliwell). In the sentence in which this word is used in the chapter on the Mastiff (p. 122) we are told that some of these dogs "fallen to be berslettis and also to bring well and fast a wanlace about." Which probably means that some of these dogs become shooting dogs, and could hunt up the game to the shooter well and fast by ranging or circling. Wanlasour is an obsolete name for one who drives game (Strat.).
In Brit. Mus. MS. Lansdowne 285 there is an interesting reference to setting the forest "with archers or with Greyhounds or with Wanlassours."
WILD BOAR,
These animals were denizens of the British forests from the most remote ages, and probably were still numerous there at the time our MS. was penned. For although the Duke of York has only translated one of the eleven chapters relating to the natural history, chase, or capture by traps of the wild boar, and does not give us any original remarks upon the hunting of them, as he has of the stag and the hare, still it was most likely because he considered these two the royal sport par excellence, and not because there were none to hunt in England in his day. If the latter had been the case, he would in all probability have omitted even the chapter he does give us, as he has done with those written by Gaston de Foix on the deer, the reindeer, and the ibex and chamois (p. 160).
In some doggerel verses which are prefixed to "Le venery de Twety and Gyfford" (in Vesp. B. XII.), the wild boar is classed as a beast of venery. In the a "Boke of St. Albans" the wild boar is also mentioned as a beast of venery.
When Fitzstephen wrote his description of London in 1174, he says wild boars as well as other animals frequented the forests surrounding London, and it would certainly be a long time after this before these animals could have been extirpated from the wild forests in more remote parts of the country.
Sounder is the technical term for a herd of wild swine. "How many herdes be there of bestes of venery? Sire of hertis, or bisses, of bukkes and of doos. A soundre of wylde swyne. A bevy of Roos" (Twety and Gyfford). In the French Twici we have also Soundre dez porcs.
Farrow (Sub.) was a term for a young pig, in Mid. Eng. farh, far, Old Eng. fearh (Strat.). Farrow (verb) was the term used when sows gave birth to young.
G. de F. says that wild boars can wind acorns as far as a bear can (p. 58), and turning to his chapter on bears, we find that he says that bears will wind a feeding of acorns six leagues off!
Routing or rooting. A wild boar is said to root when he is feeding on ferns or roots (Turb., pp. 153, 154).
Argus, as our MS. calls the dew-claws of the boar, were in the later language of venery called the gards (Blome, p. 102). Twety and Gyfford named the dew-claws of the stag os and of the boar ergos. "How many bestis bere os, and how many ergos? The hert berith os above, the boor and the buk berith ergos."
Grease, as the fat of the boar or sow was called, was supposed to bear medicinal qualities. "And fayre put the grece whan it is take away, In the bledder of the boore my chylde I yow pray, For it is a medecine: for mony maner pyne" ("Boke of St. Albans").
WILD CAT (Felis Catus), which at one time was extremely common in England, was included among the beasts of the chase. It is frequently mentioned in royal grants giving liberty to enclose forest-land and licence to hunt therein.
It was probably more for its skin than for diversion that the wild cat was hunted, as its fur was much used for trimming dresses at one time.
The wild cat is believed to be now extinct, not only in England and Wales, but in a great part of the South of Scotland. A writer in the new edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (art. "Cat") expresses the opinion that the wild cat still exists in Wales and in the North of England, but gives no proof of its recent occurrence there.
Harvie-Brown in his "Vertebrate Fauna of Argyll" (1892) defines the limit of the range of the wild cat by a line drawn from Oban to Inverness; northward and westward of this line, he states, the animal still existed. But there is no doubt that of late years the cessation of vermin trapping in many parts of Scotland, which has caused a marked increase in the golden eagle, has had the same effect upon the wild cat.
The natural history chapter of the wild cat is taken by the Duke of York from G. de F.; did we not know this, some confusion might have arisen through the fact being mentioned that there are several kinds of wild cat, whereas only one was known to the British Isles. G. de F. says there were wild cats as large as leopards which went by the name of loups-serviers or cat wolves, both of which names he declares to be misnomers. He evidently refers to the Felis Lynx or Lynx vulgaris, which he properly classes as a "manner of wild cat," although some of the ancient writers have classed them as wolves (Pliny, Lib. viii. cap. 34).
WOLF,
For a long time it was a popular delusion that wolves had been entirely exterminated in England and Wales in the reign of the Saxon King Edgar (956-957), but Mr. J. E. Harting has by his researches proved beyond doubt that they existed some centuries later, and did not entirely disappear until the reign of Henry VII. (1485-1509).
WORMING A DOG,
This was supposed to be a preventive to the power of a mad dog's bite. It was a superstition promulgated in very early times, and seems to have been believed in until comparatively recent times. We find it repeated in one book of venery after another, French, English, and German: in England by our author, Turbervile, Markham, and others.
Pliny suggests this operation, and he quotes Columna as to the efficacy of cutting off a dog's tail when he is very young (Pliny, chap. xli.).
G. de F. and the Duke of York are careful to say that they only give the remedy for what it is worth, the latter saying: "Thereof make I no affirmation," and further on: "Notwithstanding that men call it a worm it is but a great vein that hounds have underneath their tongue" (p. 87).