The Master of Game: The Oldest English Book on Hunting

Cotgrave in his French-English Dictionary gives the following: —

"Mastin, a mastiue or bandog; a great country curre; also a rude, filthie, currish or cruell fellow."

We find the word matin in France used as a term of opprobrium, or a name of contempt for any ugly or distorted body or a coarse person: "C'es un matin, un vilain matin." Many interesting facts about the mastiff have been collected by Jesse in his "History of the British Dog," but he also makes the mistake of considering that the "Master of Game" and Turbervile give us the description of the dogs then existing in England, whereas these descriptions really relate only to French breeds, although the characteristics may in many cases have tallied sufficiently; but in others a dire confusion has resulted from blindly copying from one another.

MENÉE,

from Latin minare, something which is led, a following. This word frequently occurs in the mediæval romances, and usually denoted pursuit, either in battle or in the hunting field (Borman, p. 37).

There are various meanings attached to menée: —

1. The line of flight the stag or other game has taken, and Chacier la menée seems to have meant hunting with horn and hound by scent on the line of flight, in contradiction to the chase with the bow or cross-bow, which was called berser (Le Roman des Loherains, 106, c. 30). In G. de F. (p. 157) it is used in the same sense. The meaning in which Gaston de Foix uses the word menée is explained by him: Et puis se metre après, et chevauchier menée: c'est à dire par où les chiens et le cerf vont (G. de F., pp. 43, 44, 171, 179). See also Chace dou Cerf and Hard. de Font. Guer. Edit. Pichon).

2. The challenge of the hound when on the line. Page 171, we read that a hunter should know whether the hounds have retrieved their stag by the doubling of their menée, i. e. the hounds would make more noise as soon as they found the scent or line of flight of the stag they were chasing. Menée evidently meant the sound made by the hound when actually following the scent, not when baying the game. Later the sense seems to have been widened, and a musical hound was said to have la menée belle (Salnove, p. 246).

3. A note sounded on a horn (see Appendix: Hunting Music). It was the signal that the deer was in full flight. It appears to be used in Twici to signify the horn-signal blown when the hounds are on the scent of hart, boar or wolf, to press the hounds onwards (Twici, p. 23). This author says one cannot blow the menée for the hare, because it is at one time female and another male, and to this Dryden in his notes remarks that Twici is perfectly right in saying a man ought not to blow the menée for a hare; for as every one knows, it is but a rare occurrence for a hare to go straight on end like a fox, for they commonly double and run rings, in which case if the hounds were pressed, they would over-run the scent and probably lose the hare. But he does not explain why Twici says if it were always male the menée could be blown at it as at other beasts, such as the hart, the boar, and the wolf. Is it that a male hare will occasionally run a long, straight course of several miles, but that the female runs smaller rings and more constantly retraces her steps, and therefore the menée could never be blown at her?

4. Menée was also used in the sense of a signal on a horn.

The "Master of Game" says the menées should be sounded on the return of the huntsman at the hall or cellar door (p. 179). There was a curious old custom which occasioned the blowing of the horn in Westminster Abbey. Two menées were blown at the high altar of the Abbey on the delivery there of eight fallow deer which Henry III. had by charter granted as a yearly gift to the Abbot of Westminster and his successors.

METYNGE,

here evidently means meating or feeding. As the "Master of Game" says: "or pasturing" as if the two words were synonymous, as metinge also was Mid. Eng. for measure, it might have been a deer of "high measure and pasturing." But anyhow the two were practically identical, for as Twici says: "Harts which are of good pasture. For the head grows according to the pasture; good or otherwise." See below: Meute.

MEUTE,

had several meanings in Old French venery.

1. The "Master of Game" translated G. de F.'s "grant cerf" as a hart of high feeding or pasture. But he omitted to render the following passage: "Et s'il est de bonne meute, allons le laisser courre." The "bonne meute" is not translated by "high meating." It was an expression in use to indicate whether the stag was in good company or not. If a warrantable stag was accompanied by one or two large stags he was termed "Un cerf de bonne mute" (or meute), but if hinds and young stags (rascal) were with him he was designated as a "cerf de mauvaise mute." In Roy Modus we read: "La première est de savoir s'il est de bonne mute."

Perhaps meute when used in this sense was derived from the old Norman word moeta, māēta, from mōt, meet, come together. There was also an Old Eng. word metta or gemetta, companion.

1. Meute was also used in another sense which is translated by the "Master of Game" as haunts, probably the place the deer usually moves in. G. says: "Il prendra congé de sa meute," and the "Master of Game" has: "he leaves his haunts." If a deer was harboured in a good country for hunting he was also called "En belle meute" (D'Yauville, voc. Meute).

It was in this sense that the "Sénéschal de Normandye" answers the question of his royal mistress about the stag he himself had harboured that morning; he tells her the stag was En belle meute et pays fort.

1. Meute, mute, a number of hounds, now called a pack or kennel of hounds or a cry of hounds.

MEW,

Mue, to shed, cast, or change. "The hart mews his horns," the deer casts his head, or sheds his antlers. From the French muer, and the Latin mutare, to change, of hawks to moult.

MOVE,

Meu, Meue, mewe, meeve, old forms of move. To start a hart signified to unharbour him, to start him from his lair.

G. de F. says: Allons le laisser courre; but the word meu or meve was also used in Old French in the same way as in English.

Twici says: Ore vodroi ioe savoir quantez des betes sunt meuz de lymer, e quanz des bestes sunt trouez des brachez… Sire, touz ceaus qe sunt enchaces; sunt meuz de lymer. E tous ceaus enquillez sunt trovez de brachez. (Now I would wish to know how many beasts are moved by a lymer and how many beasts are found by the braches. – Sir, all those which are chased are moved by a lymer. And all those which are hunted up are found by braches.) (Line 18; Tristan., i. 4337; Partonopeus de Blois, 607.)

MUSE,

Meuse. An opening in a fence through which a hare or other animal is accustomed to pass. An old proverb says: "'Tis as hard to find a hare without a muse, as a woman without scuse." "A hare will pass by the same muses until her death or escape" (Blome, p. 92).

NUMBLES,

M. E. nombles, noumbles; O. F. nombles. The parts of a deer between the thighs, that is to say, the liver and kidneys and entrails. Part, and sometimes the whole of the numbles were considered the right of the huntsman; sometimes the huntsman only got the kidneys, and the rest was put aside with the tit-bits reserved for the King or chief personage (Turb., pp. 128-129). Numbles by loss of the initial letter became umbles (Harrison, vol. i. p. 309), and was sometimes written humbles, whence came "humble pie," now only associated with the word humble. Humble pie was a pie made of the umbles or numbles of the deer, and formerly at hunting feasts was set before the huntsman and his followers.

OTTER,

The Duke of York does not tell us anything of the chase of the Otter, but merely refers one at the end of the chapter on "The Nature of the Otter" to Milbourne, the King's Otter-hunter, for more information and says, "as of all other vermin I speak not" (p. 73). The Otter was evidently beneath his notice, as being neither regarded as a beast of venery nor of the chase (Twety and Gyfford, Brit. Mus. MS. Vesp. B. XII.). But the very fact that the King had an Otter-hunter shows that it was a beast not altogether despised, although probably hunted more for the value of its skin and for the protection of the fish than for the sport.

The Milbourne referred to by the Duke of York can scarcely be any other than the William Melbourne we find mentioned in Henry IV.'s reign as "Valet of our Otter-hounds" (Privy Seal, 674/6456, Feb. 18, 1410).

PARFET,

the perfect. Twici says: Une autre chasce il y ad qe homme appele le parfet. Dunkes covient il qe vous corneez en autre maneree… E isse chescun homme qest en tour vous, que siet de vénerie puet conustre en quel point vous estes en vostre dedut par vostre corneer (line 111).

From comparing the various places where the word parfait is employed in connection with hunting, it may be concluded that to hunt the "Parfet" was when the hounds were on the line of the right stag, to sound the "Parfet" was to blow the notes that indicated the hounds were hunting the right line. Dryden in his notes to Twici suggests that the chase of the parfet was "in opposition to the chase of the Forloyng," that is, when the pack run well together "jostling in close array" (Twici, p. 43). But Perfect in the O. F. works seems to us to invariably be used, as already said, to indicate that the hounds have not taken the change, but are staunch to the right scent. Jacques de Brézé says the stag he is hunting joins two great stags, but although some of the hounds ran silent for awhile, they still continued staunch to their line, and here he uses the word "parfait" (Sen. de Nor., p. 13).

Modus also uses it in this sense: Les chiens qui viennent chaçant après le parfait (fol. xix. v). And what is most conclusive is the sense given to it in our text: "Should blow to him again the parfyt so that he were in his rightes and ellys nought," i. e. the parfyt should only be blown if the hound was on the right line (p. 174).

PARFYTIERES,

the name given in the "Master of Game" to the last relay of hounds uncoupled during the chase of the stag. First came the "vaunt chase," and then the "midel," and then the "parfytieres." They may have been so called from being the last hounds to be uncoupled, being those that completed or perfected the pack —i. e. perfecters, or this relay may have derived its name from being composed of some of the staunchest hounds from the kennel, those not likely to follow any but the right line or the parfyt. It was customary in the old days to keep some of the slower and staunchest hounds in the last relay, and to cast them only when a stag nearing its end rused and foiled, and sought by every means to shake off his persecutors (see Appendix: Relays). G. de F. gives the names of the three relays simply as La première bataille, la seconde, and la tierce (p. 175).

POMELED,

spotted, from O. F. pomelé, spotted like an apple. The young of the roedeer are born with a reddish brown coat with white spots, which the "Master of Game" calls pomeled. This term was also frequently used in Ang. – N., O. F., and in the dog-Latin of our ancient records to describe a flea-bitten or dappled horse. "His hakenei that was all pomeli gris" (Strat.). "Pommeli liardus, gris pommele, Uno equo liardo pomele" (Obs. Ward. Acc. 28, Ed. I.). G. de F. does not use this word in describing the young of the roe-deer, but says they are born "eschaquettes" (p. 40).

RACHES,

ratches or racches, a dog that hunts by scent. A. – S. raecc, a hound, and O. F. and Ang. – N. brache, brachet, bracon, braquet; Ger. bracken. Ang. – Lat., brachetus, bracketus.

Raches were scenting hounds hunting in a pack, later called "running hounds," and then simply hounds. Although raches or brachets are frequently mentioned in the O. F. and Ang. – N. metrical romances, and in various early documents, we have never found any description of them, but can only gather what they were from the uses they were put to. We find that the bracco was used by the early German tribes to track criminals, therefore they were scenting hounds. There is plenty of evidence that they were used for stag, wild boar, and buck hunting during the Middle Ages. They were coupled together and led by a berner or bracennier or braconnier. Braconnier now means poacher, but this is only the later meaning; originally braconnier was the leader of the bracos, or huntsman (Daurel, p. 337; Bangert, p. 173; Dol. 9188).

We gather that these brachets of the early Middle Ages were small hounds, sometimes entirely white, but generally white with black markings. Sometimes they were mottled (bracet mautré). One description of a braces corant says this hound was as white as a nut, with black ears, a black mark on the right flank, and flecked with black (Blancadin, 1271; Perc. 17,555, 22,585; Tristan M., 1475, 2261; Tyolet, 332).

In the early days in England we find that braches were used to hunt up such smaller game as was not unharboured or dislodged by the limer. Twici says: "Sire, touz ceaus qe sunt enchaces, sunt meuz de lymer. E tous ceaus enquillez sunt trovez de brachez" (see Appendix: Acquillez), i. e. All beasts that are enchased are moved by a limer, and all those that are hunted up are found by braches (Twici, pp. 2, 12). Raches are mentioned in the "Boke of St. Albans" among the "Dyvers manere of houndes," and the apprentice to venery is told he should speak of "A mute of houndes, a kenell of rachys." He is also informed that the hart, the buck, and the boar should be started by a limer, and that all "other bestes that huntyd shall be sought for and found by Ratches so free." John Hardyng in his Chronicle, speaking of an inroad into Scotland by Edward IV., in whose reign he was yet living, said, "And take Kennetes and Ratches with you and seeke oute all the forest with houndes and hornes as Kynge Edwarde with the long shanks dide." In the "Squyer of Low degree" we read that the huntsman came with his bugles "and seven score raches at his rechase."

RESEEYUOUR,

the word the most approaching this to be found in any dictionary is under the head of receiver, M. E. receyvour, one who, or that which receives. The reseeyuours were most likely those greyhounds who received the game, i. e. pulled it down after it had been chased. We see in our text that teasers and reseeyuours are mentioned together (p. 198). The former were light, swift greyhounds; these were probably slipped first; and the latter (Shirley MS. spells resteynours) were the heavy greyhounds slipped last, and capable of pulling down a big stag. De Noirmont tells us: Ces derniers étaient surnommés receveours ou receveurs (ii. p. 426, and G. de F., p. 177).

RELAYS,

In the early days of venery the whole pack was not allowed to hunt at the commencement of the chase. After the stag had been started from his lair by a limer, some hounds were uncoupled and laid on, the rest being divided off into relays, which were posted in charge of one or more berners along the probable line of the stag, and were uncoupled when the hunted stag and the hounds already chasing him had passed. There were usually three relays, and two to four couples the usual number in each relay, though the number of couples depended, of course, on the size of the hunting establishment and the number of hounds in the kennel. G. de F. calls these relays simply, première, seconde, and tierce. The "Master of Game" calls the first lot of hounds uncoupled the "finders" (p. 165), though this seems rather a misnomer, as the harbourer with his limer (see Limer) found and started the deer. The vauntchase for the first relay, and the midel speak for themselves, but we have little clue to the origin of parfitieres for the third relay. Were they so called because they perfected or completed the chase, or because they were some of the staunchest hounds who could be depended upon to follow the parfit, i.e. the right line of the stag or animal hunted? (see Appendix: Parfet). Old authorities seem to have differed in opinion as to whether the staunchest and slowest hounds should have been put in the first cry or in the last (Roy Modus, fol. xvi.; G. de F., p. 178; Lav., Chasse à Courre, pp. 297-8).

In the "Boke of St. Albans" we read of the vauntlay, relay, and allay. The first was the name given to hounds if they were uncoupled and thrown off between the pack and the beast pursued, the relay were the hounds uncoupled after the hounds already hunting had passed by; the allay is held:

"Till all the houndes that be behynd be cum thertoThan let thyn houndes all to geder gooThat is called an allay."

Instructions concerning when relays should be given always warn the berner not to let slip the couples till some of the surest hounds have passed on the scent, and till he be sure that the stag they are hunting is the right one and not a substitute, i. e. one frightened and put up by the hunted stag. The "Master of Game" is careful also to say: "Take care that thou vauntlay not" (p. 169).

The discontinuing of relays seemed to have been begun first in Normandy and probably about the same time in England.

In France the three relays of greyhounds which were used were called Levriers d'estric – i.e. those which were first let slip; levriers de flanc, those that attacked from the side; and levriers de tête, those that bar the passage in front of the game or head it, terms that correspond with our vauntlay, allay, and relay. In the "Master of Game's" chapter on the wolf these relays of greyhounds are indicated (p. 59).

RIOT,

The "Master of Game's" statement on p. 74 that no other wild beast in England is called ryott save the coney only has called forth many suggestions as to the origin of this name being applied to the rabbit, and the connection between riot, a noise or brawl, and the rabbit. The word riot is represented in M. E. and O. F. by riote, in Prov. riota, Ital. riotta, and in all these languages it had the same signification, i. e. a brawl, a dispute, an uproar, a quarrel (Skeat).

Diez conjectures the F. riote to stand for rivote, and refers to O. H. G. riben, G. reiben, to grate, to rub (orig. perhaps to rive, to rend). From German, sich an einem reiben, to mock, to attack, to provoke one; lit. to rub oneself against one.

Rabbit, which is in O. Dutch robbe, has probably the same origin from reiben.

The etymology and connection, if any, between the two words rabbit and riot is difficult to determine. It is very probable that the rabbit was called riot from producing a brawling when the hounds came across one. The term "running riot" may well be derived from a hunting phrase.

ROE,

The error regarding the October rut into which G. de F. and the Duke of York fell was one to which the naturalists of much later times subscribed, for it was left to Dr. Ziegler and to Dr. Bischoff, the Professor of Physiology at Heidelberg, to demonstrate in 1843 the true history of the gestation of the roe, which for more than a century had been a hotly disputed problem. On that occasion it was shown with scientific positiveness that the true rut of the roe takes place about the end of July or first week in August, and that the ovum does not reach the uterus for several months, so that the first development of the embryo does not commence before the middle of December.

RUNNING HOUNDS AND RACHES (F. chiens courants),

Under this heading we include all such dogs as hunted by scent in packs, whatever the game they pursued might be. They appear in the early records of our kings as Canes de Mota, Canes currentes, and as Sousos (scenting hounds) (Close Rolls 7 John; Mag. Rot. 4, John Rot. 10; 4 Henry III.), and are mentioned specifically as cervericiis, deimericiis, as Heyrectorum (harriers) or canes heirettes, and foxhounds as gupillerettis or wulpericiis (Close Rolls, 15 John).

The Anglo-Saxon word Hundas, hound, was a general name for any dog; the dog for the chase in Anglo-Saxon times being distinguished by the prefix Ren, making ren hund.

Gradually the word dog superseded the word hound, and the latter was only retained to designate a "scenting" dog. Dr. Caius, writing to Dr. Gesner, remarks in his book: "Thus much also understand, that as in your language Hunde is the common word, so in our naturall tounge dogge is the universall, but Hunde is perticular and a speciall, for it signifieth such a dogge onely as serveth to hunt" (Caius, p. 40). (See Appendix: Raches.) Running hounds was a very literal translation of the French chiens courants, and as the descriptive chapter given in our text is as literal a rendering from G. de F. there is no information that helps us to piece together the ancestry of the modern English hound. We do not know what breed were in the royal kennels in the reign of Henry IV., but probably some descendants of those brought to this country by the Normans, about the origin of which breed nothing seems known.

Keep of Hounds. The usual cost of the keep of a hound at the time of our MS. was a halfpenny a day, of a greyhound three farthings, and of a limer or bloodhound one penny a day.

However for the royal harthounds an allowance of three farthings a day was made for each hound (Q. R. Acc. 1407), and we also find occasionally that only a halfpenny a day was made for the keep of a greyhound. In Edward I.'s reign a halfpenny a day was the allowance made for fox- and otter-hounds (14, 15, 31, 32, 34, Edward I. Ward. Acc.), and sometimes three farthings and sometimes a halfpenny a day for a greyhound. The Master of Buckhounds was allowed a halfpenny a day each for his hounds and greyhounds.

In the reign of Richard III. the Master of Harthounds was allowed 3s. 3d. a day "for the mete of forty dogs and twelve greyhounds and threepence a day for three limers" (Rolls of Parl., vol. v. p. 16).

The "Boke of Curtasye" (fourteenth century, Percy Society, iv. p. 26), gives us information which quite agrees with the payments entered in the Wardrobe and other accounts of the King's hunting establishment. And under the head of De Pistore we find the baker is told to make loaves for the hounds:

"Manchet and chet to make brom bred hardffor chaundeler and grehoundes and huntes reward."

Chet, a word not in use since the seventeenth century, meant wheaten bread of the second quality, made of flour more coarsely sifted than that used for manchet, which was the finest quality.

Brom bread was oaten bread, and probably was very much the same as a modern dog biscuit.

One of the ancient feudal rights was that of obtaining bran from the vassals for the hounds' bread, known as the right of brennage, from bren, bran.

Although bread was the staple food given to hounds, yet they were also provided with meat. At the end of a day's hunting they received a portion of the game killed (see Curée), and if this was not sufficient or it was not the hunting season game was expressly killed for them. In a decree from King John to William Pratell and the Bailiffs of Falke de Breaut of the Isle of Ely, the latter are commanded to find bread and paste for the hounds as they may require, "and to let them hunt sometimes in the Bishops chase for the flesh upon which they are fed" (Close Roll, 17 John). In an extract from the Wardrobe Accounts of 6 Edward I. we find a payment was made of 40s. by the King to one Bernard King for his quarry for two years past on which the King's dogs had been fed (MS. Phillipps, 8676).