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The Boke of Saint Albans

The
Boke of Saint Albans

BY

DAME JULIANA BERNERS

CONTAINING

TREATISES ON HAWKING, HUNTING, AND COTE ARMOUR:

PRINTED AT SAINT ALBANS BY THE SCHOOLMASTER-PRINTER IN 1486

REPRODUCED IN FACSIMILE

With an Introduction by

WILLIAM BLADES

AUTHOR OF “THE LIFE AND TYPOGRAPHY OF WILLIAM CAXTON”

LONDON

ELLIOT STOCK, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.

“Manhood I am, therefore I me delyght

To hunt and hawke, to nourish up and fede

The greyhounde to the course, the hawke to th’ flight,

And to bestryde a good and lusty stede.”

From Sir Thomas More’s Poems.

Introduction.

Several independent printing presses were established in England before the close of the fifteenth century; and from them issued numerous books which are invaluable to all students of antiquity from the light they throw upon the social habits and literary progress of our nation. Of these it may safely be said that not one exceeds in interest that work of an unknown typographer, which is here presented in facsimile, and which, from the town in which it was compiled, as well as printed, is known to all bibliographers as “The Book of St. Albans.” This work has always been a favourite, partly because our feelings are appealed to in favour of the writer who for centuries has taken rank as England’s earliest poetess, and is still, in all our Biographical Dictionaries, reckoned among “noble authors;” and partly because we love mysteries, and a mystery has always enshrouded the nameless printer. The subjects, too, so curiously alliterative—Hawking, Hunting, and Heraldry, have an enticing and antique flavour about them, being just those with which, at that period, every man claiming to be “gentle” was expected to be familiar; while ignorance of their laws and language was to confess himself a “churl.”

As to the language and orthography of the book, it is a never-failing source of interest, being quite different from any other printed work of the fifteenth century, except the St. Albans’ Chronicle from the same press. Among bibliographers it ranks as “rarissimus,” the known copies being so few that they might probably be counted on the fingers of one hand.

Looking at the book, then, all round, it will be a convenient plan to consider these subjects separately, and to treat the volume in its four aspects of Authorship, Typography and Bibliography, Subject-matter, and Philology.

CHAPTER I.
Authorship.

Historians and Biographers, together with Librarians and Booksellers, have a natural antipathy to anonymous books; and, wherever they can, are willing to accept the smallest amount of evidence as proof of paternity. It saves much trouble and avoids numerous errors in cataloguing, when a recognised name can be associated with an anonymous work. From this tendency a bad habit has arisen of attributing to particular writers books concerning which the evidence of authorship is doubtful, if not altogether untrustworthy.

In this very book we have a striking instance of such erroneous attribution. The three treatises, of which the book is made up, are quite distinct, and to a portion only of one of these is there any author’s name attached. Yet that name, “Dam Julyans Barnes,” altered by degrees to “Dame Juliana Berners,” is now universally received as the name of the authoress of the whole volume. With even less show of reason she is credited with the authorship of a “Treatise on Fishing” for which there is not the shadow of evidence, that treatise having been added ten years later by Wynken de Worde, who, when reprinting the Book of St. Albans, thought that the subject of Fishing would complete the work as a Gentleman’s Vade Mecum.

There are really four distinct tractates in the Book of St. Albans, although the two last being on Heraldry are generally counted as one.

The first is on Hawking; to this no name of the author is attached, but it has a prologue which no one acquainted with the other writings of the printer can doubt to be his. Of this we shall have more to say anon.

The second tractate is on Hunting: it is specially associated with the name of Dame Juliana Berners, and will require a more extended elucidation than the others.

Here the evidence of authorship is as good as for most pieces of fifteenth-century production—a period at which literary rights did not exist, and when the scribe, if at all acquainted with the subject upon which the book he was copying treated, did not scruple to interpolate his own ideas, and that without any egotistical vanity, but merely from a feeling that all books being written for the good of men, and not from vanity in the author, it was a duty to improve them where possible. But as improvement mostly meant the addition of something on the same subject taken from another manuscript, we have the constant occurrence of one MS. being a compilation of two or three others, and yet appearing under the name of the last compiler.

In this treatise on Hunting we have the express statement at the end of the twenty-fourth page—“Explicit Dam Julyans Barnes.” This might certainly apply to the transcription only, but, when taken with Wynken de Worde’s version, the probability is, that the lady compiled as well as wrote it. In the reprint by Wynken de Worde, only ten years later than the original, he varies the colophon thus:—“¶ Explicit dame Julyans Bernes doctryne in her boke of huntynge,” the whole reprint ending “Enprynted at westmestre by Wynkyn the Worde the yere of thyncarnacōn of our lorde. M . CCCC . lxxxxvj.” So that he, a contemporary, evidently believed her to be the authoress. Later authorities attributed the whole book to her pen, but as they were in possession of no more evidence than we now are, and probably not so much, we should attach no weight to such statements, which were founded simply on a vivid imagination.

But what is known of the lady who is admitted to have compiled the twenty-four pages on Hunting? Who was Dame Julians Barnes? Here, unless a sentimental and inventive sympathy be employed to throw an artificial light upon the darkness, we are in total ignorance. A biography of her has certainly been written, and all our Dictionaries and Encyclopædias devote a page or two to her history, which, in 1810, under Haslewood’s nurture, attained its full development. Even so far back as 1549, or nearly a century after her supposed death, the learned Bale, who wrote an account of all our English celebrities, allows his gallantry to bedeck her memory with garments fine. “Fœmina illustris!” he exclaims, “corporis et animi dotibus abundans ac forma elegantia spectabilis” (An illustrious lady! abundantly gifted, both in body and mind, and charming in the elegance of her mien). Considering that the name of the lady is the whole of the text upon which Bale had to build, this is by no means a bad specimen of imaginative biography, and became a good foundation for future commentators. The story, however, fared rather badly at first; for Holinshed, in 1577, while echoing Bale very exactly, is made, by a curious error of the printer, who mistook the letters rn for m, to call the authoress Julyan Bemes; while Baker in his Chronicles, too careless even to refer to the original text, adds another blunder to the story, and, thinking that Julyan must be a man’s name, dubs the authoress “a gentleman of excellent gifts, who wrote certain treatises of Hawking and Hunting.”

Chauncy, in 1700 (History of Hertfordshire), restored her sex to the lady, and then set to work upon making a family history for her. His first discovery was that, being a “Dame,” she was of noble blood. Finding also that the family name of Lord Berners was, in olden time, spelt occasionally Barnes, he soon supplied a father for our authoress, in the person of Sir James Berners. And so the game of making history went on merrily up to the time of Joseph Haslewood, who, in 1810, reprinted Wynken de Worde’s edition of the Book of St. Albans, and supplied a full-blown biography of the authoress, giving particulars of her birth and education, the occupations of her youthful days, and a most imposing pedigree. Let us quote Haslewood’s own words: “Julyans, or Juliana, Barnes, otherwise Berners, who has been generally designated as the authoress of the present volume, is supposed to have been born, towards the latter end of the fourteenth century, at Roding-Berners, in the county of Essex. The received report is that she was the daughter of Sir James Berners, whose son was created Baron Berners, temp. Henry IV., and that she once held the situation of Prioress of Sopwell Nunnery, in Hertfordshire.” He then attributes to her the authorship of all four works in the Book of St. Albans. The difficulty of accounting for a lady so placed writing upon such subjects, is cleverly, if not satisfactorily settled by assuming that she passed her teens at court, partaking of the amusements of the field, and writing for her own use a commonplace book on various subjects. Then retiring through disappointment (doubtless a love affair) to a cloister, her rank raised her to the position of prioress. There in her seclusion, writing amidst the solitude of listless hours and vain regrets, she versified the general rules of sport from her own pleasant recollection, and from the diaries of her youthful happiness, which fortunately she had preserved. If we remember the mania which seized all classes for diary-keeping at the beginning of this century, when Haslewood wrote this, it will deepen our sense of humour to note that he attributes private diary-keeping to a young lady who lived ante 1450.

But enough of such sham biography; let us return to facts.

The word “Dame” did not in the fifteenth century, as it does now, imply any connection with a titled family, it meant simply Mistress or Mrs. Chaucer speaks of Dame Partlet in this sense; and had the Dame Julyans Barnes of the fifteenth century lived now, she would have been just “Mrs. Barnes.”

Similarity of name in history, like similarity of sound in philology is a will-o’-the-wisp which has led many a writer into a bog. Allowing that Lord Berners’ name was sometimes spelt Barnes, is that sufficient reason for making our authoress a member of his family? I think not.

That the greater portion of the book on Hunting was compiled by Mistress Barnes, is probably correct,[^[1]] and had she written much more, and produced even an original work on the subject, she would not have stood alone, even at that early period, as an authoress. Crystine de Pisan, two of whose works were printed by Caxton, was contemporary with Julians Barnes, and left not only numerous original writings behind her—one of which was upon the Art of War—but left her mark, and that no mean nor ignoble one, upon the political course and moral development of her countrymen. But Dame Julyans’ work upon Hunting is certainly not original, as indeed very few works upon any subject were at that period. This is evident from a glance at the text and the grouping of the subjects. It begins with distinguishing the varieties of beasts and their ages; the proper names by which to designate the beasts, singly and together; on hunting and dressing a Roe, a Boar, a Hare; of flaying; of the horns of a Roebuck; of the Hart; of the seasons; of the Hare. Then follows, from another source, an interpolation of a discourse between a Master of the Hunt and his man, going over portions of the same ground again; and this ended, we get back again to the original MS. and the dismemberment of various beasts. All through, with the exception of the interpolated conversation, the text is addressed to “My deare childe.” Thus we read—“Do so, my child;” “Think what I say, my son;” “My lief childer;” “Say, child, where you go? my dame taught you so.” Evidently that portion was originally written for a mother to use as a school-book, by which her son would learn to read, and, at the same time, become familiar with the terms of venery.

[1]. Taking Berners and Barnes to be the same word, it is curious to note—in connection with the work attributed to Dame Juliana, viz., The Book of Hunting—that the masters of that sport employed men called Berners, to be ready with relays of horses and to feed the hounds.—See Halliwell’s “Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words.”

In the Bodleian Library is a small manuscript on the Terms of the Chase, the beginning of which is:—

“Mi dere sones, where ye fare, be frith or by fell,

Take good hede in his tyme how Tristram wol tell.”

This manuscript was probably copied by some youth as a school-exercise, which would account for the following odd colophon—“Explicit, expliceat, ludere scriptor eat.”

Compare the above with the opening stanza of the verses we attribute to Mistress Barnes:—

“Wheresoever ye fare, by frith or by fell,[^[2]]

My dear child, take heed how Tristram doth you tell.”[^[3]]

[2]. “By frith or by fell” = by forest or by plain; but see Halliwell’s Dictionary.

[3]. Sir Tristram, the well-known knight of the Round Table, was a mighty hunter, and the great authority upon all subjects connected with the chase. Popular belief attributed to him the origin of all the special terms used in hunting, and his name was invoked to give authority to any statement upon this subject, just as in a later century the arithmetical rules of Cocker give rise to the popular phrase—“According to Cocker.”

The rest of the Oxford MS. is in similar accord with the print, but nowhere in it is there a word about Mistress Barnes.

The words “Explicit Dam Julyans Barnes” have been considered to prove that the lady was alive when the book was printed. If, however, Sir James Berners were her father, of which there is no evidence, she must have been close upon a hundred years old in 1486, as he died in 1390. But this is importing a needless difficulty into the theory, which is not rendered more probable by making the authoress and printer contemporary.

It may here be as well to say a few words about Sopwell Nunnery, over which, without a particle of evidence, our authoress is supposed to have presided. Sopwell Nunnery, Hertfordshire, was founded about 1140, under the rule of St. Benedict, and subject to the Abbot of St. Albans, from which it was not far distant. The rule of life among the inmates was very severe, and at the first the nuns were enclosed under locks and bolts, made additionally sure by the seal, on the door, of the Abbot for the time being (Chauncy’s History, p. 466). How long this lasted, and how the nuns liked it, history saith not; but, in 1338, a re-organisation had become imperative, and the Abbot of St. Albans, among other instructions, ordered that no nun should lodge out of the house, and no guest within it (Newcome, p. 468). There does not seem much scope left here for the Prioress to take an active part in field sports, though a hundred and fifty years later, which was about the period of our “Dame,” many relaxations of the strict rules may have become common. But, then, we have apparently accurate lists of all the Prioresses of Sopwell in the fifteenth century, and the name of Juliana Barnes does not appear at all in them. The known dates are these:—In 1416, Matilda de Flamstede was Prioress. Four years before her death, which was in 1430, she was succeeded by Letitia Wyttenham. The next whose name is known was Joan Chapell; the date of her appointment is not recorded, but as she was set aside in 1480 on account of her age, she had probably occupied the position for many years. In 1480, Elizabeth Webb succeeded Joan Chapell.

What is really known of the Dame is almost nothing, and may be summed up in the following few words. She probably lived at the beginning of the fifteenth century, and she possibly compiled from existing MSS. some rhymes on Hunting.

There is still the authorship of the other parts of the book to determine, and if similarity of wording and phraseology may be taken as evidence, they were all from one pen.

At the end of the book on Heraldry the printer has put the following—“Here endeth the book of Blasing of Arms translated and compiled together at Seynt Albons.” Here we have the printer’s own statement as to the origin of his text, and doubtless this, as well as the treatise on Hawking, were made up or “compiled” from more than one manuscript in French. Haslewood gives a list of such as are in the British Museum, in several of which portions of the printed work are contained. Works on Hunting and Hawking were not uncommon in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and are still found in all large collections of manuscripts. There were several in the libraries of the Dukes of Burgundy in the fifteenth century, and many are still extant in the national collections of England and France.

The other tractates in the volume have an origin very similar to that of the Book of Hunting. The Book of Hawking is an evident compilation from several manuscripts, which accounts perhaps for its deficiency in arrangement and want of continuity. The Book of Coat Armour also has two distinct sources in contemporary works, one of which was the “De Officio Militari” of Nicholas Upton. From this the schoolmaster copied Book IV. almost word for word, supplementing it from “The Book of the Lineage of Coat Armour,” as stated already. The only other literary work which can be attributed to our printer is the extensive compilation known as the St. Albans’ Chronicle or the Fructus Temporum. But neither in the Chronicle, where he simply combined two histories into one, nor in the Book of St. Albans, which is also a compilation, does the schoolmaster show any literary ability above the average of scholars of his period.

As specimens of the schoolmaster’s powers of composition we annex the following, the originals of which can be seen in the ensuing facsimile pages:—

Prologue to the Book of Hawking.

“In so much that gentlemen and honest persons have great delight in Hawking, and desire to have the manner to take hawks: and also how and in what wise they should guide them ordinately: and to know the gentle terms in communing of their hawks: and to understand their sicknesses and infirmities, and to know medicines for them according, and the many notable terms that be used in hawking both of their hawks and of the fowls that their hawks shall slay. Therefore this book following in a due form shows very knowledge of such pleasure to gentlemen and persons disposed to see it.”

Prologue to Mistress Barnes’ Compilation on Hunting.

“Likewise, as in the Book of Hawking aforesaid are written and noted the terms of pleasure belonging to gentlemen having delight therein, in the same manner this book following showeth to such gentle persons the manner of Hunting for all manner of beasts, whether they be beasts of Venery, or of Chace, or Rascal. And also it showeth all the terms convenient as well to the hounds as to the beasts aforesaid. And in certain there be many diverse of them as it is declared in the book following.”

Prologue to the Book of Coat Armour.

“Here in this book following is determined the lineage of Coat Armours: and how gentlemen shall be known from ungentle men, and how bondage began first in angel and after succeeded in man kind, as it is here showed in process, both in the childer of Adam and also of Noe, and how Noe divided the world in three parts to his three sons. Also there be showed the nine colours in Arms figured by the nine orders of Angels, and it is showed by the foresaid colours which be worthy and which be royal; and of regalities which be noble and which be excellent. And there be here the vertues of Chivalry, and many other notable and famous things, to the pleasure of noble persons shall be showed, as the works following witnesses, whosoever liketh to see them and read them, which were too long now to rehearse. And after these notable things aforesaid followeth the Blasing of all manner Arms in Latin, French, and English.”

So wrote the schoolmaster. Let us now see what kind of book this is typographically.

CHAPTER II.
Typography and Bibliography.

Old books must be loved, and their idiosyncrasies carefully studied, before they will yield up all their treasures; that done, the observant lover will obtain possession of both soul and body; he may revel in the intellectual feast provided by the author, or he may study the material and mechanical features of the books as represented by the peculiarities of paper and the habits and customs of the various printers. Then, by grouping these as a botanist does his flowers, according to their organisation into classes, orders, genera, and species, he may extract from his volumes true replies to questions which otherwise would remain hidden for ever. So true is the dictum, “The Mind it is which sees, and not the Eye alone.”

Many bibliophiles, however, of education and taste have been positively blind when outside the circle of their own particular studies. So it was with the Rev. Dr. M‘Neille, a well-known critic and book-collector of sixty years ago. When addressing Dr. Dibdin he wrote thus of “The Book of St. Albans”—“This book is itself useless, and only a bon morceau for the quizzical collector.” With such feelings towards one of the most curious works which this country produced during the infancy of the printing press, it was simply impossible that the interest of its pages should be revealed to him; and however rich in divinity and editiones principes of the classics the library of the worthy doctor may have been, it is evident that our Book of St. Albans could never have been aught but an alien on his book-shelves.

The works printed by William Caxton were almost without exception in the English tongue, while the contemporary presses of Oxford, St. Albans, and Machlinia were nearly all in Latin. Of the eight books at present known to have been printed at St. Albans, the only two in English were the “Fructus Temporum” and the work under review. The “Fructus” or St. Albans’ Chronicle is the same as that printed two years previously by Caxton, with the addition of certain ecclesiastical events and Papal chronology, probably added by the printer himself to please the monks.

The Book of St. Albans’ and the St. Albans’ Chronicle make a class of themselves; but as it is impossible to understand their position without a glance at the other works from the same press, we will give a tabulated description of the whole eight.

But who was the printer? What was his name? Was he associated with the great Abbey? and is there any internal or external evidence in his works to connect him with any other printer or any other town?

The only notice we have of the printer is an accidental one by Wynken de Worde, who, in reprinting the St. Albans’ Chronicle, says in the colophon, “Here endith this present Chronicle ... compiled in a book and also enprinted by our sometime Schoolmaster of St. Alban.” He was a schoolmaster, then, and this will account for the nature of his early works, all scholastic and all in Latin. Not till the end of his typographical career did he realise the fact that the printing press, instead of being the hobby of a few learned men, was the educator of the people, the whole nation; and then he gave his countrymen what they wanted—a history of their own country and a book upon the whole (secular) duty of the gentleman, as then understood.

The name of the schoolmaster-printer is quite unknown. No notice of him is found in the records of the Abbey, nor does he appear in any contemporary document. Yet here, as in Mistress Barnes’s case, imagination has come to the rescue and a legendary name has been provided.

Finding that the Prologue to the Book of Hawking began with the words, “Insomuch as gentle men and honest persons have great delight in Hawking;” finding also that the St. Alban’s Chronicle from the same press began thus: “Insomuch as it is necessary;” and bearing in mind that certain old authors had veiled their names in the first words of their works, Dr. Chauncy arrived at the sagacious conclusion that the St. Albans printer wished to veil his name, which really was “Insomuch.” The joke, for it almost seems like one, does not bear even the scrutiny which itself invites, for although the schoolmaster uses the words in two other places, in neither case are they at the beginning of a chapter.[^[4]] It should be added that in this the worthy historian of Hertfordshire only followed the lead of both Bale and Pits.

[4]. On sig. a j recto of “Cote Armour” is “Insomuch as all gentleness comes of God;” and upon sig. b iij verso is “Insomuch that in the fifth quadrat,” &c. The use of the word in these cases could have no veiled meaning, and it was probably only a peculiarity of diction which had become a habit with the schoolmaster.

Was he connected with the Abbey? I think not. There is not a word to suggest such a connection, although we may take it for granted that the Abbot and his fraternity could not have frowned upon the printer, or he would never have established himself. His imprints all mention the town of St. Albans, but never the Abbey, and his position was probably similar to that of Caxton, who was simply a tenant of the Abbot of Westminster, but, so far as is known, nothing more.

Was he connected with Caxton and the Westminster press? Without a shadow of doubt I say, No! Mr. E. Scott, of the MS. department in the British Museum, has indeed strung together a number of surmises to show that the Schoolmaster was employed by Caxton, and that all the books without date or place hitherto attributed to Westminster were really printed at St. Albans. But internal evidence is against any such gratuitous assumption. There is nothing in common between the two printers in any of their habits or customs except the possession of Caxton’s No. 3 type. This is the only one of Caxton’s types used outside his own office (for W. de Worde, his successor in house and business, must not be regarded as a separate printer). Caxton employed it from his arrival in England in 1477 till 1484, when it makes its last appearance in the headings of “Æsop,” the “Order of Chivalry,” and “The Golden Legend.” In 1485 Caxton obtained a new fount, similar in shape and character, and from that time the old No. 3 disappears to make way for the new and smaller type No. 5. This being more suited to the taste of the day, we find the larger and worn fount passing over to the country press of St. Albans, where the Schoolmaster first uses it in 1486, being the identical year in which its successor appears in Caxton’s “Royal Book.” We may here observe that after the stoppage of the St. Albans’ Press the same fount finds its way back again and is seen in W. de Worde’s reprint, in 1496–97, of the two English St. Albans books. But the discovery of a copy of Caxton’s Boethius in the old Grammar School at St. Albans, and the numerous fragments of old books extracted from its covers, are quoted as confirming the idea. Yet the book itself and all these fragments were from Westminster, not a single one being from a known St. Albans book, and they included the Caxton “Chronicles,” 1480, the “Dictes,” 1477, and the still earlier “Life of Jason;” so that we had better at once remove the whole Westminster press, dated and undated, to St. Albans, if such an argument is to have any force. These fragments, indeed, can only point to the fact that the copy of Boethius was bound in the printing office, as was commonly the case with the books from Caxton’s press.

Again, Mr. Scott draws attention to the fact that a page of the St. Albans’ Book, 1486, has been copied by a contemporary writer on to the blank leaves of one of Caxton’s earliest books. ’Tis true; but this copying of part of one book into another, printed ten years before, has no typographical bearing whatever. Lastly, the name Causton appears in an old St. Albans’ Register of the early part of the fifteenth century. But this, again, means positively nothing. Caxton’s name was not at all uncommon; there were Caustons or Caxtons in nearly every English county, and I have quite a long list of them.

It is highly probable that Caxton, while at Westminster, in the van of all the literature of his day, would have communications of some sort with the important town of St. Albans; but that the two printers assisted one another in the production of books, is, so far as any evidence goes, a pure fiction.

Let us now glance at the bibliographical aspect of the book.

The work itself has no title. It is difficult in our time, accustomed as we are to “teeming millions” of books, each with its own title-page, to conceive a period when the press sent out works without even the shadow of a title-page. Before the invention of printing, the author simply headed his first page with the name of the work, as “Here begins the Confessio Amantis,” or “Hic incipit Parvus Catho,” and, without preface or more ado, the text commenced. Sometimes even this little notification was omitted, and, as in Caxton’s “Jason,” “The Chess Book,” “Tulle,” and many other fifteenth-century books, the subject of the work had to be learned by reading the text. So it is with the book now under review; it comprises four distinct works, but to one only is there any heading, and that has the bare line “Incipit liber armorum.” The first, “The Book of Hawking,” starts straight off—“This is the manner to keep Hawks,” and occupies three signatures, a, b, and c, of eight leaves each, and sig. d, which has but four leaves, on purpose that this portion might be complete alone, if so desired. The same idea controlled the arrangement of “The Book of Hunting,” which, beginning on sig. e j, ends with Dame Juliana’s “Explicit” on the recto of sig. f iiij. This left the last seven pages of the quaternion to be filled up. Now it was a common practice, both with the scribes and with the early printers, when they got to the end of their text and found that a page or two of blank paper was left, to occupy the blank pages with such common household aphorisms or popular rhymes as came easily to the memory, or were at hand in some other book. So here the schoolmaster-printer fills up his vacant pages with a number of odd sentences and rhymes, most of which occur over and over again in numerous manuscripts of early poetry. Among others we notice the well-known:—

“Arise erly,

serue God deuouteli,

and the world besily.”

&c. &c.

Also the folks proverb:—

“Too wyues in oon hous,

Too cattys and oon mous,

Too dogges and oon boon,

Theis shall neū accorde oon.”

Then the list of proper terms to be used by gentlemen and those curious in their speech is of very common occurrence:—

“An herde of Hertis

An herde of all mañ dere

A pride of Lionys

A sleuth of Beeris.”

&c. &c.

This was evidently copied from some MS., and ends with “¶ Explicit,” and nothing more. On the next page we have the proper terms for carving or dismembering beasts, fowls, and fishes, followed on the last leaf by a list of bishoprics and provinces.

Having thus filled up all his leaves, the printer begins his third subject on a fresh signature, and introduces the “Liber Armorum” with the Preface (already printed). A long work on the “Blasing of Arms” follows, beginning on sig. c j, and ending on sig. f 10.

This is extremely interesting, both in matter and in the very rude woodcut representations of armorial bearings with which the text is profusely illustrated. Except in one or two cases of uncommon tints, these are all colour-printed, as are the initials to paragraphs. In the Grenville copy, the pressman having forgotten to roll the “forme,” the initials all appear in that semi-tinted state which would be the natural result of such an omission. We notice, too, that where the coats of arms require, say, three colours on one page, then the initials are also in three colours; but if only one colour is required for the arms, only one colour, and that the same, is used for the initials. Occasionally, where a peculiar colour was necessary, a brush was used to insert that tint by hand.

In workmanship the St. Albans printer, especially in the English books, is much inferior to the contemporary issue from the Westminster press. The types are worse, the arrangement worse, the presswork worse, and the ink worse. From this point of view alone, the theory that he would print for Caxton so much better than he did for himself, is not worth serious consideration.

The Book of St. Albans went through many editions, particulars of which are difficult to obtain.

1486. The Boke of St. Albans (Brit. Mus.). 149–. By Wynken de Worde “at the sygne of the Sonne.” 1496. By Wynken de Worde (Brit. Mus.). 15—. By W. Powell. “Imprinted at London in Fletestrete at the sygne of George next to saynt Dunston’s Church by Wyllyam Powell.” 15—. By W. Copland. “Imprinted at London in Flete Street at the sygne of the Rose Garlande by Wylliam Copland for Richard Tottell” (Brit. Mus.). 15—. By W. Copland. “In Lothebury” 4to. 15—. By W. Copland. “In saynt Martyns parish in the Vinetre uppon the three crane wharfe.” 1548? By W. Copland. “Imprynted at London in the Vyentre vppon the thre Craned Wharfe by Wyllyam Copland.” 1550. By W. Powell. “Hawkynge Huntynge and Fishynge.” 8vo. London.

How did the schoolmaster at St. Albans obtain his types? This is a puzzling question in the present state of palæotypography. Mr. Bradshaw of Cambridge has, by unwearied study of early printed books, thrown great light upon the connection and genealogy of numerous founts used by fifteenth-century printers, and systematic attention to the minute peculiarities of each printer is doubtless the only way in which those old books can be forced to yield up their secrets; but the task is immense, and beyond the powers of any one man to complete. Some day, however, when the palæotypography of this country, as well as of the Continental presses, shall have received that full technical and philosophical analysis which time is sure to bring, the more fortunate bibliographer of the future will be able with certainty to track the footsteps and operations of the early typefounders, and will be enabled to state for certain to what extent Caxton and the St. Albans printer were their own typefounders, and to what extent and to whom they looked for outside help. As the case now stands, we can only confess our ignorance of where the St. Albans types came from.

CHAPTER III.
The Subjects Treated.

In the rude civilisation of the fifteenth century, a year’s experience of which would send most of us to our graves, the mental occupation as well as the bodily recreation of our ancestors was almost confined to hunting and hawking. “Fishing with an Angle” came in as a bad third, being too tame a pursuit for men who were no men if not men of war. Mimic war—war on the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air—war which could be pursued in times of peace, and which yet required knowledge, patience, fortitude, and courage—this had great attractions, and we cannot wonder at the general popularity of these pursuits.

The first treatise in the following reprint is upon Hawking, a pastime essentially aristocratic from the great expense it entailed in the purchase, breeding, and maintenance of the birds. This, indeed, coupled with the diminution of game consequent on the progress of civilisation and the increase of the population, led to the gradual decadence of the sport, and nearly to its extinction in the eighteenth century, although, in very rare cases, falconry is even now practised.

As we have seen, one of the most difficult objects in hawking was to obtain an easy command of the proper vocabulary, and so at first start our author instructs us in “The manner to speak of Hawks, from the egg.” We must not say a young hawk is hatched, but ‘disclosed;’ they do not breed but “eyer;” it was a want of culture in any falconer to say that hawks were building their nest, they “timbered” it. When the young could first leave the nest they were “Bowesses,” and when they could fly they were “Branchers,” and then was the time to catch and train them.

When the young were caught, which was with nets, the first thing was to “ensile” them, that is, to “take a needle and thread and sew up the eyelids,” so that they “see never a dele.” After a night and a day the threads were cut softly for fear of breaking the “lyddis of the ighen,” then they were fed with well-washed flesh, but kept awake the next night and day, after which they were supposed to be tame, or “reclaimed.”

The various diseases to which Hawks are liable are then explained, and medicines prescribed for them. Some of these are very absurd and some contradictory. Then comes a variety of terms for every movement and habit, for every limb or part of the body, and for almost every feather in the plumage. In this minute description the author begins at the feet of the bird and so works upwards, as when “Knyghttis been harnesside.”

Next we are instructed how important it is to be careful of the manner of guiding the Hawk the first time it is ready to “nomme a partridge;” how to reward her by giving her the head and neck, after which on no account is she to fly again till she has “rejoiced,” i.e., sharpened her beak and shaken her feathers. More medicines follow, among which is how to get rid of “lies” (lice). “Take a piece of rough blanket and hold it to the fire till it is quite hot; wrap the hawk therein, and without hurting hold her ‘softely and stylly’ in your hands, and all the vermin will creep into the cloth.” A happy thought this!

The “Gesse,” or strip of leather by which the Hawk is held when carrying her on the hand, is next described, together with the creance or long line. More medicines still, and then how to treat Hawks when “in mew,” or moulting, a matter of great importance. To promote “mewing” give the flesh of a kid, a young swan, and especially rats flesh; stewed adders are also strongly recommended, or chickens which have been fed upon wheat soaked in broth of vipers.

Gout seems a common disease in various parts of the Hawk’s body, which may be known by swelling and “ungladness;” also rheum and fever and blains and agrum, which last is cured by a red-hot silver needle thrust into the nostrils. Botches in the jaw should be “kutte with a knyfe.” More terms follow for various habits and actions, the last paragraph being upon the variety of Bells used for Hawks. There should be two, one a “semytoyn” (semitone) below the other. “The Bells of Melen (Milan?) were the best, but,” says the author, “there be now used Dutchland bells, of a town called durdright (Dordrecht), and they be passing good, sonowre (sonorous) of ringing in shrillness, and well lasting.”

The whole ends with a list of various species of Hawks and their appropriateness to the various stations of life, among which are—

An Eagle for an Emperor.

A Gerfalcon for a King.

A Peregrine for an Earl.

A Merlyon for a Lady.

A Goshawk for a Yeoman.

A Sparehawk for a Priest.

A Muskyte for “an holiwater clerke.”

The second treatise is upon Hunting, and has a short preface, which probably came, like the first, from the pen of the Schoolmaster.

The work is all in metre, and evidently intended for boys to learn by heart. It begins by telling “my dere chylde” the various kinds of beast to be hunted; the changes of name they take as they grow older; the variety of horns; how to skin and dismember; the various cries and noises to be used; the seasons of hunting various beasts.

Then follow instructions how to hunt the Hare, and what to say to the hounds, who must always be addressed in French, as “arere!” when he enters the kennel-door; “this is the first word, my son, of venery.” “Sa sa cy auaunt,” “Sweff mon amy sweff,” and other similar cries are noted down, some to be shouted twice only and some thrice, the chief cry being “So how.” The knowledge of when and how often these cries should be used was most important, as their proper use would bring “worship among all men.” Here, apparently, in the midst of one essay, another is interpolated, and we are treated to a portion of some old dialogue like “The Master of the Hunt,” in which the “Man” asks all sorts of questions and the “Master” replies. It might indeed be dubbed “The Hunter’s Catechism.” This occupies eight pages, and then we fall back upon the original rhyme again and the instructions of the Dame to “my childe,” ending with the “Explicit” of Dam Julyans Barnes. Some leaves remaining to be filled up, the moral and other sentences, as already described at page 21, were added.

Perhaps the third treatise upon Coat Armour and the Blason of Arms is the most interesting portion of the book. The quaintness of some of the explanations is very amusing, and many people will find more points of sympathy, both historical and technical, with this than with the others.

The headline, “Incipit Liber Armorum,” gives us at once the title of the manuscript from which the text was compiled. “Heraldry Run Mad” might indeed have been an appropriate title for this, as well as all similar tractates; for the author, in his anxiety to honour the science, does not scruple to take the reader back historically not to Noah only, but to Adam, whose spade, he tells us, was the first shield in Heraldry, and who was the first to bear Coat Armour. The argument, if it may so be called, is:—All “gentilnes” comes from God; there were originally in heaven ten Orders of Angels bearing Coat Armour, but now only nine, Lucifer with “mylionys of aungelis” having fallen out of heaven into hell and other places. As a bondman might say that all men come from Adam, so might Lucifer say he and his angels came from heaven.

Cain, for his wickedness, was the first churl, and all his offspring were churls also by the curse of God. Seth, on the other hand, was a gentleman by his father’s blessing; Noah, too, was a gentleman by nature, but of his three sons, “Sem, Cham, and Jafeth,” Cham, for his unfilial conduct, was made “ungentle.” The address of Noah to his three sons is curious, and is thus supplemented:—

“Of the offspring of the gentleman Japhet came Abraham, Moses Aaron, and the prophets, and also the King of the right line of Mary, of whom that gentleman Jesus was born, very God and man, after his manhood King of the land of Judah and of Jews, a gentleman by his mother Mary, and Prince of Coat Armour.”

Some say that Coat Armour began at the siege of Troy, but it was of far greater antiquity than that, and was founded upon the nine Orders of Angels, who were crowned each with a diadem of precious stones—the Topaz (truth), Smaragdus (hardihood), Amethyst (chivalry), Loys (powerful), Ruby (courageous), Sapphire (wisdom), Diamond, a black stone (durable), Carbuncle (doughty and glorious). These represent Gentleman, Squire, Knight, Baron, Lord, Earl, Marquis, Duke, and Prince. Here we probably have the origin of the shape of various crowns and coronets. Everything is treated in nines, and the nine virtues and nine vices of gentleness follow, with nine rejoicings, nine articles that every knight should keep, and nine manner of gentlemen, in which we learn that the Evangelists and Apostles were all gentlemen of the right line of that worthy conqueror, Judas Machabeus, who in course of time had fallen to labour, and so were not called gentlemen. The four doctors of the Church—St. Jerome Ambrose, Augustine, and Gregory—were also gentlemen of blood and of Coat Armour. There are nine differences of Coat Armour and nine quadrats, all of which are explained. The “Blasyng of Arms” comes next, the preface to which is by the author, and not by the printer. It begins with the varieties of the Cross as borne in arms, each being illustrated by a rude woodcut printed in its proper colours, and the blason, or technical description of each is given in Latin, French, and English. All varieties of arms follow, with the mysteries of bends, engrail, borders, chequers, balls, cakes, rings, &c., offering but little which can be quoted, but forming an interesting and useful book of reference.

CHAPTER IV.
Philology.

There is a strongly marked individuality in the spelling throughout all the treatises in this work. If the Hunting rhymes belong to Dam Julyans, their orthography, like the prose portions, is that of the Schoolmaster, who appears to have been a North-countryman, many words leading to that conclusion. The formation of the plural by adding the letters “is” or “ys” strikes the attention at once. Thus the plural of bells is bellis; egg, eggis; vetch, fetchis; fulmert, fulmertis; hawk, hawkys; herd, herdys; person, personys, and so on. The change of a y at the end of a word to an i is common, as onli, softeli, unthrefti; and for if; algate; awth for all the; bowke; chylder; clepit; clees; knaw; ken; yowre; and many others are Northern. As might be expected, many Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman words now obsolete are found, such as benymme, blynne, byzete, canell, clepit, colver, dagon, gobbit, kawe, kydde, liggen, merde, nasethrils, nym,[^[5]] raton, and many others.

[5]. In the slang of thieves to steal is to nim at this day.

The following vocabulary will show the chief words in which peculiarity of spelling or dialect are noticeable:—

alfe, half

algate, always

and, used for “if”

appillis, apples

arn, are

assone, as soon

awntelere, antler

awth, aught

awth, all the

barris, bars

beestys, beasts

beke, beak

bellis, bells

bene, be

benymme, take away

blynne, to cease

boon, bone

bodi, body

bowellis, bowels

bott, but

bottre, butter

bowke, crooked

bridde, bird

broght, brought

bysprenged, sprinkled

byzete, gain

calt, called

calde, called

cattis flesh, cat’s flesh

canell, cinnamon

callish, call (imper.)

chycon, chick

chykynnes, chickens

chooce, choice

chylder, children

clepit, called

cloos, close

communeli, commonly

commythe, cometh

cowntenansis, countenances

coluer, a dove

colode, cold

cogh, cough

contenyt, contained

cowples, couples

croampe, cramp

currage, courage

cum, cumme, come

dais, days

dagon, a piece

dayses, daisies

deeil, a portion

defawte, default

diueris, divers

dookes, ducks

doon, do

doys, does

echeon, each one

ech, each

eeg, egg

eegis, eggs

ellis, else

elis, eels

errabull, arable

eseli, easily

eueri, every

euerose, rosewater

euyn, eeuen, even

eyre, air

eygh, eyghen, eye, eyes

febulness, feebleness

fechens, stoats

faukeneris, falconers

feederis, federes, feathers

fetchis, vetches

feldis, fields

fosterys, foresters

folowys, follows

flee, flay

forder, further

forrgeet, forget

fostewt, fost

fowrith, fourth

fulmertis, polecats

gedder, gather

glayre, white of an egg

gobbit, piece

gres, grease

groyn, grown

gyde, guide

habull, able

hawkys, hawks

hawtyn, proud

hakke, hack

haare, hare

heepis, heeps

hedgis, hedges

herdys, herds

howndys, hounds

hoole, whole

hoold, holde, old

hoom, home

hudge, small

huntid, hunted

hunterys, hunters

hennys, hens

huicles oppon hir houghis

hanylon, wiles of a fox

igh, ighe, iyen, eye, eyes

ingraylyt, engrailled

inowgh, enough

ilich, alike

iren, iron

ilke, each

juse, juice

kawe, call

ken, know

knaw, knawe, know

knottis, knots

kneys, knees

kow, cow

knyue, knife

kydde, known

kyndeli, natural

kut, cut

layserly, leisurely

lew warme

leppys, leaps

leif, dear

leuer, liver

lies, lice

linne, lynne, linen

littyl, little

liggyn, lie

luke water

lyddis of the ighen, eyelids

lymayall, iron filings

looff, loaf

maake, make

mary, marrow

markeris, markers

merde, dung

medecyne, medesyn,

medlide, mingled

meele, melis, meal, meals

medill, mingle

moch, much

mony, many

mowothe, mouth

moystour, moisture

myddes, midst

mynne, mine

nasethrillis, nostrils

nares, nostrils

naamys, names

natheless, nevertheless