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.