The Master of Game: The Oldest English Book on HuntingEdward, of Norwich
History
The Master of Game: The Oldest English Book on Hunting
Edward, of Norwich
Hunting -- Early works to 1800
All stags not chaseable, such as young or lean stags and hinds, were
classed as folly or rascal.
A young stag accompanying an old one was called his squire (F.
_escuyer_).
Hinds also were called by different names from the first to the third
year, but the "Master of Game" does not give these, nor do any of the
earliest works. Manwood, Blome, and Cox give the following terms:
first year, a calf; second year, a Hearse or brocket's sister; third
year and ever after, a hind. A somewhat similar term was employed in
France to denote a young stag between six months and a year old.
_Haire_, also spelt _her_ (G. de Champgrand Baudrillard), and
_Harpaille_, was the term for a herd of young stags and hinds.
_Hart's Age._--The fable that a stag can live a hundred years which
the "Master of Game" repeats (p. 34) after G. de F. was not of the
latter's invention, but one that had been current for many centuries
before their day.
HORNS.--When the "Master of Game" was written hunting horns were the
curved primitive shape of those made from the horns of animals, and
most of them probably were still made of the horns of cattle, while
those used by the richer gentry and nobles were fashioned from some
rarer animals' trophy, such as the ibex, or carved of ivory, and some
were made of precious metal. But whether of simple horn, ivory, or of
wood, they were decorated with gold or silver ferrules, rings, and
mouthpieces, and some being provided with a stopper, could be
converted into drinking horns. Unfortunately the "Master of Game" does
not tell us the material of which horns should be made. He simply says
how they should "be dryve." They were to be two spans long (1 ft. 6
in.), slightly curved so that both ends were raised from three to four
fingers' breadth above the centre; the larger end or the bell was to
be as wide as possible, and the mouthpiece not too small. It was waxed
thickly or thinly, whichever the huntsman thought produced the best
sound. What effect the wax had can scarcely be judged, but it was
evidently considered an improvement, as it is stated that for
foresters "mene hornes and unwexid" are good enough for them. Besides
the hunter's horn five different kinds of horns are mentioned in our
MS.--the bugle, great abbots, ruets, small foresters, and mean horns.
The bugle was not the trumpet we now understand by that name, but a
simple curved horn, most probably deriving its name from the bugle, as
the wild ox was called; although Dryden says from the German word
_bugel_, a curve or bend. Ruets may have been the name for a much
curved or almost circular horn, from French _rouette_, small wheel.
The mean horns were probably the medium-sized, shrill-sounding horns
made out of wood or bark, known as _ménuels_, _menuiaux_, _moienel_,
_menuier_, &c. (Perc. 27,166 and 27,140).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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