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
The editors have added a short Appendix, elucidating ancient hunting
customs and terms of the chase. Ancient terms of venery often baffle
every attempt of the student who is not intimately acquainted with the
French and German literature of hunting. On one occasion I appealed in
vain to Professor Max Müller and to the learned Editor of the Oxford
Dictionary. "I regret to say that I know nothing about these words,"
wrote Dr. Murray; "terms of the chase are among the most difficult of
words, and their investigation demands a great deal of philological
and antiquarian research." There is little doubt that but for this
difficulty the "Master of Game" would long ago have emerged from its
seclusion of almost five hundred years. It is hoped that our notes
will assist the reader to enjoy this hitherto neglected classic of
English sport. Singularly enough, as one is almost ashamed to have to
acknowledge, foreign students, particularly Germans, have paid far
more attention to the "Master of Game" than English students have, and
there are few manuscripts of any importance about which English
writers have made so many mistakes. This is all the more curious
considering the precise information to the contrary so easily
accessible on the shelves of the British Museum. All English writers
with a single exception (Thomas Wright) who have dealt with our book
have attributed it persistently to a wrong man and a wrong period.
This has been going on for more than a century; for it was the
learned, but by no means always accurate, Joseph Strutt who first
thrust upon the world, in his often quoted "Sports and Pastimes of the
English People," certain misleading blunders concerning our work and
its author. Blaine, coming next, adding thereto, was followed little
more than a decade later by "Cecil," author of an equally much quoted
book, "Records of the Chase." In it, when speaking of the "Master of
Game," he says that he has "no doubt that it is the production of
Edmund de Langley," thus ascribing it to the father instead of to the
son. Following "Cecil's" untrustworthy lead, Jesse, Lord Wilton, Vero
Shaw, Dalziel, Wynn, the author of the chapter on old hunting in the
Badminton Library volume on Hunting, and many other writers copied
blindly these mistakes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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