The propensity of the clergy to follow the secular pastimes, and especially those of hunting and hawking, is frequently reprobated by the poets and moralists of the former times. Chaucer, in his Canterbury Tales, makes the monk much better skilled in riding and hunting, than in divinity. The same poet, afterwards, in the Ploughman's Tale, takes occasion to accuse the monks of pride, because they rode on coursers like knights, having their hawks and hounds with them. In the same tale he severely reproaches the priests for their dissolute manners, saying, that many of them thought more upon hunting with their dogs, and blowing the horn, than of the service they owed to God. [146]
The prevalence of these excesses occasioned the restrictions, contained in an edict established in the thirteenth year of Richard II. which prohibits any priest, or other clerk, not possessed of a benefice to the yearly amount of ten pounds, from keeping a greyhound, or any other dog for the purpose of hunting; neither might they use ferrits, hayes, nets, hare-pipes, cords, or other engines to take or destroy the deer, hares, or rabbits, under the penalty of one year's imprisonment. [147] The dignified clergy were not affected by this statute, but retained their ancient privileges, which appear to have been very extensive. By the game laws of Canute the Dane they were permitted to hunt in the forests belonging to the crown; and these prerogatives were not abrogated by the Normans. Henry II., displeased at the power and ambition of the ecclesiastics, endeavoured to render these grants of none effect; not by publicly annulling them, but by putting in force the canon law, which strictly forbade the clergy to spend their time in hunting and hawking: and for this purpose, having obtained permission from Hugo Pertroleonis, the Pope's legate, he caused a law to be made, authorising him to convene the offenders before the secular judges, and there to punish them. [148] The establishment of this edict was probably more to show his power, than really to restrain them from hunting.
X.—HUNTING AND HAWKING IN THE MIDDLE AGES BY BISHOPS, &c.
The bishops and abbots of the middle ages hunted with great state, having a large train of retainers and servants; and some of them are recorded for their skill in this fashionable pursuit. Walter bishop of Rochester, who lived in the thirteenth century, was an excellent hunter, and so fond of the sport, that at the age of fourscore he made hunting his sole employment, to the total neglect of the duties of his office. [149] In the succeeding century an abbot of Leicester surpassed all the sportsmen of the time in the art of hare hunting; [150] and even when these dignitaries were travelling from place to place, upon affairs of business, they usually had both hounds and hawks in their train. Fitzstephen assures us, that Thomas à Becket, being sent as ambassador from Henry II. to the court of France, assumed the state of a secular potentate; and took with him dogs and hawks of various sorts, such as were used by kings and princes. [151]
The clergy of rank, at all times, had the privilege of hunting in their own parks and inclosures; and therefore, that they might not be prevented from following this favourite pastime, they took care to have such receptacles for game belonging to their priories. At the time of the Reformation, the see of Norwich, only, was in the possession of no less than thirteen parks, well stocked with deer and other animals for the chase. [152] At the end of a book of Homilies in MS., in the Cotton Library, [153] written about the reign of Henry VI., is a poem containing instructions to priests in general, and requiring them, among other things, not to engage in "hawkynge, huntynge, and dawnsynge."
XI—HUNTING AND HAWKING BY LADIES.
The ladies often accompanied the gentlemen in hunting parties; upon these occasions it was usual to draw the game into a small compass by means of inclosures, and temporary stands were made for them to be spectators of the sport; though in many instances they joined in it, and shot at the animals as they passed by them, with arrows. Agreeable to these manners, which custom reconciled to the fair sex, most of the heroines of romance are said to be fond of the sports of the field. In an old poem entitled the "Squyer of lowe degre," [154] the king of Hungary promises his daughter that in the morning she shall go with him on a hunting party, arrayed most gorgeously and riding in a chariot covered with red velvet, drawn by
Jennettes of Spayne that ben so white,
Trapped to the ground with velvet bright.
In the field, says he, the game shall be inclosed with nets, and you placed at a stand so conveniently that the harts and the hinds shall come close to you—