A.D. 1441.
The first author, of any note, on this subject is Doctor Nicholas Upton, a native of Devonshire, who was honoured with the patronage of Humphrey, “the good” Duke of Gloucester, temp. Henry IV, by whose influence he became canon of Sarum, Wells, and St. Paul’s. Previously to obtaining these preferments he had served in the French wars under Thomas de Montacute, earl of Salisbury; and it was during those campaigns he wrote a Latin treatise, entitled ‘De Studio Militari,’ MS. copies of which are preserved in the College of Arms, and elsewhere.[282] It consists of five books; viz. 1, Of officers of Arms; 2, Of Veterans, now styled Heralds; 3, Of Duels; 4, Of Colours; 5, Of Figures; forming altogether a systematic grammar of Heraldry. The latinity of Upton is considered very classical for the age in which he flourished.
One of the earliest treatises on Heraldry, as well as one of the first productions of the press in this country, is contained in the highly-celebrated Boke of St. Albans, printed within the precincts of the monastery from which it is designated, in the year 1486. This singular work contains tracts on hawking, hunting, and ‘coot-armuris’—the last constituting the greater portion of the volume. It is printed in a type resembling the text-hand written at the period, and with all the abbreviations employed in manuscript. The margin contains exemplifications of the arms described in the text, stained with coloured inks. This edition, like others of that early date, is now exceedingly scarce, there being probably not more than five or six copies extant. Another edition was published in 1496 by Wm. Copeland, and a single copy occurs of the same date with the imprint of Wynkyn de Worde: these were probably of the same impression with different title-pages. A new edition appeared in 1550; and another was included in Gervase Markham’s ‘Gentleman’s Academie,’ in 1595.[283] The entire work was attributed, for the first three centuries after its publication, to Dame Julyan Berners,[284] prioress of Sopewell, and sister of Richard, Lord Berners, a woman of great personal and mental endowments.[285] That a woman, and especially the superior of a religious sisterhood, should have devoted her pen to the secular subjects of heraldry and field-sports, at first sight, seems singular; but the rude complexion of the times in which she lived renders little apology necessary for this apparent violation of propriety; and we may fairly venerate the memory of this gentle lady as a promoter of English literature. Dallaway is the first, and, as far as I am aware, with the exception of Mr. Haslewood, the only author who questions the pretensions of Dame Juliana to the authorship of the whole work; and he founds his doubts upon the difference observable between the style of the heraldric essay and the previous ones. He considers the former as the work of some anonymous monk of St. Albans. But as several almost contemporary authors ascribe it to her, and there is no positive proof to the contrary, far be from me that want of gallantry which would despoil the worthy prioress of the honour of having indited this goodly tractate, this ‘nobull werke!’[286]
If the reader has never seen the Boke of Saint Albans, and feels only half as much curiosity to become acquainted with its contents as I did before I had the good fortune to meet with it, I am sure he will not consider the following choice bits of Old English, extracted from it, impertinently introduced.
Dame Julyan Berners merits honourable notice as one of the earliest of English poetesses. The treatise on hunting is in rhyme, and consists of 606 verses. The style is didactic. Take a specimen:
“Bestys of venery.
“Whersoever ye fall by fryth or by fell,
My dere chylde take heed how Tristrom dooth you tell,
How many maner beestys of venery ther were,
Lysten to your dame and then schall you lere,
Ffour maner beestys of venery there are;
The first of them is the hert—the secunde is the hare,
The boore is oon of them—the woolff and not oon moe.”
“How ye schal break an hert.
“Then take out the suet that it be not lefte,
For that my child is good for lechecrafte (medicine),
And in the myddest of the herte a boon shall ye fynde,
Loke ye geve hit to a lord—and chylde be kynde.
For it is kynd for many maladies.”
In subsequent parts of the poem, ‘the namys of diverse maner houndys,’ ‘the propertees of a good hors,’ ‘the company of bestys and fowles,’ and other sporting subjects are discussed, and interspersed with proverbs of a somewhat caustic description. The composition very oddly concludes with an enumeration of “all the shyeris and the bishopryckes of the realme of England.”
From the heraldrical portion of the Boke many short extracts have already been given. Some others follow:
“Note here well who shall gyue cotarmures:
“Ther shall none of the IV. orduris of regalite bot all onli the soueregne kyng geue cootarmur. for that is to hym improperid by lawe of armys.[287] And yit the kyng shall nott make a knyght with owte a cootarmure byfore.