spelt in early documents with many variations—eirere, heyreres, heyrer, hayrers. A hound which is described in modern dictionaries as "resembling a foxhound but smaller, used for hare-hunting" (Murray). This explanation would not have been a correct one for our harriers of the fourteenth century, for as far as we can gather they were used to hunt all kinds of game and by no means only the hare. They were evidently a smaller kind of running hound, for as our MS. says, there are some small and some large running hounds, "and the small are called Kenettis (or small dogs—see Kenet), and these hounds run well to all manner of game and they that serve for all game men call them heirers" (p. III). And in chapter 36 we see that heyrers were used to hunt up the deer in the forest, the herthounds and greyhounds meanwhile being held in leash till a warrantable deer was on foot, or till "the heyrer have well run and well made the rascal void" (made the smaller deer clear out of that part of the forest) (p. 191). Then the herthounds were to be uncoupled where the most likely "ligging is for an hert, and seek." The herthounds then put up the wary old stag and hunted him till he came to the tryst where the King would be with his long bow or cross-bow, or till the hert was pulled down by them or the greyhounds which had been slipped at him.
In the chapter on hare-hunting in our MS. the word harrier does not occur; only hounds, greyhounds, and raches are mentioned. So when Henry IV. paid for "La garde de nos chiens appelez hayrers" (Privy Seal, 20 Aug. 9th Henry, 1408, No. 5874), or Henry V. for the "Custodiam Canum nostrum vocatorum hayreres" (Rot. Pat. I Henry V. 1413), it was not because they were especially addicted to hare-hunting, but because they kept these useful hounds to "harry" game.
In 1407 we find one Hugh Malgrave "servienti venatori' vocat' hayters p' c'vo (cervo), which we may accept as another proof that their office was to hunt the stag. The Duke of York also repeatedly says that "heirers" run at all game (see pp. III, 196, 197). In 1423 Hugh Malgrave still held the "office of the hayrers" by grant from Henry IV. In the curious legal Latin of the thirteenth century, we find the word canes heirettes, and heyrettor (Wardrobe Accounts, 34 Ed. I.).
There are a great number of early records which show us that these hounds were used then for hunting red and fallow deer, sometimes in conjunction with greyhounds and sometimes without their aid.
Harriers were sometimes taken with buckhounds on hunting expeditions as well as with greyhounds. In some of the documents harriers are simply alluded to as canes currentes. As they were not a distinct breed, but were included under the designation "raches," or running hounds, a separate chapter is not given to them in our text, and neither Twici nor the Dame of St. Albans mentions these hounds. Gradually we find the spelling, although presenting still countless variations, bringing the a more constantly than the e; the "heirers" become hayrers, hareres, hariers, and after the sixteenth century harriers. It is also probable that the word was originally derived from the Anglo-Saxon Hergian, herian, to harry, to disturb, to worry; O. Fr. harrier, herrier, herier, to harry; F. hare and harer, to set a dog on to attack. The harrier, in fact, was a dog to "hare" the game. Although now obsolete, we find this word used late in the seventeenth century.
"Let the hounds kill the fox themselves and worry and hare him as much as they please" (Cox, "Gent. Rec.," p. 110). It is also in the sixteenth century that one comes across the first allusions to their use in hunting the hare.
It is not necessary to dwell here at length upon the great esteem in which the hart was held by all devotees to sport in Europe during the Middle Ages. It was royal game, and belonged to the Prince or ruler of the country, and the chase was their prerogative. Few unconnected with the court were ever able to enjoy the chase of the stag unless in attendance on or by special licence granted by the sovereign. Those who had extensive property of their own and had permission to erect a fence could, of course, keep deer on it, but this did not enable them to enjoy the sport of real wild deer hunting, or La chasse Royale as the French called it.
The stag was one of the five beasts of venery, and was, according to the ancient French regulations, a beast of the sweet foot, although in the list of beasts of sweet and stinking foot given in the "Boke of St. Albans" the hart is included in neither category (see Appendix: Fewte).
One of the first essentials for a huntsman in the Middle Ages was to learn to know the different signs of a stag (according to German venery there were seventy-two signs), so as to be able to "judge well." These signs were those of the slot, the gait, the fraying-post, the rack or entry (i.e. the place where the stag entered covert), and the fumes. By recognising differences in these signs made by a young stag, a hind, and a warrantable stag, he was enabled to find out where the latter was harbouring, and by the slot and gait he could recognise when the chased stag was approaching his end.
There were many things that the huntsman of old had to learn regarding the stag before he could be considered as more than an apprentice—for instance, how to speak of a hart in terms of venery. The terms used were considered of the greatest importance, even to the manner in which the colour of the stag was spoken of, brown, yellow, or dun being the only permissible terms to distinguish the shade of colour. Special terms are given for every kind of head, or antlers, a stag might bear.