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has engraven, in his History of Lancashire, those of the Canadian stag ; by which, I suppose, he meant the elk, whose horns, however, are palmated; and thence too, with his usual sagacity, he inferred the universality of a Deluge. As if an indigenous animal, extinct in his time, could not have died in a Lancashire bog. 2N2 276 HISTORY OF WHALLEY. [Boon III. CHAP. IV. duced by the Forest Laws, and is still continued in uninclosed manors or chaces ; but the one did not want and the other disdained to accept the closer protection of a park ; for it is scarcely possible to impound an animal which can bound almost twenty feet perpen- dicular. 1 The roe and hare, therefore, were necessarily left to take their chance for life together in the forest or in the field. But an animal like the former, bringing forth once a year, and at most two at a birth, did little more than provide for a succession of its species against the contingence of natural death, in a secure and protected state. Placed, there- fore, out of that protection, it could only have subsisted, at least in populous districts, by means of a quality which it did not possess, namely, sagacity added to swiftness ; while the other, by producing three or sometimes four together, perhaps too by the singular property of superfoetation, 2 multiplies much faster; and by the acuteness of its hearing, and the rotundity of its eye, together with its habits of vigilance and universal caution, though otherwise helpless in itself, and very partially protected by man, preserves its species undiminished in the midst of enemies. The bulk of the roe, too, which ren- dered it a better mark and more difficult to be concealed, was another unfavourable circumstance.
in consequence of having been made property, and partly by its own instinctive habit of subterraneous concealment.
of which, though it is become the most numerous of the whole genus, the great ornament of our parks and forests, and even yet the second luxury of our tables, the history is very obscure : this is the common fallow deer ; with respect to which, it is really extraordinary that so accurate and well-informed a zoologist as Mr. Pennant 3 should acquiesce in the common opinion that the spotted kind were brought from Bengal and the brown from Norway to Scotland by James I. at the time of his marriage. This opinion must of course bring down the introduction of the first variety to a later period than the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope ; whereas the species was unquestionably found in England two centuries before. I will now state what has occurred to me upon the subject, not as being at all satisfactory, but in order to invite a more accurate investigation.
Thopas, and is probably not long anterior to his time, we find merely this enumeration of 1 In Leland's time the roe remained in the marches of Wales ; at present it is found in no part of the island, but in the highlands of Scotland; and at Blair, in Athol, where the breed most abounds, it is seen indiscriminately within the park and without, passing and re-passing the pales at pleasure.
to the French naturalist in exactness of observation and philosophical incredulity. Instances of extra-uterine con- ception, which may possibly have led to the other opinion, are certainly observed in hares. See Plot's Hist, of Staffordshire, p. 253. 3 History of Quadrupeds, vol. i. p. 35, &c. BOOK III. CHAP. IV.] FORESTS. 277 forest-beasts, harte and hynde, and other like ; but in the romance of St. Degore, which is supposed by Mr. Warton * to be contemporary with the former, jFot to f)imt for a tow or a io. This may be referred to the end of Edward II. or beginning of his son's reign. A little after, we find the following passage in the romance of Hippomedon. 2 tort!) tis fftountiis tfjoo, Drriii ftotone liotfir Uut; ant: Boo. And again, tfic ante of tfje dFomst, anti J^nto, 33ufe an* Boo. WAETON, J/isf. o/ Eng. Poetry, i. 199. While Caxton was printing the Golden Legend he had a present from William Lord Arundel, of a buck in summer and a doe in winter. And about the same time they are mentioned by dame Juliana Berners in the passage quoted above.
Forest seems to prove them not indigenous in England, yet the Saxon Bucholt occasions a little hesitation ; still, the word may either be derived from bucken, beech-trees, or, which is more probable, may denominate the deer genus universally. If, however, the buck and doe be not indigenous, from what country and at what period between the time of Canute and that of Edward II. or III. they were introduced, I am yet to be informed. Can any evidence be adduced to prove that they were imported by the later crusaders from the East ? If our hierozoicon be accurate, the fallow deer was known in Judea as early as the time of Solomon, 1 Kings iv. 23. 3
consisted of the otter, the badger, the weasel, and, in Leland's time, of the beaver also. To these ought to be added (if the name were not unworthy of him) , another beautiful and harmless forester, the squirrel ; and a sixth, well entitled to the appellation, who, if his courage had been in any degree comparable to his strength, activity, and fierceness, would have been a formidable animal indeed : this is that shy and treacherous native of the woods, the wild cat, of which our common household cat is a diminutive and degenerate variety ; who, with all the habits of domestication, retains every propensity of savage life : fawning, yet irascible ; alternately indolent and indefatigable, vigilant and sluggish ;
romances, the manners are contemporary with the writers, and purely English. Thus, too, Shakespeare's Theseus is a mere English sportsman. Midsummer Night's Dream.
deer ; as Jerom, who must have been well acquainted with the animals of the country where he lived, renders the former Pygargus.
278
HISTORY OF WHALLEY.
[BOOK III. CHAP. IV. voracious, though patient of abstinence ; fond of warmth, yet capable of enduring all the extremities of cold ; cunning, but almost altogether indocile ; and thievish, when pampered to the utmost. The wild boar, which appears to have existed in England during the reign of Canute, is to be referred partly to the present class and partly to the following. 2d. The next tribe, which disappears before the skill or courage of man, are the larger animals of prey, of which the wolf, 1 as it attacks the more valuable domestic animals, and sometimes man himself, will not long be endured after the invention of fire arms, except where his retreats are nearly inaccessible. His congener the fox now exists in England, either by connivance or contempt : for, were this paltry animal once to be abandoned by sportsmen, or were he, instead of confining himself to petty larcenies in the hen-roost, or on the common, now and then to seize an infant, the species would not be permitted to remain for twelve months. But, as we descend in the scale of predatory animals, their extinction becomes propor- tionably difficult : their fecundity and diminutive size, together with the nature of their haunts, near to themselves and inaccessible to man, enabling them to defy the vanquisher of nobler beasts, and to carry on their petty but teazing and innumerable depredations without a possibility of redress.
the forests, we are next to consider such as were forbidden. These were four : the goose, the hog, the sheep, and the goat. For the first of these prohibitions, which would probably not be executed with rigour, I know no reason, unless there be something in the scream or dung of that uncleanly aud vociferous fowl particularly offensive to deer ; of the second, the reason is obvious, as hogs would have made too free with mast and acorns ; the third must have resulted from observing a circumstance, which I have often attended to, but never heard remarked, namely, a visible aversion between deer and sheep ; deer will attach themselves to cows, and goats to horses ; but nature seems to have implanted a mutual antipathy in the two other tribes, for the purpose of preventing unnatural commixtures between animals not sufficiently remote from one another in size, to hinder that evil with- out a strong repulsive instinct. 1 Dr. Cams acquiesced in the vulgar opinion of the extinction of wolves in England by Edgar. " Regnavit," says he, " Edganis circ. A.D. 959, a quo tempore non legimus nativum in Anglia visum lupum." I have already affirmed, that they certainly existed among us to a much lower period, and will now produce the latest positive evidence I have met with upon the subject. The [Cistercian] abbey of Fors, in Wensleydale, was founded A.D. 1145; that is, nearly two centuries after the reign of Edgar ; and some time after, Alan, Earl of Bretagne, gave to the monks of that abbey the flesh of wild animals, killed by wolves, in the forest of Wensleydale. These men must have been both stout and vigilant to make the gift of any value; but the grant ascertains a curious and important fact in English zoology. Vide Burton's Monast. Ebor. under Fors Abbey [p. 571.] [Si vero fratres ipsi, vel aliqui suorum servientium camera alicujus ferae in mea foresta invenirent, cum Dei benedictione illam accipiant, fera; dico qua; luporum morsu peremp- tarentur. Mon. Angl. V. 569. See also in Eymer the later royal commission issued in 1281 to Peter Corbet for taking wolves in the five counties of Gloucester, Worcester, Hereford, Salop, and Stafford.]
BOOK III. CHAP. IV.] FORESTS. 279
The reason why the goat was included in these prohibitions is very obvious, as he must have been a capital offender against vert and greneheu. 1 Another tribe of animals was partially forbidden within the forests, from a very different motive. In the varieties of the dog, Providence seems to have raised up a faithful and necessary ally to man in his warfare or intercourse with other quadrupeds. In this alliance he was too formidable to be overlooked by the jealousy of a forest legislator. Accordingly we find that,
lutely prohibited within the verge of the forests. 2d. The mastiff, 2 a stout but not an active dog, was allowed to be kept, when incapa- citated for mischief by one of the two following operations, either genucission, sometimes termed boxing, which was the more ancient practice, 3 or expeditation, otherwise called lawiug, 4 that is, striking off three toes of the fore feet, which is still in use. 5 3d. By the Constitutions of Canute, it was lawful to keep the velter or langeran, 6 and the ramhundt, 7 by the former of which I understand the terrier, and by the latter the 1 Manwood, p. 238. 2 The etymology of this word has never been made out. Mamvood says, (Forest Laws, c. 1C,) in the old British speech, meaning, I suppose, old English, they do call him Mase-thefe. This is childish, besides that, in old English, the word would have been not Mase, but Mate, as ex. gr. a great wooden tower, which Kichard I. raised against the Saracens, was called Mate griffon . Dr. Caius, the learned author of that scarce little work De Canibus Briiannicis, is not much more happy, as he derives the words a maste sagina, cst enim crassum genus cam/in et bcne saginatum cate- narium hoc; on which I have only to observe, that, if the mastiff had nothing better to feast upon than mast, he would not long be genus crassum et bene saginatum. What follows will, I think, lead to the same origin of the word : scio Augustinum Niphum Mastinum (mastivum nostri vacant) pecuarium existimarc et Albcrtum, Lyciscum, ex cane et lupo gentium. This leads me to suspect both the name and the breed to be Spanish, for in that language the word Mestino really signifies the lyciscus, or wolf-dog ; but the word mestizo, a mongrel, is, I believe, the genuine parent of mastiff. This was Junius's conjecture (in voce mastiff), and is strikingly confirmed by the manner in which it is pronounced by the common people in Lancashire, i. e. not mastiff but mastiss. 3 Or hocksinewing. Henry II. introduced the modern practice of lawing. Assiz. Woodstock, art. G. 4 Orhambling. Hence the vulgar word hample, to limp. 6 In Bowland expeditation is not governed by the species, but by the size of the dog an iron ring being kept as a gauge, through which every foot that will pass escapes the operation. . 6 In these constitutions almost all the Danish words which the translator has retained are corrupted. I would read, therefore, instead of Langeran, which is nonsense, Lanjpun or Longsnout, from jpun ; in the Lancashire dialect groon or groin, a sharp snout. I meet with the word also in old Scottish poetry.
sive with the generic term dog itself. Of this Dr. Caius admonishes his friend Gesner: "Hounde a vocabulo vestrati hunde, quod canem in universum apud vos significat." I will just beg leave to add, that in the time of Caius, whose book De Canibus Britannicis was first published A.D. 1570, three species of hybrid animals were common in England, of which two are now rare, and the last I think unknown. 1st. The lyciscus or mungrel between the dog and the wolf. 2d. The lacena, bred between the dog and the fox. 3d. The vrcanus, between the dog and the bear. Of the existence of this last I should have doubted, had not Dr. Caius, a man of integrity and science, declared that it abounded in his time.
280 HISTORY OF WHALLEY. [Boon III. CHAP. IV.
animals of chace and venery from their attacks. 4th. No prohibition whatever is laid upon the keeping of staghounds, either because it was supposed that no one would dare to attack the King's deer openly, and with whole packs of dogs ; or because, certain privileges to kill deer having been granted to peers, bishops, &c. on their way to and from parliament, it would be understood that whatever was not included in these indulgences was prohibited of course. 1
administration of the forests. In the privileges of a forest were contained all the subordinate rights belonging to chaces, parks, and warrens, as omne majus contitiet in se minus." In strictness of law none but the King could have a forest, for no subject could grant a commission to hold a court of justice seat; but there are exceptions to this rule, as will appear below.
and attachment, with foresters, vcrdurers, regarders, and agisters ; a chace was entitled to keepers and woodwards only.
which all hunting was strictly forbidden, the hinds being then either big with young, or having just calved.
month, in order that no disturbance might be given to the hinds, does, or fawns ; and, 2dly, about Holyrood day, when the agisters began to take in cattle. 3 At these times all who had common right upon the forest came to the pounds, where a roll of the gaits they were entitled to was kept, surchargers fined, and foreigners who had cattle straying within the limits amerced, or sometimes the beasts forfeited. No forester was permitted to arrest an offender against vert or venison, unless he were taken with the manour, which 1 he might be in the four following situations, viz. Stable-stand, Dogdraw, Back-bear, Bloody -hand.
even dignified ecclesiastics, were accompanied on their journeys. " Now," says the accurate observer and bitter satirist of his contemporary clergy, Piers Plowman,
An heape of houndes at his ... . as he a lorde were. And we are told that AD. 1216, an archdeacon of Eichmond, on his visitation, came to the priory of Bridlington with ninety-seven horses, twenty-one dogs, and three hawks. (Dugdale's Monasticon, vol. ii. p. 65.) It is well known that, upon the death of a bishop, his kennel of hounds was due, at common law, as a mortuary to the King. Archbishop Cranmer was an excellent horseman, and fond of hunting. One of his successors, Archbishop Juxon, was probably the last prelate in England who kept a pack of hounds : but there was an Irish prelate of later times, T[wisdeu] Bishop of K[aphoe, 1747-55] a little man, but mighty hunter, whose example in this respect, as well as others, probably has been monitory to his brethren in that kingdom, and who closed a life of indecorum and irregu- larity in a manner more horrid than was ever openly told. 2 Manwood, p. 52. s ibid. p. 235. BOOK III. CHAP. IV.] FORESTS. 281
Stable-stand, when a man was found with a long bow, or cross bow bent, or standing with greyhounds in his leash, ready to let them slip. Dogdraw, when a man had already wounded a deer, and was found drawing after him with an hound or other dog, to recover him in his flight. Back-bear, when actually carrying off a deer which he had killed. And Bloody-hand, when a man was found coursing, or returning from coursing, within the forest, in a suspicious manner, with his hands embrewed in blood. All these were to be arrested and committed to prison, where they were to await the court of justice seat, unless delivered by the King's especial command. Verdurers were judicial officers sworn to keep the assizes of the forest, and to receive and enrol all presentment of trespasses against vert and venison. 1 The verdurer was also a kind of coroner, who, with ludicrous solemnity, held an inquisition super visum corporis, over the slain deer. The regarder was to view and inquire of similar trespasses. Foresters were sworn to preserve the vert and venison, to attend the wild beasts, to attach and present offenders. These were of two kinds, 1st. ordinary foresters, holding their offices during pleasure, though under the great seal ; or, 2dly, 2 foresters of fee, who held the office to them and their heirs, paying a fee farm to the King. These were the real efficient guardians of the forests, and they had under them inferior servants, called underkeepers or walkers. Next to the foresters ranked the bedels of the forest, whose office was merely to execute processes, and to make garnishments of the courts of Swainmote and Attachment. The lowest officer in this catalogue was the woodward, to whom belonged only the care of wood and vert, an object then deemed of no importance, excepting as it regarded the accommodation of the deer.
bow, which belonged to his superiors. To enliven this dry detail, we will now conclude with a beautiful portrait, drawn by Chaucer, of an ancient forester, in the person of the Squire's Yeoman, of which the cos- tume is most exact.
A shefe of peacock arwes bright and kene Under his belt he bare ful thriftily, Wei coude he dresse his takel yemanly : His arwes drouped not with fethres lowe. And in his hond he bare a mighty bowe ; A not-hed hadde he with a boune visage Of wood-crafte coude he wel alle the usage. 1 Manwood, c. 21. 2 This explains the term in the old ballad of Adam Bell, &o. And forty forsters of the fee These out-laws had yslaw. Percy's Ancient Songs, vol. i. p. 179. VOL. I. 2 O 282
HISTORY OF WHALLEY.
[Boon III. CHAP. IV Upon his arm he bare a gaie bracer, And by his side a swerd and a bokeler, And on that other side a gaie daggere, Harneised wel-and sharpe as point of spere : A Cristofre on his breste of silver shene, A home he bare, the baudrik was of grene, A Forster was he sothely, as I gesse. Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. We will now return from this long digression. To the Honor of Clitheroe appertained a very extensive and wild domain, which was divided into the forests of Blackburnshire and Bowland, 1 as the former was subdivided into those of Pendle, Trawden, Accrington, and Rossendale ; and, after the marriage of Alice de Lacy with Thomas Earl of Lancaster, all were included in the common descrip- tion of foresta de Lancaster.
before it came united to the crown, " For," saith Manwood, " the Earl of Lancaster, in the time of Edward II. and III. had a forest in the counties of Lancaster and York, in the which he did execute the forest laws as largely as ever King of this realm did ; and, even at this day, there are no records so much followed as those that were executed by the said Earl in his forests." Forest Laws, p. 72. Those of Blackburnshire and Bowland were high and barren tracts, rejected at the first distribution of property, when townships were planted, and commons mered out in the Yüklə 4,81 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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