54 INTRODUCTION 



two Greek words formed the so-called Gnostic formula and 

 occur frequently on amulets, etc. The Geoponika adds 

 immediately, " this name the Ichthyophagi use." 



About the fourteenth century a poem entitled De Vctula, 

 attributed to R. de Fournival, got translated or imitated by 

 Jean Lefevre. The fishing portion (68 lines) awakes our 

 interest, as it shows that " more than six hundred years ago, 

 and probably two hundred years before the date of The Boke 

 of St. Albans, most of the modern modes of fishing were 

 practised ; for instance, the worm, the fly, the torch and 

 spear, the night line, the eel-basket and fork," etc. 



This quotation from West wood and Satchell might cause 

 a casual reader to suppose that (a) from De Vetula, written 

 only some two centuries before The Boke of St. Albans, we 

 gain our first information " of these modes of fishing," and 

 (^) that these were " modern," whereas Oppian had described 

 them all, some thirteen hundred years before The Boke of 

 St. Albans saw Ught. 



With the exception of de Fournival and the elusive MS. of 

 Dom Pichon, ^ which (written about 1420 but only rediscovered 

 about 1853) probably stamps this monk as the first to practise 

 artificial hatching, the Continent produced practically nothing 

 till the appearance at Antwerp in 1492 of the first printed 

 original book on Fishing, which as regards printing precedes 

 The Boke of St. Albans. 



This Httle Flemish work by an unknown author contains 

 twenty-six chapters of a few lines, gives recipes for artificial 

 baits, unguents, and pastes, and in the last two pages notes 

 the periods when certain fish eat best. As its title sets out, it 

 teaches " how one may catch birds and fish with one's hands, 

 and also otherwise." 2 



books. Ultimately we get back to Cassius Dionysiiis of Utica, who translated 

 the Carthaginian Maze's work on agriculture (88 b.c). 



^ See infra, p. 291. 



* The date of 1492 is suggested by Mr. Alfred Denison, who translated 

 and issued privately twenty-five copies of Dit Boecxken leert hoe men much 

 voghelen vanghen metten handen. Ende oeck andersins. From the press of 

 Mathys Van der Goes. The marriage of Madame Van der Goes to Godfridus 

 Bach, whose printer's mark also appears in the book, seems to point to 1492. 

 See, however, M. F. A. G. Campbell, Annates de la Typographie Neerlandaise 

 au xve sikcle (La Haye, 1874), p. 80, and Bibl. Pise, pp. 35, 36. 



