EOYAL IIAWKIXG. 177 



liunting, that even when engaged in war with France, 

 and resident in that country, he had with him in his army 

 sixty couples of stag hounds and as many hare hounds, 

 and thirty falconers to take care of his hawks, and every 

 day he amused himself with hunting or hawking. It 

 also appears from Froissart that many of the great lords 

 in the English army had their hounds and hawks as well 

 as the king.* 



Tlie indulgence of these pursuits at that time was 

 destructive to the fortunes of many young noLlemen and 

 gentlemen, from a desire of emulating those establish- 

 ments of theu- superiors in fortune. The propensity of 

 the clergy to follow the secular pastimes, 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 prevalence 

 of these excesses occasioned the restrictions contained in 

 an edict in the reign of Eichard II. which prohibits any 

 priest not possessed of a benefice of the yearly amount 

 of 10/. from keeping a greyhound, or any other dog, for 

 the purpose of hunting. The dignified clergy were not 

 effected by this statute, but preserved their ancient 

 privileges, which appear to have been very extensive 

 Walter, Bishop of Eochester, who lived in the 13th 

 century, was an excellent hunter and haw^ker, and so 

 fond of the sport that, at the age of fourscore, he made 

 hunting his sole employment, to the total neglect of the 



* A curious tenure, by which Bertram cle Criol held the manor of 

 Sotene, or Seaton, in Kent, from Edward I., was to provide a man 

 called Veltarius, a hunting man, to lead the greyhoimds when the king 

 went to Gascony, so long as a pair of shoes valued at fourpence shoidd 

 last him. 



