242 APPENDIX 



The " Master of Game " says the menées should be 

 sounded on the return of the huntsman at the hall or 

 cellar door (p. 179). There was a curious old custom 

 which occasioned the blowing of the horn in West- 

 minster Abbey. Two mêmes were blown at the high 

 altar of the Abbey on the delivery there of eight 

 fallow deer which Henry III. had by charter granted 

 as a yearly gift to the Abbot of Westminster and his 

 successors. 



METYNGE, here evidently means meating or feed- 

 ing. As the " Master of Game " says : " or pasturing " 

 as if the two words were synonymous, as metinge also was 

 Mid. Eng. for measure, it might have been a deer of " high 

 measure and pasturing." But anyhow the two were 

 practically identical, for as Twici says : " Harts which 

 are of good pasture. For the head grows according to 

 the pasture ; good or otherwise." See below : Meute. 



MEUTE had several meanings in Old French venery. 



1. The "Master of Game" translated G. de F.'s 

 "grant cerf" as a hart of high feeding or pasture. But 

 he omitted to render the following passage : " Et s'il est de 

 bonne meute, allons le laisser courre.''^ The " bonne meute " 

 is not translated by " high meating." It was an expres- 

 sion in use to indicate whether the stag was in good 

 company or not. If a warrantable stag was accom- 

 panied by one or two large stags he was termed " IJn 

 cerf de bonne mute " (or meute), but if hinds and young 

 stags (rascal) were with him he was designated as a ^^ cerf 

 de mauvaise mute.''"' In Roy Modus we read : " La 

 première est de savoir s'il est de bonne mute^ 



Perhaps meute when used in this sense was derived 

 from the old Norman word moeta, ma'eta, from mot, meet, 

 come together. There was also an Old Eng. word metta 

 or gemetta, companion. 



2. Meute was also used in another sense which is 

 translated by the " Master of Game " as haunts, probably 



