10 



THE PRACTICAL FISHERMAN. 



More nearly approaching our own times, it would appear that the 

 ancient Britons and their successors, the Anglo-Saxons, were not very 

 accomplished in the capture of fish either for food or sport. Thus Bede 

 tells of the people of Sussex that " The Bishop (Wilfrid) when he came 

 into this province, and found so great a misery of famine, taught them 

 to get their food by fishing. Their sea and rivers abounded in fish, yet 

 the people had no skill to take them, except only eels. The bishop's men 

 having gathered eel nets everywhere, cast them into the sea, and by the 

 help of God took three hundred fishes of several sorts, the which, being 

 divided into three parts, they gave a hundred to the poor, a hundred to 

 those of whom they had the nets, and kept a hundred for their own use.' ' 



In the interim, between this period and the publishing of the first book 

 on fishing (commonly known as the " dark ages," albeit not nearly so 

 black as has been painted), there is evidence that the people became 

 much more educated in the ways of fishes and, presumably, also in the 

 ways of taking them. The remains of monastic institutions indicate the 

 existence of a species of fish culture which is hardly surpassed by the 

 fish culture of to-day. At Stanton Harcourt, for example, there are still 

 to be seen, according to Mr. Francis Francis, dried up stews of such 

 fashion as to demonstrate at once their former uses. " No doubt," he 

 says, " many a noble tench, fat carp, and luscious eel, made rich and 

 savoury by all the varied recipes of monastic cookery, humbled the 

 bereaved stomachs and mortified the flesh of abbot and friar and 

 reverend prior at Stanton Harcourt in days gone by." 



As if to lend countenance to the supposition that the monks were the 

 chief anglers in Britain during its early history, we find that the first 

 book printed in this land on the subject was by the Prioress of St. Albans, 

 Juliana Barnes, or Berners. Indeed, it may also claim to be amongst 

 the first books printed in England, for not ten years after Caxton printed 

 his first book Wynkyn de Worde published the so-called "Book of St. 

 Albans." This first appeared in the world in 1486, and contained 

 treatises on various other sports ; but that with which we are at present 

 concerned began thus : " Here begynnyth the treaty se of fysshyne wyth 

 an angle." The directions therein given are very primitive, but were 

 probably sufficient for the fish in these times. This book went through 

 eleven editions, combined with the other treatises before mentioned. 

 Thereafter followed during the succeeding century no book on the gentle 

 craft of which we have any record. Leonard Mascall certainly brought 

 out a book in 1590 "which contains but little improvement on the 

 Book of St. Albans." In 1651 Barker's quaint "Art of Angling" 

 appeared, and may be said to have laid the foundation of all future angling, 

 it containing much practical observation and not a few hints of real value 



