70 THE BANDOG OR MASTIFF. 



a rule, and unfortunately seldom think of soliciting the 

 opinion of qualified judges when they make any canine dis- 

 covery. 



While until the last few years the majority of dog fanciers 

 were too ignorant and coarse in their tastes to have any 

 regard for such investigation, the educated and thoughtful 

 however, would wish to raise the tone of the fancy, and cause 

 the antiquarian and learned to appreciate the defined points 

 of the various breeds ; while practical, experienced breeders 

 know the value of ascertaining knowledge of old ancestrial 

 types, which are very fixed and hard to eliminate, unless 

 purposely suppressed in a systematic way. 



In the Priory Church of Little Dunmow, in Essex, there 

 was, and probably still is, the figure of a dog, couched at the 

 feet on the tomb of the fair Matilda, the supposed Maid 

 Marian of Robin Hood, and daughter of Robert, 2nd Earl 

 Fitz Walter. This mural tomb, made in the i3th century, 

 was shielded by a dark screen of oak, believed to be coeval 

 with the building which formed merely a southern portion of 

 the Collegiate Church founded by Raef Baynard. The tomb 

 itself is figured in Cough's Sepulchral Monuments. 



Of the mastiff during the Saxon times, there is next to no 

 record, beyond their terse barbarian name for the breed, that 

 of "bandog," evidently bestowed on account of the use they 

 found the mastiff put to in this country. 



There is no mention of this breed in the Forest Laws of 

 Canute, which, when we examine the clauses having reference 

 to dogs, we may easily understand, as owing to the bandog or 

 mastiff being kept perpetually on the chain as a watchdog, 

 they were not at all liable to molest the king's deer, or other 



