THE MASTIFF IN HENRY VTH's REIGN. 87 



The book of St. Albans contains the earliest printed 

 instance I know of the term mastiff, which is spelt " mastif," 

 and being from the pen of a well-educated person, goes a 

 long way to prove that it would be more correct to spell the 

 word with a single f. 



Shakespeare uses the word mastiff on several occasions, 

 example in Henry vth, acl iii. scene 7. I have not exam- 

 ined any early editions of Shakespeare, thus cannot state the 

 general spelling of the word. 



The learned English antiquary, Sir Henry Spelman, who 

 was knighted by James ist, uses the term mastivus, and the 

 same form is used in " The Laweing of Dogs." 



Man wood in his work on the Forest Laws states that the 

 mastiff derives its name from the Saxon masc the fcse or 

 thief- frightener, but with all respect to Manwood, 1 think he 

 has jumped at an ingenius conclusion, for we find no mention 

 of the mastiff under that name in the Saxon Forest Laws, or 

 any other work, and I have never met or heard of the word 

 mastivus in any author previous to the Norman Conquest, 

 being seemingly little more than a latinized form of the 

 French word massif (masculine) massive (fern.) the theme of 

 winch is mas, a lump or mass. 



It is very probable that when the Britons emigrated to the 

 provinces of Brittany in France, they took some of their 

 mastiffs with them, and therefore the breed would be well 

 known to the Norman Conqueror and his followers, whose 

 love of hunting the larger game, would naturally recommend 

 the mastiff to them. From the Anglicised translation of the 

 Norman- Latin mastivus, we get masty, a thick-set fellow, 

 also a mastiff, (as example in the two maids of Moreclake, 



