APPENDIX 225 



licence granted by the sovereign. Those who had ex- 

 tensive property of their own and had permission to erect 

 a fence could, of course, keep deer on it, but this did not 

 enable them to enjoy the sport of real wild deer hunting, 

 or La chasse Royale as the French called it. 



The stag was one of the five beasts of venery, and 

 was, according to the ancient French regulations, a beast 

 of the sweet foot, although in the list of beasts of sweet 

 and stinking foot given in the " Boke of St. Albans " the 

 hart is included in neither category [see Appendix : 

 Fewte). 



One of the first essentials for a huntsman in the Middle 

 Ages was to learn to know the different signs of a stag 

 (according to German venery there were seventy-two 

 signs), so as to be able to "judge well." These signs 

 were those of the slot, the gait, the fraying-post, the rack 

 or entry (i.e. the place where the stag entered covert), 

 and the fumes. By recognising differences in these signs 

 made by a young stag, a hind, and a warrantable stag, he 

 was enabled to find out where the latter was harbouring, 

 and by the slot and gait he could recognise when the 

 chased stag was approaching his end. 



There were many things that the huntsman of old 

 had to learn regarding the stag before he could be con- 

 sidered as more than an apprentice — for instance, how to 

 speak of a hart in terms of venery. The terms used 

 were considered of the greatest importance, even to the 

 manner in which the colour of the stag was spoken of, 

 brown, yellow, or dun being the only permissible terms 

 to distinguish the shade of colour. Special terms are 

 given for every kind of head, or antlers, a stag might bear. 



The huntsman spoke of the stag's blenches and ruses 

 when alluding to the tricks of a deer when trying to rid 

 himself of the hounds, of his doubling and rusing to and fro 

 upon himself when he retraced his steps, of his beating up 

 the river when he swam up-stream, and of foiling down, 

 when he went down-stream, or of going to soil when he 

 stood in water. When the deer lay down he was quat, 



P 



