The Bulldog 389 



wilde and tame swyne out of medowes, pastures, glebelands and places 

 planted with fruite, to bayte and take the bull by the eare, when occasion 

 so requireth. One dogge or two at the uttermoste, sufficient for that purpose, 

 be the bull never so monsterous, never so fearce, never so furious, never 

 so stearne, never so untamable." 



As it is unnecessary to repeat with every dog which has branched from 

 the mastiff group the ancient history of the parent stock, that will be given 

 in connection with the mastiff as being the most appropriate place, and as 

 in the case of the smooth sheep dog, we will now only give what is essential 

 to the history of the bulldog, or the dog that was used to bait the bull. In 

 the "Master of Game," by Edward, the second Duke of York, which is 

 almost entirely a translation of Gaston de Foix's "Livre de Chasse," and 

 was written about 1406-1413, he introduces an interpolation of his own 

 in the description of the dogs called "alauntes," which were the progenitors 

 of the mastiffs of England; the statement being that the alaunt of the butcher 

 was good for baiting the bull. And this is repeated with regard to the 

 alauntes in general. The Duke of York also inserts in the description of 

 the kind that butchers kept "that bin called greet bochers houndis." That 

 the name of "alauntz," as the noble writer more frequently spelled the 

 word, was on the change is seen by his using the new name of mastiff: 

 "And when men lat soche mestifis renne at the boor." 



In one of Gaston de Foix's illustrations of wild-boar hunting the 

 alaunt is shown catching the boar by the ear, and that is the way Caius 

 says the bull was caught by the ear when baited. As bull baiting is claimed 

 to have been instituted in the twelfth century, it was purely an English 

 sport, for the bulldog of Spain, which is given under the title of alano in 

 the standard Spanish dictionary of two hundred years ago, is, upon the 

 authority of an old author, described as a large, high-couraged dog, used 

 in bull fights to pull the bulls down by hanging to their ears. 



When the later mode of attack by the nose hold came into vogue is 

 not susceptible of proof, but Jesse quotes a description, written in 1694, 

 which shows it was the custom at that period. Only a very large dog 

 could hold a bull by the ear, and these alauntes look more like our Danes 

 than anything else, so that they could manage to reach and to hold the bull 

 in that way. Doubtless some smaller, courageous dog pinned a bull by 

 the nose; and when it was seen that the small dog could do what it took 

 the large ones to accomplish by the ear hold, the new hold was taught to 



