140 Appendix B 



were visited in the journey of Lionel and his train; and that 

 three of the outstandint,^ characters*' of the finest alaunts were 

 included by Chaucer in his description — their bigness, their 

 whiteness, and the fierceness which required that they should be 

 kept muzzled ; it seems most reasonable to suppose that he was 

 present when the six alaunts were delivered over to Lionel, per- 

 haps for his use in the chase, or perhaps to be employed in war. 



*' Such as Chaucer could hardly have gleaned from books, seeing that 

 we have no right to assume that he was acquainted with Spanish, that 

 Gaston de Foix's treatise was not even begun till 1387, and that The 

 Master of Game was not composed until after Chaucer's death. There 

 remains the possibility that he might have learned of the alaunts from 

 Froissart, who must have seen them on the journey, and again on his 

 visit to Gaston de Foix at Orthez in 1388; but there is a directness in 

 Chaucer's description which seems to point to personal observation. 



