4 ANGLING 



from barbarism to refinement and knowledge. Pliny 

 wrote on fish ; and Ausonius, between the third and 

 fourth century, expatiates with rapture on the abundance 

 of fine salmon that were caught in the " blue Moselle," 

 a river in France, that flows into the Rhine on the 

 northern frontier of the country. The old chroniclers 

 and scholastic writers often mention the piscatory art ; 

 and the Church, then in full power, took the subject of 

 fish generally under its own guidance, and regulated 

 both the sport in taking them and the using of them 

 for food. In every country in Europe where any 

 degree of progress had been made in learning and 

 civilisation during the Middle Ages, we find numerous 

 traces of fishermen and their labours, even long before 

 the art of printing became known and practised. 



It is now an established fact, admitted by all writers, 

 that the English nation has been, from the earliest days 

 of its history, the most distinguished and zealous pro- 

 pagators of the art of rod-fishing. And it is interesting 

 to remark, in passing, that the historical memorials we 

 possess, of the state of the angling art among the Anglo- 

 Saxon tribes who first settled in this country, throw a 

 great light on the origin of this striking predilection for 

 the sport. The Anglo-Saxons, we are told, ate various 

 kinds of fish, but the eel was a decided favourite. They 

 used these fish as abundantly as swine. Grants and 

 charters are sometimes regulated by payments made in 

 these fish. Four thousand eels were a yearly present 

 from the monks of Eamsay to those of Peterborotigh. 

 We read of two places purchased for twenty-one pounds, 

 wherein sixteen thousand of these fish were caught 

 every year ; and, in one charter, twenty fishermen are 

 stated, who furnished, during the same period, sixty 

 thousand eels to the monastery. Eel dykes are often 

 mentioned in the boundaries of their lands.^ 



In the dialogues of Elfric, composed for the use of the 



Anglo-Saxon youth in the learning of the Latin tongue, 



we find frequent mention made of fishermen, and matters 



relating to their craft. In one dialogue the fisherman 



'Dugdale's Monas. p. 244. 



