EARLY FLY FISHING IN FRANCE. 51 



mark for forgers of the Middle Ages. It ap- 

 pears to have obtained some credence, for it was 

 printed several times, the last as late as the 

 second half of the seventeenth century; but 

 modern scholarship had no difficulty in 

 demolishing it. Its authorship has now been 

 traced. It is the work of one Eichard de 

 Fournival, Chancellor of the Cathedral of 

 Amiens and author of poems which won some 

 estimation in their day. A French version of 

 the Vetula was produced in the fourteenth cen- 

 tury by Jean Lefevre, Procureur au Parlement 

 in the reign of Charles V. of France. This 

 work, called La Vieille, written in rhyming 

 couplets, is a jumble of medieval reflections on 

 life, medieval manners and medieval amuse- 

 ments, a symbol of that strange epoch in the 

 mind of mai\. But it contains something of 

 value. Against a background which is half 

 childish, half superstitious, and wholly porno- 

 graphic, there are good descriptions of contem- 

 porary pursuits and customs. Music, chess, 

 games and sport are described, fishing in- 

 cluded. There is an excellent account of cur- 

 rent methods of fishing; spears, nets and eel 

 baskets are depicted : trout, carp, pike, chub, 

 barbel, bream and roach are mentioned and so 

 are lines, floats, plummets and hooks : and there 

 occur the following lines. The spurious Ovid 

 is speaking, as he speaks throughout : 



D'autres engins assez avoie, 

 Par lesquelz decevoir povoie 



