THE OLDEST BOOK ON FISHING 223 



Confessor. Earlier still, namely, in the tenth 

 century, Archbishop ^Ifric's Colloquy, designed to 

 teach the Anglo-Saxon scholars Latin, includes a 

 dialogue between a scholar and a falconer, which 

 gives some curious details of hawking as practised 

 in Anglo-Saxon times. Thus, in regard to hunt- 

 ing and hawking, the literature of both subjects 

 commenced much earlier than that of fishing, and 

 on all three subjects treatises had been written long 

 before the Book of St Albans was printed. The 

 earliest printed book in any language on hawking. 

 Das Erste Buck, appeared at Augsburg in black 

 letter about 1472. 



The question remains, what is the earliest known 

 book on angling? Most people will be under the 

 impression that the answer must be the Book of St 

 Albans, but it is important to note that the treatise 

 on fishing formed no part of the first edition, and 

 therefore Dame Juliana Berners could have had no 

 hand in it, either as author or compiler. 



What are the facts ? In i486 the Boke was first 

 printed at St Albans by one whose name has not 

 come down to us, but who is described as "some- 

 time schoolmaster at St Albans." It is evidently 

 a school book, designed for the instruction of 

 youth in the accomplishments of the period, in 

 which, as he tells us, "gentylmen and honeste 

 persones have grete delyte." The lessons it 

 contains, and the language in which they are 

 conveyed, adapted to the intelligence of youth, 

 show that they were intended to be taught by a 

 school-dame, in all probability by the wife of the 



