THE RABBIT OR CONY 187 



casually by Edward, second Duke of York (1406-1413, see above, 

 p. 179, under Terminology); and in many of the great feasts of the 

 period, from the Coronation of Henry IV. in 1399, to the stalling of the 

 Archbishop of Canterbury in 1443 (see Harl. MSS., 2yg, written about 

 A.D. 1430-1440; and 4016, about A.D. 1450), both "conyngges" and 

 " rabettys " (or similar forms), have a place in the bill of fare. They 

 were clearly distinguished, and often appear as separate courses of the 

 same feast, and conies at least were evidently so important that a 

 special expression was used for carving them, carvers being instructed 

 to "Unlace that cony" {Babees Book, Early Eng. Text Soc, 265). 

 By 1465 they may well have become as abundant as they are now, 

 since no less than four thousand " conyes " appear on the bill of fare 

 at the grand feast given at the installation of " George Nevill, Arch- 

 bishop of York, and Chancelour of Englande" (Leland, Collectanea, 

 vol. vi., 2, etc.). In i486 rabbits and conies are mentioned in The Boke 

 of St Albans. 



In the first half of the sixteenth century, one dozen " rabbet ronners '' 

 were sold for 2s. {Household Ord., 333), and in 1530 the price was 5d. a 

 couple in Yorkshire (Clarke and Roebuck). It seems, however, to have 

 risen again soon afterwards, in agreement with that of other com- 

 modities, being 4d. each in 1550 (Rogers, op. cit., iii., 191); and Cocks 

 has sent me an extract from the diary of his collateral ancestor, 

 Thomas Cocks of Canterbury, dated 9th November 1610, "for a 

 rabett gd." Before that date the fame of their numbers in this country 

 must have been widespread, for Gesner (1551), describes their immense 

 abundance {copia ingens cuniculorum) in the same paragraph as that in 

 which he treats of Spanish rabbits ; and he comments on the fact that, 

 although restricted in Spain to hilly and rocky places, in England 

 they delighted in woods and groves, in fact in open country. 



Both rabbits and conies are more than once mentioned by Shake- 

 speare, who died in 1616 : — E.g., " parsley to stuff a rabbit" {Taming of 

 the Shrew, IV., iv.) ; " Like a rabbit on a spit " {Love's Labour s Lost, III., 

 i.); and "earth-delving conies'' ( F^w?^^ ««(f ^(afew/j, but see also above, 

 p. 180) ; and early in the seventeenth century they had attained a position 

 of value and profit, as well expressed by Reyce in 1618 {The Breviary of 

 Suffolk, td. Hervey, 1902, 35): — "Of the harmlesse Conies, which do 

 delight naturally to make their aboad here, . . . their great increase, 

 with rich profitt for all good house keepers, hath made every one of any 

 reckoning to prepare fitt harbour for them, with great welcome and 

 entertainment, from whence it proceeds that there are so many 

 warrens here in every place, which do furnish the next marketts, and 

 are carried to London with noe little reckoning, from whence it is 

 that there is none who deeme their houses well seated, who have nott 

 to the same belonging a comon wealth of Conies, neither can hee 



