Royal MS 17 D IV

'THE MAISTER OF GAME': the treatise on hunting by Edward, 2nd Duke of York (1402-1415). The order of the chapters and the headings correspond with 17 B. XLI, but at the end is the Latin colophon :-

'Ardula (sic) lucra labor pariens non est honorosus. Dulcia sepi (sic) graui sub pondere munera crescunt'.

This occurs also in the Ellesmere MS. (see Baillie- Grohman's ed., 1904, p. 242). After this are added in the same hand two chapters, viz. :-(a) 'How the hunter shal blow after the cawse requireth', beg. 'First when thou goest to the feld thou shalt strake'. It has but little in common with the corresponding chapter in the 1556 ed. of Hawking, Hunting, and Fishing, with the true measures of Blowing (London, Edward Allde, sig. g. iii). f. 86;-(b) 'Here ben the names of all maner of hawkes, and to whom and to what maner of men they longe to', including also notes on their diseases. The first part of this is almost identical with the concluding chapter of the hawking section of the so-called Book of St. Albans, 1486. A variant form is in Harley MS. 2340, f. 50. Beg. 'Ther is an egle, a vawetur and a melown'. Some additions have been made in a 16th cent. hand. f. 87.

On the fly-leaf (f. 91 b) are some scribbled proverbs, &c., in Latin, including a riddle, 'O. sine p. timet l., nisi p. preuenerit aut c. p: dormit, venit l., rapit o., fugit l., sequitur c.' [ovis, pastor, lupus, canis].

Vellum; ff. 91. 101/4 in. x 7 in. Latter half of XV cent. Gatherings of 8 leaves (last 4), lettered (except first and last). Ff. 68, 69 are misbound and should follow ff. 65, 71 respectively. Sec. fol. in table 'how a man' ; in text, 'begynne'. Initials flourished in red and blue. On f. 91 b is a 16th cent. owner's name 'Richarde Brennynge is the possessor of thys booke'; also ' anno 1557. H. B.' Not in the old catalogues.