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RECREATIONS 617
mentions hunting as a suitable occupation ofthe nobility and
Edward the Confessor, according to his biographer, spent
much time among the forests and woodlands in the pleasures
of the chase. With the Norman kings it became almost a
passion.
The forest [wrote Richard Fitz Neal in the Dialogue of the Exchequer (c. 1 1 79)]
is the
sanctuary and special delight of kings where, laying aside their cares,
they withdraw to refresh themselves with a little hunting; there, away from
the turmoils inherent in a court, they breathe the pleasure of natural freedom.
Some two centuries later hunting is described as 'to every gentle
heart most disportful of all games* (PL 135*). It was con/
ducted under prescribed and elaborate rules. A literature ofthe
sport soon grew up in which the habits ofthe different kinds of
game, how each should be hunted, and the breeding and train/
ing of hounds, is carefully described. The earliest treatise, Le
art de Venerie, was written in French by Twici or Twety, hunts/
man to Edward II, and published a century later in English;
but a more detailed one, The Master of Game, was produced
about 1406 by Edward, second duke of York, who held the
office ofMaster ofGame under Henry IV and was killed at the
battle of Agincourt. Though the greater part ofthis is merely an
English translation, with some interpolations, of the famous
book of Gaston de Foix (or Gaston Phoebus as he is generally
called) the friend of Froissart, the concluding chapters are
original and no doubt drawn from the author's personal know/
ledge. Here he describes the tracking down and starting the
quarry with the hound on a leash (the timer), the uncoupling
ofthe hounds ofthe pack (de mota), the pursuit with the appro/
priate hunting cries and blowing of horns, the death, the dis/
tribution of game, and finally the hunt supper where the
hunters
drink not ale, and nothing but wine that night for the good and great labour
they have had for the lord's game and disport . . . and that they may the
more merrily and gladly tell what each of them has done all the day and
which hounds have best run and boldest.
Two varieties of hounds were commonly used in the chase,
greyhounds (leporarii) which hunted by sight and running