CHAPTER I.Authorship.

Historians and Biographers, together with Librarians and Booksellers, have a natural antipathy to anonymous books; and, wherever they can, are willing to accept the smallest amount of evidence as proof of paternity. It saves much trouble and avoids numerous errors in cataloguing, when a recognised name can be associated with an anonymous work. From this tendency a bad habit has arisen of attributing to particular writers books concerning which the evidence of authorship is doubtful, if not altogether untrustworthy.

In this very book we have a striking instance of such erroneous attribution. The three treatises, of which the book is made up, are quite distinct, and to a portion only of one of these is there any author’s name attached. Yet that name, “Dam Julyans Barnes,” altered by degrees to “Dame Juliana Berners,” is now universally received as the name of the authoress of the whole volume. With even less show of reason she is credited with the authorship of a “Treatise on Fishing” for which there is not the shadow of evidence, that treatise having been added ten years later by Wynken de Worde, who, when reprinting the Book of St. Albans, thought that the subject of Fishing would complete the work as a Gentleman’s Vade Mecum.

There are really four distinct tractates in the Book of St. Albans, although the two last being on Heraldry are generally counted as one.

The first is on Hawking; to this no name of the author is attached, but it has a prologue which no one acquainted with the other writings of the printer can doubt to be his. Of this we shall have more to say anon.

The second tractate is on Hunting: it is specially associated with the name of Dame Juliana Berners, and will require a more extended elucidation than the others.

Here the evidence of authorship is as good as for most pieces of fifteenth-century production—a period at which literary rights did not exist, and when the scribe, if at all acquainted with the subject upon which the book he was copying treated, did not scruple to interpolate his own ideas, and that without any egotistical vanity, but merely from a feeling that all books being written for the good of men, and not from vanity in the author, it was a duty to improve them where possible. But as improvement mostly meant the addition of something on the same subject taken from another manuscript, we have the constant occurrence of one MS. being a compilation of two or three others, and yet appearing under the name of the last compiler.

In this treatise on Hunting we have the express statement at the end of the twenty-fourth page—“Explicit Dam Julyans Barnes.” This might certainly apply to the transcription only, but, when taken with Wynken de Worde’s version, the probability is, that the lady compiled as well as wrote it. In the reprint by Wynken de Worde, only ten years later than the original, he varies the colophon thus:—“¶ Explicit dame Julyans Bernes doctryne in her boke of huntynge,” the whole reprint ending “Enprynted at westmestre by Wynkyn the Worde the yere of thyncarnacōn of our lorde. M . CCCC . lxxxxvj.” So that he, a contemporary, evidently believed her to be the authoress. Later authorities attributed the whole book to her pen, but as they were in possession of no more evidence than we now are, and probably not so much, we should attach no weight to such statements, which were founded simply on a vivid imagination.

But what is known of the lady who is admitted to have compiled the twenty-four pages on Hunting? Who was Dame Julians Barnes? Here, unless a sentimental and inventive sympathy be employed to throw an artificial light upon the darkness, we are in total ignorance. A biography of her has certainly been written, and all our Dictionaries and Encyclopædias devote a page or two to her history, which, in 1810, under Haslewood’s nurture, attained its full development. Even so far back as 1549, or nearly a century after her supposed death, the learned Bale, who wrote an account of all our English celebrities, allows his gallantry to bedeck her memory with garments fine. “Fœmina illustris!” he exclaims, “corporis et animi dotibus abundans ac forma elegantia spectabilis” (An illustrious lady! abundantly gifted, both in body and mind, and charming in the elegance of her mien). Considering that the name of the lady is the whole of the text upon which Bale had to build, this is by no means a bad specimen of imaginative biography, and became a good foundation for future commentators. The story, however, fared rather badly at first; for Holinshed, in 1577, while echoing Bale very exactly, is made, by a curious error of the printer, who mistook the lettersrnform, to call the authoress Julyan Bemes; while Baker in his Chronicles, too careless even to refer to the original text, adds another blunder to the story, and, thinking that Julyan must be a man’s name, dubs the authoress “a gentleman of excellent gifts, who wrote certain treatises of Hawking and Hunting.”

Chauncy, in 1700 (History of Hertfordshire), restored her sex to the lady, and then set to work upon making a family history for her. His first discovery was that, being a “Dame,” she was of noble blood. Finding also that the family name of Lord Berners was, in olden time, spelt occasionally Barnes, he soon supplied a father for our authoress, in the person of Sir James Berners. And so the game of making history went on merrily up to the time of Joseph Haslewood, who, in 1810, reprinted Wynken de Worde’sedition of the Book of St. Albans, and supplied a full-blown biography of the authoress, giving particulars of her birth and education, the occupations of her youthful days, and a most imposing pedigree. Let us quote Haslewood’s own words: “Julyans, or Juliana, Barnes, otherwise Berners, who has been generally designated as the authoress of the present volume, is supposed to have been born, towards the latter end of the fourteenth century, at Roding-Berners, in the county of Essex. The received report is that she was the daughter of Sir James Berners, whose son was created Baron Berners, temp. Henry IV., and that she once held the situation of Prioress of Sopwell Nunnery, in Hertfordshire.” He then attributes to her the authorship of all four works in the Book of St. Albans. The difficulty of accounting for a lady so placed writing upon such subjects, is cleverly, if not satisfactorily settled by assuming that she passed her teens at court, partaking of the amusements of the field, and writing for her own use a commonplace book on various subjects. Then retiring through disappointment (doubtless a love affair) to a cloister, her rank raised her to the position of prioress. There in her seclusion, writing amidst the solitude of listless hours and vain regrets, she versified the general rules of sport from her own pleasant recollection, and from the diaries of her youthful happiness, which fortunately she had preserved. If we remember the mania which seized all classes for diary-keeping at the beginning of this century, when Haslewood wrote this, it will deepen our sense of humour to note that he attributes private diary-keeping to a young lady who livedante1450.

But enough of such sham biography; let us return to facts.

The word “Dame” did not in the fifteenth century, as it does now, imply any connection with a titled family, it meant simply Mistress or Mrs. Chaucer speaks of Dame Partlet in this sense; and had the Dame Julyans Barnes of the fifteenth century lived now, she would have been just “Mrs. Barnes.”

Similarity of name in history, like similarity of sound in philologyis a will-o’-the-wisp which has led many a writer into a bog. Allowing that Lord Berners’ name was sometimes spelt Barnes, is that sufficient reason for making our authoress a member of his family? I think not.

That the greater portion of the book on Hunting was compiled by Mistress Barnes, is probably correct,[1]and had she written much more, and produced even an original work on the subject, she would not have stood alone, even at that early period, as an authoress. Crystine de Pisan, two of whose works were printed by Caxton, was contemporary with Julians Barnes, and left not only numerous original writings behind her—one of which was upon the Art of War—but left her mark, and that no mean nor ignoble one, upon the political course and moral development of her countrymen. But Dame Julyans’ work upon Hunting is certainly not original, as indeed very few works upon any subject were at that period. This is evident from a glance at the text and the grouping of the subjects. It begins with distinguishing the varieties of beasts and their ages; the proper names by which to designate the beasts, singly and together; on hunting and dressing a Roe, a Boar, a Hare; of flaying; of the horns of a Roebuck; of the Hart; of the seasons; of the Hare. Then follows, from another source, an interpolation of a discourse between a Master of the Hunt and his man, going over portions of the same ground again; and this ended, we get back again to the original MS. and the dismemberment of various beasts. All through, with the exception of the interpolated conversation, the text is addressed to “My deare childe.” Thus we read—“Do so, my child;” “Think what I say, my son;” “My lief childer;” “Say, child, where you go? my dame taught you so.” Evidently that portion was originally written for a mother to useas a school-book, by which her son would learn to read, and, at the same time, become familiar with the terms of venery.

1. Taking Berners and Barnes to be the same word, it is curious to note—in connection with the work attributed to Dame Juliana, viz., The Book of Hunting—that the masters of that sport employed men calledBerners, to be ready with relays of horses and to feed the hounds.—SeeHalliwell’s “Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words.”

In the Bodleian Library is a small manuscript on the Terms of the Chase, the beginning of which is:—

“Mi dere sones, where ye fare, be frith or by fell,Take good hede in his tyme how Tristram wol tell.”

“Mi dere sones, where ye fare, be frith or by fell,

Take good hede in his tyme how Tristram wol tell.”

This manuscript was probably copied by some youth as a school-exercise, which would account for the following odd colophon—“Explicit, expliceat, ludere scriptor eat.”

Compare the above with the opening stanza of the verses we attribute to Mistress Barnes:—

“Wheresoever ye fare, by frith or by fell,[2]My dear child, take heed how Tristram doth you tell.”[3]

“Wheresoever ye fare, by frith or by fell,[2]

My dear child, take heed how Tristram doth you tell.”[3]

2. “By frith or by fell” = by forest or by plain; but see Halliwell’s Dictionary.

3. Sir Tristram, the well-known knight of the Round Table, was a mighty hunter, and the great authority upon all subjects connected with the chase. Popular belief attributed to him the origin of all the special terms used in hunting, and his name was invoked to give authority to any statement upon this subject, just as in a later century the arithmetical rules of Cocker give rise to the popular phrase—“According to Cocker.”

The rest of the Oxford MS. is in similar accord with the print, but nowhere in it is there a word about Mistress Barnes.

The words “Explicit Dam Julyans Barnes” have been considered to prove that the lady was alive when the book was printed. If, however, Sir James Berners were her father, of which there is no evidence, she must have been close upon a hundred years old in 1486, as he died in 1390. But this is importing a needless difficulty into the theory, which is not rendered more probable by making the authoress and printer contemporary.

It may here be as well to say a few words about Sopwell Nunnery, over which, without a particle of evidence, our authoress is supposed to have presided. Sopwell Nunnery, Hertfordshire, was founded about 1140, under the rule of St. Benedict, and subject to the Abbot of St. Albans, from which it was not fardistant. The rule of life among the inmates was very severe, and at the first the nuns were enclosed under locks and bolts, made additionally sure by the seal, on the door, of the Abbot for the time being (Chauncy’s History, p. 466). How long this lasted, and how the nuns liked it, history saith not; but, in 1338, a re-organisation had become imperative, and the Abbot of St. Albans, among other instructions, ordered that no nun should lodge out of the house, and no guest within it (Newcome, p. 468). There does not seem much scope left here for the Prioress to take an active part in field sports, though a hundred and fifty years later, which was about the period of our “Dame,” many relaxations of the strict rules may have become common. But, then, we have apparently accurate lists of all the Prioresses of Sopwell in the fifteenth century, and the name of Juliana Barnes does not appear at all in them. The known dates are these:—In 1416, Matilda de Flamstede was Prioress. Four years before her death, which was in 1430, she was succeeded by Letitia Wyttenham. The next whose name is known was Joan Chapell; the date of her appointment is not recorded, but as she was set aside in 1480 on account of her age, she had probably occupied the position for many years. In 1480, Elizabeth Webb succeeded Joan Chapell.

What is really known of the Dame is almost nothing, and may be summed up in the following few words. She probably lived at the beginning of the fifteenth century, and she possibly compiled from existing MSS. some rhymes on Hunting.

There is still the authorship of the other parts of the book to determine, and if similarity of wording and phraseology may be taken as evidence, they were all from one pen.

At the end of the book on Heraldry the printer has put the following—“Here endeth the book of Blasing of Arms translated and compiled together at Seynt Albons.” Here we have the printer’s own statement as to the origin of his text, and doubtless this, as well as the treatise on Hawking, were made up or “compiled” from morethan one manuscript in French. Haslewood gives a list of such as are in the British Museum, in several of which portions of the printed work are contained. Works on Hunting and Hawking were not uncommon in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and are still found in all large collections of manuscripts. There were several in the libraries of the Dukes of Burgundy in the fifteenth century, and many are still extant in the national collections of England and France.

The other tractates in the volume have an origin very similar to that of the Book of Hunting. The Book of Hawking is an evident compilation from several manuscripts, which accounts perhaps for its deficiency in arrangement and want of continuity. The Book of Coat Armour also has two distinct sources in contemporary works, one of which was the “De Officio Militari” of Nicholas Upton. From this the schoolmaster copied Book IV. almost word for word, supplementing it from “The Book of the Lineage of Coat Armour,” as stated already. The only other literary work which can be attributed to our printer is the extensive compilation known as the St. Albans’ Chronicle or the Fructus Temporum. But neither in the Chronicle, where he simply combined two histories into one, nor in the Book of St. Albans, which is also a compilation, does the schoolmaster show any literary ability above the average of scholars of his period.

As specimens of the schoolmaster’s powers of composition we annex the following, the originals of which can be seen in the ensuing facsimile pages:—

“In so much that gentlemen and honest persons have great delight in Hawking, and desire to have the manner to take hawks: and also how and in what wise they should guide them ordinately: and to know the gentle terms in communing of their hawks: and to understand their sicknesses and infirmities, and to know medicines for them according, and the many notable terms that be used in hawkingboth of their hawks and of the fowls that their hawks shall slay. Therefore this book following in a due form shows very knowledge of such pleasure to gentlemen and persons disposed to see it.”

“Likewise, as in the Book of Hawking aforesaid are written and noted the terms of pleasure belonging to gentlemen having delight therein, in the same manner this book following showeth to such gentle persons the manner of Hunting for all manner of beasts, whether they be beasts of Venery, or of Chace, or Rascal. And also it showeth all the terms convenient as well to the hounds as to the beasts aforesaid. And in certain there be many diverse of them as it is declared in the book following.”

“Here in this book following is determined the lineage of Coat Armours: and how gentlemen shall be known from ungentle men, and how bondage began first in angel and after succeeded in man kind, as it is here showed in process, both in the childer of Adam and also of Noe, and how Noe divided the world in three parts to his three sons. Also there be showed the nine colours in Arms figured by the nine orders of Angels, and it is showed by the foresaid colours which be worthy and which be royal; and of regalities which be noble and which be excellent. And there be here the vertues of Chivalry, and many other notable and famous things, to the pleasure of noble persons shall be showed, as the works following witnesses, whosoever liketh to see them and read them, which were too long now to rehearse. And after these notable things aforesaid followeth the Blasing of all manner Arms in Latin, French, and English.”

So wrote the schoolmaster. Let us now see what kind of book this is typographically.

Fleuron

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