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A Treatyse of Fysshynge wyth an Angle, by Dame Juliana Berners

_COMPANION VOLUME TO THE “TREATYSE OF FYSSHYNGE WYTH AN ANGLE.”_

In the Press, and shortly will be Published, uniform with “The Treatyse of Fysshynge wyth an Angle,”

_A FACSIMILE OF_

THE BOOK OF SAINT ALBANS,

BY DAME JULIANA BERNERS.

CONTAINING THE

_TREATISES ON HAWKING, HUNTING, AND HERALDRY_.

PRINTED AT ST. ALBANS BY THE SCHOOLMASTER-PRINTER IN 1486.

_With an Introduction by_ WILLIAM BLADES, _Author of the “Life and Typography of Caxton.”_

This _facsimile_ is faithfully reproduced by photography; it is being printed on rough hand-made paper similar to that of the original, and will be bound in handsome contemporary binding. The interest and value of this reproduction will be greatly enhanced by Mr. BLADES’ Preface, which treats at length, in separate chapters, of the AUTHORSHIP, TYPOGRAPHY, BIBLIOGRAPHY, SUBJECT-MATTER, and PHILOLOGY of the Work.

As THE BOOK OF SAINT ALBANS is the Work in which THE TREATYSE OF FYSSHYNGE WYTH AN ANGLE was incorporated on its first publication, its possession by the Subscribers to the latter should be secured, in order to complete the set of “dyuerse bokys concernynge to gentyll and noble men.”

A full Prospectus concerning the publication of “The Book of Saint Albans” will be sent on application to

ELLIOT STOCK, 62 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON, E.C.

A Treatyse of Fysshynge wyth an Angle.

A TREATYSE OF FYSSHYNGE WYTH AN ANGLE

BY

DAME JULIANA BERNERS:

BEING A _FACSIMILE_ REPRODUCTION OF THE FIRST BOOK ON THE SUBJECT OF FISHING PRINTED IN ENGLAND BY

WYNKYN DE WORDE

AT WESTMINSTER IN 1496.

With an Introduction by REV. M. G. WATKINS, M.A.

ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON, E.C. 1880

Preface to Dame Juliana Berners’ Treatyse on Fysshynge wyth an Angle.

The scholarly angler is here presented with an exact _facsimile_ of the first English treatise on fishing. The book is of extreme interest for several reasons, not the least curious being that it has served as a literary quarry to so many succeeding writers on fishing, who have not disdained to adapt the authoress’s sentiments to their own use, and even to borrow them word for word without acknowledgment. Walton himself was evidently familiar with it, and has clearly taken his “jury of flies” from its “xij flyes wyth whyche ye shall angle to y^e trought & grayllyng;” while Burton, that universal plunderer, has extracted her eloquent eulogy on the secondary pleasures of angling for incorporation with the patchwork structure of his “Anatomy of Melancholy.” Besides giving the earliest account of the art of fishing, the estimate which the authoress forms of the moral value of the craft is not only very high, but has served to strike the keynote for all subsequent followers of the art both in their praises and their practice of it. To this little treatise more than to any other belongs the credit of having assigned in popular estimation to the angler his meditative and gentle nature. Many pure and noble intellects have kindled into lasting devotion to angling on reading her eloquent commendation of it. Such men as Donne, Wotton, and Herbert, Paley, Bell, and Davy, together with many another excellent and simple disposition, have caught enthusiasm from her lofty sentiments, and found that not their bodily health only, but also their morals, were improved by angling. It became a school of virtues, a quiet pastime in which, while looking into their own hearts, they learnt lessons of the highest wisdom, reverence, resignation, and love—love of their fellow-men, of the lower creatures, and of their Creator.

Nothing definite is known of the reputed authoress, Dame Juliana Barnes or Berners. She is said to have been a daughter of Sir James Berners of Roding Berners in the county of Essex, a favourite of King Richard the Second, who was beheaded in 1388 as an evil counsellor to the king and an enemy to the public weal. She was celebrated for her extreme beauty and great learning, and is reported to have held the office of prioress of the Benedictine Nunnery of Sopwell in Hertfordshire, a cell to the Abbey of St. Alban, but of this no documentary evidence exists. The first edition of her “Book of St. Alban’s,” printed by the schoolmaster-printer of St. Alban’s in 1486, treats of hawking, hunting, and coat-armour. In the next edition, “Enprynted at Westmestre by Wynkyn the Worde the yere of thyncarnacōn of our lorde. M . CCCC . lxxxxvi,” among the other “treatyfes perteynynge to hawkynge & huntynge with other dyuers playsaunt materes belongynge vnto noblesse,” appeared the present treatise on angling. The aristocratic instincts of the authoress prompted this mode of publication, as she herself explains in the concluding paragraph—“by cause that this present treatyse sholde not come to the hondys of eche ydle persone whyche wolde desire it yf it were enprynted allone by itself & put in a lytyll plaunflet, therfore I haue compylyd it in a greter volume of dyuerse bokys concernynge to gentyll & noble men to the entent that the forsayd ydle persones whyche sholde haue but lytyll mesure in the sayd dysporte of fysshyng sholde not by this meane vtterly dystroye it.” The present publication is the “little pamphlet” which was enclosed in this “greater volume.” An edition of it as a distinct treatise appears to have been issued by Wynkyn de Worde soon after that of 1496, with the title, “Here begynnyth a treatyse of fysshynge wyth an Angle” over the curious woodcut of the man fishing which is on the first page of the present _facsimile_, but only one copy of it is known to be in existence. At least ten more editions appeared before the year 1600. This shows the great popularity of the book at the time of its publication, and considering how human nature remains the same, and the charms of angling are equally grateful to every fresh generation of anglers, affords a sufficient reason for the strong antiquarian delight which all literary anglers of the present century have felt in the book. It is worth while briefly to trace the bibliography of angling onwards until the appearance in 1653 of Walton’s _Compleat Angler_, when the reader will be on familiar ground. In the interval of more than a hundred and fifty years between these two names of Berners and Walton, so deeply reverenced by every true scholar of the craft, there occur but four books on angling, though each one of these possesses a fame peculiar to itself. First came Leonard Mascall’s _Booke of Fishing with Hooke and Line_, published in 1590. Taverner’s Certaine _Experiments concerning Fish and Fruite_ followed in 1600. Then came in 1613 the _Secrets of Angling_ of the celebrated angling poet, J. D. [John Dennys], whose verses have perhaps never yet been surpassed; and finally, in 1651, appeared Barker’s _Art of Angling_. With this fisherman and “ambassador’s cook,” as he calls himself, Walton must often have conversed.

It is a further testimony to the attractions which angling has always possessed for contemplative natures that the art appears here systematised, so to speak, as early as the middle of the fifteenth century in England, where it has been practised ever since with more enthusiasm and skill than in other countries. There is a sad gap in angling literature from the days of Ausonius, at the commencement of the fourth century, to those of Dame Juliana Berners. Fly-fishing, indeed, is not named between the time of Ælian and that of the Treatyse. It is clearly described by the former writer, who alone among the ancients mentions it, but in the present book it is spoken of under the term “angling with a dubbe,” as if it were well-known and practised. Not only so, but it is clear that the writer had books of angling lore before her, perhaps monkish manuscripts, as Hawkins suggests, which would be of inestimable interest could they now be recovered. Thus in speaking of the carp, the reader will find she writes—“as touchynge his baytes I haue but lytyll knowlege of it. And me were loth to wryte more than I knowe & haue prouyd. But well I wote that the redde worme & the menow ben good baytys for hym at all tymes as I haue herde saye of persones credyble & also founde wryten in bokes of credence.” No better rules can be given for fly-fishing at present than the two which she prescribes for angling—“for the fyrste and pryncypall poynt in anglynge : kepe y^e euer fro the water fro the sighte of the fysshe,” and “also loke that ye shadow not the water as moche as ye may.” The “troughte” is to be angled for “wyth a dubbe” [artificial fly] “in lepynge time;” but as for the salmon, “ye may take hym : but it is seldom seen with a dubbe at suche tyme as whan he lepith in lyke fourme & manere as ye doo take a troughte or a gryalynge.” With the imperfect tackle and clumsy rod of those days, it is no wonder that the capture of salmon with a fly, which is still the crowning achievement of the craft, could seldom be effected.

After the eloquent pleading for angling with which the treatise opens, the lady at once proceeds to teach the making of the “harnays” of it. The rod she orders to be constructed somewhat resembles, save in its larger size, the modern walking-stick rod. A hazel wand, or failing it, one of willow or mountain ash, is to be procured, as thick as the arm and nine feet in length. This is to form the butt, and is to be hollowed out by means of divers red-hot irons into a tapering hole, which is to receive the “croppe,” or top, as we now call it, when not in use. This “croppe” is to be made of a yard of hazel, joined to a length of blackthorn, crab, medlar, or “jenypre.” All these are to be cut between Michaelmas and Candlemas, the lady giving very particular directions as to their drying and the like. When the two portions of the “crop” are “fretted together,” the whole rod is to be shaved into a shapely taper form; the staff encircled with long hoops of iron or latten at both ends, and finished with a “pyke in the nether ende fastnyd wyth a rennynge vyce : to take in & oute youre croppe.” The line is then to be wound round the crop and tied fast with a bow at the top. The reader will note that there is no mention of a reel; it was only used, seemingly until the beginning of this century, for large salmon and pike. An angler who hooked a fish when armed with this ponderous rod (which must from its description have been nearly eighteen feet long, as large as a modern salmon rod), would act as Izaak Walton would have done in the like predicament,—throw the rod in to the fish and recover it when he could. But the lady is wonderfully pleased with this mighty rod, and thus concludes—“Thus shall ye make you a rodde soo preuy that ye maye walke therwyth : and there shall noo man wyte where abowte ye goo. It woll be lyghte & full nymbyll to fysshe wyth at your luste. And for the more redynesse loo here a fygure,” and she adds the curious woodcut which the reader may see reproduced at page 5.

Then follow directions how to dye and make lines and hooks. There were evidently no manufacturers of hooks in the fifteenth century: each angler made his own. The casting of plummets and forming of floats succeed. The six methods of angling and the mode of playing a fish are next treated, and the latter alone shows that Dame Juliana must herself have been a proficient in the craft. No one but a thoroughly good fisher could have summed up the art of playing a fish in the words—“kepe hym euer vnder the rodde, and euermore holde hym streyghte : soo that your lyne may susteyne and beere his lepys and his plungys wyth the helpe of your croppe & of your honde.” The place, the time of day, and the weather in which to fish, are next particularly described after the exactitude peculiar to fishing manuals of the olden time. These paragraphs are well worth the consideration of a modern angler, especially the charge, “yf the wynde be in the Eest, that is worste For comynly neyther wynter nor somer y^e fysshe woll not byte thenne.”

The following part of the treatise, with what baits and how to angle for each kind of fish, together with a brief description of each, certainly furnished Walton with a model for some of his chapters. This portion of her book is regarded by the authoress as most necessary to be known and proficiency in carrying out her rules “is all the effecte of the crafte.” She adds amusingly, “for ye can not brynge an hoke in to a fyssh mouth wythout a bayte.” A few of the quaint receipts of her age succeed; how to keep live baits, to make pastes and the like, ending with a rule which is often given to flyfishers for trout at the present day: “Whan ye haue take a grete fysshe : vndo the mawe, & what ye fynde therin make that your bayte : for it is beste.”

Just as the authoress rises to eloquence at the beginning of the treatise when comparing the fisher’s happy life with the toils and troubles which too often fall to the lot of the hunter, hawker, and fowler, so the end of these rules once more recalls her enthusiasm. The last two pages of the book give us a portrait of her conception of the perfect angler, and it is no presumption to say that a nobler and truer picture has never been limned. Simplicity of disposition, forbearance to our neighbours’ rights, and consideration for the poor, are strongly inculcated. All covetousness in fishing or employment of its gentle art to increase worldly gain and fill the larder is equally condemned. She holds the highest view of angling; that it is to serve a man for solace, and to cause the health of his body, but especially of his soul. So she would have him pursue his craft alone for the most part, when his mind can rise to high and holy things, and he may serve God devoutly by saying from his heart his customary prayer. Nor should a man ever carry his amusement to excess, and catch too much at one time; this is to destroy his future pleasure and to interfere with that of his neighbours. A good sportsman too, she adds, will busy himself in nourishing the game and destroying all vermin. So will what Walton calls “the civil, well-governed angler” escape the vices which spring from idleness, and enjoy the full delights of an elevating and noble recreation. “And all those that done after this rule shall haue the blessynge of god & saynt Petyr, whyche he theym graunte that wyth his precyous blood vs boughte.”

“And therefore to al you that ben vertuous : gentyll : and free borne I wryte & make this symple treatyse folowynge : by whyche ye may haue the full crafte of anglynge to dysport you at your luste : to the entent that your aege maye the more floure and the more lenger to endure.”

M. G. W.

{1}

¶ Here begynnyth the treatyse of fysshynge wyth an Angle.

++SAlamon in his parablys sayth that a good spyryte makyth a flourynge aege / that is a fayre aege & a longe. And syth it is soo : I aske this questyon / . whi | che ben the meanes & the causes that enduce a man in to a mery spyryte. : Truly to my beste dyscrecōn it semeth good dysportes & honest gamys in whom a man Ioy | eth wythout ony repentannce after. Thenne folowyth it y^t gode dysportes & honest games ben cause of mannys fayr aege & longe life. And therfore now woll I chose of foure good dispor | tes & honeste gamys / that is to wyte : of huntynge : hawkynge : fysshynge : & foulynge. The beste to my symple dyscrecōn why | che is fysshynge : callyd Anglynge wyth a rodde : and a lyne {2} and an hoke / And therof to treate as my symple wytte may suffyce : both for the sayd reason of Salamon and also for the reason that phisyk makyth in this wyse (¶ Si tibi deficiant medici medici tibi fiant : hec tria mens leta labor & moderata dieta. ¶ Ye shall vnderstonde that this is for to saye / Yf a man lacke leche or medicyne he shall make thre thynges his leche & medycyne : and he shall nede neuer no moo. The fyrste of theym is a mery thought. The seconde is labour not outrageoꝰ. The thyr | de is dyete mesurable. Fyrste that yf a man wyll euer more be in mery thoughtes and haue a gladde spyryte : he must eschewe all contraryous company & all places of debate where he myghte haue ony occasyons of malencoly. And yf he woll haue a labour not outrageous he must thenne ordeyne him to his her | tys ease and pleasaunce wythout studye pensyfnesse or trauey | le a mery occupacyon whyche maye reioyce his herte : & in why | che his spyrytes may haue a mery delyte. And yf he woll be dy | etyd mesurably he must eschewe all places of ryotte whyche is cause of surfette and of syknesse / And he must drawe him to pla | ces of swete ayre and hungry : And ete nourishable meetes and dyffyable also.

++NOw thenne woll I dyscryue the sayd dysportes and ga | mys to fynde the beste of theym as veryly as I can̄ / alle be it that the ryght noble and full worthy prynce the du | ke of Yorke late callid mayster of game hath discryued the myr | thes of huntynge lyke as I thynke to dyscryue of it and of alle the other. For huntynge as to myn entent is to laboryous / For the hunter must alwaye renne & folowe his houndes : traueyllynge & swetynge full sore. He blowyth tyll his lyppes blyster And whan he wenyth it be an hare full oft it is an hegge hogge Thus he chasyth and wote not what. He comyth home at euyn rayn beten pryckyd : and his clothes torne wete shode all myry Some hounde loste : some surbat. Suche greues & many other hapyth vnto the hunter / whyche for dyspleysaunce of theym y^t loue it I dare not reporte. Thus truly me semyth that this is not the beste dysporte and game of the sayd foure. The dyspor | te and game of hawkynge is laboryous & noyouse also as me semyth. For often the fawkener leseth his hawkes as the {3} hunter his hoūdes. Thenne is his game & his dysporte goon. Full often cryeth he & whystelyth tyll that he be ryght euyll a thur | ste. His hawke taketh a bowe and lyste not ones on hym rewar | de. whan he wolde haue her for to flee : thenne woll she bathe. with mys fedynge she shall haue the Fronse : the Rye : the Cray and many other syknesses that brynge theym to the Sowse. Thus by prouff this is not the beste dysporte & game of the sa | yd foure. The dysporte & game of fowlynge me semyth moost symple For in the wynter season the fowler spedyth not but in the moost hardest and coldest weder : whyche is greuous. For whan he wolde goo to his gynnes he maye not for colde. Many a gynne & many a snare he makyth. Yet soryly dooth he fare. At morn tyde in the dewe he is weete shode vnto his taylle. Many other suche I cowde tell : but drede of magre makith me for to leue. Thus me semyth that huntynge & hawkynge & also fowlynge ben so laborous and greuous that none of theym maye perfourme nor bi very meane that enduce a man to a me | ry spyryte : whyche is cause of his longe lyfe acordynge vnto y^t sayd parable of Salamon. ¶ Dowteles then̄e folowyth it that it must nedes be the dysporte of fysshynge wyth an angle. For all other manere of fysshyng is also laborous and greuous : often makynge folkes ful wete & colde / whyche many tymes hath be seen cause of grete Infirmytees. But the angler maye haue no colde nor no dysease nor angre / but yf he be causer hymself. For he maye not lese at the moost but a lyne or an hoke : of whyche he maye haue store plentee of his owne makynge / as this sym | ple treatyse shall teche hym. Soo thenne his losse is not greuo | us. and other greyffes maye he not haue / sauynge but yf ony fisshe breke away after that he is take on the hoke / or elles that he catche nought : whyche ben not greuous. For yf he faylle of one he maye not faylle of a nother / yf he dooth as this treatyse techyth : but yf there be nonght in the water. And yet atte the leest he hath his holsom walke and mery at his ease. a swete ay | re of the swete sauoure of the meede floures : that makyth hym hungry. He hereth the melodyous armony of fowles. He seeth the yonge swannes : heerons : duckes : cotes and many other fou | les wyth theyr brodes. / whyche me semyth better than alle the {4} noyse of honndys : the blastes of hornys and the scrye of foulis that hunters : fawkeners & foulers can make. And yf the angler take fysshe : surely thenne is there noo man merier than he is in his spyryte. ¶ Also who soo woll vse the game of anglynge : he must ryse erly. whiche thyng is prouffytable to man in this wy | se / That is to wyte : moost to the heele of his soule. For it shall cause hym to be holy. and to the heele of his body / For it shall cause hym to be hole. Also to the encrease of his goodys. For it shall make hym ryche. As the olde englysshe prouerbe sayth in this wyse. ¶ who soo woll ryse erly shall be holy helthy & zely. ¶ Thus haue I prouyd in myn entent that the dysporte & game of anglynge is the very meane & cause that enducith a man in to a mery spyryte : Whyche after the sayde parable of Salomon & the sayd doctryne of phisyk makyth a flourynge aege & a longe. And therfore to al you that ben vertuous : gentyll : and free borne I wryte & make this symple treatyse folowynge : by whyche ye may haue the full crafte of anglynge to dysport you at your luste : to the entent that your aege maye the more flou | re and the more lenger to endure.