es. The amusements and sports
naturally partook of the character of the age, and hunting, hawking,
tilting, and tournaments were at once the schools for gaining strength
and dexterity, as well as safety-valves for the overflowing mobility
engendered by the spirit of the times. These pursuits were elevated to
the rank of perfect sciences, and the education of a youth was incomplete
that did not embrace regular tuition in all of them. Nor were they, as
we know, confined to the "lords of the creation." In hunting, ladies not
only often joined in the sport, but frequently formed parties by
themselves, winding the horn, rousing the game, and pursuing it without
assistance, the female Nimrods manifesting especial partiality to
greyhounds--or hare-hounds, as they were then called. The objects of
these hunts were somewhat more numerous and varied then than now, and
were divided into three classes; first, the beasts for hunting, viz. the
hare, the hart, the wolf, and the wild boar; secondly, the beasts of the
chase, the buck and doe, the fox, the martin, and the roe; and a minor
class, which were said to afford great disport in the pursuit, the
_grey_, or badger, the wild cat, and the otter.

The poor little hare and a fox or two, alone are left us of all these
original tenants of the soil; and game laws were, even in those days of
plentiful supply, found needful to preserve the aborigines of the woods
as their especial property, by the great ones of the land, and when
manslaughter was to be atoned for by a fine of money, the death of a head
of deer was punishable by the forfeiture of the offender's eyes, and a
second instance by death. Who will dispute the aristocratic lineage of
the game laws, with such facts of history before them? Hunting had its
proper seasons; the wolf and fox might be hunted from Christmas-day to
the Annunciation, the roebuck from Easter to Michaelmas, the roe from
Michaelmas to Candlemas, the hare from Michaelmas to Midsummer, the boar
from the Nativity to the day of the "Presentation in the Temple."

The clergy were not behind-hand in partaking of the privileges of the
chase within their own demesnes, and they took care generally to have
good receptacles for game in their parks and enclosures. At the time of
the Reformation, the see of Norwich had no less than thirteen parks well
stocked with deer; and the name of one of the city churches, St. Peter's,
Hungate, is derived from the _Hound's_-gate