The Book of Saint Albans, or Boke of Seynt Albans, is the common title of a book printed in 1486 that is a compilation of matters relating to the interests of the time of a gentleman. It was the last of eight books printed by the St Albans Press in England. It is also known by titles that are more accurate, such as "The Book of Hawking, Hunting, and Blasing of Arms". The printer is sometimes called the Schoolmaster Printer. This edition credits the book, or at least the part on hunting, to Juliana Berners as there is an attribution at the end of the 1486 edition reading: "Explicit Dam Julyans Barnes in her boke of huntyng".
It contains three essays, on hawking, hunting, and heraldry. It became popular, and went through many editions, quickly acquiring an additional essay on angling. The section on heraldry contains many coats-of-arms printed in six colours (including black ink and the white of the page), the first colour printing in England. During the 16th century the work was very popular, and was reprinted many times. It was edited by Gervase Markham in 1595 as The Gentleman's Academic.
Scholarship on the sources of the Book indicates that little in it was original. It is expressly stated at the end of the Blasynge of Armys that the section was "translatyd and compylyt," and it is likely that the other treatises are translations, probably from the French. An older form of the treatise on fishing was edited in 1883 by Mr T. Satchell from a manuscript in possession of Alfred Denison. This treatise probably dates from about 1450, and formed the foundation of that section in the book of 1496. Only three perfect copies of the first edition are known to exist. A facsimile, entitled The Boke of St Albans, with an introduction by William Blades, appeared in 1881.
Juliana Berners
Juliana Berners is mentioned in the 1486 edition, but little is known about her life. She is said to have been the Benedictine prioress of the Priory of St. Mary of Sopwell, near St Albans in Hertfordshire. She was probably born into the nobility, which would explain her level of education and her love of field sports. It is not clear how much of The Book of Saint Albans was written by Juliana Berners, but she is most commonly associated with the treatise on hunting.
Her name was changed by Wynkyn de Worde to "Dame Julyans Bernes" in his edition. There is no such person to be found in the pedigree of the Berners family, but there is a gap in the records of the priory of Sopwell between 1430 and 1480. De Worde's edition (fol. 1496), also without a title-page, begins: "This present boke shewyth the manere of hawkynge and huntynge: and also of diuysynge of Cote armours. It shewyth also a good matere belongynge to horses: wyth other comendable treatyses. And ferdermore of the blasynge of armys: as hereafter it maye appere." This edition was adorned by three woodcuts, and included a Treatyse of fysshynge wyth an Angle, not contained in the St Albans edition.
Joseph Haslewood, who published a facsimile of Wynkyn de Worde's edition (London, 1811, folio) with a biographical and bibliographical notice, examined with the greatest care Berner's claims to authorship. He assigned to her little else in the Boke except part of the treatise on hawking and the section on hunting.
Hawking (falconry) The hawking treatise is considered to be adapted from the Booke of Hawkyng after Prince Edwarde Kyng of Englande, a manuscript of the reign of Edward IV of England (BL Harley Collection 2340). The work is not intended as a full practical treatise, but to introduce the technical language, and to describe feeding and illnesses, for an owner who wishes to take an interest.
The work provides this hierarchy of raptors and the social ranks for which each bird was supposedly appropriate.
Emperor: eagle, vulture, merlin
King: gyrfalcon
Prince: gentle falcon: a female peregrine falcon
Duke: falcon of the loch
Earl: peregrine falcon
Baron: buzzard
Knight: saker falcon
Squire: lanner falcon
Lady: merlin
Young man: hobby
Yeoman: goshawk
Poor man: male falcon
Priest: sparrowhawk
Holy water clerk: sparrowhawk
Hunting
The essay on hunting, in particular, is attributed to Dame Juliana Berners (or Barnes or Bernes) who was believed to have been the prioress of Sopwell Priory near St Albans. It is in fact a metrical form of much older matter, going back to the reign of Edward II of England, and written in French: the Le Art de Venerie of the huntsman Guillaume Twici.