Book of Saint Albans

Colour printing and obscene drawing in pencil added below text; Cambridge University Library
Page with the Royal Arms of England

The Book of Saint Albans, originally 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.[1] It was the last of eight books printed by the St Albans Press in England.[2][3] It is also known by titles that are more accurate, such as The Book of Hawking, Hunting, and Blasing of Arms.[4] 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".[5]

It contains three essays, on hawking, hunting, and heraldry. It became popular, and went through many editions, quickly acquiring an additional essay on angling.[6] 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.[7] 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.[8]

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.[8] 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.[9]

  1. ^ Ernest Fraser Jacob (1968). Essays in Later Medieval History. Manchester University Press ND. pp. 199–200. ISBN 978-0-7190-0304-2. Retrieved 18 April 2012.
  2. ^ "The Book of St. Albans". The Cambridge History of English and American Literature. Vol. II: The End of the Middle Ages. 1907–1921 – via Bartleby.com.
  3. ^ Berners, Dame Juliana (1881) [1486]. The Boke of Saint Albans. Introduction by William Blades. London: Elliot Stock. Retrieved 2011-05-27.
  4. ^ Original spelling The Bokys of Haukyng and Huntyng; and also of coot-armuris.
  5. ^ That nine-word attribution is quoted -- (perhaps among other places) -- in the lighthearted BBC item "Why a group of hippos is called a bloat". See e.g.
    Medina, Kerry (November 9, 2018). "Why a group of hippos is called a bloat". BBC. Archived from the original on August 12, 2021. People have been coming up with terms to describe animal groupings for hundreds of years, but it wasn't until The Book of St Albans, written by Juliana Berners, a 15th-Century Benedictine prioress from England, that they were recorded extensively. Also known by the title The Book of Hawking, Hunting and Blasing of Arms, Berners' 1486 publication of this gentlemen's catalogue of wildlife and hunting included 165 collective nouns for animal species, and is said to make her one of the earliest female authors writing in the English language.
    Yet, the only documented evidence of this woman's existence is the attribution 'Explicit Dam Julyans Barnes in her boke of huntyng', which appeared in the original edition.
  6. ^ World Wide Words: Precision of Lexicographers
  7. ^ "Book of St Albans", Exhibition on "Tudor Colour Printing", University of Cambridage Library, accessed 14 February 2015
  8. ^ a b Chisholm 1911.
  9. ^ Berners, Dame Juliana (1881) [1486]. The Boke of Saint Albans. Introduction by William Blades. London: Elliot Stock. Retrieved 2011-05-27.