Long after that period, however, they still hunted, as it were, at random, attacking the first animal they met.  The sports of Charlemagne, for instance, were almost always of this description.  On some occasions they killed animals of all sorts by thousands, after having tracked and driven them into an enclosure composed of cloths or nets.

This illustrious Emperor, although usually at war in all parts of Europe, never missed an opportunity of hunting:  so much so that it might be said that he rested himself by galloping through the forests.  He was on these occasions not only followed by a large number of huntsmen and attendants of his household, but he was accompanied by his wife and daughters, mounted on magnificent coursers, and surrounded by a numerous and elegant court, who vied with each other in displaying their skill and courage in attacking the fiercest animals.

It is even stated that Aix-la-Chapelle owes its origin to a hunting adventure of Charlemagne.  The Emperor one day while chasing a stag required to cross a brook which came in his path, but immediately his horse had set his foot in the water he pulled it out again and began to limp as if it were hurt.  His noble rider dismounted, and on feeling the foot found it was quite hot.  This induced him to put his hand into the water, which he found to be almost boiling.  On that very spot therefore he caused a chapel to be erected, in the shape of a horse’s hoof.  The town was afterwards built, and to this day the spring of hot mineral water is enclosed under a rotunda, the shape of which reminds one of the old legend of Charlemagne and his horse.

The sons of Charlemagne also held hunting in much esteem, and by degrees the art of venery was introduced and carried to great perfection.  It was not, however, until the end of the thirteenth century that an anonymous author conceived the idea of writing its principal precepts in an instructive poem, called “Le Dict de la Chace du Cerf.”  In 1328 another anonymous writer composed the “Livre du Roy Modus,” which contains the rules for hunting all furred animals, from the stag to the hare.  Then followed other poets and writers of French prose, such as Gace de la Vigne (1359), Gaston Phoebus (1387), and Hardouin, lord of Fontaine-Guerin (1394).  None of these, however, wrote exclusively on venery, but described the different sports known in their day.  Towards 1340, Alphonse XI., king of Castile, caused a book on hunting to be compiled for his use; but it was not so popular as the instruction of Gaston Phoebus (Fig. 132).  If hunting with hounds is known everywhere by the French name of the chase, it is because the honour of having organized it into a system, if not of having originated it, is due to the early French sporting authors, who were able to form a code of rules for it.  This also accounts for so many of the technical terms now in use in venery being of French origin, as they are no others than those adopted by these ancient authors, whose works, so to speak, have perpetuated them.