Book of Saint Albans

[8] 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.

[10] 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.

[13] 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.

Amongst these are numerous humorous collective nouns for different professions, such as a "diligence of messengers", a "melody of harpers", a "blast of hunters", "a subtlety of sergeants", "a gaggle of women", and a "superfluity of nuns".

The tradition of a large number of such collective nouns which has survived into modern Standard English ultimately goes back to this book, via the popular 1595 edition by Gervase Markham in his The Gentleman's Academic.

[17] Among recognised sources for Walton's Compleat Angler are works of William Gryndall (1596) and Leonard Mascall (1590), both of which are close derivatives of the Treatyse.

[23] J. P. Cooper wrote: The Boke's classification of gentry was to be repeated by heraldic writers for two centuries and was systematised by Ferne and Legh under Elizabeth.

[24]He takes as sources for the assertions in the Boke the works of Nicholas Upton called De Studio Militari, and the unpublished manuscript of readings in heraldry, around 1450, known as "Richard Strangways's Book" (i.e. BL Harley Collection 2259).

[25] There are idiosyncratic ideas on the curse of Ham underpinning the theory, with Europeans being "Hamitic";[26] Cooper believes the source may be the Testament of Love of Thomas Usk.