oak to be found in the district was chosen on which to suspend
the trophies both of warriors and of hunters; and, at a more recent
period, sportsmen used to hang outside their doors stags' heads, boars'
feet, birds of prey, and other trophies, a custom which evidently was a
relic of the one referred to.

On pagan idolatry being abandoned, hunters used to have a presiding
genius or protector, whom they selected from amongst the saints most in
renown. Some chose St. Germain d'Auxerre, who had himself been a
sportsman; others St. Martin, who had been a soldier before he became
Bishop of Tours. Eventually they all agreed to place themselves under the
patronage of St. Hubert, Bishop of Liege, a renowned hunter of the eighth
century. This saint devoted himself to a religious life, after one day
haying encountered a miraculous stag whilst hunting in the woods, which
appeared to him as bearing between his horns a luminous image of our
Saviour. At first the feast of St. Hubert was celebrated four times a
year, namely, at the anniversaries of his conversion and death, and on the
two occasions on which his relics were exhibited. At the celebration of
each of these feasts a large number of sportsmen in "fine apparel" came
from great distances with their horses and dogs. There was, in fact, no
magnificence or pomp deemed too imposing to be displayed, both by the
kings and nobles, in honour of the patron-saint of hunting (Fig. 136).

[Illustration: Fig. 136.--"How to shout and blow Horns."--Fac-simile of a
Miniature in the Manuscript of Phoebus (Fifteenth Century).]

[Illustration: Ladies Hunting

Costumes of the fifteenth century. From a miniature in a ms. copy of
_Ovid's Epistles_ No 7234 _bis._ Bibl. nat'le de Paris.]

[Illustration: Fig. 137.--German Sportsman, drawn and engraved by J.
Amman in the Sixteenth Century.]

Hunters and sportsmen in those days formed brotherhoods, which had their
rank defined at public ceremonials, and especially in processions. In
1455, Gerard, Duke of Cleves and Burgrave of Ravensberg, created the order
of the Knights of St. Hubert, into which those of noble blood only were
admitted. The insignia consisted of a gold or silver chain formed of
hunting horns, to which was hung a small likeness of the patron-saint in
the act of doing homage to our Saviour's image as it shone on the head of
a stag. It was popularly believed that the Knights of St. Hubert had the
power of curing madness, which, for so