Note 18d — Chapter II · RECORDS OF THE MANOR, &c., FROM THE NORMAN CONQUEST.

The bishops of those days were sportsmen. It is recorded of a Bishop of Ely that he rode to the Cathedral “with hawk on wrist,” and left it in the cloister while doing “God’s service.” There it was stolen and he solemnly excommunicated the thief. Aukenleck MS., temp. Ed. II., British Museum. The extensive woods in the soke of Horncastle abounded in game, as we have already shown by the tolls charged on roebuck, hares, &c., brought into the town. The punishment for killing a wild boar, without the king’s licence, was the loss of both eyes. These feræ naturæ became extinct about A.D. 1620.