About 1481, Juliana Berners, a sister of Lord Berners, and Prioress of the Nunnery of Sopewell, composed what is regarded as the great literary curiosity of the time, a work, containing treatises on hawking, hunting, and heraldry, which, in 1486, was printed. A second edition has a treatise on angling, and a sort of lyrical epilogue to the treatise on hunting, which last is written in rhyme.

  From an abbess disposed to turn author, we might more reasonably have expected a manual of meditations for the closet, or select rules for making salves, or distilling strong waters. But the diversions of the field were not thought inconsistent with the character of a religious lady of this eminent rank, who resembled an abbot in respect of exercising an extensive manorial jurisdiction; and who hawked and hunted in common with other ladies of distinction. This work, however, is here mentioned, because the second of these treatises is written in rhyme. It is spoken in her own person; in which, being otherwise a woman of authority, she assumes the title of dame. I suspect the whole to be a translation from the French and Latin.

  But the greatest literary curiosity of this reign is the work of the Lady Juliana, sister to Richard Lord Berners, and prioress of the nunnery of Sopewell, which was written in 1481, and published soon after at the neighbouring monastery at St. Alban’s. It contains treatises on hawking, hunting, and heraldry: in all of which the good lady seems to have rivalled the most eminent professors of those arts.

  This is not only the earliest, but by far the most curious essay upon angling which has ever appeared in the English, or perhaps any other language. In the most important features, Walton has closely followed this production. In piety and virtue,—in the inculcation of morality,—in an ardent love for their art, and still more, in that placid and Christian spirit for which the amiable Walton was so conspicuous, the early writer was scarcely inferior to his or her more celebrated successor.

  Leads the fair train in a manner singularly masculine and discordant, blowing a horn, instead of playing on a lute; for the reverend dame was a hunting parson in petticoats. She is the author of three tracts, well known to antiquaries, on Hawking, Hunting, and Armory (heraldry); and her verses, as might be expected, are more curious than bewitching.

  The first British Poetess of whom we have any record…. Her style is excessively coarse and unfeminine, and wholly inconsistent with her sacred calling; but the barbarism of the times is a sufficient, if not a complete excuse for her.

  So rare is this volume, that Dr. Dibdin estimates a perfect copy (of which Earl Spencer and the Earl of Pembroke each had one) to be worth £420; a very imperfect copy produced £147 at the sale of the Library of the Duke of Roxburghe; resold at the sale of the White Knight’s (Duke of Marlborough’s) Library for £84. The third book, on Heraldic Blazonry, is supposed to be an addendum to the two preceding, and a portion of a work by Nicholas Upton, written about 1441. Indeed Mr. Haslewood considers that the only portions of the book which can safely be attributed to Dame Berners are: 1. A small portion of the “Treatise on Hawking.” 2. “The Treatise upon Hunting.” 3. “A Short List of the Beasts of Chase;” and “Another Short one of Beasts and Fowls.”

  What is really known of the dame is almost nothing, and may be summed up in the following few words. She probably lived at the beginning of the fifteenth century, and she possibly compiled from existing MSS. some rhymes on hunting.

  The dame is said to have spent her youth probably at the court, and to have shared in the woodland sports then fashionable, thus acquiring a competent knowledge of hunting, hawking, and fishing. Having withdrawn from the world, and finding plenty of leisure in the cloister after being raised to the position of prioress, it is next believed that she committed to writing her experience of these sports. As for fishing, if she were an active prioress, the exigencies of fasting days would demand that she should busy herself in the supply of fish required for the sisterhood. Like all observant anglers, she would daily learn more of that craft as she grew older, and so she naturally treats of it more fully and in a clearer order than the other subjects of the “Boke” are handled…. Only three perfect copies of this first edition are known. One is in the Althorp Library, another in the Earl of Pembroke’s collection, and the third is in the library of the Earl of Devon. The only copy which has appeared in an auction-room this century (with the exception of that in the Duke of Roxburghe’s sale, which was very imperfect) was itself imperfect. It came from the library of Mr. F. L. Popham of Littlecote, and was sold in March 1882 for 600 guineas to Mr. Quaritch.