page_title: Limer
section_title: Use
hierarchical_section_title: Limer / Use
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Hochwildjagd. 93 × 172 mm. Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam (Inv.No. RP-P-OB-928). English: Stag Hunt. 93 × 172 mm. Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam (inv.no. RP-P-OB-928). Nederlands: Hertenjacht. Droge naald en papier. 93 × 172 mm. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam (inv.nr. RP-P-OB-928). Provenienz / Provenance / Herkomst: 1816: transferred to the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
context_page_description: A limer, or lymer, was a kind of dog, a scenthound, used on a leash in medieval times to find large game before it was hunted down by the pack. It was sometimes known as a lyam hound/dog or lime-hound, from the Middle English word lyam, meaning 'leash'. The French cognate limier has sometimes been used for the dogs in English as well. The type is not to be confused with the bandog, which was also a dog controlled by a leash, typically a chain, but was a watchdog or guard dog.
context_section_description: In medieval hunting in France and Britain, certain kinds of game were not found and hunted with a full pack, as usual in modern hunting. Instead, they were first found by a limer.
  The limer would be taken out at dawn by its handler, on foot, who would identify, perhaps from droppings, perhaps from footprints, where a large animal had passed during the night. He would set his hound on the trail, until it had found where the animal was browsing or at rest. This required keen scenting, the ability to ignore all other scents which might be a distraction, and silent trailing. This process became known as 'harbouring' the animal. 
  Several limers might be sent out to different parts of the forest. The handlers would then report back to their lord, or the chief huntsman, who would decide on the one "which seemed to have harbored the greatest and oldest Deere, and hym which lyeth in the fairest covert". Then the huntsmen would bring the pack of scent hounds, known as 'raches', or 'running hounds'. Raches might be set in relays along the path where the quarry could be expected to run, held in couples, to be released on the huntsman's signal. The game animal would be put to flight or 'unharboured' and the pack would follow it on its hot scent until it was brought to bay and killed.   
  If the quarry escaped the pack, perhaps wounded, or if the hunt was overtaken by nightfall, the huntsmen would mark the point where the quarry was last known to have been, and the lords and ladies of the hunt would return to the hunting lodge, or to the  pavilions which had been erected for them in the forest, to sleep or occupy themselves with feasting. The limer and its handler would then set about the task of harbouring the quarry again, perhaps by following its blood-trail, and either the injured animal would be dispatched, or the hunt would resume as before.
  The limer was a specialist tracker, probably outnumbered by raches in a lord's pack, in about the proportions 20:1, and it was highly valued. It is possible that on occasions it might be released to pursue the quarry with the pack, but normally it did not take part in the kill. The limer which had harboured the particular quarry should, according to the manuals, be the first to be rewarded with its special part of the carcass during the process of butchering it, apparent in this link, where the leashed hound is favoured with the head of the stag, while the raches wait impatiently for their share. It had its own special attendant who looked after it and handled it: the 'valet de limier', translated by Turbervile as 'the varlet who keeps the bloodhound'.
  To do its work, the limer had to wear a collar, the modern tracking harness surprisingly being unthought of in a period when everyone must have been familiar with the harnesses and tack of horses, and the leash had to be long enough to allow the hound to cast. Edward, Duke of York in The Master of Game 1406–1413 (a translation of Livre de la Chasse) : writes (Chapter XX):
  And the length of the hounds' couples between the hounds should be a foot, and the rope of a limer three fathoms and a half, be he ever so wise a limer it sufficeth.
caption: A picture of a Dutch hunting party showing a rough-coated limer
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