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. Use 300px|Medieval Huntsmen , showing a limer and its handler . 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. Picture of Dutch hunting showing rough-coated limerThe 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. Kinds of hounds used as limers 300px|Finding the Hart from the famous medieval manuscript Livre de la Chasse by Gaston Phoebus, Count de Foix. The handler has tied his heavily built limer to a tree, which he has climbed to spot the deer. Medieval hunting pictures generally show the limer as a hound of similar type to the running hounds, but larger and more heavily built. In England  the Bloodhound was so typically associated with the function of being a limer that George Turberville uses the term "Bloodhound" (in preference to "limer", which was becoming archaic) for the French word "limier" throughout his 1575 translation of La Venerie de Jaques du Fouilloux. For instance, du Fouilloux says limiers of the St  Hubert kind are good, so that when Turberville translates 'limiers' as 'bloodhounds'  he is not saying that St Huberts and bloodhounds are the same breed, only that they work well as leash hounds. Though by then this form of hunting was becoming old fashioned , in Country Contentments, or the Husbandmans Recreations, 1615, Gervaise Markham writes:
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. Use 300px|Medieval huntsmen , showing a limer and its handler 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. Picture of Dutch hunting showing rough-coated limer 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. Kinds of hounds used as limers 300px|Finding the Hart from the famous medieval manuscript Livre de la Chasse by Gaston Phoebus, Count de Foix. The handler has tied his heavily built limer to a tree, which he has climbed to spot the deer. Medieval hunting pictures generally show the limer as a hound of similar type to the running hounds, but larger and more heavily built. In England , the Bloodhound was so typically associated with the function of being a limer that George Turberville uses the term "Bloodhound" (in preference to "limer", which was becoming archaic) for the French word "limier" throughout his 1575 translation of La Venerie de Jaques du Fouilloux. For instance, du Fouilloux says limiers of the St . Hubert kind are good, so that when Turberville translates 'limiers' as 'bloodhounds' , he is not saying that St . Huberts and Bloodhounds are the same breed, only that they work well as leash hounds. Though by then this form of hunting was becoming old-fashioned , in Country Contentments, or the Husbandmans Recreations, 1615, Gervaise Markham writes:
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Huberts and bloodhounds
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old-fashioned