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 Liège, 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).]
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, Gérard, 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 some unknown reason, never showed itself in a pack of hounds. This, however, was not the only superstitious belief attached to the noble and adventurous occupations of the followers of St. Hubert. Amongst a number of old legends, which mostly belong to Germany (Fig. 137), mention is made of hunters who sold their souls to the devil in exchange for some enchanted arrow which never missed its aim, and which reached game at extraordinary distances. Mention is also made in these legends of various animals which, on being pursued by the hunters, were miraculously saved by throwing themselves into the arms of some saint, or by running into some holy sanctuary. There were besides knights who, having hunted all their lives, believed that they were to continue the same occupation in another world. An account is given in history of the apparition of a fiery phantom to Charles IX. in the forest of Lyons, and also the ominous meeting of Henry IV. with the terrible _grand-veneur_ in the forest of Fontainebleau. We may account for these strange tales from the fact that hunting formerly constituted a sort of freemasonry, with its mysterious rites and its secret language. The initiated used particular signs of recognition amongst themselves, and they also had lucky and unlucky numbers, emblematical colours, &c.