Rache

The rache (pronounced /ˈrætʃ/) is an obsolete term for a type of hunting dog used in Great Britain during the Middle Ages.^[1] It was a scenthound employed in packs to track, pursue, and either kill game such as deer or wild boar, or bring it to bay.^[2] The name derives from Old English ræcc and Old Norse rakkí, referring to a pack-hunting hound.^[3]

Etymology and Terminology

Origins of the Name

The term "rache" originates from Old English ræcc, denoting a hound or tracking dog, and is cognate with Old Norse rakkí, which refers to a running or chasing dog.^[4] This etymological root traces further to Proto-Germanic rakkô, from which the sense of a running or chasing dog, specialized in scent-based pursuit, developed.^[5] By the Middle English period, the word had evolved into forms such as racche or ratche, consistently applied to scent-hunting canines.^[4] The earliest documented use of a variant, "ratchis," appears in the 1486 treatise The Boke of Saint Albans by Juliana Berners, where it describes pack hounds employed to seek and pursue game: "And aƚƚ other beestys that huntid shaƚƚ be / Shaƚƚ be sought and founde with Ratchis so fre."^[6] This text, a foundational English work on hunting, lists "rachys" among breeds like grewhounds and kenettys, emphasizing their role in collective pursuit.^[6] Subsequent records, such as John Palsgrave's 1530 translation work, confirm "rache hound" as a standard term by the early 16th century. Over the 15th century, the meaning of "rache" narrowed from a general hound to a specific type of scenthound used in unleashed packs for chasing prey, distinguishing it from the leashed "limer," which tracked silently on a lead.^[4] This specialization reflected medieval hunting practices, where raches provided vocal pursuit to guide hunters, evolving into an obsolete term by the early modern era as breed nomenclature shifted. In medieval hunting terminology, the "limer" (also spelled lymer or lyam hound) referred to a specialized scent hound, akin to a leashed Bloodhound, employed to track wounded or hidden game by following its scent or "fumes" on a long leash known as a "lyam," derived from Middle English for leash.^[7] This dog was crucial for locating and "unharbouring" (starting) the prey from coverts or thickets before the main pack was released, operating silently under the guidance of a handler called a lymerer to avoid alerting the game.^[7] Typically trained from one year old and kept at a cost of about one penny per day, limers were selected for their staunchness, keen nose, and ability to wait for the hunter's signal, distinguishing them from faster pursuit dogs.^[7] Among other pack-related terms, the "kennet" denoted smaller variants of running hounds, suited for pursuing lighter game such as hares or foxes, and valued for their versatility and good temperament in group hunts.^[7] The "alaunt," by contrast, described larger, more aggressive mastiff-like hounds, often white with black spots in their gentler forms, used to seize and hold dangerous quarry like wild boar or bears during the chase or at bay.^[7] These alaunts were sometimes paired with raches for combined efforts, where the alaunts provided brute strength to tackle prey exhausted by the pack.^[7] Raches themselves functioned as the core "running hounds," scent-driven pack dogs focused on relentless pursuit over long distances, in contrast to stationary guard dogs or leashed trackers like limers.^[7] This distinction is evident in 15th-century hunting manuals such as The Master of Game (c. 1406–1413), which emphasizes raches' endurance in chasing stags or bucks while limers initiate the hunt, and The Book of Saint Albans (1486), which categorizes kennet and alaunt as complementary to the rache pack for varied terrains and game sizes.^[7]

Physical Characteristics

Size and Build

The rache, a medieval scent hound used primarily in pack hunting, exhibited a range of sizes from smaller specimens known as kenets to larger ones comparable to harriers, with an emphasis on being well-grown for endurance.^[8] These hounds were typically medium in stature, suited to prolonged tracking across varied terrain, though specific measurements such as shoulder height were not quantified in contemporary accounts.^[8] In terms of build, the ideal rache possessed great nostrils and a long snout—not small—to enhance scent detection, with great lips hanging down and large ears that hung broad and close to the head.^[8] The body featured a great neck, deep breast, and broad shoulders for stamina, paired with legs that were not excessively long to maintain balance during slow, heavy pursuit, and round feet equipped with great claws.^[8] This athletic yet sturdy conformation supported their role in pack hunting by enabling sustained effort over long distances.^[9] Coat variations were noted, with the preferred hue being brown tan for its practicality in the field, though white coats—sometimes mottled or marked with black, such as on the ears or flanks—were also common.^[8]

Sensory Abilities

The rache, as a specialized scenthound, possessed an exceptionally keen sense of smell that enabled it to track game over considerable distances by following faint scent trails, a capability central to its role in medieval hunting packs.^[7] Historical accounts emphasize the hounds' olfactory prowess, noting their "great smelling" ability combined with strong memory to pursue trails left by deer, boar, and other quarry, even when the scent had cooled.^[10] This sensory strength allowed raches to navigate complex terrains, distinguishing game scents from environmental distractions during prolonged hunts. In addition to olfaction, raches exhibited notable auditory skills through their distinctive vocalizations, which served to communicate their position and progress to hunters. These hounds would "quest" or bay melodiously while on the scent, producing a collective "great melody" that varied in intensity and harmony depending on pack size and the hunt's dynamics, thereby guiding human handlers without direct line of sight.^[11] This tonguing behavior not only coordinated pack efforts but also signaled the proximity of game, enhancing the efficiency of collaborative pursuits. Training from puppyhood further honed these natural sensory abilities, with young raches introduced to hunting grounds and scent trails through guided exposure in woods and fields to build proficiency.^[8] As detailed in 14th-century records, such methods involved rewarding successful tracking with portions of the kill (curées) while correcting errors through verbal reprimands or physical discipline, ensuring the hounds developed reliable scent discrimination and vocal signaling by maturity.^[11] This early conditioning, rooted in practical field experience, amplified the rache's innate talents for scent-based hunting.

Hunting Role and Techniques

Pack Hunting Methods

In medieval pack hunting, the standard procedure began with a limer, a leashed scent hound, used to track and unharbor the game by following its scent trail to its lair or form.^[7] Once the game was located and started—typically larger quarry such as the hart or wild boar—a pack of raches was then uncoupled and released to pursue the animal relentlessly by scent.^[12] These scent hounds chased the prey over extended distances, driving it to exhaustion through persistent following of the scent line, often culminating in baying the game at bay where it could no longer flee, allowing hunters to deliver the final kill with weapons rather than the dogs themselves completing it.^[7] Hunters played a central role in directing the pursuit, typically mounted on horseback or occasionally on foot, positioned to intercept the game while coordinating the pack's efforts.^[12] They employed horn signals—such as three motes to indicate the chase was underway or to rally the hounds—and verbal calls like "So how" to guide the dogs, ensuring the raches adhered strictly to the scent without deviation or distraction by secondary trails.^[7] Raches were trained from around one and a half years of age with gradual exposure to exercise and scent work, fostering their discipline in maintaining the pack's focus during the hunt.^[13] Packs of raches typically numbered around 12 to 25, with royal hunts employing up to 40 or more; the main pack pursued as a unit led by bolder hounds at the front, while separate relay groups of 2-3 couples (often including greyhounds) could be stationed progressively along the anticipated chase route to sustain continuous pressure on the quarry.^[7]^[12] Handlers such as the berner or kennel men managed stragglers, recoupling laggards, and preventing the pack from scattering.^[12] The emphasis lay on collective coordination and endurance rather than individual speed or strength, enabling the pack to outlast the game through unified effort, as seen in royal hunts employing up to 40 such hounds alongside limers.^[7]

Types of Game Pursued

Raches were primarily employed in the pursuit of large game such as the hart, a mature male red deer, and the buck, a mature male fallow deer, following the unharbouring process where a lymer hound located the animal's resting place before the pack was unleashed.^[7] These hounds excelled in tracking and chasing such quarry over extended distances, relying on their keen scenting abilities to maintain the pursuit until the game was brought to bay.^[7] Wild boar hunts involved particularly aggressive chases, as raches were deployed in packs to confront the dangerous animal, often in dense cover where the boar's ferocity posed risks to the dogs.^[7] For secondary game, raches targeted hare in open chases, as well as bear and wolf in forested regions, where their pack dynamics allowed them to overwhelm these predators through persistent harassment and encirclement.^[7] In Scottish variants, raches demonstrated greater versatility, adapted to seek out smaller fowl or even fish by following scent trails, reflecting regional environmental demands.^[14] Hunt variations for lesser game, such as hare, often involved direct pursuit without the need for a lymer, highlighting the raches' speed and endurance on open terrain to quickly run down elusive prey.^[7] This approach contrasted with the more structured unharbouring used for larger animals, allowing raches to operate independently in packs as described in contemporary hunting treatises.^[7]

Historical Usage

In Medieval England

Raches, a type of pack-hunting scenthound, were prominent in English hunting practices from the 12th to the 15th centuries, serving as essential companions in the pursuit of game such as deer and boar across royal forests and noble estates.^[15] These dogs were valued for their persistent baying and ability to track by scent over long distances, forming the core of organized hunts that emphasized the chase "par force de chiens," where the pack exhausted the prey before the kill.^[16] Their use peaked during the reign of Edward III (1327–1377), a monarch renowned for his passion for hunting, who maintained extensive packs even while campaigning in France and transformed Windsor into a major center for royal pursuits.^[17] Literary depictions from the period highlight the rache's role in idealized Arthurian hunts, as seen in the late 14th-century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, where raches feature prominently in the vivid hunting scenes at Bertilak's castle, announcing the boar's presence through their clamor and driving the beast from cover.^[18] This alliterative romance, composed in the West Midlands dialect, portrays the dogs as integral to the chivalric spectacle, underscoring their disciplined pack behavior under noble command. Complementing such cultural references, medieval English laws strictly regulated hunting to preserve it as an aristocratic privilege; forest laws enacted from the Norman period onward, including those under Canute in 1014 and later refinements by Richard II in 1390, prohibited commoners from owning or using hunting dogs like raches, reserving packs for the nobility and imposing severe penalties for poaching.^[19]^[20] As symbols of status and prowess, raches embodied the aristocracy's social hierarchy, with noble households maintaining dedicated packs that required specialized kennels, huntsmen, and breeding programs to ensure quality. Royal kennels at Windsor, expanded under Edward III, housed these hounds as part of the court's lavish hunting establishments, reflecting the monarch's authority over vast game preserves. Their endurance and scenting abilities made raches particularly well-suited to England's diverse terrain of woodlands and open chases.^[16] By the early 16th century, such traditions continued to define elite English society, though evolving breeds began to influence their legacy.^[15]

In Medieval Scotland

In Hector Boece's Historia Gentis Scotorum (1527, translated into Scots by John Bellenden in 1536), raches are portrayed as versatile scenthounds integral to Scottish hunting practices, capable of tracking flesh, fowl, and even fish among the rocks of the rugged highlands through their keen sense of smell. These dogs were distinguished from larger sleuth hounds, being smaller in stature yet highly effective in diverse pursuits, reflecting their adaptation to Scotland's challenging landscapes where nobility and common hunters alike relied on them for both sport and provision. Boece emphasizes their "marvellous nature," setting them apart from ordinary dogs seen elsewhere, and notes their role in communal activities that sustained highland communities.^[21] Regional variations in rache usage emerged due to Scotland's topography, with smaller, more agile packs favored in the hilly and mountainous terrains of the Grampians and cleuchs (ravines), as described in metrical adaptations of Boece's chronicle. For instance, during King Carthlyntus's era, raches were deployed alongside greyhounds and horns to pursue wolves in narrow cleuchs and deer in highland forests, while falcons handled fowl, allowing the dogs to navigate steep, uneven ground efficiently. Highland clans extended this practice beyond noble sport, employing raches in seasonal tinchel hunts—a communal drive mobilizing the sluagh (host)—to secure sustenance from deer and other game, underscoring their practical value in a resource-scarce environment.^[22]^[23] Raches were deeply embedded in Gaelic cultural traditions, appearing in folklore and literature as steadfast companions in wilderness endeavors, echoing the hunter-warrior ethos of Fenian ballads and panegyric poetry. These narratives, drawing from medieval highland practices, celebrated the dogs' loyalty during perilous pursuits, integrating them into tales of heroism and survival that reinforced communal bonds among clans. Such depictions highlight raches not merely as tools but as symbols of resilience in Scotland's Gaelic heritage.^[23]

Evolution and Legacy

Transition to Modern Hounds

By the early 16th century, the term "rache" had fallen into obsolescence in English hunting nomenclature, supplanted by "running hound" or the generic "hound" as breeding efforts standardized packs for specific roles rather than generalized scent-tracking.^[24] This linguistic shift reflected broader changes in kennel management, where regional variations in hound types gave way to more uniform lineages suited to evolving quarry and terrain. A pivotal development after 1700 was the rise of fox hunting, prompted by the sharp decline in deer populations from widespread enclosures and the disparkment of parks, which fragmented open landscapes ideal for large-game pack pursuits.^[25] This adaptation emphasized faster, more agile hounds over the endurance-focused raches of prior eras, aligning with agricultural intensification and shifting aristocratic pastimes. Seventeenth-century kennel records provide the final archival traces of rache terminology, as seen in treatises like George Turberville's The Noble Art of Venerie (1611), where "rache" appears in descriptions of relentless scent hounds but amid a vocabulary increasingly dominated by functional alternatives, heralding the emergence of specialized breeds.^[26]

Influence on Contemporary Breeds

The rache, an extinct medieval scent hound prized for its speed in tracking and persistent baying during hunts, served as a foundational influence on several contemporary breeds, particularly through its enduring traits of superior scenting ability and pack coordination. Historical records indicate that the rache contributed directly to the ancestry of the English Foxhound, where its speed and olfactory prowess were selectively bred to create a hound optimized for pursuing foxes across varied terrain. Similarly, the Beagle inherited the rache's endurance in pack hunting, adapted for smaller game like hares, enabling these compact hounds to maintain cohesive pursuit over long distances in dense cover.^[27]^[28] In the 18th and 19th centuries, selective breeding programs further integrated rache-like characteristics into modern lines, most notably by Hugo Meynell, master of the Quorn Hunt from 1753 to 1800, who is credited with revolutionizing foxhound development. Meynell incorporated slower but nose-strong southern hounds—direct descendants of medieval raches—into his packs, crossing them with faster northern varieties to balance scenting reliability with velocity, thereby establishing the prototype for the modern English Foxhound's athletic build and hunting drive. This methodical approach, emphasizing traits like steady trailing and vocal signaling inherited from rache forebears, spread through English hunting kennels and shaped breed standards that persist today.^[29] Traits emblematic of the rache, such as distinctive baying to communicate position and unwavering pack loyalty, remain evident in breeds like the Harrier and Otterhound. The Harrier, developed in medieval England as a hare-hunting pack hound, derives its name potentially from the Norman "harier," tracing back to Saxon raches, and exhibits the rache's maneuverability and communal hunting style in a smaller frame suited for agile pursuits. Likewise, the Otterhound, bred from the Middle Ages for tracking otters along waterways, drew from southern hound stock akin to raches, preserving their webbed feet for swimming, deep-throated voice for signaling in water, and cooperative pack dynamics that ensured effective game location in challenging environments.^[30]^[31]