Rache , also spelled racch, rach, and ratch, from

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

''ræcc'', linked to

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...

''rakkí'', is an obsolete name for a type of

hunting dog A hunting dog is a canine that hunts with or for hunters. There are several different types of hunting dog developed for various tasks and purposes. The major categories of hunting dog include hounds, terriers, dachshunds, cur type dogs, and g ...

used in Great Britain in the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

. It was a

scenthound Franz Rudolf Frisching in the uniform of an officer of the Bernese Huntsmen Corps with his Berner Laufhund, painted by Jean Preudhomme in 1785 Scent hounds (or scenthounds) are a Dog type, type of hound that primarily hunts by scent rather than ...

used in a pack to run down and kill game, or bring it to bay. The word appears before the

Norman Conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conque ...

. It was sometimes confused with 'brache', (also 'bratchet') which is a French derived word for a female scenthound. In

medieval hunting Throughout Western Europe in the Middle Ages, humans hunted wild animals. While game was at times an important source of food, it was rarely the principal source of nutrition. All classes engaged in hunting, but by the High Middle Ages, the necess ...

in England and Northern Europe, pursuit of the

hart Hart often refers to: * Hart (deer) Hart may also refer to: Organizations * Hart Racing Engines, a former Formula One engine manufacturer * Hart Skis, US ski manufacturer * Hart Stores, a Canadian chain of department stores * Hart's Reptile Wo ...

wild boar The wild boar (''Sus scrofa''), also known as the wild swine, common wild pig, Eurasian wild pig, or simply wild pig, is a suid native to much of Eurasia and North Africa, and has been introduced to the Americas and Oceania. The species is ...

involved using a '

limer 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'', meani ...

' or 'lyam hound' (a hound handled on a leash or 'lyam') to trace the animal from its footprints or droppings to where it was browsing or lying up. This became known as 'harbouring' the animal. When this had been done, the huntsman reported back to his lord, who then brought the pack of raches to chase it down on its hot scent when it had been unharboured, 'rowsed' or 'upreared'. Sometimes, pairs of raches were held at strategic points along where the quarry was expected to run, to be uncoupled when the huntsman blew the signal, or when the quarry was seen to come close. The

Bloodhound The bloodhound is a large scent hound, originally bred for hunting deer, wild boar and, since the Middle Ages, for tracking people. Believed to be descended from hounds once kept at the Abbey of Saint-Hubert, Belgium, in French it is called, ...

was typically used as a limer, and the raches were normally smaller hounds.
/ref> A lord's pack would include one or two limers to about 20 or more raches. A king or lord would want to hunt a great stag, a 'hart of ten', or 'warrantable' stag, or a powerful boar, partly for the extra fat it carried when in prime condition in the hunting season, but mostly for kudos. In ''

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight ''Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'' is a late 14th-century chivalric romance in Middle English. The author is unknown; the title was given centuries later. It is one of the best-known Arthurian stories, with its plot combining two types of ...

'', Bloodhounds announce the presence of a great boar hiding in a thicket, which then rushes out and plays havoc among the raches of the knight's pack. Not all game was hunted using the limer. Dame Juliana Berners, writing in '' The Book of Saint Albans'' (1486) writes (translation):

'My dear sons, I will now teach each one of you how many kinds of beasts must be upreared with the limer in wood or in fields - both the hart and the buck and the boar so wild. All other animals which are hunted must be sought and found with free-running raches (''"ratches so fre"'').'

Other writers might include the hare, bear, or wolf among animals to be harboured with the limer, but clearly raches could be hunted simply as a pack, as in modern hunting, if chasing 'lesser' game. After c. 1530 the term 'rache' was hardly used in England, 'running hound' (tr. of ''chien courant''), or mostly just 'hound', being preferred, but the term was still used for a while in

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

Hector Boece Hector Boece (; also spelled Boyce or Boise; 1465–1536), known in Latin as Hector Boecius or Boethius, was a Scottish philosopher and historian, and the first Principal of King's College in Aberdeen, a predecessor of the University of Abe ...

(Boethius) tr

John Bellenden John Bellenden or Ballantyne ( 1533–1587?) of Moray (why Moray, a lowland family) was a Scottish writer of the 16th century. Life He was born towards the close of the 15th century, and educated at St. Andrews and Paris. At the request of ...

''The History and Croniklis of Scotland'' 1536 where the Bloodhound was called the

sleuth hound The sleuth hound (, from Old Norse ''slóð'' "track, trail" + hound) was a breed of dog. Broadly, it was a Scottish term for what in England was called the Bloodhound, although it seems that there were slight differences between them. It was ...

(1536) describes the rache in Scotland as a versatile scenthound, able to find flesh, fowl, or even fish among the rocks, by smelling. His translator, Bellenden, says that it is not a large as the sleuth hound. The picture below, though it did not appear in Boece's original, was first published to illustrate his account when it was summarised in

Conrad Gessner Conrad Gessner (; la, Conradus Gesnerus 26 March 1516 – 13 December 1565) was a Swiss physician, naturalist, bibliographer, and philologist. Born into a poor family in Zürich, Switzerland, his father and teachers quickly realised his tale ...

's ''Historiae Animalium'' (Zurich 1554, in Latin). Rache Historiae Animalium

Obviously raches must have far outnumbered Bloodhounds in the medieval dog population, and may have been quite disparate, depending on the sort of game they were used to hunt. In the picture above from ''Les

Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry The Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry (; en, The Very Rich Hours of the Duke of Berry) or Très Riches Heures, is the most famous and possibly the best surviving example of manuscript illumination in the late phase of the International Goth ...

'' (1410) the raches are not all of the same breed. In Great Britain, they may have included the now-extinct

North Country Beagle The North Country Beagle, Northern Hound or Northern Beagle was a breed of dog that existed in Britain probably until early in the 19th century. The exact date of its extinction is not known; it is likely that it was gradually interbred with othe ...

and Southern Hound. As styles of hunting changed, and the Bloodhound fell out of use, packs were normally employed on their own to hunt all quarry. Though their name became obsolete, raches must have continued in this use. We may assume that it was from them, rather than the Bloodhound, that the various breeds of pack hounds such as the

English Foxhound The English Foxhound is one of the four foxhound breeds of dog. It is a cousin of the American Foxhound. They are scent hounds, bred to hunt foxes by scent. Description Appearance The breed standards' guidelines for showing English Foxh ...

, English Staghound, Harrier and

Beagle The beagle is a breed of small scent hound, similar in appearance to the much larger foxhound. The beagle was developed primarily for hunting hare, known as beagling. Possessing a great sense of smell and superior tracking instincts, the ...

were developed. It is apparent that in the 16th and 17th centuries there was a good deal of regional variation in sizes and types of scenthound, from which the prospective Master of Hounds could mix and match to form his pack.

References

{{hounds History of hunting Extinct dog breeds