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 Type may refer to: Science and technology Computing * Typing, producing text via a keyboard, typewriter, etc. * Data type, collection of values used for computations. * File type * TYPE (DOS command), a command to display contents of a file. * Ty ...

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 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 or

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' 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 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'', 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 ''The Book of Saint Albans'' (or ''Boke of Seynt Albans'') is the common title of a book printed in 1486 that is a compilation of matters relating to the interests of the time of a gentleman. It was the last of eight books printed by the St Alban ...

'' (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 (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 ...

. Hector Boece (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'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'' (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 The Southern Hound was a breed of dog that existed in Britain probably until sometime in the 19th century, now extinct. The exact date of its extinction is not known; it is likely that it was gradually interbred with other breeds until the genuine ...

. 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,

English Staghound The Staghound, sometimes referred to as the English Staghound, is an extinct breed of scent hound from England. A pack hound, the breed was used to hunt red deer and became extinct in the 19th century when the last pack was sold. History The S ...

, Harrier and Beagle 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