Then must you have in the Chamber little Bedsteads.

 Chapter 12.

How a Kennel ought to be situate and trimmed for Hounds.

A kennel ought to be placed in some oriental part of a house, where there may be a large court, well-plained, being 80. paces square, according to the commodity and ability of the lord who owns it, but the greater and larger it is, the better  it will be for the hounds, because they shall have the greater pleasure to play and scamper through the midst of it. 

Were meet and good to have a little channel of good fountain water, near unto the which you shall lay a great trough of stone to receive the course of the said water, the which trough shall be a foot and a half high, to the end the hounds may drink there at the more easily, and that trough must be peirced at the one end to let out the water and to make it clean when you would. 

In the highest place of the court, it shall be good to build the kennel or lodging for the hounds, in the which you must have two chambers, whereof the one shall be larger than the other, and in the same should be a chimney, great and large, to make a fire when need shall require.

The gates and windows of the chamber must be set and situate against the rising of the sun and the south. The chamber should be raised three foot higher than the level of the ground, and in the floor you should make two gutters and holes to the end the filthiness and urine of the hounds may thereby avoid. The walls ought to be well-whited, and the planks well-mortised and joined, and so shall spiders, fleas, punases and such like, the less breed and remain therein. 

You must always leave them some little door or wicket, to go out into the court when they would scamper or ease themselves.

Then must you have in the chamber little bedsteads which shall be raised a good foot from the ground, and there withal let every bedstead have under it a roller to remove it where you will when you would make the place clean. And again, that when they come from the chase, and that it were needful to warm them, you may roll them as near the fire as you will. Also, those bedsteads must be covered with hurdles or planks pierced, to the end the when the hounds do piss, the urine may drain to the ground. 

You must also have another chamber wherein the hunter may withdraw himself and keep his horns, couples and other things necessary. 

I thought not needful to speak yet of sumptuous chambers the which princes cause to be made for their hounds, wherein there be closets, stoves and other magnificences, for as much as it seemed to me to be more annoyance than profitable for the hounds, For when they are accustomed to such heats, being so tenderly and delicately handled, and after shall be brought to some place where they shall be evil lodged, or if they hunt in the rainy weather, then should they be ready to marfounder themselves, and so become mangy. Wherefore, I have always been of opinion that when they come from the field, and that they be moyled, it is sufficient if they be well chaffed and laid dry without accustoming them to such magnificence. 

And because sometimes men have not commodity to have fountains or brooks in every place, it is requisite to make little tubs of wood or some troughs to put their water in. You must take heed that you give them no drink in a vessel of copper or brass, for those two kinds of metals are venomous of the nature, and cause the water which comes in them to turn and to stink, which would greatly annoy the hounds. 

You must also have pretty little binges or baskets of wood to put their bread in, the which must be broken and cut by small gobbets in the same, because some dogs are sometimes sick and of evil appetite. 

Also, there are certain hours and times hounds will not feed, and therefore the baskets should not be empty at any time, as we have set in the portraiture before.