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Date
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LInks
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Description
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~14,700 Years Ago |
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Estimated age for recent radiocarbon
carried out on human bones from Gough's Cave. This time period,
sometimes referred to as the Old Stone Age, dates back prior to
the end of the Last Ice Age which occurred ~10,000 years ago. |
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7538 BC ±350 BC
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Approximately 9,500 years ago,
archaeologists discovered at the Star Carr excavation site in
Yorkshire, England, what has been described as an almost
complete skeleton of a mature dog. The Star Carr canine skeletal
remains have been suggested to be representative of "dog" being
disassociated from, but related to, the wolf. Authorities studying early
domestic dogs and/or domesticated mammals caution against
identifying remains from archaeological sites as being
representative of modern breed names.
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~2000 BC |
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During the Bronze Age,
Britain's population became an agricultural civilization.
Raising livestock became an important part of that agricultural
environment. Likely dogs became important to farmers
needing protection from wolves for their sheep and cattle.
This era may mark the beginning of some form of breeding to
produce the guarding and working abilities of dogs. |
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800 BC to 43 AD
600 BC to
~50 AD |
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The Iron Age.
Celtic Britain existed over this period of
time. When the Celts were not
fighting, they engaged in farming. The Celts brought the innovation
of the iron plough to Britain. Because the plough was difficult
to turn and required a large team of eight oxen defined as a
member of the bovine family); this resulted
in fields being long and narrow (this pattern still can be seen
in some parts of Britain in modern times). |
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116 BC –
27 BC |
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Marcus Terentius Varro, also known as Varro Reatinus, wrote about sheepdogs traveling on
their own over great distances to return to their
masters. Similar behavior was described by writers about
drovers' dogs in Britain during the era of cattle being
moved to market. |
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~63 BC to ~23 AD |
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The time frame listed for this entry was when
Strabo, the Greek geographer, lived;
he visited the British Isles among other places. His
Geographica consisted of many volumes most of which was
destroyed. The Geography of Strabo published in Volume II
of the Loeb Classical Library Edition, 1923, appears on the
internet. It was from the English translation that his words
appear: "Most of the island is flat and overgrown
with forests, although many of its districts are hilly. It bears
grain, cattle, gold, silver and iron. These things, accordingly
are exported from the island, as also hides and slaves and dogs
that are by nature suited to the purposes of the chase; the
Celti, however, use both these and the native dogs for the
purposes of war too." Mention
of cattle makes one wonder whether some of the Celts' dogs were
used for managing the stock in addition to the purposes of war.
Centuries later, as images on this website will
demonstrate, herding dogs, which included Beardie-like dogs, were
used by the British for the war effort during both World Wars I and II. |
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<~43-~410 |
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Roman Britain was the part of
Great Britain that was controlled by the Roman Empire. The
Romans introduced new agriculture developments to already established
farming practices on the British Isles. |
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410
to
1066 |
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The Fall of the Roman Empire in Britain in the 5th Century is considered by many
scholars to be the beginning of the Dark Ages. The Dark Ages left future generations
with precious little documentation to call upon to understand
the daily lives of the people residing on the British Isles.
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793-1066
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The period of time was known as the Vikings Age in Britain. More
information about this subject can be obtained on the BBC website.
The Ancient Welsh Laws codified by Hywel
Dda talked about how the Herdman's Dog, and the "Bugeulgy"
(Sheepdog) was given the value of one ox in its prime (c.920).
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1066
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In 1066 the Normans invaded England. William I, the
Conqueror, a Norman, became King of England.
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1100
to
1500 |
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Many scholars refer to this period of time
as the Middle Ages. |
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Based upon the agricultural society present
in Britain (described above), how plausible
would it have been that no dogs were utilized for stock
management (to include shaggy coated dogs) during
the hundreds of years prior to the
early 1500s considering that livestock management was part of
the agricultural society that existed there?
From writings, and from stories handed
down generation to generation, it was known that various types of
dogs (to include those with beards beneath their chins) engaged
in the driving of cattle in Scotland. Those dogs with beards had
many names; on this website they will often be referred to as "Beardie-like dogs"
or "Beardie-like canines." Cattle was the predominant kind of stock (as opposed to
sheep) residing in northern Scotland (until large scale sheep operations
began). Several early dog writers mentioned how dogs with double coats and heavier padded feet were the type
that could withstand the terrain and the weather associated with the Highlands.
One breed of cattle also possessed shaggy coats; they were, and
still are, called "Highland Cattle."
The English Renaissance started later
(15th Century) as compared to Italy (14th Century). Renaissance
artists re-explored works produced during the Roman Empire, as
well as classical Grecian works, in order to depict the human
form in a realistic manner. It was during the English
Renaissance that the first printed book in English featuring
dogs was written; it is further discussed under the year "1486"
below.
Mary, Queen of Scots, was beheaded in
1566. Her infant son became King James VI, but due to his being
an infant, he did not take control of Scotland until 1581.
Thereafter, King Queen Elizabeth I of England
named her second cousin, King James VI, to succeed her. At the beginning of the 17th Century,
the Renaissance in England came to an end./
After Queen Elizabeth I passed in 1603, King James VI of
Scotland became King James I of England. Scotland and England were now united,
and by 1607, free trade was opened up between the two countries. This meant cattle rustlers beware;
cattle drovers drove their herds across the border. Beardie-like dogs were known to have been on
those cattle drives taking cattle south beyond the borderlands. That might explain why some authors
concluded (in the late 19th and early 20th centuries) that the Bearded Collie played heavily
in the development of the Old English Sheepdog.
An almost identical type of Beardie-like canine became known as the
"Smithfield." That is because they were used on routes
heading to the Smithfield markets. Some of the Smithfield dogs
were exported to Australia. The weather there was much too hot
for the heavy coated dogs. Therefore, some Smithfields ended up going to Tasmania where
several descendent canines reside today. Some look very similar
to present-day Beardies, but they are still called a
"Smithfield."
As previously stated, large scale sheep farming was
not introduced to the Highlands of Scotland until after 1745.
That is perhaps why some authors did not believe the
Beardie-like dog began in the northern areas of Scotland as
opposed to the southern areas and/or the borderlands.
The Highland Clearances began around 1785, and, thereafter, life
changed greatly for the people residing in the northern areas of
Scotland. People were displaced from their lands often fleeing to other
countries. Landlords received considerable sums of money from
those large scale sheep farming operations; the sheep farmers of the large
scale sheep operations could afford to
pay the high rent to the landlords due to the amount of income received from
wool production.
During the first half of the 1800s, open
grazing lands turned into the beginning of an enclosed system of
fields. By the 1830s, steamships were used to move cattle from
some areas to the southern markets. Finally, railways were
established by the late 1800s, and the droving days,
particularly of cattle, would soon
end.
Many, if not most, authors agree that the Beardie-like dogs started in Britain.
Some of the early authors on the subject of dogs wrote that the
words "colley" or "collie" was associated with dogs of Scotland.
Dogs of the south (England and Wales) were mostly referred to as "sheepdogs" or
"sheep dogs." It would be a mistake to assume a "Highland Collie" meant
a Bearded Collie. The term "Highland Collie" was often used
by authors to describe dogs from the northern parts of Scotland
(i.e., a rough coated collie, a bearded collie, and other collie
types as well).
It was not until the modern era that
dogs were further subdivided
into "breed" names. A "breed"
name relied upon characteristics associated with color, coat, and ear
and tail carriage, etc. This era began around 1859. |
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1486 |
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The Boke of St. Albans
was the first incunabula (early printed book; prior to 1501)
in English to feature dogs. Clifford "Doggy" Hubbard in
The Literature of British Dogs
(1949) indicated the incunabula was likely authored prior to
1481.
For those interested in English history, much turmoil occurred
during the time frame from 1400-1500. King Edward IV ruled from
1401 to 1470 and again from 1471-1483. A young son, King Edward
V, succeeded King Edward IV in 1483, but the young prince did
not last as King beyond a few days. Edward IV's brother, King
Richard III, ruled from 1483 to 1485. In 1485, King Henry VII
(Henry Tudor, another son of King Edward IV, ruled from
1485-1509. It was the end of the Plantagenet rule and the
beginning of the Tudors.
The first printing in 1486, titled "The Boke of Haukyng and
Huntyng," had a section on hunting and it ended with the
words "Explicit Dam Julyans Barnes." Hubbard believed the
section on hunting was likely Barnes'/Berners' own
original compilation (based upon her signature at the end).
She has been associated with the name Juliana Berners,
a prioress of Sopwell Nunnery at St. Albans. Edward Ash, a cynologist, wrote in one of his books
that it was established that there was no such prioress at this
Nunnery during this period of time, nor was such a lady
established as Lord Berners' sister. Hubbard, in The
Literature of British Dogs, wrote that she was generally
claimed to be the daughter of Sir James Berners (who was beheaded in 1388).
Following the year 1486, other editions were also printed to
include additional material. Ash, Hubbard, and others have indicated
Berners' hunting treatise was mainly copied from another
treatise by Edward, Second Duke of York. Edward's treatise,
entitled Master of Game, was
believed to have been authored between 1406 and 1413. It
consisted of 36 chapters; five chapters were original work by
Edward.
Edward, Second Duke of York, put forth his treatise borrowing
heavily from Gaston de Foix's Livre de chasse
(originally composed in 1387). Hubbard pointed out in the
preface to The Literature of British Dogs, the English cannot take
credit for writing the first treatise about dogs
". . . but with the specialist literature of dogs it is plain
enough that our first writers from Edward, Second Duke of York,
to Turberville exploited the existing French treatises to the
full . . . hence my frontispiece portrait of Gaston de Foix,
being the unwitting principal author of our first book
describing breeds of dogs."
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c.1509 |
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A painting entitled "Fête champêtre"
(also known as The Pastoral Concert) was thought to have been painted by
Giorgione, but according to the website for the Louvre Museum in
France, it is now attributed to Tiziana Vecellio (known as
Titian). The painting was to represent the confrontation of two
worlds, one being the aristocracy; the other being nymphs and
shepherds. This painted scene included a shepherd with his flock.
A small image of the entire painting is presented in the upper
left hand corner of this image. |
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1513 |
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What is the importance of woodcuts and
etchings relating to this website?
Both types of printing allow us to look
at the early types of sheepdogs. Woodcuts began to
appear in Europe by the 1400s.
Urs Graf produced two etchings, one of
which dates from 1513 and this etching is still today considered to be the earliest known
etching where a date has been established. |
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c.1514 |
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It has been written in many places that
Pan K. Grabski sailed from Gdansk through the Baltic Sea to the
North Sea where he landed his ship in Scotland with six Polish
Lowland Sheepdogs aboard. It has also been written
that a Scottish shepherd admired them and exchanged a ram and a
ewe for three of the six dogs. There are individuals who
believe that those three dogs became the origin for the Bearded
Collie, the Old English Sheepdog and other breeds in Great
Britain.
But were those three dogs really the
origin for the shaggy coated sheepdogs, or did they contribute to
the existing gene pool of the sheepdogs already there?
Historian Col. David Hancock said in his article which
appears on the "History:Hancock" section of this website:
The goat-haired sheepdogs have long existed as a distinct type all over
Europe, but all lack coverage in canine literature. If you compare their
distribution with that of the big flock-guardians of the high pastures
like the Maremma, the Estrela Mountain dog, the Caucasian Owtcharkas,
the Kuvasz, the Tibetan "Mastiff" and the Bergamasco then with the
various types of Dutch and Belgian shepherd dogs, the Border Collie, the
Beauceron, the Algerian Sheepdog, the Berger de Picardie, the rough and
smooth Collies and the now extinct Welsh Hillman, you can soon see how
climate, function and terrain determined type.
Against that background therefore, I don't believe
there is really any need to seek an origin for, say, the Bearded Collie
in dogs off a Polish ship in the l6th century or any other foreign
ancestry."
Cynologist Edward Ash, in his book Dogs: Their
History and Development (1927), in the chapter entitled
"Sheep-dogs," wrote:/
"In the British Islands shepherd-dogs have from some years
previous to 1800 been of two, three, or four types (1) The
rough-coated collie, shown by Bewick. (2) The cur-dog, a
smooth-coated bobtailed collie. (3) The bearded collie, shown by Taplin."
He then went on to state:
"To-day we have four more or less
distinct varieties—collie (rough-coated); collie
(smooth-coated); bearded collie and old English sheep-dog, which
are practically the same; and the Shetland sheep-dog, a
miniature collie about the same size and weight as the collie
was in Edwards and Taplin's time. These breeds, except the
bearded collie, are registered by the Kennel Club. It is
interesting that sheep-dogs all over the world, with few
exceptions, are somewhat of the collie or bearded collie type."
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1551 |
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Accord to Ash, Dr. Conrad
Gesner (1516-1565), a Swiss physician and naturalist, made the
first serious attempt to write about dogs. |
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1576 |
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Dr. Johannes Caius (1533-1603), was the physician-in-chief to Edward VI, Mary, and
Queen Elizabeth I. His surname is pronounced "Keys" like keys to a lock.
At the request of his friend, Conrad Gesner, Caius wrote a letter describing
various types of dogs in Britain, but that letter went unpublished at Caius'
request.
Five years after the
first letter was sent, Dr. Caius again wrote to Dr. Gesner. Caius
categorized dogs into classifications, one of which was the
"shepherd's dogge." Caius' treatise,
incorporated into Gesner's updated writings,
was also published separately in Latin, in 1570, under the name
De Canibus Britannicis (shortened titled). This
became the first English book devoted entirely to the
subject of dogs./
Dr. Caius' assistant, Abraham
Fleming, translated the Latin to English; this English translation was published
in 1576 under the name Of Englishe Dogges. |
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1586
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Barnabe Googe (1540-1594) translated Conrad Heresbach's
Foure Bookes of Husbandrie which was published in 1586.
Heresbach lived from 1496-1576; his book was first published in
1577. From the translated text:
"The shepherd's masty, that is for the folde, must neither be
so gaunt nor so swifte as the greyhound, nor so fatte nor so
heavy as the masty of the house; but verie strong, and able to
fights and follow the chase, that he may beat away the woolfe or
other beasts, and to follow the theefe, and to recover the prey.
And therefore his body should be rather long than short and
thick; in all other points he must agree with the ban-dog. His
head must be great and smooth and full of veins; his ears great
and hanging; his joints long; his fore legs shorter than his
hinder; but verie straight and great. His claws wide, his nails
hard, his heel neither flesy nor too hard; the ridge of his back
not too much appearing, not crooked; his ribs round and well-knitte;
his shoulder points well distant; his buttocks fatte and broad."
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1603 |
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The English and Scottish Crowns were no
longer separate. James I (previously King James VI of
Scotland) became the first King to rule Britain. |
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1607 |
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Edward Topsell wrote his book The Historie of
Foure-footed Beasts which was published in 1607.
It was mainly copied from Drs. Gesner and Caius' writings. It is
interesting to read that Edward C. Ash, a cynologist, later
questioned the possibility of a bearded collie
being crossed with a poodle to produce a water-dog or Spagnell.
Was Ash on the right track? Or was he
completely off base? Did he misunderstand what Topsell wrote? |
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1617 |
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Dr. Carson I. A. Ritchie, previously
mentioned as the author of The British Dog (1981) put
forth a chronology of the British Dog, and he indicated that
1617 was the first use of the word "collie" in reference to a
Scottish bishop. |
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1631 |
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Rembrandt Harmenszoon
van Rijn (July 15, 1606 - October 4, 1669) painted himself with
a dog in 1631. It was written in Gardner's Art Through the
Ages: "If Rembrandt had never painted, he still would be
renowned, as he principally was in his lifetime, for his
prints."
There is similarity between the shape of
the head of the dog in
the Rembrandt painting (minus the spaniel type of ears) with the
head of a modern Beardie-like dog. But surely the curly coat
makes one think it may be a water dog of some type. |
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1649 - 1660 |
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Note: This was the only period of time when there
was not a monarch for Britain. During this
period of time, the country was a republic. |
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1650 |
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Jan Jonston's book in Latin
(1650) was later translated to English in 1657.
Engravings of a few canis or canes (dogs) were included. Among
them appeared a shaggy coated dog with a beard. This publication
is approximately 75 years after Caius' writings and sketches.
Were it not for printmaking, we could only rely upon written descriptions of
what early canines looked like; thankfully printed images
started emerging in the late 1500s. Many prints were not
of the quality of the Rembrandt etchings (considered by many
scholars to be the finest ever made), but we should remain
indebted to those early printmakers for allowing us to see the
past. |
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1653 |
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What is interesting about Andreas Cirino's book, De Natura et
Solertia Canum (shortened title) is the inclusion of one woodcut
shown in both Edward Ash's book,
Dogs: Their History and Development (1927), and in
Hutchinson's Popular & Illustrated Dog Encyclopedia
(1935), page 356, under the heading of Collie. In Hutchinson's, the
woodcut illustration was acknowledged as being furnished by Ash, but
below the image are these words: "In 1653, a book on dogs gave some
crude woodcut illustrations, including this dog, which the owner
believes is intended to be a Collie dog.
This woodcut may have been done before the drawings that
appeared in Jonston's 1650 book. Clearly, it does not compare
(regarding detail) to the engraving in Jonston's book. Perhaps that
is why the Cirino woodcut was described as being "crude."
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