In 500 B.C. when the Carthaginians landed in Spain during one of their travels in the Mediterranean, the soldiers saw a great number of rabbits and they shouted “Span, span!” (span being the Carthaginian word for “rabbit”). Thus the land was calledHispania, or “rabbitland,” and the dogs that they saw in pursuit of the rabbits became known asspaniels or “rabbit-dogs.”

Is this how spaniels got their name? Or is it the fantasy of Virginia Woolf, who tells us this delightful little story in her bookFlush, the biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s spaniel. It is very likely that the spaniel lived in the countries surrounding the Mediterranean and thus in Spain. He might have gotten his name through the Basque wordEspana; the fact that there are several spaniel-like breeds in France that are calledépagneuls also points in this direction.

The fact is that the spaniel can be considered to be one of the oldest dog types in history. In the Metropolitan Museum in New York a small statue in terracotta can be seen that has a decidedly spaniel-like appearance. The statue is over 2,000 years old and belongs to the Cypriot Collection.

More proof of the antiquity of the breed can be seen from the first mention of a spaniel in the early Irish Laws in a statement that water spaniels had been given as a tribute to the king. Spaniels also traveled to Wales, where they were the treasured dogs of King Hywel Dha (Howell the Good). The king’s love for his spaniels went so far that the dogs received a special mention in one of the laws of the country in 948 A.D. At this time, for the price of one spaniel, a person could buy a number of goats, women, slaves or geese! In these laws, mammals are divided into birds, beasts and dogs, and the “dogs” classification was subdivided into tracker, greyhound and spaniel.

A 2,000-year-old terracotta (clay) figure of an early spaniel-type dog. Historians of many breeds rely on ancient artifacts to substantiate the relative antiquity of a type of dog.

The first mention of a spaniel in English literature comes as early as Chaucer (ca. 1340–1400) and Gaston de Foix, who died in 1391. Chaucer, author ofThe Canterbury Tales, refers to the spaniel several times (“for as a Spaynel she wol on hym lepe”), which proves beyond doubt that the spaniel was known in England 600 years ago. Gaston de Foix mentions the spaniel in his workMiroir de Phoebus or, as it is also known,Livre de Chasse. Gaston de Foix was a feudal baron who lived in France near the Spanish border, and he was convinced that Spain was the country of origin of the spaniel. “Another manner of hound there is, called hounds for the hawk, and Spaniels, for their kind came from Spain, notwithstanding that there be many in other countries. Such hounds have many good customs and evil. Also a fair hound for the hawk should have a great head, a great body, and be of fair hue, white or tawny (i.e., pied, speckled or mottled), for they be fairest and of such hue they be commonly the best.” He then describes them as being “hounds [the worddog was not used then] with a great head and a great, strong body. Their color is red and white of orange roan, but black and white can also be seen. They run and wag their tail and raise or start fowl and wild beasts. Their right craft is the partridge and the quail. They can also be taught to take partridge and quail with the net and they love to swim.”