Manners, Customs, and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance PeriodJacob, P. L.
History
Manners, Customs, and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period
Jacob, P. L.
Clothing and dress; Manners and customs; Middle Ages; Renaissance
Besides the cost of falcons, which was often very great (for they were
brought from the most distant countries, such as Sweden, Iceland, Turkey,
and Morocco), their rearing and training involved considerable outlay, as
may be more readily understood from the illustrations (Figs. 148 to 155),
showing some of the principal details of the long and difficult education
which had to be given them.
To succeed in making the falcon obey the whistle, the voice, and the signs
of the falconer was the highest aim of the art, and it was only by the
exercise of much patience that the desired resuit was obtained. All birds
of prey, when used for sport, received the generic name of _falcon_; and
amongst them were to be found the gerfalcon, the saker-hawk, the lanner,
the merlin, and the sparrow-hawk. The male birds were smaller than the
females, and were called _tiercelet_--this name, however, more
particularly applied to the gosshawk or the largest kind of male hawk,
whereas the males of the above mentioned were called _laneret, sacret,
émouchet._ Generally the male birds were used for partridges and quail,
and the female birds for the hare, the heron, and crane. _Oiseaux de
poing_, or _hand-birds,_ was the name given to the gosshawk, common hawk,
the gerfalcon, and the merlin, because they returned to the hand of their
master after having pursued game. The lanner, sparrow-hawk, and saker-hawk
were called _oiseaux de leure_, from the fact that it was always necessary
to entice them back again.
[Illustration: Fig. 147.--A Noble of Provence (Fifteenth
Century).--Bonnart's "Costumes from the Tenth to the Sixteenth Century."]
The lure was an imitation of a bird, made of red cloth, that it might be
more easily seen from a distance. It was stuffed so that the falcon could
settle easily on it, and furnished with the wings of a partridge, duck, or
heron, according to circumstances. The falconer swung his mock bird like a
sling, and whistled as he did so, and the falcon, accustomed to find a
piece of flesh attached to the lure, flew down in order to obtain it, and
was thus secured.
[Illustration: Fig. 148.--King Modus teaching the Art of
Falconry.--Fac-simile of a Miniature in the Manuscript of "Livre du Roy
Modus" (Fourteenth Century).]
The trainers of birds divided them into two kinds, namely, the _niais_ or
simple bird, which had been taken from the nest, and the wild bird
(_hagard_) captured when full-grown. The education of the former was
naturally very much the easier, but they succeeded in taming both classes,
and even the most rebellious were at last subdued by depriving them of
sleep, by keeping away the light from them, by coaxing them with the
voice, by patting them, by giving them choice food, &c.
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