Until at least some centuries after the Christian era, China and other countries in the Far East seem to have been the chief if not the only homes of falconry. But the Lombards, when they settled in North Italy, in the latter half of the sixth century, were acquainted with the art; and before the end of the ninth century it was familiar to the Saxons in England and throughout the West of Europe. Henry the Fowler, who became Emperor in 919, seems to have been so nicknamed on account of his devotion to this form of sport, which was already a favourite with princes and magnates. The Saxon King Ethelbert wrote to the Archbishop of Mayence for hawks able to take cranes. King Harold habitually carried a trained hawk on his fist; and from the time of the Norman Conquest hawking was a sport as highly honoured in the civilised world as hunting. The greatest impulse that was ever given to the sport in Western Europe was derived from the returning Crusaders, many of whom, in the course of their travels to the East, had become acquainted with the Oriental falconers and the Asiatic modes of training and flying hawks. Conspicuous amongst such Crusaders was the Emperor Frederick II., who brought back with him some Asiatic hawks and their trainers, and who not only was himself an enthusiastic and accomplished falconer, but even declared that falconry was the noblest of all arts. From that time--early in the thirteenth century--for more than four hundred years falconry flourished in Europe, as well as in the East, as a fashionable sport amongst almost all classes. As in the case of hunting and fishing, its attractions as a sport were supplemented by the very material merits it possessed as a means of procuring food. While the prince and the baron valued their falcon-gentle for its high pitch and lordly stoop, the yeoman and the burgher set almost equal store on the less aristocratic goshawk and the plebeian sparrow-hawk as purveyors of wholesome delicacies for the table. Even the serf or villein was not forgotten in the field, and was expected, or at least allowed, to train and carry on his fist the humble but well-bred and graceful kestrel.