Julius Firmicus Maternus, who in the time of Constantine the Great, about the year 336, wrote his Astronomicon, in which he teaches the art of casting nativities, assures us that those who are born under certain signs will become great sportsmen, and keep hounds and falcons560. Caius Sollius Apollinaris Sidonius, who lived about the year 480, celebrates Herdicius, his wife’s brother, and son of the emperor Avitus, because he first practised in his territories hunting and fowling with dogs and hawks. The same author mentions hawking also in other parts of his work. That this diversion, however, has not been oftener spoken of and praised, needs excite little wonder. Hunting, and all the concomitant arts, were at first employed for use; in the course of time they were practised by servants, and easy means only of catching game were sought for. But when luxury was introduced into states, and the number of those who lived by other people’s labour increased, these idlers began to employ that time which they had not learned to make a proper use of, or which they were not compelled to apply to more valuable purposes, in catching wild animals by every method that ingenuity could suggest, or in tormenting them by lingering deaths. Hunting and fowling, therefore, received many improvements by the assistance of art; and the indolent clergy even indulged in these cruel sports, though often forbidden by the church. Such prohibitions were issued by the council of Agda in the year 506; by that of Epaon in 517; by that of Macon in 585, and perhaps oftener, but never with much effect.
Before I proceed further, I shall make two remarks. First, that Pietro Crescentio gives one Daucus as the inventor of the art of taming hawks, but without proof, or even probability. Secondly, that the ancients bred up to hunting and fishing several rapacious animals which at present are not used for that purpose, such as the seal561 and sea-wolf562. Astruc563 has endeavoured to confute this idea; but his reasoning appears to me to have little weight; and I agree in opinion with Rondeletius and Isaac Vossius564, that seals might be instructed to catch fish; I myself have seen some, that, when commanded by their master, exhibited a variety of movements and tricks which undoubtedly prove their aptness to learn.
The art of falconry seems to have been carried to the greatest perfection, and to have been much in vogue at the principal courts of Europe in the twelfth century. Some on that account have ascribed the invention of it to the emperor Frederic I., and others to Frederic II. Frederic I., called Barbarossa, was the first who brought falcons to Italy; at least Pandolfo Collenuccio565 says that this was the common report, and Radevicus566 seems to confirm it; but I do not know from what authority Pancirollus tells us that that emperor invented falconry at the time when he was besieging Rome. Rainaldo, marquis of Este, was the first among the Italian princes who used this method of fowling567; and that the emperor Henry followed the example of his father, seems proved by the words of Collenuccio. The service rendered by Frederic II. to this art, if it can be said to deserve service, is shown by the book which he wrote in Latin on it, entitled De Arte Venandi cum Avibus, and which was printed for the first time at Augsburg in the year 1596, from a manuscript belonging to Joachim Camerarius, a physician of Nuremberg. It has here and there deficiencies, because the manuscript was torn, and some additions by the author’s son Manfred, king of Sicily. In the second book, there is an account of the use and manner of making hoods, called capellæ, which we are there told were invented by the Arabs. The emperor received as a present some hooded falcons from Arabian princes, and procured people from Arabia who understood the management of them568. Albertus Magnus has inserted a great deal from the work of this emperor in his book upon animals.
In none of the sports of the field have the fair sex partaken so much as in falconry. The ladies formerly kept hawks, in which they greatly delighted, and which were as much fondled by those who wished to gain their favour as lap-dogs are at present569. What tended principally, however, to bring it into disuse, was the invention of gunpowder. After that, hawks were discarded, and the whole enjoyment of fowling was confined to shooting. Less skill and labour were indeed required in this new exercise; but the ladies abandoned the pleasures of the chase, because they disapproved of the use of fire-arms, which were attended both with alarm and danger.
Among the oldest writers on falconry, we may reckon Demetrius, who about the year 1270 was physician to the emperor Michael Palæologus. His book, written in Greek, was first printed at Paris in 1612, by Nicholas Rigaltius, from a manuscript in the king’s library, and with the Latin translation of Peter Gyllius570. Some other works on the same subject, the antiquity of which is unknown, were printed at the same time. One in the Catalonian dialect has the forged title of Epistola Aquilæ, Symmachi et Theodotionis ad Ptolemæum regem Ægypti de re accipitraria. All these writings treat chiefly on the rearing and diseases of hawks; and contain cures, which, though some of them perhaps may be good enough, would not undoubtedly be all approved by any person of skill at present571. Aloes, to the size of about a bean, are ordered as a purge; and quicksilver is prescribed for the itch and outbreaking. We are told also, that a wild and untractable falcon was confined some time with a hood on in a smith’s shop, where it was soon tamed by the continual thumping of the hammers. One precept in Demetrius respecting the art of falconry seems very ill-suited to the practice of modern times. He desires sportsmen to say their prayers before they go out to the field. Had this custom been continued to the present day, many great men would be like the people mentioned by a certain traveller, who solicit the assistance of God when they are preparing for a piratical expedition572; but with this difference, that these rovers plunder only strange ships, whereas the latter destroy the property and possessions of their own subjects.
FOOTNOTES
544 This author, Blondus or Biondo, describing an Italian village, says, “I shall embrace this opportunity of mentioning a new circumstance, which is, that fowling with that rapacious bird the falcon, a diversion much followed at Arno, by the celebrated Alphonsus king of Arragon, was entirely unknown about two hundred years ago; for though Servius, the grammarian, says that Capua received that name from the augury of a falcon, because the Hetruscans, when founding it, saw one of these birds, which in their language was called capis; yet he does not tell us of what use they were to mankind. Besides, Pliny, who gives the names of many rapacious birds of the hawk kind (‘accipitres scilicet majores et minores achilvones, quos aliqui falcones fuisse volunt’), says nothing of their being employed to catch game; and, without doubt, had fowling in this manner been practised in the time of Virgil, he would have made Æneas and Dido carry such birds along with them when they went out a hunting, whereas he says only,
‘Massylique ruunt equites et odora canum