the conclusion of the fifteenth century, accuses his countrymen of bringing their hawks and hounds into the churches, and interrupting the divine service; which indecency he severely reprobates and with the greatest justice. The passage is thus translated by Alexander Barclay :' Into the church then comes another sotte, II.-ORIGIN OF HAWKING. I cannot trace the origin of hawking to an earlier period than the middle of the fourth century. Julius Firmicus, who livea about that time, is the first Latin author that speaks of falconers, and the art of teaching one species of birds to fly after and catch others. Pliny is thought to have attributed a sport of this kind to the inhabitants of a certain district in Thrace, but his words are too obscure for much dependance to be placed upon them.3 An English writer, upon what authority I know not, says, that hawking was first invented and practised by Frederic Barbarossa, when he besieged Rome.4 It appears, however, to be very certain that this amusement was discovered abroad, where it became fashionable, some time before it was known in this country: the period of its introduction cannot be clearly determined; but, about the middle of the eighth century, Winifred, or Boniface, archbishop of Mons, who was himself a native of England, presented to Ethelbert, king of Kent, one hawk and two falcons; and a king of the Mercians requested the same Winifred to send to him two falcons that had been trained to kill cranes. In the succeeding century, the sport was very highly esteemed by the Anglo-Saxon nobility; and the training and flying of hawks became one of the essentials in the education of 5 2 Lib. v. cap. 8 And printed by Pynson A. D. 1508. 1 a young man of rank. Alfred the great is commended for his early proficiency in this, as well as in other fashionable amusethe subments; he is even said to have written a treatise upon ject of hawking, but there is no such work at present in existence, that can with any degree of certainty be attributed to him. The pastime of hawking must, no doubt, at this period, have been very generally followed, to call for the prohibition inserted in a charter granted to the Abbey of Abington, by Kenulph, king of the Mercians; which restrains all persons from carrying of hawks, and thereby trespassing upon the lands belonging to the monks who resided therein.2 This amusement continued to be a fashionable one to the end of the Saxon æra. Byrhtric, a Saxon nobleman, who died towards the end of the tenth century, among other valuable articles, left by will, to earl Ælfric, two hawks, and all his heabop hundap. which Lambarde renders hedge-hounds; spaniels, I suppose, for the purpose of flushing the game. We have already seen that Edward the confessor was highly pleased with the sports of the field, and pursued them constantly every day, allotting the whole of his leisure time to hunting or hawking. 1II.-ROMANTIC STORY RELATIVE TO HAWKING. The monkish writers, after the conquest, not readily accounting for the first coming of the Danes, or for the cruelties that they committed in this country, have assigned several causes; and, among others, the following story is related, which, if it might be depended upon, would prove that the pastime of hawking was practised by the nobility of Denmark at a very early period; such a supposition has at least probability on its side, even if it should not be thought to derive much strength from the authority of this narrative. A Danish chieftain, of high rank, some say of royal blool, named Lothbroc, amusing himself with his hawk near sea, upon the western coasts of Denmark, the bird, in pursuit of her game, fell into the water; Lothbroc, anxious for her safety, got into a little boat that was near at hand, and rowed from the shore to take her up, but before he could return to the land, a sudden After suffering storm arose, and he was driven out to sea. See p. 3. sec. iii. P. 100. 2 This charter was granted A. D. 821. Dugdale's Monasticon, vol. i. great hardship, during a voyage of infinite peril, he reached the coast of Norfolk, and landed at a port called Rodham: he was immediately seized by the inhabitauts, and sent to the court of Edmund, king of the East Angles; when that monarch was made acquainted with the occasion of his coming, he received him very favourably, and soon became particularly attached to him, on account of his great skill in the training and flying of hawks. The partiality which Edmund manifested for this unfortunate stranger, excited the jealousy of Beoric, the king's falconer, who took an opportunity of murdering the Dane, whilst he was exercising of his birds in the midst of a wood, and secreted the body: which was soon afterwards discovered by the vigilance of a favourite spaniel. Beoric was apprehended, and, it seems, convicted of the murder; for he was condemned to be put into an open boat (some say the very boat in which the Danish chieftain came to England) without oars, mast, or rudder, and in that condition abandoned to the mercy of the ocean. It so chanced, that the boat was wafted to the very point of land that Lothbroc came from; and Beoric, escaped from the danger of the waves, was apprehended by the Danes, and taken before two of the chieftains of the country, named Hinguar and Hubba; who were both of them the sons of Lothbroc. The crafty falconer soon learned this circumstance, and, in order to acquire their favour, made them acquainted with the murder of their father, which he affirmed was executed at the command of king Edmund, and that he himself had suffered the hardship at sea, from which he had been delivered by reaching the shore, because he had the courage to oppose the king's order, and endeavoured to save the life of the Danish nobleman. Incited by this abominable falsehood to revenge the murder of their father, by force of arms, they invaded the kingdom of the East Angles, pillaged the country, and having taken the king prisoner, caused him to be tied to a stake, and shot to death with arrows. This narration bears upon the face of it the genuine marks of a legendary tale. Lidgate, a monk of Saint Edmund's Bury, has given it a place, with the addition of several miraculous circumstances, in his poetical life of king Edmund, who was the tutelar saint of the abbey to which he belonged. On the other I Lidgate presented this poem to king Henry VI. when that monarch held his court at Bury. The presentation MS. is yet extant in the Harleian Library, No. 2278, hand, every one who is acquainted with the history of the Anglo-Saxons must know, that the Danish pirates had infested the coasts of England, and committed many dreadful depredations, long before the time assigned for the above event; and the success of the first parties encouraged others to make the like attempts. IV. GRAND FALCONER OF FRANCE. Hawking is often mentioned, says a modern author, in the capitularies of the eighth and ninth centuries. The grand fauconnier of France was an officer of great eminence; his annual salary was four thousand florins; he was attended by fifty gentlemen, and fifty assistant falconers; he was allowed to keep three hundred hawks, he licensed every vender of hawks in France, and received a tax upon every bird sold in that kingdom, and even within the verge of the court; and the king never rode out upon any occasion of consequence without this officer attending upon him.' In Doomsday-book, a hawk's airy 2 is returned among the most valuable articles of property; which proves the high estimation these birds were held in at the commencement of the Norman government; and probably some establishment, like that above mentioned, was made for the royal falconer in England. V.-FONDNESS OF EDWARD III. &c. FOR HAWKING. 3 Edward III., according to Froissart, had with him in his army when he invaded France, thirty falconers on horseback, who had charge of his hawks; and every day he either hunted, or went to the river for the purpose of hawking, as his fancy inclined him. From the frequent mention that is made of hawking by the water-side, not only by the historians, but also by the romance writers of the middle ages, I suppose that the pursuit of water-fowls afforded the most diversion. The author last quoted, speaking of the earl of Flanders, says, he was always at the river, where his falconer cast off one falcon after the heron, and the earl another. In the poetical romance of the Squire of low Degree," the king of Hungary promises his daughter, that, at her return from hunting, she should hawk by the river-side, with gos hawk, gentle falcon, and other well1 Warton's Hist. of English Poetry, vol. ii. p. 221. 2 Aira Accipitris. 66 3 Trente fauconniers à cheval, chargez d'oiseaux. Froissart's Chron. vol. i. cap. 210. Ou en riviere. Ibid. Tous jours en riviere. Ibid. cap. 140. tutored birds;' so also Chaucer, in the rhime of sir Thopas, says that he could hunt the wild deer, And ryde on haukynge by the ryver, With grey gos hawke in hande.2 An anonymous writer, of the seventeenth century, records the following anecdote: "Sir Thomas Jermin, going out with his servants, and brooke hawkes one evening, at Bury, they were no sooner abroad, but fowle were found, and he called out to one of his falconers, Off with your jerkin: the fellow being into the wind did not heare him; at which he stormed, and still cried out, Off with your jerkin, you knave, off with your jerkin: now it fell out that there was, at that instant, a plaine townsman of Bury, in a freeze jerkin, stood betwixt him and his falconer, who seeing sir Thomas in such a rage, and thinking he had spoken to him, unbuttoned himself amaine, threw off his jerkin, and besought his worshippe not to be offended, for he would off with his doublet too, to give him content."5 6 This engraving represents a Saxon nobleman and his falconer, with their hawks, upon the bank of a river, waiting for the rising of the game. The delineation is from a Saxon manuscript written at the close of the ninth century, or at the commencement of the tenth; in the Cotton Library. Another drawing upon the same subject, with a little variation, occurs in a Saxon manuscript, somewhat more modern. The two following engravings are from drawings in a manuscript written early in the fourteenth century, preserved in the Royal Library. We see a party of both sexes hawking by the water side; the fal 1 Garrick's Collect. of old Plays, K. vol. x Bury St. Edmund's, in Suffolk. Canterbury Tales. That is, to the windward; I use the author's own words. Tiberius, C. vi. Marked 2 B. vii |