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Professional Jargon of Falconry

There are few more acceptable presents to a nobleman or, better still, to a lady, than a really fine bird. Abbots send five or six superior hawks to the king when craving protection for their monasteries. Foreign ambassadors present His Royal Grace with a pair of birds as the opening wedge to negotiations. The "reception of hawks" is indeed a regular ceremony at the Paris court. Most of Conon's hawks have come from fellow cavaliers who craved his favor. The St. Aliquis gentry pride themselves on understanding all the professional jargon of falconry. Only peasant clowns would confess themselves ignorant thereof; yet even among nobles few speak it really well. The other day a pretentious knight dined at the castle. He put his gerfalcon on the perch provided in the hall for such use by the guests. But, thunder of heaven! how great seemed his foolishness when Conon courteously led the subject around to falconry! "He said: 'The hand of the bird' instead of 'the talon'; 'the talon' instead of 'the claw'; 'the claw' instead of 'the nail.' It was most distressing to find such a man with a claim to courteous treatment!"

NOBLE HOLDING A FALCON IN EACH HAND

Thirteenth century; restored by Viollet-Le-Duc, from a manuscript in the Bibliothèque de Bruxelles.

Of course, at some excesses in falconry Conon draws the line. He considers impious his neighbor the Viscount of Foretvert, who sprinkles his hawks with holy water prior to every hunt, and says a prayer over them adjuring, "You, O Eagles, by the True God, the Holy Virgin, and the holy prophets, to leave the field clear for our birds and not to molest them in their flight." The church has never authorized this, though the viscount's worldly chaplain certainly condones the practice.

Everything about falcons must be compatible with their nobility. The glove on which they are carried is embroidered with gold. The hood which keeps them blindfolded is likewise adorned with gold thread, pearls, and bright feathers. Every bird has attached to his legs two little bells engraved with his owner's name. High in the air they can be heard tinkling. If the bird is lost the peasants discovering it can return it to the owner—and woe to the villein who retains a falcon found in the forest! The local law provides that either he must pay a ruinous fine or let the falcon eat six ounces of flesh from his breast. As for stealing a hunting bird outright, there is hardly a speedier road to the gallows; it is what horse stealing some day will become in communities very far from France.

Assuredly it is an exhilarating sight to see the castle folk go hawking on a fine morning. The baron, baroness, and all their older relatives and guests, each with bird on gauntlet, are on tall horses; the squires and younger people have sparrow hawks to send against the smaller prey, but the leaders of the sport will wait until they can strike a swift duck or heron. Dogs will race along to flush the game. Horns are blowing, young voices laughing, all the horses prancing. Conon gives the word. Away they go—racing over fences, field and fallow, thicket and brook, until fate sends to view a heron. Then all the hawks are unhooded together; there are shouts, encouragement, merry wagers, and helloing as the birds soar in the chase. The heron may meet his fate far in the blue above. Then follow more racing and scurrying to recover the hawks. So onward, covering many miles of country, until, with blood tingling, all canter back to St. Aliquis in a determined mood for supper.

Hunting Serious Business

Hunting is more serious business than falconry. The castle folk do not care much for beef and mutton; they prefer venison and boar's meat, and the great woods to the east of the castle supply food no less than diversion. Hunting is a pursuit quite allowable to pious laymen, and in moderation is even commended by the Church. By hunting one benefits one's soul, for thus we "avoid the sin of indolence, and, according to our faith, he who avoids the seven mortal sins will be saved; therefore, the good sportsmen will be saved." The huntsmen's saints—St. Germain, St. Martin, and above all St. Hubert of Liège, a renowned hunter of the eighth century[18]—are invoked in countless castles oftener, one fears, than such greater saints as St. Peter and St. Paul.

A HUNTER

From a seal of the thirteenth century

(Archives nationales).

There are many dangerous beasts in the great forests spread over France. Charlemagne (the tale runs) was once nearly hugged to death by a hard-pressed bear. Every nobleman has met with very ugly boars and also powerful stags who fought desperately.

As for the ladies (who, after all, are of one blood with their brothers) the hunt is almost the closest they can come to martial pleasures. Adela and her sister-in-law can wind horns, follow stags, control dogs almost as well as Conon and Aimery. Of course, they could ride from early girlhood. On occasion of ceremony they ride sidesaddle, but when hunting and hawking they go astride in wholly masculine manner. François has been riding now for years, and even little Anseau, barely seven, can cling to the back of a high steed and keep beside his mother, unless the hunt becomes extremely furious.

The equipments for hunting are simple. The only real luxury is in the hunting horns, the great olifants whose piercing notes can ring a mile through the still forests. These horns are made of ivory, chased with gold, and swung from each important rider's neck by a cord of silk or fine leather. The hunters wear leather gauntlets and use a bow and arrows, a "Danish ax" (a kind of tomahawk), a boar spear (the favorite hunting weapon), and also a large knife for emergencies. As the party mounts in the castle court, around them are leaping and yelping the great pack of dogs—white in teeth, red tongues, straining the leashes and barely controlled by their keepers. Dogs are loved almost as much as falcons, and Conon has a large collection of greyhounds, staghounds, boarhounds, and even of terrible bloodhounds. The kennels are replenished constantly, for stags and old boars can kill many dogs ere they are finally run down and speared. The gift of a litter of fine puppies is, therefore, often as welcome as a cast of hawks.

Chasing Down a Great Boar

It is a happy day if a beater comes in with tidings of "a wild boar, the strongest of which anyone has ever heard tell, in the forest of Pevele and Vicogne near the free holdings of St. Bertin." The baron will call out all the castle folk, and, if time admits, will send to some favorite vassals a few miles away to join the sport. With ten pairs of hounds and at least fifteen huntsmen and beaters he will thus organize the pursuit. The hunt will start at dawn, and it will take much of the forenoon to reach the forest where the boar has been discovered. Then (recites a jongleur) will begin "the baying and the yelping of dogs. They are unleashed. They bound through the thicket and find the tracks where the boar has dug and rooted for worms." One of the keepers then unleashes Blanchart, the baron's best bloodhound. Conon pats his head and they put him on the track.

The hound soon discovers the boar's lair. "It is a narrow place between the trunks of two uprooted oaks, near a spring. When the boar hears the baying of the hound he stands erect, spreads his enormous feet, and, disdaining flight, wheels around, until, judging himself within reaching distance of the good hound, he seizes it and fells it dead by his side. The baron would not have given Blanchart for one hundred deniers. Not hearing his barking he runs up, sword in hand; but he is too late; the boar is gone."

After that there is nothing for it except to keep up the chase relentlessly until evening, with the whole company gradually scattering through the forest until Conon at last overtakes the chase. But the baron is now alone save for a few dogs. "The boar has finally come to bay in front of a thicket. He begins by refreshing himself in a pool; then, raising his brows, rolling his eyes, and snorting, he bares his tusks and dashes upon the dogs, and rips them open or tears them to pieces, one after another, all except three of the best greyhounds. Then Conon arrives, and first of all he sees his dogs stretched out dead. 'Oh, son of a sow,' cries he, 'it is you that have disemboweled my dogs, have separated me from my friends, and have brought me I know not where! You shall die!' He leaps from his steed. At his shout the boar, despite bushes and ditches, leaps upon him swift as an arrow. Conon lets him come straight on, and, holding the boar spear straight before him, strikes at his breast. The point pierces the heart and goes out at the shoulder blade. Mortally wounded, the boar swerves to one side, totters, and falls."[19] So the chase ends and the dogs are avenged. The baron has to blow his horn many times ere his party finds him. Luckily the boar has run back somewhat toward St. Aliquis. They are therefore able to get home in noisy triumph that night, and all the castle women are under the red torches outside the gate to "oh!" and "ah!" at the boar and to praise the prowess of their seigneur.

LIFE IN THE MIDDLE AGES

THE STAG HUNT

Twelfth century; from a window in the cathedral of Chartres.

Conon is fortunate in being able to return home without more adventures. His high suzerain, King Philip Augustus, while a young prince, once followed a boar until he was lost in the forest, and became justly anxious; but just as he was commending himself to God, the Virgin, and "St. Denis, the protector of the King of France," to his great relief he met "a charcoal burner, grim to behold, with a face black with charcoal, carrying a great ax on his shoulder." This honest peasant guided the prince to safety.

Hunting Across Peasants' Lands

One important part of the St. Aliquis population, however, regards all hunting parties with far less satisfaction. The chase often goes straight across the peasants' fields, with twenty horses beating down the newly seeded ground or even the standing crops. This is the baron's absolute privilege and any protest is treasonable. The villeins have not simply to submit to this, but if deer nibble or boars root upon their fields, they can merely try to scare the ravagers off. Their lord and his friends alone may use arrow, blade, or spear against the game. The St. Aliquis peasants bless the saints that this time the boar kept conveniently in the forest and did not sell his life dearly in a half-ripe cornfield.

Hawking and hunting are two great out-of-door sports, always excepting martial exercises and downright war; although sometimes Aimery and other young men, for a tame diversion, take crossbows and try to shoot birds in the meadows.

If Conon is naturally the master of the hunt, Adela is as invariably mistress of a very important place—the garden. Castles are disagreeable residences. Even with the newer palais rising beside the grim donjon, they are usually dampish, illy lighted, and subject to uncanny odors. In northern France there is enough confining weather in any case. Therefore, the more reason there is, the moment the sun shines, for hastening where there are sweet air, bright flowers, and delightful greenness.

The castle garden is outside the barbican, shut off by a dense hedge from the exercise ground. In it are not merely many beds of flowers, but fruit trees and a group of venerable elms much older than the First Crusade. Also, there is a broad, fine stretch of closely cropped grass, shaded by the trees for most of the day. Here all kinds of things can occur. At long tables the whole castle will dine and sup in fine weather. Here Conon will assemble his vassals for ceremonious council. Here will be played innumerable games of chess. And here especially, if a few jongleurs can be found to saw their viols on fête days, all the castle folk, noble and villein, will rapturously join in dances, not in stuffy hall under midnight lamps, but in bright daylight with the merry feet twinkling on God's soft green grass.

The Castle Garden

Adela has taken great pains with her garden, which fell into a bad condition during Baron Garnier's day. She often councils with Brother Sebastian at the abbey, a real botanist with a true love of plants and flowers. One side of the beds is adorned with roses, lilies, and marigolds. On the other grow useful herbs such as lettuce, cresses, mint, parsley, hyssop, sage, coriander, and fennel. With these, too, are also poppies, daffodils, and acanthus plants, while a vegetable garden supplies the castle with cucumbers, beets, mustard, and wormwood. The fruit trees yield a sizable crop of apples, quinces, peaches, and pears. There is a kind of hot-house in which the baroness has tried to raise figs, but with no great success; but, of course, there is no difficulty in maturing grapes and cherries; indeed, cherry festivals are among the most familiar and delightful holidays in all this part of France. "Life," say monkish writers, warning the thoughtless, "though perhaps pleasant, is transitory, 'even as is a cherry fair.'"

"Crooked" Heman (the hunchbacked gardener) has considerable skill even without the teachings of Brother Sebastian. He practices grafting successfully, although his theories on the subject are absurd. He is trying to develop a new kind of plum and is tenderly raising some of the new "Agony" pears—a bitter variety for pickling. True, he believes that cherries can grow without stones if you have the right recipe, and that peach trees will bear pomegranates if only you can sprinkle them with enough goats' milk. This does not prevent large practical results. His tools are simple—an ax, a spade, a grafting knife, and a pruning hook; but, thanks to the unlimited number of peasant clowns which the baroness can put at his disposal, he keeps the garden and orchard in admirable order.

Heman's office is the more important because the garden does not exist solely as a pleasure spot or for its fruits and vegetables. Flowers are in constant demand, whenever obtainable, for garlands and chaplets. Even as with the Greeks, no feast is complete without them. Wild flowers are in favor, and many a time Adela's maids are sent out to gather and wreathe woodbine or hawthorn; but, of course, such a supply is irregular. On every social occasion from early spring to the edge of winter the castle garden must, therefore, supply its garlands. It is, accordingly, one of the essential working units of St. Aliquis, along with the stables, the mews, and the armory.