Falconry/Hunting

Hunting During Medieval Times

When considering hunting anywhere in the past, it is easy to assume that it was strictly used to obtain food. Hunting in the modern day is difficult even with the helpful tool, the hunting rifle. Only some people can hunt and be good at it, so how was hunting done during medieval times? Was it only a means of food? Since knights didn't have rifles, what did they use? Falconry and Hunting was a primary entertainment source for nobility, showcasing skills that we have forgotten in the modern day some time ago.

This is an image of people in the Medieval Era using horns to call animals and dogs to hunt them (3)

Falconry

The practice of Falconry is believed to have started in Mesopotamia around 2,000 BC. Evidence for Falconry was primarily found in many parts of the Arabic and western Asian world. It was not only until about 400 AD that Europe obtained the knowledge of Falconry by means of Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, who was the king of Sicily, Germany, and the Roman Empire (1). After receiving an Arabic manual of Falconry, Frederick II decided to write his own "De arte venandi cum avidus," or "The Art of Hunting with Birds." Although there were records of other texts before it, Frederick II's Guide to Falconry became known as "the first" scientific works on bird anatomy and one of the founding books of ornithology or the study of birds (1).

An illuminated image from the Arabic Text that Frederick II Received (1)

In ancient times, falcons and hawks were trained to hunt down small prey and kill vermin interfering with crops. It was not until the 13th century BC that they were used less for traditional hunting and more of an organized sport for the nobility to enjoy. To understand the seriousness that was focused around the sport and appreciation of falcons in European culture, it is essential to know how much a falcon was valued. In the late 14th century BC, the Ottoman Sultan Beyazid captured the Duke of Burgundy's son and posted a ransom of 200,000 gold ducats (1). In today's money, 200,000 gold ducats would be roughly 30,000,000 USD. Instead of giving Sultan Beyazid the 30,000,000 dollars worth of gold, the Duke gave him 12 falcons, and his son was released. In today's money, those falcons were valued at 2,500,000 dollars a piece! It is unimaginable to believe that anything was valued so highly because little is even valued as such today. This explains how much the Europeans valued falcons and why Falconry quickly developed into a sport for nobility and not an efficient way of hunting small game for survival because no one could afford one.

The sport of Falconry was created so nobles could practice the training and show off their skills regarding these legendary birds in a safe and controlled environment. Falconry was also used as a means of entertainment where many noble people would watch and cheer on the falcons and their handlers as they completed tasks such as weakening larger animals to make it easier for a man or his dog to finish it off and simply displaying how obedient the falcons were to their masters.

This video shows the evolution of Falconry as both a hunting practice and a sport (4)

Gender and Hunting

Like most sports during medieval times, men often did hunting to gain power and status over other men. The animals these men killed would be brought home as trophies or souvenirs instead of food. As stated earlier, hunting was mainly a pastime for the nobility, and these dead animals were able to be used as trophies and valuable items due to the fact that animals were viewed more as beasts to be either conquered or tamed rather than a lesser and unintelligent life form that they are viewed by most today. During medieval times, the furs of these hunted animals were sought after to gift to women to win them over with clothing and jewelry that no one else had. Traditional hunting with bows, swords, horses, and dogs was practiced mainly by men due to it being deemed too physically demanding and dangerous by those same men. Falconry was different. Due to the trained birds doing the vast majority of the physically demanding actions, men allowed women to do more than be simple cheerleaders for their spots but to be involved. Women were allowed to take their horses, train their falcons, and ride off into the woods with the men to demonstrate their skills as falcon handlers. But like most activities involving both men and women, it didn't take long until romance literature made these trips popular (2). It became a viral story for men and women to fall in love while training falcons together. Although romance almost always makes its way into these conversations, Falconry was one of the first sports to allow women to participate in the same way as men!

This image shows both men and women training falcons (2)

Other Forms of Hunting

Other than using falcons and other large birds to do the dirty work, people in the Medieval Era often bordered their houses with a group of mostly men. They set out into the woods to bring home the most significant trophies they could without getting killed. Often, these men would bring dogs to help chase and retrieve minor game so they didn't have to get on and off their horses continually. They would use bows and arrows against smaller animals and save their swords for bigger animals like deer. The noble hunters used two hunting dogs: those meant for tracking and leading them to the animals and those bred for killing the small animals they found. It became more efficient to have animals such as dogs, and falcons do the brunt of the hunting to avoid injury and even death. The dogs would do most of the killing of small animals like birds, rabbits, otters, and squirrels. When the animals are too big for the dogs to kill, hunters use their horses and swords to slay the animals (3).

Work Cited

(1) Yiselaat. “Medieval Activities: Falconry and Hawking.” Medieval Britain, 6 June 2023, medievalbritain.com/type/medieval-life/activities/medieval-falconry-hawking/#:~:text=A%20falconer%20would%20fly%20a,even%20taken%20into%20religious%20services.

(2) Medievalists.net. “Medieval Falconry: Birds and Lovebirds.” Medievalists.Net, 1 Apr. 2020, www.medievalists.net/2016/03/falconry-birds-and-lovebirds/.

(3) Correa, Katherine. “Hunting in Medieval Literature: Satisfaction of Conquest or Thrill of Pursuit?” SYMPOSIUM THE ADELPHI HONORS COLLEGE JOURNAL OF IDEAS, vol. 11, 2011.

(4) YouTube, YouTube, 3 May 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NI3Fbm20Bkg. Accessed 7 Sept. 2023.