The Figure-Sculpiurc : Falconer 275 



' The great cross in Bakewell Churchyard has at the bottom of 

 all a man with a bow, taking aim at the little creature nibbling the 

 fmit at the top. At Bradbourne in Derbyshire there are the frag- 

 ments of a cross equally noble with that at Bakewell ; and there 

 again on more than one side is a man at the foot taking aim at the 

 squirrels or little foxes in the tree or vine. The great cross shaft 

 at Sheffield has remarkable examples of the same kind.' ^ The 

 cross at Auckland (see p. 82) has ' the upper part of a human 

 figure, the upraised hands of which hold a bow and arrow, pointed 

 at one of the animals.' ^ 



Everything would seem to indicate, then, that both archer and 

 Sagittarius ^ are represented as in conflict with the powers of evil ; 

 that on the Ruthwell Cross, as well as on those at Bakewell and 

 Bradbourne, the archers are 'aiming at the animals (not the birds) 

 in the vines (probably with reference to Song of Sol. 2. 15, ' Take. 

 us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines ') ; and that all 

 these examples of the archer, like those of the Sagittarius, belong 

 to the 11th and 12th centuries. 



B. The Falconer.* 

 Authorities are now agreed that falconry was introduced into 

 Europe from the East.^ Accordingly, as may be supposed, it was 

 introduced into England from the Continent. There is no mention 

 of falcons in England before the second third of the 8th century. 

 At this time, and even in the middle of the century, there were very 

 few trained hawks even in Kent, the part of England most accessible 

 from the Continent, while there they must have been comparatively 

 numerous, as shown by the mention of them in the Germanic laws 

 of even the 5th to the 7th century,^ and by the decree of the Ger- 

 manic Council in 742 that priests were not to possess hawks or fal- 

 cons.'^ Somewhere between 732 and 751, Boniface, the apostle 



1 Browne, Conv. of Hept., p. 192. ^ Victoria Hist. Durham 1. 218. 



^ Not, of course, as a sign of the zodiac ; on representations of this see 

 Fowler, ' Mediaeval Representations of the Months and Seasons,' Archceo- 

 logia 44. 137-224 ; Male, L'Art Religieux du XIII^ Siecle en France, pp. 89- 

 103 ; and cf. TJn Manuscrit Chartrain du XF Sihle (Chartres, 1893), p. 9 

 where one of the 11th century is described (these being rare). There are five 

 zodiacs figured at Chartres alone. 



* See p. 25. Cf. the birds on the top-stone of the Ruthwell Cross. 



' Harting, Bibliotheca Accipitraria, p. xiii. 



^ Brockhaus, Konversations-Lexikon, 14th ed., 2. 652. 



' Migne, Pair. Lat. 89. 807 : ' et ut accipitres et falcones non habeant.' 



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