858 Mr. James Edmund Harting [May 1, 



their art, which he considered the noblest and most worthy of all the 

 arts. The excellent treatise which he composed in Latin, 'Dearte 

 venandi cum Avibus,' was the first which appeared in the West, and is 

 still one of the best which exists. 



In the Middle Ages the Germans were great falconers ; so also 

 were the French, and the natives of Brabant, of whom a celebrated 

 Spanish falconer in 1383 wrote that they were the best falconers in 

 the world. To a less extent the art was practised in Spain and Italy 

 during many centuries, and books were written in all these countries, 

 by those who had become proficient in the art and were fired with 

 the enthusiasm of their success. The kings of Norway and Denmark 

 preferred hunting to hawking, but rendered good service to the sister 

 sport by procuring, from various jiarts of Scandinavia, the celebrated 

 gerfalcons of Northern Europe, which were held in the highest esteem 

 by those to whom they were sent as presents. 



Although the precise date of the introduction of hawking into 

 England cannot now be ascertained, we know, from several sources, 

 <hat it was practised by our ancestors in early Saxon times. In a 

 letter addressed by King Ethelbert (a.d. 748-760) to Boniface, Arch- 

 bishop of Mayence, w^ho died in 755, the monarch asked him to send 

 over two falcons that would do to fly at the crane, for, said he " there 

 are very few birds of use for that flight in this country," i. e. Kent. 

 Asser, in his Life of Alfred the Great, particularly refers to the 

 king's love of hawking ; and William of Malmesbury records much 

 the same of Athelstan, who procured his hawks from Wales. The 

 same historian says of Edward the Confessor, that his chief delight 

 was to follow a pack of swift hounds and cheer them with his voice, 

 or to attend the flight of hawks taught to pursue and catch their 

 kindred birds. 



So general, indeed, was the pastime of hawking in Saxon times, 

 that the monks of Abingdon found it necessary to procure a charter 

 from King Kenulph to restrain the practice in harvest time, in 

 order to prevent their lands from being trampled upon. 



One of the most interesting pieces of documentary evidence on 

 this part of the subject is preserved in the MS. department of the 

 British Museum. I refer to the " Colloquy " of Archbishop ^Ifric, 

 a composition of the 10th century. The object of this and similar 

 colloquies and vocabularies compiled about the same period was to 

 interpret Latin to the Anglo-Saxon student, and furnish him with the 

 Latin words fur the common objects of life. In this MS. we find a 

 dialogue between a scholar and a falconer, in which the latter imparts 

 some interesting details on the subject of his art.* 



Hawking was pursued by most of our early English kings with 

 the greatest enthusiasm, and a long account might be furnished of 



* This dialogue will be found prnited in my * Intioductioii ' to 'A perfecte 

 Booke for kc'piuge of Sparliawkcs or Goshawkes,' written about 1575. Sin. 4to, 

 1880. 



