TJw Domestication of Animals in the Middle Ages. 323 



Gilboa in Samaria, which, was believed to be the great country 

 of parrots, when he saw one which closely resembled his own, 

 on which he said to it, " Our parrot, which is shut up in a cage, 

 and very like you, salutes you." To the knight's astonish- 

 ment, the bird no sooner heard this than it dropped down as if 

 dead, and our traveller pursued his journey. After his return 

 to England he related this circumstance to his friends, in the 

 hearing of his parrot in the cage, which immediately dropped 

 down from its perch as if dying. The knight, believing this 

 to be the case, took the parrot out of the cage and carried it 

 into the open air, but he had no sooner laid it down than it 

 rose suddenly and flew away, never to return. 



The magpie, or, more properly speaking, the pie, was a 

 favourite bird among all classes of the middle ages, and was 

 tamed in the cottage as much as in the castle. The plot of 

 more than one mediaeval story is founded on the belief in the in- 

 telligence and cunning of this bird, and in its power of imitating 

 the human voice. Several of these stories will be found in my 

 History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England, to 

 which the reader is referred. It appears from Alexander 

 Neckam that a pie was usually kept in the poultry-yard (chors) 

 of the mediaeval mansion, because, from its watchfulness 

 against depredators and the noise it made on their approach, it 

 was considered a great safeguard for the poultry. The parrot 

 also, in the house, was believed to be watchful in announcing 

 the approach of thieves. 



It would be difficult to limit absolutely the variety of 

 animals which were domesticated in the middle ages. Birds 

 were kept in cages from an early period, and, at all 

 events after the Norman period, they seem to have been 

 common. Among quadrupeds the Teutonic race had a 

 great reverence, perhaps, we might say, a superstitious reve- 

 rence for the character of the bear, and it was a favourite 

 animal for taming from a very early period ; partly, no doubt, 

 because the bear is a docile animal, and may be taught many 

 accomplishments which made it an absolute treasure to the 

 jougleur. The gleeman, the Anglo-Saxon representative of 

 the jougleur, and his dancing bear are represented in the 

 illuminations of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts as far back as the 

 tenth century, and appear frequently in those of a later date. 

 In illuminations of manuscripts of the thirteenth and four- 

 teenth centuries, of some of which copies will be found in 

 Strutfs Sports and Pastimes, we have figures of the jougleur 

 and his bear, in which the latter is sometimes standing on his 

 head, and in others performs a variety of postures and antics. 

 Sometimes the monkey is represented in the same character, 

 and in one the monkey is riding upon the bear. These exhi- 

 VOL. vi. — no. v. T 



