Historical Perspectives On Falconry

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The practice of flying birds of prey at game has been extant for at least 2,500 years, and is still in evidence today, in the retinue of falcons and falconers preceding kings in their grand ceremonial entrances and progresses. Falconry no doubt played an important part in the education and actual sustenance of medieval man, from the serf right up to the sovereign.
The sport of falconry (sometimes referred to as 'hawking,' albeit often erroneously) has taken a pretty terrific tossing around in literature over the past few centuries. The term 'falconry' (introduced by the Normans as faulconnerie) connotes for many people a pleasantly pastoral image of lords and ladies on fine horses spending a summer's morning with noble birds perched on their gloved wrists. Like other forms of hunting, falconry served not only to secure food, but also to satisfy a primeval urge to participate in the chase and taste the thrill of triumph over a cunning and worthy adversary. With the heightened emphasis on personal valor and skill-at-arms, the medieval warrior was naturally attracted to the concept of falconry and to the birds themselves, who apparently followed much the same code. Although the importance of falconry as a sport and diversion for the nobility cannot be denied, it was for a great many people simply a way of putting food on the table. The earliest recorded reference to the use of raptorial birds (i.e., birds of prey) in obtaining food comes from a Japanese work whose title translates to Extract from Writing on Falconry, both Ancient and Modern. It tells of a grand hawking expedition, led by King Wen Wang of Tsu, in Jun Meng, north of lake Tong-ting, China (Hunan Province), circa 680 B.C.
Aelian (c. 220 A.D.) quotes Ctesias the Cnydian, court physician to Shah Artaxerxes Mnemon of Persia, as reporting that eagles, crows, and kites were trained to hunt down hares and foxes in central Asia around 400 B.C. Ctesias was quite fascinated by this...