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We are Raphael Historic Falconry and we have been
the English Heritage falconers for 21 years.
We specialise in the historical recreation
of falconry and hawking in England.
We perform at beautiful historic properties,
including Audley End House, which is stood behind me.
Falconry is a story which starts in the late Roman era
and continues through to the present day.
It's not just a story about hunting with birds.
It's a story about people, places,
and of course, princely hawks.
Falconry is the art of hunting with a trained bird of prey
to catch live quarry.
It's one of the oldest forms of hunting known to mankind.
It started thousands of years ago and likely sprung
from observing a wild process.
It was not conceived originally as a sporting pursuit,
it was about hunting for food.
It was about harnessing the predatory nature
of a wild raptor to catch edible birds and animals
for the table.
Falconry is thought to have developed
thousands of years ago somewhere on the vast
central Asian plateau.
It likely travelled from Asia across Europe
via the old silk routes and arrived sometime in Britain
in the late Roman era.
Join us on a journey through English history
as we explore falconry through the ages.
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The Romans were not great practitioners of falconry,
however, in 306 AD, Constantine the Great
was declared emperor in York in succession to his father.
Just a few months prior to coming to Britain,
he is said to have been observed hawking
in eastern provinces.
Constantine grew up in the eastern empire,
a region to which falconry is commonplace.
So it's no surprise that he dabbled in the art of falconry
during his youth.
It is said that he was the first to hawk with the shaheen,
which is a subspecies of the peregrine,
and that he chose to hunt with those hawks
because when he went out with his retinue,
the hawks could be trained to fly above his head
and to shade him from the sun as though they were a parasol.
This is the first solid evidence that we have of a man
stepping onto English soil with falconry knowledge.
Falconry never did catch on across the Roman Empire,
perhaps because falconry was the chosen art
of many of their enemies, perhaps because they preferred
their arena-based entertainments.
But one thing we know for sure,
the Romans were very familiar with birds of prey
on a spiritual basis.
The Romans worshipped birds as gods.
They feared them as enemies and exalted them as prophets.
They believed that because of the birds' power of flight
that they were the prophets of the ruling
gods and goddesses in the heavens above our head.
Birds were, therefore, seen to be prophets or messengers
of those gods.
It is no wonder that the Imperial Roman Army
chose to march into battle with a golden eagle at its head,
a symbol that was chosen by the Consul Marius.
It was either painted on a pendant or carved as a 3D banner
and the man who carried that was known as the aquilifer,
coming from the Latin word for eagle, aquilae.
The old pagan Romans held the eagle as a divine creature,
for their universe was divided into three layers:
the mortal world, the underworld,
and the heavens above our head.
The eagle as the king of all birds,
the largest and the highest flying was said to be
the only creature that could pass through all three layers
of the universe.
That is why king of the gods, Jupiter,
chose the eagle as his personal messenger.
The golden eagle occurs right across Europe and Asia.
So wherever the Romans travelled and invaded and settled,
they would have seen golden eagles in the sky above them,
their constant heavenly protector.
While the eagle was considered to be a divine prophet,
there is a bird within the Roman world
that was the complete opposite.
Not a creature from the heavens,
but a creature sent from the underworld.
A creature of darkness, the owl.
The owl lived in the realm of darkness and was considered
to be a winged demon rather than a winged prophet.
To see an owl was bad luck
and to have an owl visit your place of domestication
was considered to be a bad omen.
The Romans would use an owl as a weapon of intimidation.
The power of Rome lay with the council of senates
and they were diplomatically voted for.
If the council wanted to remove one of the senates,
then they might send him a dead owl in a box.
It was a weapon of intimidation, a threat,
that if he didn't remove himself and resign,
then he would face perhaps death.
And it is a barn owl that allegedly foretold Julius Caesar
his own death by appearing above a doorway
through which he passed.
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In the post-Roman era, Britain suffered successive waves
of invasion by the barbarian tribes
of the European continent.
They had a pre-established tradition of hunting
with hawks and falcons.
And so that is how falconry and hawking
likely first came to Britain.
It was witnessed by the Benedictine monks who were sent over
to evangelise some of the north German tribes
into the new religion of Christianity.
And so, falconry in Britain was originally described
as a barbarian sport.
The famous Benedictine monk Boniface
is involved in correspondence between two Saxon kings.
The first a letter to Ethelbald of Mercia from Boniface,
who sends from the continent the gift of a hawk
and two falcons as a token of his affection.
The second letter is from Ethelbert II of Kent to Boniface
asking him to acquire for him a particular falcon
of courageous nature that he says
cannot be found in England.
This tells us that falconry birds were rare and precious
at this time.
So rare that they were of extreme high value
and given as prestigious gifts.
It also reflects the fact that the foundations
were being laid for hawk trade between Britain and Europe,
importing birds specifically for royal pursuit.
All the Saxon kings, from Ethelbald of Mercia
in the 8th century through to Edward the Confessor
in the 11th century, flew hawks and falcons.
Falconry had become a new royal pursuit.
Only by the 10th century did falconry start to filter down
to lower members of society.
Falconry expansion led to
administrative and political change,
changes that supported the practice of falconry
and preserved the best sport for the kings themselves.
The goshawk
was one of the most popular species flown.
It was described as a capable slayer of ground quarry,
an efficient catcher of food for the pots
and a military winged warrior.
Kings would go to great lengths to preserve
the safety of their hawks even in the face of death.
This is demonstrated in the Anglo-Saxon poem
about the battle of Maldon, where a young noble
is about to commence battle with the Danes.
As he faces his enemy, he releases his hawk to freedom
for surely he is going to die.
And by releasing his hawk,
she may fend for herself in the woods.
This was an act of confidence and an act of defiance
in the face of his enemy.
The Saxon kings loved their hawks.
Alfred the Great is thought to have written
the first hunting manual on falconry,
but no evidence of it sadly survives.
Edward the Confessor was a particularly avid falconer
and we know more about the establishment of falconry
under his reign than any previous king.
And that's because the Domesday Book
records it in great detail, an organisation and a structure
that was taken on by William the Conqueror
after his appearance.
And last word, of course, must go to Harold Godwinson,
who was very nearly king of England
had he not been shot through the eye with an arrow.
He's described as a little man who sat proudly
in his stirrups and only ever put his hawk down
when he needed both hands with which to eat.
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The reign of the Plantagenet kings,
saw hawking become a more organised method of catching food
and further expansion of falconry as a royal pursuit.
We see falconry starting to filter down
through to lower orders of society to include the clergy
and minor gentry and even yeoman.
Ladies for the first time became more actively involved
in the pursuit of falconry,
being assigned their own delicate hawks
for their gentle fists.
Employment was generated by both hawking and falconry
and one could use the sport as a way to better one's life.
Trade routes were established to allow people
to import birds from Scandinavia, from the Mediterranean,
from North Africa and from the near and the far east.
Falconry birds became so highly prized
that they effectively became a form of currency.
They were used to trade and barter for goods,
to pay ransoms and fines and rent,
to be given these very valuable gifts and as tokens
of noble men's affections.
Falconry was socially, culturally,
and economically important.
The middle ages were the golden age.
English medieval falconry mentions the peregrine falcon
and the lanner falcon most frequently,
our two largest native species of falcon at that time.
The peregrine was plentiful
and very good for catching medium-sized birds.
However, it was frequently lost and sadly very expensive.
The lanner falcon was comparatively much more affordable
and a great deal more reliable.
It is known to have bred here in the British Isles
in the south and the west during the middle ages.
Never very common, but most certainly recorded
as being there.
It was nicknamed the partridge hawk
and was used to catch medium-sized game birds.
Gentlemen who could not afford a tercel,
that is a male peregrine falcon, would instead make do
with a lanner or lanneret.
The word lanner derives from the old French word lanier,
which means coward and relates to the sneaky
ambush style hunting tactics that the lanner is famous for.
Lanner falcons are soft feathered
and prefer warm conditions,
so did not make good winter hunting birds.
They were, however, very reliable and seldom lost.
A slight temperature cooling that started in the first half
of the middle ages resulted in the lanner falcons
slowly dying out.
And by the early 1700s, they had all but disappeared
from the British Isles.
They retreated back to the warmth of the Mediterranean
and Africa, where they are still found today.
The famous Book of Saint Albans
written by Dame Juliana Berners and published in 1485,
very famously tells us that there was status among hawks
as there was among men.
It lists each station of person's socially appropriate hawk.
And within that list, it tells us that for a lady,
there is a merlin.
The merlin was the most popular hunting bird
for noble ladies during the medieval period.
It is a small and delicate falcon perfect for a lady's fist.
They're quite a sociable and pleasant little bird to handle.
And with time and care,
they become even more sociable through time.
A lady would hunt and fly her merlin from horseback.
The merlin derives its name
from the old French Norman word emerillon,
which means to swivel or to twist.
And it relates to the ringing style of flight
that the merlin conducts to match
the equally ringing style flight of its primary quarry,
which was the skylark.
Lark hawking was a very popular medieval sports among ladies
and lesser nobles.
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By the 16th century, to practice falconry
was indicative of nobility.
The pomp and ceremony of social hunts
was a piece of public theatre and would empty the coffers
of whichever noble the hunt processed through.
Falconry had to become the pursuit of the ruling classes,
a privilege which was supported by law.
Henry VIII declared that no man may take a hawk
from an English nest or erie as it was called
without the sovereign's express permission.
If an applicant failed to win approval,
he would have no choice but to arrange the import of a hawk
from abroad at great expense.
Henry VIII came to falconry in his later years
after retiring from jousting due to injury.
He kept his hawks and his falcons at Charing Cross in London
and also at Hampton Court Palace.
And he hunted in the great parks in the London.
He very famously almost drowned whilst out hawking one day
in Hitchin near Hertfordshire in 1525.
He was rescued by a single solitary footman
who had accompanied him on that visit.
A man who was later rewarded and promoted for his service.
Henry was said to favour the peregrine falcon, however,
publicly he became more closely associated
with the falcon argent or the silver or white falcon
as it was known.
When Anne Boleyn was crowned queen, Henry granted her use
of the personal motif of the white falcon.
Wearing a crown, holding a sceptre in its foot,
and perched upon a stump from which
roses were blooming forth.
It was a symbolic statement that Anne was of noble descent,
that her authority was granted by God
and that hope sprung forth for the future,
presumably alluding to the production of a son and heir.
The white falcon was the gyrfalcon,
sometimes called the Greenland falcon in history.
It is the largest and most powerful species of falcon
in the world, and particularly good
for flying at large, powerful, high flying game.
It was a popular choice of the medieval kings,
but famously became the most favourable hunting bird
of Tudor nobility.
The medieval kings hunted crane and heron
with their gyrfalcons,
but these large waterbirds were now much rarer.
The Tudors, instead, turned to hunting
a more abundant quarry species,
one that was high flying and would encourage
their gyrfalcons to climb to dizzying heights.
That quarry was the red kite.
There were more than half a million red kites
in Tudor England.
And because they were not a falconry suitable bird,
they were instead a scavenger, they were classed as vermin.
There was no domestic breeding of hawks in history
and so gyrfalcons had to be sourced
from their countries of origin: from Scandinavia,
from Greenland, and from Iceland.
Obtaining them from their countries of origin
was dangerous and expensive.
Czar Ivan the Terrible is alleged to have gifted
a consignment of gyrfalcons to Anne Boleyn
to win the favor of Henry VIII.
And that consignment had an estimated equivalent
modern day value of half a million pounds.
There was no higher prize and no higher gift
than that of a white falcon.
The last great royal falconry tournament in English history,
which included kite hawking was staged at Newmark in 1642,
between Louis XIII and James I.
His successor, Charles I, of course lost his head
and so falconry for the first time lost royal support.
The English Civil War prevented falconry
from being practised at all and was only briefly restored
during the later Restoration period.
But the English falconry that reappeared
was never the same again.
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Technology spelled disaster for English falconry.
Handheld weapons rendered hawks redundant
for guns were cheaper and easier
than keeping hawks and falcons.
The new fashion for the shotgun pushed falconry
into the shadows and it was at very serious risk
of becoming extinct.
So by the late 18th century,
there were very few falconers left in Britain.
A very wise man called Colonel Thornton in 1775,
decided to try and protect falconry knowledge.
He established a falconry club called
the Confederate Hawks of Great Britain,
and it was a wonderful way of gathering and collating
precious information and sharing it with paid subscribers.
They started a new fashion for falconry club.
Several clubs later and by the late Victorian age,
falconry had once again been put back
on the English country sporting map.
For the first time in several hundred years,
there were once again professional falconers
in the service of titled gentlemen.
There were hawks and falcons being flown over
traditional hunting lands.
And men and women clad in their tweed
were once again seen out in the countryside
with their hawks, their horses, and their dogs.
The social importance of falconry may well have changed,
but the technical practice of it had not.
The most popular falconry bird of Victorian England
was unquestionably the peregrine falcon,
just like my friend Fury here on my fist.
Other species of falcon had fallen out of fashion.
The lanner falcons and the saker falcons
that had filled the medieval skies
were no longer popular hunting birds.
They were considered to be too soft-feathered
and more suitable for warm climates.
They didn't cope well with the cold damp British winters
and so they became redundant.
The gyrfalcon that our medieval Kings
and our Tudor gentlemen hunted with
also were falling out of fashion because they had
no natural quarry that they could hunt for anymore.
The large waterfowl that they were hunted against
in earlier centuries had become rare due to land use change.
And the red kite that they were later hunted against
had almost become extinct across the British Isles.
The merlin remained a popular hunting bird for ladies
and young gentlemen.
And well-bred young boys would often be gifted a kestrel
as their first Hhwk, with which to learn the rudiments
of the art of falconry.
The kestrel is a marvellous little falcon
and even grown men become very fondly attached
to their small hawks.
Every Victorian gentlemen would look forward excitedly
to the 12th of August,
which was the opening of the game season.
Under the 1831 Game Act, the 12th of August
was the start of the grouse season.
And the wealthiest gentlemen would be invited
to travel north to Scotland to hunt their peregrines
over the grouse moors.
Those falconers who were not lucky enough
to receive an invitation to the north would have to make do
with the partridge estates of the midlands
and the east of England.
And Audley End House where we're now stood
was once considered to be the finest partridge estate
in the whole of Victorian England.
In the 1890s, Lord Howard de Walden rented this property
and he hunted with his peregrines at partridge
over these very lands.
The peregrine falcon defines English falconry
past, present, and hopefully future.
We are Raphael Historic Falconry
and we hope that you've enjoyed your journey
through the ages with us and our hawks.
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