Hawking for a Medieval Christmas Feast

Christmas is a time of feasting and it was no different in history. Although our modern Christmas is largely shaped around Victorian tradition, there are strong echoes of Medieval ritual rooted at its core. Medieval feasts relied heavily on the proceeds of hunting meaning the autumn and winter months were the busiest times in the calendar for huntsmen of all varieties. That included hawkers and falconers. For most of the year any quarry caught would go to the hawk’s larder or be consumed by his master, but in the winter there was a higher purpose – the royal larder.

One of the greatest Christmas feasts staged in British history was that of Henry III at the city of York in 1251. He organised an elaborate banquet to celebrate the marriage of his daughter Margaret to Alexander III of Scotland, it was held on Christmas Day and generated such a comprehensive shopping list that preparations commenced many months in advance. The menu included 830 deer, 200 boar, 1300 hares, 115 cranes, 125 swans, 2100 partridge, 290 pheasants, plus ducks, pigeons, rabbits, fish, eels…the list alarmingly goes on. While some birds and beasts could be bought or harvested from managed domestic stocks, the larger animals were taken by huntsmen from the Royal Forests and the King’s estates and parks. However, the game birds, specialist wildfowl, and hares were generally supplied by the King’s court falconers, hawkers, and fowlers. Apart from providing the monarch with sport whenever he wanted to go hunting, the falconers’ main role during the winter months was to provide fresh game for the kitchens – particularly around Christmas and the New Year. Medieval Kings would often put rivers and waterways rich with game “in defence” during certain periods of the year, prohibiting anyone to hunt in the area. Promises, obligations and favours of hawks and falcons owed to the king would be called in, and servants living in sergeanty tenure in different parts of the realm would be summoned to the royal court. All hands on deck were required!

In the Middle Ages the Goshawk was the everyday practical hunting device used for catching edible birds and mammals for the pot. The man who specialised in hunting with a hawk was known as an “austringer”. The word derives from the old French-Norman word for a hawk “oster”. An austringer had to be physically fit and able to swim in shallow water because his hawk was an athletic sprinter and would often chase quarry over streams and across ponds, the austringer had to be capable of following the flight quickly on foot as hawks would often fly where it was too difficult for a horse to follow. A hawk would be flown in the same way we work them today, on foot from the glove so it could explode into pursuit should the austringer walk up and flush some quarry. A dog might be used or perhaps a strategically placed beater to ensure success. Rather unfairly, austringers were held in lower esteem to falconers, their skills thought to be less exacting and their charges less noble than falcons. In truth it was simply a reflection of the fact that hawking was more solitary, every day, and military in practice compared to the social and rather more staged nature of falcon hunts. The goshawk was provider of two of the most important meats for the banquet table namely pheasant and hare. Modern hawkers catch a lot of rabbit but of course there were no free living or “wild” rabbits in Medieval Britain as they were an imported species housed and farmed in fortified warrens. Wild ducks were also caught but not as highly prized as other quarry because there were farmed equivalents.

Worthy of discussion, the pheasant becomes a tradition at Christmas feasts from the 1100’s onwards – first recorded by the Canons of Waltham Abbey at the feast of King Harold in 1060. The pheasant is not a native bird, it was first introduced by the Romans but disappeared when they withdrew from Britannia and was then introduced a second time by the Normans from Sicily. Those original pheasants were small and dark, they did not survive well in the wild and were mostly reared in aviaries. The pheasant that we recognise today is a descendant of the more recently introduced Chinese ring neck which was brought over in the C18th and has inter-bred so well that most British pheasants now sport a distinctive white collar. Pheasant remains a popular and affordable choice today, but it was a decidedly upper-class meat in Medieval England! Of similar high status, the hare was renowned for being a difficult creature to catch. Its red meat was considered extremely delicate and precious, and its rarity made it expensive, but hare was not impressive or decorative enough to take centre stage at a royal festive feast. The whole carcass could not be easily or attractively presented so it became a rich ingredient in a civet or stew and in potted meats.

Digressing a little but still of relevance, turkey is of course the roast bird of choice today, but the turkey was not introduced to Britain until the C16th. It came from the New World and was first brought to England in the 1540’s when it was presented as a gift to Henry VIII. Goose did not generally make the Christmas banquet table as that delicacy was commonly reserved for Michaelmas, a Christian festival celebrated on 29th September, but because the news of the defeat of the Spanish Armada arrived on Michaelmas Day while Queen Elizabeth I was dining on goose, she decided to elevate its status and add it to the Christmas menu thereafter.

Returning to the hunt, the lordliest of the Medieval hunters were undoubtedly the falconers, those who hunted specifically with falcons. Fierce competition used to exist between hunters (those who chased deer and boar on horseback) and falconers at the French Royal Court. In the spring when the falcons began to moult and could no longer be flown, the huntsmen had the upper hand. On May 3rd the huntsmen all dressed in green would rush into the court sounding their horns and using green twigs to symbolically chase the falconers out. This was the time of the stag hunts which lasted until the 14th September. But once that date arrived, the grey winter-clad falconers would return to the court and send the huntsmen dragging themselves back to their kennels. The winter was the realm of the falconer! Falconry practice has always been driven by the seasons which is why it is commonly represented in Medieval calendars as it was not a year-round activity.

It was believed that the most pleasure could be had from hunting with a falcon, and the most unusual game caught as a result. The open air and highly visible nature of falconry meant it served as an exciting form of outdoor entertainment for the rich and titled, who could follow excitedly on horseback and watch the dynamic chases from below. The by-product was the acquisition of rare and delicate game including unusually large waterfowl. That is why King John had 350 paupers fed in return for his falcons’ capture of 7 cranes on Holy Innocents Day on Dec 28th, his penance for committing the violent sin of hunting on a holy day. It was estimated that an individual falcon could catch between 40 – 60 quarry items per season so all the royal falconers together could make a valuable contribution to the Christmas feast including partridge, snipe, woodcock, duck, pigeon, and pheasant. Not only that, but the falconer would also often provide the table centrepiece, the novelty dressed bird which would sit at the centre of the banquet table and serve as an impressive talking point. A heron or crane whose skin had been carefully stretched over a wire frame to create a lifelike sculpture would sit proudly with its head raised and wings outstretched over the sumptuous feast below. Rather macabre by modern standards but a piece of table theatre in its day, particularly if the king could entertain his guests with the story of its capture! Falconry was time and labour expensive and therefore a very costly way of providing meat, but at least it was rare and delicate meat, so aristocracy thought it worth the effort! Peregrine Falcons shouldered most of the winter work, but Lanners were known to be most excellent for catching partridge, and Gyr Falcons flying as a cast were necessary for the capture of heron and crane. Henry III owned many Gyrs and sent his falconers to Norway to buy them, but he also received and gave away tens of Gyrs as expensive gifts.

The last avian contributor to the Medieval feast was the fowler, a specialist in catching wild birds using many techniques including nets, bird lime, and decoys. Fowling is thought to be the most ancient form of hunting birds and the forefather of hawking and falconry. Ancient Britons were known to use a wild sparrowhawk for fowling, to catch woodland birds using nets after introducing a natural predator to worry them into flight. Later, in Anglo Saxon times, a man hunting with a hawk was referred to as a fowler indicating the infancy of hawking and the fact it had not yet emerged as a separate skill. One common and extremely ancient method of decoying was to use a woodland owl to attract birds, it was a clever way of harnessing a natural process and manipulating nature for human convenience. Aristotle the Ancient observed little birds being drawn to an owl in admiration of its beauty, or at least that was the illusion. In reality, the birds were mobbing the owl through fear, to drive it away before darkness when the silent owl would become a threat, because the owl can navigate in the dark, but the diurnal birds cannot. Any woodland owl caught out in the open during daylight will attract birds and so they became a useful tool for drawing birds out of cover and to a particular spot. A tawny owl is frequently described in history as a good decoy, tethered in the top of a tree on whose branches have been slathered sticky lime so that any birds landing to harry the owl get stuck. On royal hunts it is well documented that Eagle Owls were employed as decoy birds to attract in the larger target species which included, rooks, red kites, herons, and cranes. On this occasion the large owls were tethered to open ground where they were clearly visible for miles. It was undoubtedly a very unhappy task for the unfortunate owl but Medieval man had few morals about such things.

It would be an overreach to suggest that Henry III could not have staged his elaborate Christmas fest without the input of his austringers, falconers and fowlers, but it would certainly have been poorer without their contributions. Many kings kept records of game in their annual hunting rolls and that gives us an idea of who caught what. If nothing else, it consolidated the importance of the royal hunting department and all the hunters employed within, fortunately for them keeping them in service all year round. A falconer or an austringer was not just for Christmas!

Emma Raphael.

References:
The Kings and Their Hawks, R. S. Oggins.
The Great Household in Late Medieval England, Woolgar.
The Sinews of Falconry, G. Robinson.
The History of the Countryside, O. Rackham.
The Art of Medieval Hunting, J. Cummins.
Falconry and Art, De Chamerlat.
Feast, R. Strong.