The Art of Medieval Falconry

 

"The Art of Medieval Falconry

By Yannis Hadjinicolaou

Reaktion, 232 pages, $25

'What's this bird, this falcon, that everybody's all steamed up about?" asks Humphrey Bogart as the private eye Sam Spade.

The answer comes from Sydney Greenstreet, who plays Kasper Gutman, a criminal on a quest. "In 1539," he says, "crusading knights persuaded Emperor Charles V to give them the Island of Malta. He made but one condition, that they pay him each year the tribute of a falcon in acknowledgment that Malta was still under Spain." So far, so good. "They hit upon the happy thought of sending him for his first year's tribute not an insignificant live bird but a glorious golden falcon crusted from head to foot with the finest jewels in their coffers."

"The Maltese Falcon" is a 1941 film about a glittering statuette that never made it to Spain, but there's something wrong with that last line, which becomes apparent once you've read Yannis Hadjinicolaou's "The Art of Medieval Falconry," a slim, rich entry into the University of Chicago Press's Medieval Lives series. As Mr. Hadjinicolaou makes convincingly clear, it is the living bird that is a jewel beyond price. And it is the relationship between falcon and falconer that was considered glorious. Would Charles V have preferred a gem-encrusted facsimile? He would not.

Mr. Hadjinicolaou is an assistant professor of art history at the University of Bonn, and "The Art of Medieval Falconry" is his second book. Its title can be understood two ways. The first concerns falconry as it's been depicted in art of the Middle Ages -- in illustrated manuscripts, frescoes, paintings, sculptures, objects and tapestries, many of which have been handsomely reproduced here -- and what these representations, often iconographic, express. The second looks at the practice of falconry itself, an ingenious way to hunt food that eventually transcended, by way of passionate practitioners who tended to be kings, into an Arthurian art form -- one with the gravity of religion and the privilege of wings.

The birds themselves were "perceived as precious," Mr. Hadjinicolaou tells us, "even luxurious aesthetic 'objects.'" He writes that during the medieval period, "depictions of falconry were never mere illustrations of the activity itself. Instead, they evoked visual associations and sparked ideas." It's as if these raptors, trained but not tame, circle and stoop within the human imagination.

The Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II (1194-1250) wrote the Middle Age's definitive treatise on falconry, "De arte venandi cum avibus" ("On the Art of Hunting With Birds"), between 1240 and 1248. It is an illustrated cornerstone of falconry and a touchstone for Mr. Hadjinicolaou, copied, translated and reillustrated through the ensuing centuries. Several themes are bound in the echoing images of royals with their birds in hand or perched nearby: We see the falcon, usually female, as the king's consigliera; as a companion and a weapon; as a spirit that stitches nature to culture; and as a symbol of omnipotence and divine right. Louis XII owned a copy of "De arte venandi," demonstrating, Mr. Hadjinicolaou suggests, "the idea of royal power connected to falconry as an imperial gesture."

Early forms of falconry, we learn, developed in parallel in the Near and Middle East, China, India and Central Asia well before the Common Era and did not arise in the West until the fifth and sixth centuries. Surprisingly, ancient Egypt, a civilization that deified the falcon in all mediums of art, didn't use the bird for hunting. The ancient Assyrians were avid falconers, as depicted, for example, in bas-reliefs discovered at Dur-Sharrukin, in present day Iraq, and dated to the eighth century B.C. "As a trade hub for goods and artefacts, Mesopotamia played a crucial role in the transmission of falconry as a cultural technique," Mr. Hadjinicolaou writes, "between not only Europe and Asia but North Africa and the Arab world."

As falconry evolved from a means of survival to an art of the aristocracy, items of falconry furniture-the tiny eye-covering hood of leather, the leg ring (or vervel), the feathered lure on a line (a kite-like abstraction of a bird)-became works of art themselves. A late-15th-century hood from the collection of Maximilian I is exquisite avian couture with a tassel on top. The gilded leather is embossed with flowers and the emperor's coat of arms -- the double eagles of the Habsburgs -- giving the falcon the aspect of a majestic chess piece.

"The hawk has her own will, and the falconer must take this fact into consideration," Mr. Hadjinicolaou writes. Theirs is a nonverbal relationship that takes place in a gestural-visual sphere, making man and raptor equals. And so the door opens to allegory. Images in which the falconer wears the same colors as the surrounding landscape make him one with nature. Portraits of the ruler and hawk, face to face, both in profile, see them mirroring each other -- mutually reinforcing sovereigns.

In fact, sovereignty -- supreme power over a body politic; freedom from control -- is an important concept here. No creature is more sovereign than the bird of prey, and therefore no other is such a perfect match for a monarch. "Knowing how to handle hawks was seen as an analogy for being able to rule the state," writes Mr. Hadjinicolaou. Medieval Europe's "high-ranking nobles were trained in the art from childhood, as they were trained in dancing and horse-riding." In artworks and on seals, a king on horseback -- one hand holding the reins and the other a falcon -- was an image of equilibrium, a balance between earth and air.

Indeed, the raptor's status as an incarnation of political power made it an ideal token of diplomacy. Rulers sought "to influence other courts through the giving of falcons," we are told. "Falcon gifts were also employed to secure certain conditions for territorial claims or favors." Which brings us back to Spain's Charles V, who collected the creatures. The "most precious of the royal falcon gifts," says Mr. Hadjinicolaou, were gyrfalcons, a ghostly, snowy species of the Arctic -- a peregrine on steroids. That's what Charles V wanted from the knights on Malta. A gyrfalcon." [1]

1. REVIEW --- Books: A Sovereign in the Sky. Jacobs, Laura.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 12 Oct 2024: C.9.