Falconry and Material Culture in the Crown of Aragon

First, we shall look at the instruments that were placed on and worn by the bird. Of them, perhaps the best known and most striking is the capell which was a small hood made of leather that covered the bird’s head. This hood had a small opening in it for the falcon’s beak to pass through; it thus deprived it of sight, which was the fundamental purpose of the instrument. It was well known by huntsmen that birds remained calm when they could not see, since through their eyes they received the stimuli that caused in them the most fear and an uncontrollable reaction to fly away. Recently captured wild birds therefore had their eyelids sewn together and were kept like that during the first stage stage of the taming process, which lasted for several days. The stitches were then removed and they regained their sight. The sources suggest that the capell, borrowed from Arab huntsmen, spread around Europe in the thirteenth century, meaning that it was quite a late addition to the instruments of falconry, if we bear in mind that this first spread around the Mediterranean region in about the sixth century AD. It should be pointed out that, contrary to what has been claimed, the introduction of the capell did not mean that the practice of sewing the bird’s eyelids together was abandoned, and it continued to be a habitual practice for centuries. With this new instrument the bird could be deprived of its sight at any time and kept calm, even once it was completely trained; when the time was right, the hood would be removed and the bird regained its sight. This is also a good time to mention another object related to the capell and which appears in the Catalan sources. These are the moulds or blocks – called formes – used to make hoods with, and to give them the right shape so that they would fit closely around the bird’s head without pressing on its eyes and damaging them.

Perhaps the most important instrument in falconry was the pair of small leather straps, called jesses in English, which were tied round the bird’s tarsi and worn permanently. The huntsman kept a tight hold of these straps – called gits in the Catalan sources – while he carried his bird on his fist and, by releasing them, he could decide when to let the bird fly off. If the bird tried to fly off in pursuit of a quarry, to perch somewhere or to fly away in fright, the hunter could stop it by holding tight to the gits, and, after a brief moment of fluttering, the bird would once again perch on the hunter’s fist in no danger of coming to harm. When the bird was not carried on the fist of the huntsman or falconer, it was never put in a cage; the gits were used to tie it to the perch where it rested and sat. For this, another longer strap, the leash, was necessary, which is also frequently mentioned in the Catalan sources as the llonga, one end of which was tied to the perch and the other to the gits.

Possibly, one of the aspects associated with jesses (gits) about which most has been written, and which in our opinion still remains to be definitively cleared up, is the question of the marks or signs of ownership that the birds wore, so that they could be returned to their owner if they got lost and were found by someone else. In the Catalan sources we find mentions of esmalts and escuts (escutcheons), which must have been tiny metal pendants with the owner’s coat of arms on that were placed on the bird, although we do not know exactly how this was done. A small strap may have been used to tie it to one of the feet, although they may also have been fastened to the jess in some way. In fact, in some sources reference is made to gits con les armes (jesses with the coat of arms), which points to the latest hypothesis, without ruling out the possibility of it referring to the coat of arms being engraved or embroidered on the jesses, instead of a metal pendant. The main confusion that has arisen in relation to these objects, termed the vervelle/varvel in French and English respectively, derives, in our opinion, from the fact that what were two different objects – the rings of the jesses, to tie the bird, and the marks to identify its owner – with their own functions and names, merged at some moment into one single object that combined the functions of both, and those studying it have frequently assumed that it was always just one object.

Another of the objects worn by birds in falconry was the cascavell (bell). This was tied to the bird so that the falconer could find it by listening for the sound of the bell when he lost sight of it while hunting. A bell was normally attached to each foot, fastened with a small strap to the bird’s tarsus, above the jess, although some sources indicate that their number could vary – only one or two pairs, for example – and also the place they were attached. They were made in different shapes and sizes, to be adapted to the size and characteristics of the bird to which they were attached. The archive documentation informs us that the king purchased a large number of them, often from other territories where we suppose there were craftsmen who made superior quality bells. It may be pointed out in relation to this instrument that its function went beyond making it easy to find a bird a long way away or lost; when the bird was sitting on its perch, the sound of the bells warned the huntsman or falconer who was in a nearby room that the bird was anxious, that it was moving a lot or it was bating for some reason. Birds with lice often scratched themselves and the continuous sound of the bells was a clear sign of this. Moreover, placing a larger number of bells on the bird could be used as a strategy during training, as through the discomfort this caused, the huntsman could accustom his falcon not to stray too far when flying.

During the next stage of training, in order to tame the bird the huntsman resorted to what in Catalan was called a picador (tiring). It was a part of an animal – the tip of a chicken’s or dove’s wing, a hare’s foot or suchlike – that had bones, nerves, tendons and skin, but hardly any flesh, and which was offered to the falcon or goshawk when it was hungry. In these circumstances, the animal spent a long while “pecking” or “gnawing” on the hunter’s fist to try to tear off tiny pieces of meat. This way, the bird was distracted with the picador and its susceptibility to other human stimuli that might frighten it and cause it to fly away was lowered, so it gradually got used to them.

Continuing with the training, the moment came when the bird had to begin to fly off and back in answer the huntsman’s call. However, in these first flights in the countryside, it might not be well trained and tame enough, and it could fly away and be lost forever. Therefore, in these first flying sessions, a long thin cord called a creance in English was tied to the bird. This allowed it to fly for a certain distance but prevented it from escaping if it tried to. This cord was called a tralla in Catalan. After a certain number of flights with the tralla and confirmation that the bird was not trying to escape, this instrument was dispensed with and training continued with the bird flying freely.

Another important falconry instrument was called the lloure (lure) and it was a sort of small leather cushion to which the wings of a bird were sewn, so that object looked like that animal. A piece of meat was tied to the lloure – or even a live bird – and it was swung round on the end of a string. This was the means to call the falcons, which flew towards it to trap it and eat from it. Thus, with the falcon standing on the ground over the lure, the huntsman could come up and retrieve it, offering it a piece of food with the gloved hand, onto which it gladly jumped to continue eating the new piece of meat on the hunter’s fist. It should be pointed out that use of the lure was the habitual procedure for calling to and recovering falcons of any species, whereas the goshawk and sparrowhawk were called by offering a piece of meat on the fist, to which they flew directly, perching on it and eating the food offered.

When the hunter went out into the countryside to hunt, as well as a large number of instruments he had to carry with him the meat to summon and feed his bird. For that he carried a specific hunter’s bag called a carner in the Catalan sources. The explanation for the name might be that, besides carrying the meat used as food or to be placed on the lure, it was used to keep the animals in that were captured during the hunt. Moreover, the huntsman often carried live birds in the carner that could have different uses. First, a hen or dove could be used to feed the bird, offering it recently killed animal flesh, something frequently recommended in falconry treatises. Second, it was used as a reward for a good performance during the hunt, as a live hen was always more attractive and appetizing than a piece of meat. Third, and in relation to the previous point, when a bird did not want to come in answer to the hunter’s call via the lure or a piece of meat in his fist, there was the possibility of showing the bird the hen, which would attract it more quickly and make it easier to retrieve. Lastly, during the training period, in the carner the hunter usually carried a live animal of the species they wanted to capture, so by releasing it under controlled conditions the bird of prey learned to capture it. The carner was therefore an instrument that the hunter could not do without. The written sources offer hardly any details of the shape, size and design of this instrument, and in this case it is the iconographical sources that give us some information about its appearance.

Finally, we want to mention another instrument that we recently have found in the Catalan sources. It is a small drum – called tambor or tabal – that the huntsman carried, tied to the front of his saddle, and which he beat at the right moment to frighten the quarry and force it to come out of its hiding place so that it could be attacked by the falcon. It must have been used a great deal, but for some reason it was almost completely overlooked by the Iberian sources, and in particular by the falconry treatises that explain the hunting techniques in which it was almost certainly used. We do find it, however, in one of the Italian treatises composed in the Crown of Aragon.

Keeping birds of prey in captivity required types of care for which certain objects were necessary. The first thing to mention is the perch on which the birds usually sat when they were not being carried on the fists of huntsmen or falconers. The Catalan sources basically offer the terms perxa and barra to refer to this. The lack of details in the sources forces us to suppose that they were synonyms describing a simple wooden pole that was set horizontally in different ways: standing on feet, attached to the wall at one or both ends, or even suspended from the ceiling. We are familiar with these possible designs through iconographical sources – basically miniatures – from many different places. The abovementioned work by Emperor Frederick II offers us abundant details about this instrument and we see it in the many miniatures that illustrate one of the manuscripts. Thanks to this work we know that a perch could be long enough to accommodate several birds, which would be tied with the leash and kept far enough apart so that they could not reach and harm one another. According to the emperor, this perch had be placed at the falconer’s eye level, although we may suppose there was a certain degree of variability in this.

Medieval hunters also used low perches, on which the birds sat a few centimetres off the ground. However, the Catalan sources are not nearly as clear when providing us with a specific term for this kind of perch. In one of the falconry treatises a perch called a cavallet is mentioned three times, and in one of these it is explicitly required to be low, so we may suppose, with the appropriate reservations, that this was the name for this kind of perch.

One basic requirement with regard to caring for birds was that they had to be able to drink water and bathe regularly. To do this, the falconer could take his bird to a small puddle of clean water or the edge of a pool in a stream. However, for this purpose he also had suitable receptacles that were placed next to the bird tied to a low perch, in such a way that it could reach it to drink or bathe. This receptacle is frequently mentioned using the term bací in one of the most important falconry treatises written in Catalan, while the archive documents – inventories of goods particularly – sometimes offer us the term llibrell. This receptacle was also useful as it allowed treatments to be applied for which the bird had to be submerged in water in which the appropriate medicinal substance for treating some diseases of the skin of birds had been dissolved, usually lice.

The largest number of instruments needed by falconers to look after birds with are related to surgical remedies for different diseases. Some of them were those used by surgeons and barbers, such as llancetes, raors, pinces, tenalles, tisores, fill i agulles (lancets, razors, tweezers, scissors, needles and thread). They were used to make incisions, extract things or close wounds, among other operations. Besides these instruments there were ferros or cauteris (cauteries), common in medieval surgery, but adapted in shape and size for use on birds of prey.

Some of these objects, however, were specifically designed and made for curing and looking after birds of prey, such as tenalles dels caçadors (hunter’s pincers), made to cut the talons and the beak and keep them the right length and shape. Fine metal needles, with special characteristics, were other objects used specifically by hunters and falconers. They were used to repair broken feathers, to join the piece at the end to the remaining part of a broken feather. In the Catalan sources these needles were called agulles d’escatir (imping needles), since escatir was the term used to refer to grafting feathers (imp) as a procedure for repairing them. The whole set of instruments was often kept in a case (estoig) that prevented the pieces from being scattered; they could also be carried comfortably, and be available whenever needed.

In the first case, reaching nests on ledges on steep cliffs or in high trees – in the case of goshawks and sparrowhawks, basically – required people who were familiar with the task who would doubtlessly use instruments that have barely been described in the Catalan sources, such as ropes and some kind of basket in which to place the birds and take them to their first destination. Some sources from Majorca do mention the gàbies (cages) for transporting young falcons taken from nests, which were lined on the inside with material that would prevent the birds from hurting themselves and damaging their plumage. As we know, birds of prey were never kept or transported in cages and this would be the only exception, as it was a brief moment and the birds were too young to exhibit the irascible behaviour that in other older birds would cause them to damage their feathers.

To capture adult birds or fully-fledged young birds, a variety of techniques were used, although nets seem to have been the most common one. We find them mentioned in some of the Catalan sources with the term arany, from which aranyenc derives as a name for the bird captured after it had left the nest and was already capable of feeding itself. The person who specialized in capturing birds for hunting was called a parador (falcon trapper). In order to transport the wild, recently captured bird safely, without it being harmed and its feathers damaged, this person could immobilize it by wrapping it in a piece of cloth or sewing its eyelids together to deprive it of sight (seeling). We know of these handling techniques for recently captured birds from sources from different places but we are unable to give many precise details about how the process took place in the Crown of Aragon, or the Catalan terms used in relation to this aspect of falconry. However, in reference to the immobilization required for a cure, one of the Catalan falconry treatises uses the term plegar, and the instrument used was a tovallola. In this respect, the paradors may well have used the same terms and objects as the huntsmen or falconers.