(soft rousing music)

(bird squawks)

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.

(pensive music)

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.

(rousing dramatic music)

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.

(dramatic music)

(eerie music)

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.