Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/327

 and Sentiments. 307 as will be feen, is hooded. Each of the ladies who poffefs hawks has one glove only — the hawk's glove ; the other hand is without gloves. They took with them, as lliown here, dogs in couples to ftart the game. The dogs ufed for this purpofe were fpaniels, and the old treatife on domeftic affairs entitled " Le Menagier de Paris," gives particular dire6tions for choofing them. In the illuminations, hawking parties are more frequently reprefented on horfeback than on foot ; and often there is a mixture of riders and pedellrians. The treatife juft referred to direfts that the horfe for hawking Ihould be a low one, eafy to mount and difmount, and very quiet, that he may go llowly, and lliow no reftivenefs. Hawking appears to have commenced at the beginning of Auguft ; and until the middle of that month it was confined almoft entirely to partridges. Quails, we are told, came in in the middle of Auguft, and from that time forward everything feems to have been confidered game that came to hand, for when other birds fail, the ladies are told that they may hunt fieldfares, and even jays and magpies. September and 0£tober w^ere the bufieft hawking months. Hawking was, indeed, a favourite diverfion with the ladies, and they not only accompanied the gentlemen to this fport, but frequently engaged in it alone. The hawking of the ladies, however, appears to have been efpecially that of herons and water-fowl 5 and this was called going to the river {alter en riviere), and was very commonly purfued on foot. It may be mentioned that the fondnefs of the ladies for the diverfion of hawking is alluded to in the twelfth centur}' by John of Salilbury. The hawking on the river, indeed, feems to have been that particular branch of the fport which gave moft pleafure to all clalfes, and it is that which is efpecially reprefented in the drawings in the Anglo-Saxon manufcripts. Dogs were commonly ufed in haw^king to route the game in the fame manner as at the prefent day, but in hawking on the river, where dogs were of courfe lefs efte6tive, other means were adopted. In a manufcript already quoted in the prefent chapter (MS. Reg. 2 B. vii.), of the beginning of the fourteenth century, a group of ladies hawking on the banks of a river are accompanied by a man, perhaps the falconer, who makes a noife to roufe the w^ater-fowl. Our cut No. 204 is taken from a