A Bird in the Hand
A Survey of Medieval Fowling Techniques

Good Gentles -

This is a working study of the methods used in the Middle Ages to catch birds. The methods outlined in this document all work, to varying degrees. This is version 2 of this document and it is still evolving as I discover more on this subject. This is a survey, more specific information on each of these methods is available, or I can point you to the right sources.

But please remember, if you decide to pursue these methods on your own, do not let your test subjects suffer.

Also.... as we are at Pennsic. I strongly advise against anyone attempting to employ the methods in this document: too many people, too many bare feet, too many babies..

And as always, safety first.

   Good luck,
   Enjoy and
   Bon appetite,

What is fowling

Fowling is the catching of wild birds.
One who caught wild birds was called a fowler.

Why and what kinds of wild birds did people hunt

As a supplement to the daily diet -

The addition of wild fowl to the medieval diet, both noble and lower classes, was a common practice. Cookbooks of the day, such as Ein Guter Spice, and individual manuscripts contain multiple recipes for the use of fowl. Types of fowl that are mentioned include: pigeon, crane, heron, swan, duck, goose, quail, teal, wigen, woodcock, partridge and pheasant. Many other types of birds are also mentioned in the cooking and hunting manuscripts of the period.

Rituals and Celebrations -

Catching wrens on St. Stephen's Day, December 26th, in England is one example of a tradition that involves the hunting of birds. The myth of St. Stephen is that he was betrayed to his persecutors by a small wren. In honor of his martyrdom people, typically young men, would hunt the wrens on St. Stephen's Day. The captured and killed wren would then be nailed to a long pole with it's wings outstretched, and paraded through the town.

Other tales of this tradition link it to the fable of the competition to see which bird would be "King". It was decided among the birds that the one who flew highest would receive the title and dominion over the air and all it's inhabitants. The eagle flew the highest and soon out distanced all the other birds. But when it grew weary, the eagle began to descend confident in its victory. But just then a small wren that had hidden in its tail flew up into the skies and rose higher than the eagle. So it is the wren who is called the King of birds. This explains the use of the phrase, "please to see the King?"

Entertainment -

The keeping of small birds for companions or display is well documented. In the popes palace in Avignon the private office of the popes the walls were decorated with murals depicting a wide variety of song birds that were kept.

Games? -

There is an odd game that I have seen in the margins of manuscripts. Many times I have seen it referred to as bandy. This seems to be logical in that one or more of the figures is often a male carrying a curved stick. But the part that has me stumped is that I have seen a bird wedged into a forked or split sick by the neck, which appears to be an object of interest for the male figure. Much more information is needed about what is occurring in these images.

Who would be engaged in fowling?

All classes of the society ate wild fowl. Factors which would influence which fowl was included in the diet included the rarity, difficulty in obtaining or the mystique of the bird. The division between the upper and lower classes in the pre-1600s created differences in the availability of resources and time that the classes could bring to the pursuit of game. From the limitation or availability of these resources developed the differences in methods used for obtaining fowl.

The upper classes...

Falconry, a singular pursuit

The upper classes had greater amounts of time and resources to dedicate to the pleasure of hunting. And indeed for the upper classes hunting was often looked on as a recreation rather than as a necessity. This fundamental difference in perception leads to a vast difference in practice from what is seen employed in the lower classes.

In the case of the hunt for the members of the upper class there is a desire to showcase their skill, to earn glory and to engage in a largely social past time. There is also an element of being connected to the heroes and ladies of the romantic literature of the day.

All of these elements combine to make the act of fowling for the upper classes more of a pageant than an exercise in stealth and discipline. And to match the glory and pageantry they sought to create, they chose to use falcons as their method of capture.

For many of the members of the upper class falconry was more than simply a recreation, it was a consuming passion. Whole volumes were written on the art of falconry, and are still being written today. Perhaps the most widely respected and read manual of the day was Arte de Avibus, by King Stephen of Sicily written in 1308.

In general, the methods for hunting fowl with falcons were well established by the time of the Middle Ages, and practiced in every nation of the day.

Items to consider in the pursuit of game birds were the size of the game relative to the size of the falcon, or whichever bird of prey was being used.

Dogs were used to flush the game from ponds or fields. Servants could also be used as flushers or beaters. Servants employed as flushers could clap their hands together and haloo, or even employ the use of a drum, as seen in the picture to the right.

Falconry allowed for recognition of both the falcon and the handler as individuals. But even though it was usually carried out in a group setting, it was essentially a sport for the individual. A single falcon with a single handler would hunt.

Falconry, with its emphasis on the individual bird of prey was less likely to supply the larders of a large manor. For the practical matter of obtaining large quantities of wild fowl the upper classes used their abilities to mobilize people.

Decoying, driving and dogging

Perhaps the antithesis to the individual sport of falconry was the efficient gathering of fowl on a large scale. Unlike falconry, decoying methods relied on the participation of many individuals. This was more common in the later Middle Ages as the lower classes provided labor in return for their obligation to the nobility. This family of hunting methods is thought to have developed in the area of Eastern Europe (Poland, Northern Germany, Hungary) and in the Lowlands of Flanders. Later in the medieval period it moves westward eventually reaching England in the late 1500's. The principle behind this method of hunting is to lure the wild flocks to a body of water, and then to lure or drive them into an ever narrower net.

Decoys involved the construction and maintenance of large systems of nets. Landowners who had a decoy usually employed a man to act as the keeper of the coy. This position was hereditary in most situations and passed from father to son, or from brother to brother.

The lower classes...

Individuals could be engaged in hunting wild fowl while following other daily pursuits. Even in the armies it was recommended that soldiers carry blunts for their cross bows in case the opportunity arose to secure dinner.

Soldiers were not the only individuals to engage in the hunting of wild fowl. For the common members of the lower classes fowling was very much a means of daily putting food on the table. Methods available to the lower classes involved the use of traps, snares, nets, dogging, lures and birdlime.

Traps

Traps are rigid devices that restrain a bird, without causing injury to the bird. Several types of traps were used in the middle ages, but the best known were the box trap and the access trap.

Some of the best evidence for the pursuit of wild fowl by individuals with box traps comes from the paintings of Bruegel.

In both of these examples a person is hiding within their home while outside there is a trap of a board or a box propped up with a stick. A string is tied to the stick and a pile of grain is visible under the box to entice the birds into the trap.

Older manuscripts, such as this one from France written in the 1400's point to the enduring popularity of this simple trap.

Another trap that was employed in the middle ages was one most commonly used to capture songbirds. This type of trap works on the principle of a door that only opens in one direction. A live bird would act as a lure by sitting in one of the two compartments of the trap. A door to the empty compartment would be left open or unlatched. A bird of the same species would approach, and seeing the tame bird at ease in the cage would approach. Seed or grain would be used to lure the wild bird into the empty part of the cage and then the door would be released behind it by a string or a snare type trigger.

Netting

This is a good way to introduce the use of nets in fowling. In the period a variety of netting styles were used. Often netting relied on the use of a tame bird to lure in the wild birds.

Perhaps one of the most ingenious types of nets that was used was the double net. This type of hinged net would rest on the ground covered by leaves or grain. A bird would be used to lure in the wild fowl and then when the area of the net was covered a person would pull a rope to snap the two sides of the net together, trapping the birds between the hinged panels of the nets.

There are many variations on this type of netting as seen in the illustrations of manuscripts.

Another type of netting was the use of very fine mist type nets. These nets were usually employed to catch nocturnal birds, or birds that flew primarily at dawn and dusk. With the sunlight behind these nets or with them placed high in the flyways between trees these were intended to snare birds on the wing. Mostly this type of netting was employed to control bird damage to crop fields.

Snares

A third major venue of capturing wildfowl is the employment of snares. Snares may either be active or passive, but in either case they involve the physical restraint of the bird by tangling, gluing, strangling, or tieing.

The snare that probably comes most easily to mind for Americans is a spring snare. This involves a delicately balanced piece of twine set out and attached to a spring, which when disturbed will release and capture the bird. This type of noose trap was indeed used in the middle ages. But it was not the only method of snaring.

One variation the noose snare is on the cover of this handout. This method, called hunting a la folletoere, relies on the stupidity of the bird to allow the hunter to approach. Probably not the most successful method that was employed.

Another type of snaring that involved active participation on the part of the hunter was the use of the clapstick. This method employed the use of a specially made device and relied on the instincts of the smaller birds when facing the threat of a predator. In the illustration you can see that an owl is used as a decoy. Whether this is a tame bird or a carved replica is unknown. The smaller birds gather to harass the predator and perch on the extended branches of the bush. However, the extended branches are the clapsticks held by the fowlers. When a bird places its feet or tail between the two arms of the clapstick the hunter closes the device with a sharp tugs on the rope that is threaded between the arms of the clapstick.

Birdlime, Rods and Lines

This method is well documented in early manuscripts and throughout the period. Even Shakespeare goes so far as to use it as a common reference in his works. For the modern reader, or recreator, this is most likely the strangest theory on bird capture. It is in it's simplest form, using glue.

The glue, called birdlime, was a mixture of mistletoe berries and holly bark that had been boiled down to form a gooey liquid. This liquid, or lime, would be spread upon rods for birds to roost on or spread across lines that were draped in areas where they ate. The use of rods was to attach the bird to the rod, so that the fowler could gather them later, and the use of lines was to glue the feathers of the birds together so that they could not fly.

Other stories recall how cones of grass or linen could be coated in birdlime and then a layer of dried peas or gravel or grain could be added to the cones. The cones would then be set out and the birds hungry for the grain would put their heads into the cones. The birdlime would then adhere to their feathers or the birds would not be able to back out because it forced their feathers to move opposite the direction that they lay.

Drunkenness and Poisoning

A last method that should be mentioned is the use of chemicals to kill or stupefy the birds. In the "Book of Natural Magick" by Baptiste Porta he mentions several ways to "cause drunkenness in birds." Many of the methods that he mentions are downright poisonous. He calls for mixtures of henbane, and foxglove.

On the other hand there is the practice of soaking bread in beer or brandy wine then setting that bread out where birds may eat it. By doing so they become intoxicated and unable to fly. The fowler may then easily capture the birds.

A Selected Bibliography

Pre 1670 resources

(1330). Manessesche Codex. Zurich.

Hirschvogel, A. (1503 -1553). Netting Quail. German.

Markham, G. (1621). Hungers Prevention: or the whole art of fowling by water & land. London.

Phoebus, G. (1348). The art of the hunt.

Porta, J. B. (1658). 15th Booke of Natural Magick - of Fishing, fowling and hunting. Natural Magick. New York, Basic Books Inc.: 409.

Post 1670 resources

Cockaine, S. T. (1591). A short treatise of hunting, 1591, by Sir Thomas Cockaine, with and introduction by W.R. Halliday. Shakespeare Association. London: 32.

Cummins, J. (1988). The Hound and the Hawk: the art of medieval hunting. New York, St. Martin's Press.

Gex, J. D., Ed. (1995). Shakespeare's Flora & Fauna. London, Pavilion Books Ltd.

Hohenstaufen, F. I. o. (1955). Hawking at the Brook. The Art of Falcony. C. A. Wood and F. M. Fyfe. Boston, Charles T. Branford Co.

Randall, L. M. C. (1966). Images in the Margins of Gothic Manuscripts. Los Angeles, University of California Press.

Reeves, C. (1995). Pleasures and Pastimes in Medieval England. Oxford, Oxford University Press.