celebrated for their manufacture.  Straps were also fastened to the falcon’s legs, by means of which he was attached to the perch; at the end of this strap was a brass or gold ring with the owner’s name engraved upon it.  In the royal establishments each ring bore on one side, “I belong to the king,” and on the other the name of the Grand Falconer.  This was a necessary precaution, for the birds frequently strayed, and, if captured, they could thus be recognised and returned.  The ownership of a falcon was considered sacred, and, by an ancient barbaric law, the stealer of a falcon was condemned to a very curious punishment.  The unfortunate thief was obliged to allow the falcon to eat six ounces of the flesh of his breast, unless he could pay a heavy fine to the owner and another to the king.

[Illustration:  Fig. 152.—­Falconers.—­Fac-simile from a Miniature in Manuscript of the Thirteenth Century, which treats of the “Cour de Jaime, Roi de Maiorque.”]

A man thoroughly acquainted with the mode of training hawks was in high esteem everywhere.  If he was a freeman, the nobles outbid each other as to who should secure his services; if he was a serf, his master kept him as a rare treasure, only parted with him as a most magnificent present, or sold him for a considerable sum.  Like the clever huntsman, a good falconer (Fig. 156) was bound to be a man of varied information on natural history, the veterinary art, and the chase; but the profession generally ran in families, and the son added his own experience to the lessons of his father.  There were also special schools of venery and falconry, the most renowned being of course in the royal household.

The office of Grand Falconer of France, the origin of which dates from 1250, was one of the highest in the kingdom.  The Marechal de Fleuranges says, in his curious “Memoirs”—­“The Grand Falconer, whose salary is four thousand florins” (the golden florin was worth then twelve or fifteen francs, and this amount must represent upwards of eighty thousand francs of present currency), “has fifty gentlemen under him, the salary of each being from five to six thousand livres.  He has also fifty assistant falconers at two hundred livres each, all chosen by himself.  His establishment consists of three hundred birds; he has the right to hunt wherever he pleases in the kingdom; he levies a tax on all bird-dealers, who are forbidden, under penalty of the confiscation of their stock, from selling a single bird in any town or at court without his sanction.”  The Grand Falconer was chief at all the hunts or hawking meetings; in public ceremonies he always appeared with the bird on his wrist, as an emblem of his rank; and the King, whilst hawking, could not let loose his bird until after the Grand Falconer had slipped his.

[Illustration:  Fig. 153.—­“How to bathe a New Falcon.”—­Fac-simile of a Miniature in the Manuscript of “Livre du Roy Modus” (Fourteenth Century).]