[Illustration:  Fig. 159.—­Heron-hawking.—­Fac-simile of a Miniature in the Manuscript of the “Livre du Roy Modus” (Fourteenth Century).]

Hunting formed a principal entertainment when public festivals were celebrated, and it was frequently accompanied with great magnificence.  At the entry of Isabel of Bavaria into Paris, a sort of stag hunt was performed, when “the streets,” according to a popular story of the time, “were full to profusion of hares, rabbits, and goslings.”  Again, at the solemn entry of Louis XI. into Paris, a representation of a doe hunt took place near the fountain St. Innocent; “after which the queen received a present of a magnificent stag, made of confectionery, and having the royal arms hung round its neck.”  At the memorable festival given at Lille, in 1453, by the Duke of Burgundy, a very curious performance took place.  “At one end of the table,” says the historian Mathieu de Coucy, “a heron was started, which was hunted as if by falconers and sportsmen; and presently from the other end of the table a falcon was slipped, which hovered over the heron.  In a few minutes another falcon was started from the other side of the table, which attacked the heron so fiercely that he brought him down in the middle of the hall.  After the performance was over and the heron was killed, it was served up at the dinner-table.”

[Illustration:  Fig. 160.—­Sport with Dogs.—­“How the Wild Boar is hunted by means of Dogs.”—­Fac-simile of a Miniature in the Manuscript of the “Livre du Roy Modus” (Fourteenth Century).]

We shall conclude this chapter with a few words on bird-fowling, a kind of sport which was almost disdained in the Middle Ages.  The anonymous author of the “Livre du Roy Modus” called it, in the fourteenth century, the pastime of the poor, “because the poor, who can neither keep hounds nor falcons to hunt or to fly, take much pleasure in it, particularly as it serves at the same time as a means of subsistence to many of them.”

In this book, which was for a long time the authority in matters of sport generally, we find that nearly all the methods and contrivances now employed for bird-fowling were known and in use in the Middle Ages, in addition to some which have since fallen into disuse.  We accordingly read in the “Roy Modus” a description of the drag-net, the mirror, the screech-owl, the bird-pipe (Fig. 161), the traps, the springs, &c., the use of all of which is now well understood.  At that time, when falcons were so much required, it was necessary that people should be employed to catch them when young; and the author of this book speaks of nets of various sorts, and the pronged piece of wood in the middle of which a screech-owl or some other bird was placed in order to attract the falcons (Fig. 162).

[Illustration:  Fig. 161.—­Bird-piping.—­“The Manner of Catching Birds by piping.”—­Fac-simile of Miniature in the Manuscript of the “Livre du Roy Modus” (Fourteenth Century).]