Dissertation on Birds of Prey and the Sport - the Falconry Heritage ...

past.65 The lover is the helpless victim of the hunt; his heart's fluttering better illustrated
by the image of a trapped partridge, who has the luxury of time to understand that it is
doomed, rather than the quickly dispatched prey of a falcon. Images of avian venery such
as these above will be joined by ones involving formally trained falcons in the love
poetry of Provenqal troubadours in coming centuries, while they adapt Ibn Hazm's
attitudes towards love for the poetry of their own courts.
While falcons and hawks do not have a large role in Provenqal poetry, they do
appear in the works of a few poets.66 Those found are not wild hawks but ones trained
for human use. They are used to illustrate some of the aspects of courtly love. This type
of love, also called'fin' amors, is common to the cultures of Provenqal and northern
French courts, and is a structured, formalized version of love in which the noble lady,
usually married, is worshipped by a poet, usually of lower social class. This is the basis
of the love relationship in troubadour poetry, in which the lady is midons, the poet's lord,
and he serves her in a feudal relationship.67
When falcons and hawks appear in this type of love poetry, they usually represent
the poet's lady; its taming, the lady's becoming kind, merciful, approachable. In this way
the falcon is very useful to illustrate one of the main themes of Provenqal poetry, the
lady's acceptance of the poet's love. Along these lines are the falconry references that
Boccassini finds in three poets, Giraut de Bornelh, Peire Vidal, and Bertran de Born.
65 Ibid., 53.
Giraut de Bornelh, active between 1190 and 1240, provides an example:
66 A survey of where such images may be found is in Werner Hensel's "Die Vogel in der provenzalischen
und nordfranzosischen Lyrik des Mittelalters," Romanische Forschungen 26 (1909): 584-670.
67 For further information on courtly love, see, as a primary text, Andreas Capellanus, On Love, ed. P. G.
Walsh (London: Duckworth, 1982); as a secondary text, C. S. Lewis, Allegory oflove: a Study in Medieval
Tradition (London: Oxford University Press, 1938).
Boccassini. 245-252.