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

It is a hunt in which psychological intimidation causes physical surrender, and the
predator and the prey cross a line over which their behavior is closer to their human
models than to the reality of a hunt.
In a culture which often uses birds to represent lovers in literature, the noblest
lovers will usually be represented by birds of prey. We have seen this in Provengal
poetry; it is true in other genres as well, such as dream visions and short stories. The idea
of the hierarchy of birds associated with love among different social classes is used more .
straightforwardly in feudal countries than in Italy, where the increasingly bourgeois
society of the fourteenth century prompts a different view of status and birds of prey.
However, the concept of representing human lovers by falcons or hawks in love is
common to Italian literature as well. It is of interest to note how birds of prey are treated
in contemporary fourteenth-century literature outside Italy.
The treatment of falcons in a couple of bird-conferences presented as dream
visions is illuminating. This poetic genre, in which birds gather to discuss love or to pair
off, often centers on a noble lover who is having problems with his choice of mate; the
roles of these protagonists are played by eagles, falcons, and hawks.
A French dream vision of this type is the Songe Saint Valentin by Oton de
Granson, a contemporary of Chaucer, in which birds gather on Valentine's Day to choose
mates. Although the subject of this work clearly has much in common with Chaucer's
Parlement of Foules, its central dilemma is a bit different. Here the problem in the
gathering of birds concerns a tercel peregrine falcon, representing the poet-lover, who has