In the Middle Ages, Bishops Brought Their Pet Falcons to Church
During the Middle Ages, falconry was considered the “noblest sport”. Hunting was extremely popular back then, because it was how everyone got meat on the table. Many knights and members of the upper class owned falcons that would hunt with them. Bishops would bring their falcons to church, and only let them go when they approached the altar.
In a fourteenth century book called The Goodman of Paris, a man told his wife to bring her falcon to church too, because they were so valuable that they were often stolen. A book called “The Boke of Saint Albans”, from 1486, lists the kinds of birds appropriate to each rank of society, from the lordly eagle for the emperor to the lowly “muskyte” for a holy-water clerk.
