The hobby for a young man.
The gos-hawk for a yeoman.
The tercel for a poor man.
The sparrow-hawk for a priest.
The musket for a holy-water clerk.
The kesterel for a knave or a servant.
Of some of the later and milder measures taken to protect the hawk, it may be remarked that the 5th of Elizabeth, c. 21, enacts that if any person shall unlawfully take any hawks, or their eggs, out of the woods or ground of any person, and be thereof convicted at the assizes or sessions on indictment, bill or information at the suit of the king, or of the party, he shall be imprisoned three months, and pay treble damages, and after the expiration of three months shall find sureties for his good abearing for seven years, or remain in prison till he doth, § 3.
The last statute concerning falconry (except a clause in 7 Jac. c. 11, which limits the time of hawking at pheasants and partridges) is that of the 23rd Eliz. c. 10, which enacts that if any manner of person shall hawk in another man’s corn after it is eared, and before it is shocked, and be therefore convicted at the assizes, sessions, or leet, he shall pay 40s. to the owner, and if not paid within ten days he shall be imprisoned for a month.
B.—Page [41].
Mr. Eyton, to whose learned and valuable work on the “Antiquities of Shropshire” the author again acknowledges his obligations, as all who follow that painstaking writer must do, with regard to the holding at the More, says, “The earliest notice of this tenure which occurs in the Roll of Shropshire Sergeantries, is dated 13th of John, 1211, and merely says that Richard de Medler holds one virgate of land, and renders for the same annually, at the Feast of St. Michael, two knives (knifeulos). A second contemporary roll supplies the place of payment, viz., the Exchequer; a third writes the name, Richard le Mener. In 1245 Nicholas de More is said to pay at the Exchequer two knives (cultellos)—one good, the other very bad—for certain land which he holds of the King in capite in More. In 1255 the Stottesden Jurors report that Nicholas de Medler holds one virgate in More, in capite of the Lord King, rendering at the Exchequer two knives, one of which ought to cut a hazel rod, and he does no other service for the said land. In that of 1274 Jurors of the same Hundred say at length that Nicholas de la More holds one virgate in that vill of the Lord King, in capite, by sergeantry, of taking two knives to the King’s Exchequer, at the feast of St. Michael in each year, so that he ought to cut a hazel rod with one knife, so that the knife should bend (plicare) with the stroke; and again, to cut a rod with the other knife. The record of 1284 describes Nicholas de la More as holding three parts of a virgate and two moors, by sergeantry, &c. The Jurors of Oct. 1292 say that William de la More, of Erdington, holds one virgate in the More, by sergeantry of taking two knives to the King’s Exchequer on the morrow of St. Michael, and to cut with the same knives two hazel rods.”