Hawking. A common recreation, hawking also had a practical application: it provided meat for the table. Carried by men and women on their wrists, hawks were useful aids to hunters. Their importance can be gauged by the large number of manuals on hawking that have survived. The best known of these is The Art of Falconry, written in the 1240s by Frederick II, who ruled the Holy Roman Empire from 1212 to 1250. Frederick stressed the care and patience every falconer must have while training his falcon, as the trained birds were called. After capturing a wild hawk, the handler first placed a hood over its head, tied leather straps (jesses) to its ankles, attached bells to the jesses, and set the bird on its perch. Over a period of weeks and even months the bird grew accustomed to human noises...