Reviewed by:

• Hawking Women: Falconry, Gender, and Control in Medieval Literary Culture by Sara Petrosillo
• Zita Eva Rohr

Sara Petrosillo’s monograph is an interesting and welcome contribution to both the study of the art of falconry and ideas concerning gender and control arising from medieval literary culture as expressed in writings and visual imagery of falconry. However, it is not just these imperatives that Petrosillo has in mind when crafting her argument. What she really aims to bring to light is how the physical training of these most noble of female birds (and falcons are indeed the female of the species, with the smaller male birds known as tercels/tiercels) and its expression in medieval falconry manuals demonstrate how poetic language functions and how these works represent women within the double meaning of liberation and constraint.

It is all too easy to take for granted the blanket assumption that medieval poetics of control emerged from the culture of the training of hawks, and indeed women, into submission, as a surface reading of conduct books and poetics designed for women would appear to suggest. Throughout her careful study, Petrosillo sheds light upon the reality that medieval women were falconers with their own falcons and that they were often represented as female hawks in lyrical poetry, thereby occupying both positions. Added to this, medieval women were the dedicatees of hawking and conduct manuals alike and chose deliberately to represent themselves using hawking iconography in their seals and in their choices and commissioning of decorative art and manuscripts. [End Page 238]

None of this was exceptional in the greater scheme of things and in the context of the times. Historians have long demonstrated via archival sources, such as household accounts and epistolary in particular, how royal and high-ranking medieval and early modern women participated in the sport of hunting to an elite level with, and in competition with, their male peers. Moreover, they hawked (trained and practised), bred hunting dogs, and exchanged puppies, dogs, and bitches with male and female members of their political, diplomatic, familial, marital, and friendship networks, overseeing the breeding and care of valuable bloodstock to the extent of employing their own equerries to take charge of their personal stables. Testifying to this, sources such as Violant de Bar (d. 1431), queen consort of Aragon’s, epistolary point to animal and literary exchanges with the ‘poster-boy’ of late-medieval hunting practice, Gaston III Fébus, Count of Foix. Violant’s great-great-granddaughter, Anne of France (d. 1522) was also a skilled practitioner of hunting in all its forms, alluded to in poems addressed to her such as Jacques de Brézé’s works La Chasse, Les Dits de bon chien Souillard, and Les Lounages de Madame Anne de France. There are many other examples that might be brought into the present discussion, not least in our own times, with the late Queen Elizabeth II a renowned and expert practitioner in the breeding of both dogs and horses, but I digress.

All of this is to say that, while Petrosillo treads the admittedly fraught path of calling out misogyny and the hegemony of premodern patriarchy with some skill, greater attention to context and archival evidence (not just literary sources) might have given the reader a more nuanced understanding of the actual motivations for the apparent misogyny underpinning the texts upon which she has chosen to focus, as well as the gender composition of the patriarchy—the ‘go-to’ source of constraint and female suppression semper ubique, et ab omnibus (at all times, in all places, by everyone). High-ranking premodern women were not passive horizontal conduits or enablers of supposed and/or actual male hegemony. More often than not, patriarchy was about dynastic success and durability, in which such women played a key role and frequently led the charge, assured the financing, and planned tactics and strategies to achieve shared dynastic and political priorities.

That to...

审阅者：

• 《霍金女性：中世纪文学文化中的猎鹰、性别和控制》 作者：Sara Petrosillo
• 齐塔·伊娃·罗尔

萨拉·彼得罗西洛（Sara Petrosillo）的专着对猎鹰艺术的研究以及中世纪文学文化中有关性别和控制的思想（以猎鹰的文字和视觉意象表达）的研究来说是有趣且受欢迎的贡献。然而，彼得罗西洛在阐述她的论点时不仅仅考虑到这些必要条件。她真正想要揭示的是，这些最高贵的雌鸟（猎鹰确实是该物种中的雌性，较小的雄鸟被称为 tercels/tiercels）的身体训练及其在中世纪猎鹰手册中的表达如何证明诗意语言如何发挥作用，以及这些作品如何在解放和约束的双重含义下代表女性。

人们很容易想当然地认为中世纪的控制诗学是从训练鹰派乃至女性屈服的文化中产生的，作为对行为书籍和诗学的表面阅读，这些书籍和诗学是为女性似乎会建议。在她的仔细研究中，彼得罗西洛揭示了这样一个现实：中世纪女性是带着自己的猎鹰的猎鹰者，而且她们经常在抒情诗歌中被描绘成女性鹰，从而占据了这两个位置。除此之外，中世纪的女性也是小贩和行为手册的奉献者，她们故意选择在她们的印章以及选择和委托装饰艺术和手稿中使用小贩的肖像来代表自己。 [结束第238页]

从更大的格局和时代背景来看，这一切都不是例外。历史学家长期以来通过家庭记录和书信等档案资料证明，中世纪和早期现代的皇室和高级女性如何参与狩猎运动，并与男性同龄人竞争，并达到精英水平。此外，他们还贩卖（训练和练习）、饲养猎犬，并与政治、外交、家庭、婚姻和友谊网络中的男性和女性成员交换小狗、狗和母狗，监督珍贵纯种马的繁殖和护理，以确保他们的利益。雇用自己的侍从来管理他们的私人马厩的程度。阿拉贡王后维奥兰特·德·巴尔（Violant de Bar，卒于 14​​31 年）等资料来源证明了这一点，他在书信中指出了与中世纪晚期狩猎实践的“典范”富瓦伯爵加斯顿三世·费布斯之间的动物和文学交流。维奥朗的曾孙女法国的安妮（Anne of France，卒于 1522 年）也是各种形式狩猎的熟练实践者，雅克·德·布雷泽 (Jacques de Brézé) 的作品等献给她的诗歌中提到了这一点La Chasse、Les Dits de bon chien Souillard和Les Lounages de Madame安妮·德·法兰西。还有许多其他例子可以纳入当前的讨论，尤其是在我们这个时代，已故女王伊丽莎白二世是狗和马饲养方面的著名专家，但我离题了。

所有这一切都表明，虽然彼得罗西洛走的是一条公认的充满挑战的道路，以某种技巧呼吁厌女症和前现代父权制的霸权，但更多地关注背景和档案证据（不仅仅是文学来源）可能会给予他更多的关注。读者可以更细致地理解她选择关注的文本中明显的厌女症的实际动机，以及父权制的性别构成——约束和女性压制的“首选”根源（在任何时间、任何地点、由每个人）。前现代的高级女性并不是假定的和/或实际的男性霸权的被动横向传导者或推动者。通常，父权制关乎王朝的成功和持久，其中这些女性发挥着关键作用，经常带头冲锋，保证资金，并计划战术和战略，以实现共同的王朝和政治优先事项。semper ubique, et abomnibus

那是为了...