What-Is-Aviculture

Hello, my name is Lady Biya and over the course of the next few months I hope to introduce all of you to the exciting new sciences and arts of AVICULTURE, the newest area of study available to gentles throughout the Society. I am writing to you at this time from the kingdom of Aethelmearc, from the barony of St. Swithin’s Bog in western Pennsylvania, specifically, though I am ever in hopes of coming to an event in Caid very soon to teach aviculture in person to as many gentles as possible who are willing to discover something exciting and new, to share with you the results of nearly 5 years of research. Mundanely, I have been an aviculturist since 1980, specializing in birds under 300 grams. Before I even begin, allow me to invite all of you to check out the bibliography for my work on my arts and sciences website: http://www.biyasama.com/bibliographies.html. The best research is, after all, meaningless unless I can back all of this up. Allow me to assure everyone from the onset: I can!

So what is aviculture? Many definitions prevail and if one was to follow every single one provided, one would think that aviculture was just a sub-set of animal husbandry. I disagree! Instead, in my experience, each of the animal sciences has a specific and defined scope, boundaries that delineate one from another without overlap, though certainly in some cases one gentle might practice more than one at a time—as with Holy Roman Emperor II who was both a renown falconer and aviculturist and famously kept one of the few cockatoos in medieval European aviculture which he received from the Sultan of Babylon in 1229 as part of his negotiations to conclude the Fourth Crusade .

For the purposes of study within the Known World Aviculturists Guild, aviculture is defined as the study of one or more members of one of the three following orders of birds:

Aviculture birds are COMPANION BIRDS. They are kept in captivity for their SOCIAL AND/OR BEAUTY AND/OR VOCAL QUALITIES. Aviculture birds are FLOCK BIRDS—they live in GROUPS and prefer the company of other members of their own kind and similar species. For example, a solitary society finch (or canary) is a lonely finch. Provide three other society finches, and the same finch thrives. They need the group!

It is their need for the group that makes them great companions for humans.

But aviculture is not simply keeping a bird. Possessing a bird is easy—keeping that bird alive is hard! Practical aviculture in any time involves of bird psychology, nutrition, medicine/first aid, genetics (breeding), herbalism, cooking, woodworking (perches), metalworking (cages), handcrafts (toys)… and many more other arts and sciences.

Taking that to medieval aviculture, to the research side of this science and a gentle is studying paleo-climatology, archeology, falconry studies, biology, religious studies, birds in culture studies, warfare, ecology, comparative species studies, evolution… and many more!

The list of arts and sciences that can be and are applied to either form of aviculture are absolutely endless. Odds are very good that something YOU ARE DOING RIGHT NOW can be applied to aviculture in some way! The field is simply that broad in terms of areas of study!

But why should you care about this? So what if aviculture looks into companion birds in the middle ages and if it studies so many different arts and sciences that it is literally impossible to name them all? What does it have to do with you?

While aviculture may seem to have little to do with you in your day to day life (“seem” being the operative word, as we will discuss in a future article on birds and ecology), the reality is that if you think about what your persona actually does professionally and how she or he spends her or his time, medieval life realities start to set in. As do such things as the boredom of the work done day after day, week after week, year after year (sure, spinning is fine to do for a hobby—but imagine this being your LIFE’S PROFESSION or SURVIVAL NECESSITY for EVERY DAY of your life! Or imagine having to cook with actual medieval methods and limitations and THAT being a major part of how you spent your days—would it be nearly as fun?). Maybe you have a nice fancy title and get to be a person of leisure and you only get to spin or do needlework or play an instrument or cook as a flight of fancy—odds are very good you are still keeping a companion bird and probably are even more dedicated to your aviculture than someone of “lower” social class or less fancy rank. After all, these birds are how you show off to your peers. You cannot be a baron (ess), duke (chess), count (ess), or other noble without your grand menageries, aviaries, and mews! These are your living trophies, your grandest displays of your wealth and power, your way of “keeping up with the Jones” and showing that YOU can outdo your rivals.

My bird is better than your bird! My bird is rarer than your bird! My bird is more expensive!

So who in period had companion birds?

Let’s look at a list of just a few of the kinds of people we know kept companion birds (see if any of these describe you)

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WOMEN: aviculture and women go to together as two birds of a feather! Kind of like falconry and men! Spinning, weaving, washing, sewing, cooking, needle arts, child care, cleaning—not the easiest tasks in the world! To help stay sane while they worked, women used companion birds to keep them company. The species was not as important (most people could afford at least a little sparrow, canary, or pigeon) as just having the bird at home to talk to, pet (in certain species), and, with the finches, listen to their songs. Parrots (which were more difficult to keep overall) were kept by urban women, the bourgeoisie, and those with more money for a parrot’s increased demands.

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NOBILITY: as alluded to earlier, nobles kept large aviaries of companion birds as displays of their personal wealth and power. Rare companion birds were as coveted as much as any rare possession from a far away land—only these could, depending on the skills of their servants, either increase their wealth and prestige greatly or decrease it in the event of an untimely death of a special bird. With the great intelligence of parrots in particular and social qualities of these birds, the noble was typically under great pressure from his wife and children to possess a number of suitable parrots in particular for their pleasure.

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ARTESANS/CRAFTS PEOPLE: the work of any artesan or crafts person is as long and hard as any woman in her home. From making shoes to making jewelry to any craft imaginable, life was made better by the soft sounds of a bird nearby.

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CLERGY: Monks and other clerics were well known for keeping small cages of sparrows or finches as their special friends with wealthier clerics indulging in vanity parrots. The biopic, “Luther” displays the clerical love of companion birds accurately and nicely—with period cages!

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MERCHANTS: when they were home, merchants displayed their wealth by keeping the most expensive birds they could afford—after all, they have to emulate the nobility with their exquisite specimens! And besides, the wife and children insist upon it!

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THE BOURGEOSIE: if poor people kept simple pigeons and common canaries and sparrows, the bourgeoisie had to show they were better off than the common rabble! Rarer finches/canaries, specialized breeds/species of pigeons, and PARROTS became prime ways for the bourgeoisie to prove to the nobles they were better than the drunks and beggars of the world!

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CITY FOLK: people living in urban environments tended to keep companion birds as the precursors to “pets” which is a more modern concept. In a time when dogs were still seen as practical, work animals, and cats were feared and kept feral, the companion animal of choice was generally some sort of bird in the three orders discussed.

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ROYALTY: if the knights, dukes, counts, viscounts, and other peers of the realm were proving their wealth and power with rare and exquisite birds, the royalty of medieval societies did it better than anyone else! Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, one of medieval Europe’s most noted falconers and aviculturists, managed to secure a cockatoo from Chinese aviculture—something no other European monarch, noble, or pope of his century (or previous centuries) could do. Lorikeets filled Tang dynasty aviaries in Chang An for the glory of the Chinese emperors as Chinese aviculturists worked to cope with Indonesian cockatoo intelligence and breed them successfully in the 7th century. Who received the first HAND RAISED COCKATOO…the emperor, of course?! Vital to every royal was his or her royal aviculturists who kept the flocks alive, healthy, happy, and handle able. After all, losing one’s hand to the royal birds’ sharp beaks—bad thing!

As you can see, a lot of people in medieval Europe and Asia kept companion birds. In China today there is an ongoing tradition, possibly from period, of the elderly keeping small flocks of finches to keep them company in their golden years. The parks of major Chinese cities are filled with the elderly with their travel cages (in styles that may date to period) filled with their finches. Retired persons in China bring their cages with their finches out with them, taking their birds everywhere: a game of Chinese chess, some taiji, conversations with friends—the birds get to tag along too. People put the cages next to one another and the birds get to socialize together, make friends. Like most things in China, change is rare and traditions start from several centuries past. One has to wonder of perhaps an age category for aviculture also belongs on the list, if in retirement in period, gentles turned to aviculture to help them pass their final years.

Without being able to read Chinese at the moment, it is hard to say…but it should be clear that in period, aviculture was very widely practiced. In many ways, it was more common in period than it was today. Today, we look to animals besides birds for companionship. Dogs are no longer simply work animals and cats are no longer despised. The last 400 years has greatly changed the way people have thought about animals as a whole. In methodology, the last 400 years has seen some improvements—the invention of steel in the 19th century meant, for example, that a safe metal option was available finally for caging parrots—with both positive, but usually negative consequences, for the birds. Perches changed after the SCA period …and because of that, new diseases like bumble foot became the legacy of the modern age—things unknown in period—just like parrot obesity was unknown in period (without a cage, a parrot used her wings and therefore received proper exercise!). For each positive gain the last 400 years for aviculture, we have lost far more to the modern era.

Medieval aviculture was, for the most part, safer and healthier for our companion birds. It is the job of the Known World Aviculturist Guild (http://www.facebook.com/groups/kwagsca/) to teach gentles in the society who have birds now exactly how to merge the best parts of modern aviculture (we like ceramic coated stainless steel cages, particularly for birds over 60 grams!) with the best parts of period practice—for the best health and well being of our beautiful living history in our lives. A companion bird is the best living history any member of the society can be blessed with. These birds are the descendants of the same birds whom our ancestors kept in period, their brains just as wild as their first wild-caught ancestors, one thousand or five thousand years ago. It is up to us to learn how to be the best stewards we can and to learn how to preserve and protect their wild cousins in the world so that future generations may hear their songs and know the beauty and glory of this most precious part of our living past.

To the dream!