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, tassel or tarcel denotes the male peregrine, from the French word tierce , meaning ‘a third’. The male is a third less in size than the female. Again, this term is sometimes used incorrectly, referring to the males of other Accipitridae and Falconidae , although not all male birds of prey are a third less in size than their female counterparts. 73
    By the fourteenth century, authors of hawking texts were linking social status to raptor species, and there are references to every rank of the ruling classes having its own associated falcons, the distinctions becoming more refined as time passes. A passage in MS Egerton 1995 in the British Library shows this increasing trend ‘The namys of hawkys, and to what maner of Personys that they longe vnto euery man afyr hys owne degre and ordyr’. 74 The Boke of Saint Albans , written in 1486, exemplifies the late medieval preoccupation with classification and division in the natural and human worlds, cataloguing and assigning particular birds of prey to persons of appropriate rank and status. The Boke’s list reads:
    Theys haukes belong to an Emproure
    Theys be the names of all maner of hawkes . First an Egle .a Bawtere .a Melowne . The symplest of theis .iii. will flee an Hynde calfe .a Fawn .a Roo. a Kydde . an Elke . a Crane . a Bustarde a Storke. a Swan. a Fox in the playn grownde. And theis be not enlured . ne reclaymed . because that they be so ponderowse to the perch portatiff.. And theis .iii. by ther nature belong to an Emprowre .
    Theis hawkes belong to a kyng .
    Ther is a Gerfawken . A Tercell of a gerfauken . And theys belong to a Kyng .
    ffor a prynce .
    Ther is a Fawken gentill . and a Tercell gentill . and thys be for a prynce .
    For a duke .
    Ther is a Fawken of the rock . And that is for a duke
    For an Erle .
    Ther is a Fawken peregryne And that is for an Erle
    ffor a Baron .
    Also ther is a Bastarde and that hauke is for a Baron
    Hawkes forr a knight
    Ther is a Sacre and a Sacret . And theis be for a Knyght .
    Hawkis for a Squyer .
    Ther is a Lanare and a Lanrett . And theys belong to a Squyer .
    For a lady
    Ther is a Merlyon . And that hawke is for a lady
    An hawke for a yongman
    Ther is an Hoby . And that hauke is for a yong man And theys be hawkes of the towre : and ben both Ilurid to be calde and reclaymed
    And yit ther be moo kyndis of hawkes
    Ther is a Goshawke . and that hauke is for a yeman
    Ther is a Tercell . And that is for a powere man .
    Ther is a Spare hawke . and he is an hawke for a prest
    Ther is a Muskyte . And he is for an holiwater clerke
    And theis be of an oder maner kynde . for thay flie to Querre and to fer Jutty and to Jutty fferry. 75
    The last sentence of the list specifying ‘moo kyndis of hawkes’ refers to those birds known as hawks of the fist , mentioned in the classifications earlier, which were cast or flung ( jeter ) from the fist to strike ( férir ) the quarry. These birds of prey carried considerably less status than the hawks of the tower , as their terminal position in the list indicates.
    It is significant that quarry species of animal were not classified in this hierarchical way and were never formally identified with corresponding human ranks in medieval society. The hawk or falcon is always identified with the human hunter, so an appropriate comparison between particular birds of prey and social ranks can be quite properly made. In contrast, wild beasts, whatever their individual ‘noble’ attributes, always remain the quarry and are therefore in a subservient role to the hunter.
    Dame Juliana Berner’s allocation of species has aroused much controversy over the years, some authorities accepting the list as a piece of social reality, others dismissing it as nonsense. It was described as ‘interesting but fanciful’ in the 1920s, and ‘pretty fair nonsense’ and ‘partly a piece of fun’ in the 1980s. 76 These twentieth-century observations contain much