Whois & Analysis for medievaltimes.com

Falconry is the hunting of wild quarry in its natural state and habitat by means of a trained bird of prey.

There are two traditional terms used to describe a person involved in falconry: a falconer flies a falcon; an austringer (German origin) flies a hawk (Accipiter and some buteos and similar) or an eagle (Aquila or similar).

In modern falconry, the red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis), the Harris's hawk (Parabuteo unicinctus), and the peregrine falcon (Falco perigrinus) are some of the more commonly used birds of prey.

The practice of hunting with a conditioned falconry bird is also called "hawking" or "gamehawking", although the words "" and "hawker" have become used so much to refer to petty traveling traders, that the terms "falconer" and "falconry" now apply to most use of trained birds of prey to catch game.

Many contemporary practitioners still use these words in their original meaning, however.

Jousting is a martial game or hastilude between two horsemen wielding lances with blunted tips, often as part of a tournament.

The primary aim was to replicate a clash of heavy cavalry, with each opponent trying hard to strike the opponent while riding towards him at high speed, if possible breaking the lance on the opponent's shield or jousting armour, or unhorsing him.

The joust became an iconic characteristic of the knight in Romantic medievalism.

The participants experience close to three and a quarter times their body weight in G-forces when the lances collide with their armor.

Chivalry, or the chivalric code, is a code of conduct associated with the medieval institution of knighthood which developed between 1170 and 1220.

The ideals of chivalry were popularized in medieval literature, especially the Matter of Britain and Matter of France, the former based on Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae which introduced the legend of King Arthur, written in the 1130s.

Dinner theater (sometimes called dinner and a show) is a form of entertainment that combines a restaurant meal with a staged play or musical.

Sometimes the play is incidental entertainment, secondary to the meal, in the style of a sophisticated night club, or the play may be a major production with dinner less important, or in some cases, optional.

Dinner theater requires the management of three distinct entities: a live theater, a restaurant, and usually, a bar.

In many ways, the history of Spain is marked by waves of conquerors who brought their distinct cultures to the peninsula.

After the passage of the Vandals and Alans down the Mediterranean coast of Hispania from 408, the history of medieval Spain begins with the Iberian kingdom of the Arianist Visigoths (507–711), who were converted to Catholicism with their king Reccared in 587.

Visigothic culture in Spain can be seen as a phenomenon of Late Antiquity as much as part of the Age of Migrations.