Food and Eating in Medieval Europe

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Food and Eatin g in

Medieval Europ e

Edited by

Martha Carlin and Joel T. Rosenthal

The Hambledon Pres sLondon and Rio Grande

Published by The Hambledo n Press 1998102 Gloucester Avenue, London NW 1 8HX (UK)PO Box 162, Rio Grande, Ohio 45674 (USA)

ISBN 1 85285 148 1

© The Contributor s 199 8

A description o f this book is available fromthe British Library and from th e Library of Congress

Typeset by The Midland s Book Typesetting Company, Loughboroug hPrinted o n acid-free paper and bound inGreat Britain by Cambridge Universit y Press

Contents

Figures vi iIntroduction i xAbbreviations xii i

1 Th e Feast Hall in Anglo-Saxon Society 1Marjorie A. Brown

2 Pilgrim s to Table: Food Consumption inChaucer's Canterbury Tales 1 5

Elizabeth M. Biebel

3 Fas t Food and Urban Living Standards inMedieval England 2 7

Martha Carlin

4 Di d the Peasants Really Starve in Medieval England? 5 3Christopher Dyer

5 Cannibalis m as an Aspect of Famine in Two EnglishChronicles 7 3

Julia Marvin

6 Drive n by Drink? Ale Consumption and the AgrarianEconomy of the London Region, c. 1300-1400 8 7

James A, Galloway

7 Makin g Sense of Medieval Culinary Records:Much Done, But Much More to Do 10 1

Constance B. Hieatt

8 Feedin g Medieval Cities: Some Historical Approaches 11 7Margaret Murphy

vi Food an d Eating in Medieval Europe

9 Th e Household of Alice de Bryene, 1412-13 13 3ffiona Swabey

10 Queu du Roi, Roi des Queux: Taillevent an d th eProfession o f Medieval Cooking 14 5

Alan S. Weber

11 Medieva l and Renaissance Weddin g Banquet sand Other Feasts 15 9

Susan F. Weiss

Index 17 5

Figures

1 Movemen t of barley and malt prices compared tocarpenters' wages , 1300-1400 9 3

2 Percentag e of sown grain acreage occupied by individualcrops on demesnes in the London region , 1290-1315and 1375-140 0 9 7

3 Percentag e o f all demesne grain sold (b y volume)represented b y individual crops in the London region ,1290-1315 and 1375-1400 9 8

4 Th e ‘Feeding the City’ project study area 12 3

5 Simplifie d representation o f Von Thünen’s model ofland-use zones 12 7

The editors record with sadness the death ofMarjorie A. Brown in the autumn of 1997.This volume is dedicated t o her memory.

Introduction

Medievalists have been slow to turn their professional eyes toward certainaspects o f ‘everyday life ’ that invariabl y engage mos t o f u s fa r mor efrequently an d deepl y tha n d o th e familia r academic an d course -oriented concentrations that lean toward the complexities of constitutionalgovernment or the transmission of high culture. Among the noteworthy‘events’ or focal points and institutions of ordinary life we can rank suchlong neglected commonplaces as food, clothing and sex (which we nowtalk of in terms of sexual activity and o f sexuality).

In recent years students of the European middle ages have moved tocorrect some of this long record of professional bias and oversight, andtoday we can say, with perhaps a touch o f pride, that there has been asignificant swing of the scholarly pendulum in the direction of a seriousinvestigation o f the commonplace . That such features of lif e a s food,clothing and sex are virtually universals, and that they are of concern towomen as well as to men, and t o the poor and relatively silent as well asto the rich and privileged around whom the written sources have gener-ally clustered, are certainly among the reasons why they were once ignored.However, these are - by the dictates of our present agenda - th e veryreasons why such concerns and topic s are now so interesting and whythey are being so avidly studied.

The essay s here mor e tha n satisf y thes e criteria . Though abou t hal fthe author s ar e i n Histor y Departments o r work as part o f historicalresearch projects, and the others are mostly in departments of languageand literature , such a simple distinction by conventional disciplines isfar from a reliable guide to the work and ideas they have presented. Theessays that can be categorized as falling within th e realms of historicalinquiry and historical methods go far beyond the ‘what happened’ menuof historical inquiry. They delve into questions of nutrition, of economicgeography, of gender an d se x roles, and o f popular culture , and thei rvarious blends and melds of the records of medieval life illuminate ourcurrent interest in re-asking old questions, in reinterpreting old answers.Whether we are concerned with how wide an economic and geographic

x Food and Eating in Medieval Europe

arc of food production ha d t o be focused toward London t o feed th eteeming metropolis , as in th e work of Margaret Murphy and Jim Gal -loway, o r ho w successfu l suc h foo d productio n an d distributio nmechanisms really turned ou t t o be, as in Christopher Dyer' s essay, orin what people actuall y ate when they finished work and had a chanceto si t down, as Martha Carlin tell s us, we can se e th e rang e o f social,economic, political and cultural material that has to be introduced int othe equation. Questions once asked only by geographers or economists ,if asked a t al l for suc h a distan t period , ar e no w part o f the workingagenda o f historians.

The ‘literature’ essays also diverge widely, and the y serve to carry usfrom som e of the har d realitie s of food production an d consumptio npatterns int o what we can thin k o f as extra-nutritional aspect s of thisbasic human endeavour . Preparing food, at virtually all levels of societyand o f the culinar y range, was a social process, and very often it was asocial process that incorporated elaborat e elements of ritual, of prescribedand hierarchica l publi c behavior, and of festival and carnival . Whetherwe are looking at the Anglo-Saxon hal l as a locus of eating and drink -ing and socia l intercourse, as in Marjorie Brown's essay, or at the musicand ritua l tha t surrounde d festiv e eatin g o n ceremonia l occasion s inlate medieval Europe, as in Susan Weiss’s study, we are impressed by thepersistence and ubiquity of a few basic themes about social life.

Medieval societ y certainly was one i n whic h categories o f skil l an dknowledge and mysteries of crafts and guilds were taken very seriously.A magnate' s cook , who was responsible no t onl y for producin g th eelaborate meals that fed the household but also for organizing and control-ling the labour and fuel and raw foodstuffs needed to keep a great kitchenrunning, was a powerful figure in the prestigious worlds of hearth andhall. Alan Weber offer s a case study of how a high positio n i n a royalkitchen and upward mobility could go hand in glove, while ConstanceHieatt alert s u s t o th e intricacie s o f interpreting an d classifyin g th ethousands of surviving medieval recipes that were collected and used ingreat households .

From agricultura l decision s abou t which grains t o sow to th e fina lpresentation o f fantastic pasties and arcane confections at the table, thesteps of the food chain constitute a complex ladder of social and economicinteraction. The final products - what was served at the table - can bethought o f as the edible end product s of a craft, o f the application an dembodiment o f specialized knowledg e designe d t o giv e pleasure, t oenhance th e statu s of their makers , and t o link a basic physical needwith social display and symbolic representations. The whole tale of how

Introduction x i

food was prepared an d eaten clearl y extends far beyond a simple bod-ily process in which we must engage in order to preserve life and strength .The ritua l and symbolic aspects of consumption, beside or in additio nto those of sociability and hospitality, were hardly likely to pass unnoticedin a society whose basic ceremony of religious renewal and purificationinvolved th e sacramen t o f th e Eucharis t an d th e ingestio n o f th etransubstantiated Host. Furthermore, days of plenty on earth were outwardmanifestations of divine approbation, just as those of hunger spok e ofheavenly anger and a loss of grace; Julia Marvin' s essay relates biblicaland medieva l readings about dearth and starvation to the permissibleranges of human response .

Not al l of th e symbolis m that surrounde d cookin g and eatin g wasspiritual, and a good many of the messages about the arrangements ofthis world - a s well as that to which men and women hoped eventuallyto come - were bound up with the hierarchy of the table. ffiona Swabeyshows how a great lady's table, and the elaborate apparatu s on which itrested, can be read a s a text on household management , on the socialrole ope n t o a powerfu l widow , an d o n comple x rhythms of regiona land provincia l culture. Sitting at table an d feedin g others ar e readilyseen a s an endless cycle of social interaction wherein practical mattersmerged, with few visible seams, into the world of ceremony and status .Upper-class lif e an d courtl y life wer e partly defined and se t apar t b ytheir framing of social eating.

At the same time we should remember tha t what we can identify an delaborate fo r the topmos t layers of society regarding the links betweeneating and the social structure was also true, with appropriate variationsfor class and culture , for every man and woman who drew a knife to cutbread an d who shared sal t or ale with another. Everyone came to real-ize, a t some early point in life , tha t dietary distinctions marked socialclass just as such distinctions were also part of the regular variations thatmarked the cycles of the seasons and of the ecclesiastical calendar. Froma morbid or hypnotic fascination with dearth and famine, at one extreme,to the theatricality of the music- and poetry-bedecked wedding feast orpolitical banquet a t the other , we have a broad spectru m of behaviourwherein th e table , with bot h it s food an d it s festivities, remaine d th efixed star of the firmament .

In a world that relied on humoural theor y to explain both th e unityof the cosmos and the nature o f individual temperament s an d health,‘you are what you eat’ was a good deal more than a cliche. The essay byElizabeth Biebel reminds us of the moral significance that was logicallyattached t o kinds of food eaten (o r rejected) as well as to occasions for

xii Food an d Eating in Medieval Europe

eating (or fasting). Personality, gender distinctions and the line betweenpurity and impurity could be traced, to some extent, by a study of consump-tion patterns and predilections. How one sought to blend personal styleand choice into the larger rhythms of the world might be revealed, bothin terms of health and o f moral disposition, by an examination o f one'sshopping lis t and collection o f pots and pans.

Martha Carlin Joe l T. Rosenthal

Abbreviations

BL Britis h Library , Londo n

EETS Earl y English Tex t Society

OED Oxfor d Englis h Dictionary

PRO Publi c Record Office , Londo n

1The Feast Hall in Anglo-Saxon Society

Marjorie A. Brown

The Anglo-Saxon feast hall was at the heart of early English society. Herepeople met to celebrate their victories , t o proclaim socia l bonds withone anothe r an d t o share th e product s o f the land . Feast-hal l scenesfrequently appea r i n Old English literature , notabl y in heroic poem ssuch as Beowulf, i n which much of the action occurs within a magnificentroyal hall . I n poetr y adapte d fro m Christia n rathe r tha n Germani clegendary sources, the protagonists may also meet within the mead halls,but th e tone of these meetings tends to be darker, even demonic. Theshifting literary representation o f the feast hall invites an examinatio nof its multiple roles in the Anglo-Saxon world.

Some physica l remain s o f feast halls hav e been found i n England .Archeological excavations at Yeavering have uncovered the trace s of aroyal hall eighty feet long and forty feet wide, with plank walls set eightfeet into the ground to support a high roof.1 At Cheddar, a hall seventy-five feet in length held gatherings in the ninth century.2 While the excava-tions made at the Sutton Hoo site over the last half-century have discloseda ship rather than a hall, archeologists have found kingly furnishings,including silver-gil t mounts for drinking cups and horns and a harp tha tcould have been played at feasts. As important as the material evidencemay be, however , the description s o f feast halls found in Anglo-Saxo nlanguage and literature present a fuller picture of the hall's importance.

The Old English language has an extensive vocabulary of terms to denotethe feast hall and its furnishings. Terms for the feast hall's servants, provi-sions, and eve n its decor are formed from th e roo t words œrne, reced andheall. The wor d sele, meaning ‘hall’ or ‘house’ , i s the basi s for severa lcompound words . Some of these compounds describe the people of thehall, such as the selesecg or the seleðegn, the 'hall-retainer'.3 The noun sele-

1 James Campbell, ed. , Th e Anglo-Saxons (Oxford , 1982) , p. 57.2 Ann Hagen , A Handbook o f Anglo-Saxon Food: Processing and Consumption (Pinner ,

Middlesex, 1992 ; reprinted 1993) , p . 79.3 Th e Wanderer, lin e 34 ; Beowulf, lin e 1794 .

2 Food and Eating in Medieval Europe

dream, 'hall-joy, ' an d th e adjectiv e seledreorig, 'sa d a t th e los s of a hall',demonstrate the emotions that communal feasting might evoke in poeticreminiscence. The wanderer, in the poem of the same name in the ExeterBook, remembers his happiness in terms of the hall and its generous lord:

Hwær cwom mearg? Hwær cwom mago? Hwær cwom maÞÞumgyfa?Hwær cwom symbla gesetu? Hwær sindon seledreamas ?Eala beorht bune! Eala byrnwiga!Eala Þeodne s Þrym ! (line s 92-95a)

(Where has gone the steed? Where has gone the man? Where has gone thegiver of treasure? Where ha s gone the place of the banquets? Where are thepleasures of the hall? Alas, the gleaming chalice; alas, the armoured warrior;alas, the majesty of the prince! )

In a similar elegiac tone, the poet of ‘The Ruin’ characterizes the vanishedjoys of the city : ‘Many a mead-hall was full o f delights / unti l fate th emighty altered it’.4 A well-known episode recounted i n Bede’s Historiaeccksiastica also depicts the pleasure s of the hal l in comparison t o th eharsh world beyond it s doors. A priest illustrates th e transitory natur eof human existence by comparing life to a sparrow that, for a moment,flies into a warm, well-lit hall, where the king sits dining with his thegns,and then vanishes again into the winter storm raging outside. 5

The words denoting the lord and the lady of the hall derive from th eduty of feeding their people. The Old English lord was a hlaford, a titlederiving from the compound hlaf-weard, or ‘bread-guardian’. We use arelated ter m today when we speak of the supporte r o f a family as the‘breadwinner’. Similarly, th e lad y was a hlafdige, o r ‘bread-maker’. Anold English word for ‘dependant’, hlafœta , literall y means ‘bread-eater’.Servants' wages and land-rents might be paid in so many loaves of bread,a standard Anglo-Saxon unit of food. Bread was an important constit-uent of a feast, along with meat, fish and game.6 The bread-eaters at the

4 meodoheal l moni g mondream a ful loÞÞæt Þæt onwende wyr d seo swiÞe.

(lines 23-24)‘The Ruin’: George Philip Krapp and Elliot t Van Kirk Dobbie, eds, Th e Exeter Book (NewYork and London , 1936) , p . 228. Kevin Crossley-Holland, trans., The Anglo-Saxon World:An Anthology (Oxfor d an d Ne w York, 1982), p. 60.

5 Bede, Historia ecclesiastica, ii, c. 13.6 Hagen, Handbook o f Anglo-Saxon Food, p. 83. She notes in a section on ‘bread’, pp.

11-13, that loaves of bread might be sized: Edward the Elder left two hundred larg e andone hundred small loaves in his will. ‘Bread dough’ is one possible answer to riddle 45in the Exeter Book .

The Feast Hall in Anglo-Saxon Society 3

feast were the lor d an d lady' s kin, their young warriors and seasone dfighters, and their counsellors .

The name s o f intoxicating beverage s also identif y th e hal l i n suc hcompound term s a s beorsele, ‘beer-hall’, ealusele, 'ale-hall' , an d winsele,'wine-hall'.7 Drinking was a major part of the festivities in the feast hall,where th e selegyst o r 'hall-guest ' migh t si t on th e medubenc, 'mead -bench', o r beorsetl, 'beer-seat'. Providing drink to the hall-guests was themark of a king and the duty of a queen. A set of gnomic verses from th eExeter Book describes the queen's hospitable responsibilities, which beginwith the king : 'she mus t always and everywher e greet first the chie f ofthose princes and instantly offer the chalice to her lord's hand'.8 Thenoble lad y of the hal l appears i n a more symbolic fashion in the elegycalled 'The Husband's Message'. The husband sends word to the woman'who swore oaths together ' wit h him when they shared th e mead-hall ssaying that he will lack for nothing, 'neither horses not riches nor joy inthe mead-hall' , if she will join him. Presumably she will bring th e hall -joy with her.9 Through share d eating and drinking the hall brings togethersociety, with the kin g and th e quee n a t its heart t o generate pleasur ewith their gifts .

7 Beor was not the hopped beverage drunk today, as hops were no t used in Englanduntil th e fifteent h century . Instead, bear probably was a typ e o f fermented frui t drin k(Hagen, Handbook o f Anglo-Saxon Food, p . 83) .

8 'Maxim s I': Krapp and Dobbie , eds, Exeter Book, p. 159 :for gesiðmægen syml e æghwæ r

ærestgegretan,,forman full e t o frean hon dricene geræcan (line s 88-91a)

Translation by S.A.J. Bradley , ed . an d trans. , Anglo-Saxon Poetry (Londo n and Rutland ,Vermont, 1982 ; reprinte d 1987), p. 348. Fo r commentary on the potential power a royalwoman might wield throug h her forma l presentatio n of drink, see Michael J. Enright's'Lady With a Mead-Cup: Ritual, Grou p Cohesion and Hierarchy in the Germani c War-band', Fruhmittelalterliche Studien, 22 (1988) , pp. 170-203 .

9 ni s him wilna gadne meara ne maðma n e meododreama,ænges ofer eorÞa n eorlgestreon aÞeodnes dohtor gi f he pin beneahofer eald gebeot ince r twega .

(lines 44b-48)(He wil l lack nothing ,

neither horses nor riches nor joy in the mead-hallnor any of the noble treasures on earth,O daughter of the prince, if he possesses you.)

'The Husband' s Message' , i n Krap p an d Dobbie , eds , Exeter Book, p. 227 ; Crossley -Holland, Anglo-Saxon World, p . 58 .

eodor æðelinga


The best-known literary example of the Anglo-Saxon feast hall is thehall named Heorot, or 'hart', built by the order of King Hrothgar in theopening verses of Beowulf. 'I t came into his mind', the Beowulf poet says ,'that h e would command me n t o construct a hall, a mead-hall largerthan the children o f men had ever heard of, and therein he would giveto young and old such as God gave him' (line s 67-73).10 The hall risesrapidly, 'high and horn-gabled' (lin e 82a).11 Within the decorated walls,Hrothgar and his queen, Wealhtheow , preside ove r banquets, presen tlavish gift s t o their retainers and pour ou t mead for their warriors andwise men.

The people in the feast hall also serve as an audience for the musicand poetr y of the scop, literally the 'shaper' , who, like the Beowulf poet,presents tale s of famous heroes an d thei r deeds. Th e scop's stories arepowerful enough to compel his audience t o action. For instance, whenthe outcas t Grendel hear s th e soun d o f the scop singing the Creatio nstory in the hall, the monster's hatred for the people of Heorot begins.Since th e scop commences hi s song shortl y afte r th e Beowulf poet ha sdescribed the making of Heorot, the two creation episodes connect theearthly hall with the garden of Eden, and the scop's ability with the Creator's.Therefore the hall may be a manifestation of paradise on earth, a Christianconcept supported b y Alvin Lee, who says 'the newl y created hall is inparadisal harmony with heaven'.12 In this paradigm, Grendel, too, sharesin the Creation story , because th e poet identifies him as a descendan tof Cain who is doomed to walk the earth under God's curse. Grendel isthe transgresso r exiled by God from paradise , which explains his rageupon hearing the scop's description o f its beauties .

The scop's use of the Genesis material recalls how the first recordedAnglo-Saxon poe t mad e hi s reputation b y turning th e Creatio n storyinto Old English verse. He was Cædmon, who, as Bede writes, was shamed

10 Hi m on mod beampæt healreced hata n woldemedoærn micel me n gewyrcean

æfregefrunon,,eallgedælan

geongum ond ealdum , swyl c him God seald(lines 67b-72)

All Old English passages of Beowulf ar e fro m Beowulf an d the Fight at Finnsburgh, 3rd edn,ed. F . Klaeber (Lexington , Massachusetts , 1950) ; trans . Bradley , Anglo-Saxon Poetry,p. 413.

11 'Hea h on d horngeap ' (Klaeber , Beowulf an d the Fight at Finnsburgh, line 82a).12 Alvin A . Lee , Th e Guest-Hall o f Eden: Four Essays o n th e Design o f Old English Poetry

(New Haven, Connecticut and London, 1972), p. 181 .

Þon [n] e yldo beam

ond Þær on innan


by his inability to compose song s a t the feas t table. Instea d Cædmo nwithdrew to his home whenever the harp was passed to him in the hall.One night , however, a heavenly messenger appeared t o Cædmon whilehe was tending animal s in th e stabl e an d commande d tha t Cædmo nsing about 'the Creation of all things'. From that time forward Cædmonturned scripture into religious verses in Old English. 13

Although th e Beowulf poet compare s Heoro t t o a Christian paradise,in other ways the hall seems more Germanic than Christian. An importantactivity in the hal l is the sealing of bonds between royalty and thei r fol-lowers, the German war-ban d or comitatus, through the giving of drink,gifts and pledges. When Wealhtheow first meets Beowulf, the hero whohas come to rid her husband' s hal l of the monster Grendel , she poursmead int o hi s cup and bids him welcome in a formal speech. H e alsoreplies formally , promisin g her tha t ' I shal l achiev e a deed o f manlycourage o r else have lived to see in this mead-hall m y ending day' .

Ic gefremman scea leorlic ellen oÞðe endedægon Þisse meoduhealle minn e gebidan.

(lines 636a-38)

Well-pleased, the queen seat s herself next to the king. Beowulf’s boast-ing, excessive as it might seem to contemporary readers , is typical of thefeast hal l and represent s the warrior's pledge to his lord o r lady. AfterBeowulf himsel f becomes a king, one o f his men remind s the other sthat they owe loyalty to him by recalling 'that time we drank mead, whenwe promised ou r lor d i n the beer-hall ' t o support him. 14 The warriorÆlfwine use s a similar formula when, in th e hea t o f the battl e o f Mal-

13 Bede, Historia ecclesiastica, iv, c. 24 .Þærwe medu Þegun,

Þonne we geheton ussu m hlafordein biorsele Þeus pas beagas geaf ;Þæt we him ða guðgetawa gylda n woldon,

Þearfgelumpe,,helmas ond heard sweord . (line s 2633-38a)('I remembe r tha t time we drank mead, when we promised ou r lor d i n th ebeer-hall - him who gave us these rings - that we would repay him for the war-arms if a need like this befell him - th e helmets and the hard swords. ' Trans.E. Talbot Donaldson, Beowulf, ed . Joseph F. Tuso (New York and London, 1975),p. 46.

14 Ic ðæt mæl geman,.

gif him Þyslicu


don, h e ask s his comrades t o remember th e pledge s the y uttered t otheir lord over their mead.15

Sharing mea d wit h th e comitatus in th e hal l i s not th e onl y way inwhich the ruler secures loyalty. As the wanderer indicates, a good kingdistributes ric h gift s i n hi s hall . The greates t triumph s i n Beowulf aremarked by the spectacular , public and lavis h presentation o f gifts fro mthe king's throne in the feast hall, known as a 'gift-seat', gifstol. I n returnfor killin g Grendel , Beowul f receives a golden standard, a helmet, amail-shirt and eigh t horse s wit h golde n bridle s and jewelled saddles .The horses are led into the feast hall by order of the king so that all maysee the hero's rewards. Queen Wealhtheow also offers Beowulf preciousgifts, including a rich necklace and a mail-shirt. In return Beowulf givesmany of these treasure s to his own king when the hero returns home .The kin g then bestow s upon Beowul f an heirloom sword , land an d ahall of his own. Once again, these exchanges take place in the feast hall.Thus the hall is the sit e of the redistribution o f wealth within the com-munity as well as the locu s of societal bonds.

Despite the rich gifts, the alcoholic pledging done by the hall's inhab-itants may have a negativ e impac t on thei r relationships . A feast issometimes referred t o as gebeorscipe, 'beer-drinking' , and drunke n me nmaybe violent. The Beowulfpoet announce s that one of Beowulf s chiefvirtues is that he never slays any of his companions while drunk on th emead benches . In contrast , th e poe t describe s a bad king , Heremod ,who 'kille d hi s table-companions ' (lin e 1713). 16 A poem calle d 'Th eFortunes of Men' also describes an 'irascible ale-swiller', irrum ealow osan(line 49) , who slays a companion o n th e mea d benc h wit h his sword,and a man 'crazed by mead', meodugal, who commits suicide (line 52) .17

15 OE passage from Th e Battl e o f Maldon', in Ol d English Handbook, ed . Marjori eAnderson and Blanche Colton Williams (New York, 1935; reprinted Cambridge, Mas-sachusetts, 1963).

^Elfwine p a cwaed , h e o n elle n spraec:'Gemunad pa maela , p e we oft ac t meodo spraecon,ponne we on bence beo t ahofon,haeled on healle, ymb e heard gewinn;nu maeg cunnian hwacenesy. '

(lines 211-15)(Bradley, Anglo-Saxon Poetry, p . 525 : 'JElfwine, then , spoke out an d valiantl ydeclared: "Let us call to mind those declarations we often uttered over mead,when from our seat we heroes in hall would put up pledges about tough fight-ing; now it can be proved who is brave."')

16 'Breat bolgenmod beodgeneatas' (line 1713).17 Krapp and Dobbie, eds, Exeter Book, p. 155.


Drunkenness may contribute to violent tendencies already present inthe hall-guests. Images of the hall reddened with blood and strewn withbodies appea r i n man y Old Englis h poems as evidence of the furiou sfeuds that could tear apart royal families and their kingdoms. The poeticfragment known as the 'Figh t at Finnsburgh' tell s of a blood-feud tha terupts into a five-day battle, with one side valiantly defending the door sto a hall. Although bot h group s ar e related b y marriage, the enrage dwarriors fail to keep the peace in their shared hall because they cannotforget their old enmities.18

Beowulf predicts that Heorot will eventually fall in flames, wracked bythe same sort of blood-feud that destroyed the hall at Finnsburgh. Th emost immediate threat to the hall, however, comes from Grendel's nightlyattack on the sleeping warriors of the hall, whom he devours in a ghoul-ish parody of the feasts held by the king. Describing the horror, Hroth -gar tell s Beowulf that for year s Hrothgar's warrior s had boaste d ove rbeer how they would defeat Grendel, yet 'in the morning this mead-hallwas a hall shining with blood', 'I>onn e wses JDCO S medohal o n morgen -tid / drihtsel e dreorfah' (line s 484-85a). The shining blood contrast sgrimly with the gleaming decorations of the hall. Grendel's attacks invertthe pleasure s of the hal l in other ways as well. When Beowulf wrestleswith th e monster , th e struggl e i s vividly shown in feast-related images:the gold-adorned mea d benches go flying and, rather than the song ofthe scop, th e building resounds with Grendel's wailing, which the poe tcalls 'terribl e drin k fo r th e Danes ' (literall y ealuscerwen, 'ale-sharing' ,line 769).

The Beowulfpoet als o contrasts the dwellings of the monsters with thefeast halls of men. Grendel and hi s mother live in a cold, dark, deathlymere o n th e edg e o f civilisation. At the botto m o f the mer e Beowulffinds Grendel's mother in a nidseleor 'hostil e hall' (lin e 1513). Durin gthe struggle , she sits on Beowulf, whom the poet ironically terms a sele-gyst, 'hall-guest ' (lin e 1545). The 'guest ' rewards his 'hostess' by slayingher. Th e Grende l famil y keep s a n ancien t sword , carved with runes ,hanging o n the walls of their lair , like the treasure s kept in the halls ofmen. Beowul f uses the swor d to kil l Grendel' s mother an d t o cu t offGrendel's head, thus turning the hall-treasure against its owner.

In th e secon d sectio n o f the poem , Beowulf , no w a venerable king,fights a dragon tha t attack s his kingdom afte r a golden cu p i s stolenfrom its hoard. The dragon's dwelling is described poetically as an eorbseleor earth-hal l (lin e 2410) , a hringsele or ring-hal l (lin e 3128) , an d a

18 See Klaeber, Beowulf an d theFight at Finnsburgh, pp. 245-53, for OE text and notes .


dryhtsele dyrnne, a 'secret hall' (line 2320). At the end o f their fight, bothopponents are dead. The dragon's body is pushed over the cliff into thesea, while Beowulf s corpse burns on a funeral pyre. The mourners buildBeowulf a tomb on the cliff, burying the dragon's treasure with the king'sremains. In contrast to the treasures that Beowulf had received earlier,no one will profit from th e dragon's hoard, which has a curse set uponit.

The construction of Beowulf s barrow, surrounded by a splendid walldevised by skilled workers, echoes the building of Heorot at the begin-ning of the poem. However, Beowulf s tomb exists to remind the peopleof his fame on earth, rather than to point to heaven. Beowulf s people,left without the protectio n o f their hlaford, predic t tha t thei r foe s wil lsoon attack and disperse the kingdom, ending the hall-joys of the hero'speople. Thi s endin g seem s mor e Germani c tha n Christian , mor ereminiscent of Ragnarok than th e Da y of Judgement wit h its hope fo rthe future.

The halls portrayed in Beowulf generally follow an Anglo-Saxon paradigmderived from Germanic myths of heroic warriors, enchanted swords andmonstrous opponents. A different representation of the feast hall appearsin the poem Judith, which is bound togethe r with Beowulf i n MS CottonVitellius A XV. Judith is derived fro m th e Ol d Testamen t boo k o f th esame name, which recounts the tale of a brave and piou s Jewish widowwho saves her cit y from a besieging Assyrian army. In th e biblica l ver-sion, Judith dons the festive clothing of a married woman, adorns herselfwith all her jewellery, and goes into the enemy camp, taking along a bagof kosher food so that she may keep the Jewish dietary laws. Her grea tbeauty captivates the Assyrian general, Holofernes, at a banquet. He isso stupefied , in fact , tha t sh e i s able t o decapitat e hi m wit h his ownsword and t o take the hea d bac k to her city , using the bag to smugglethe grisly trophy out of the camp. The demoralized Assyrian s flee fromIsrael, andjudith enjoys an honoured old age as the saviour of her people.

The Old English poetic form of Judith's story begins abruptly, becausesome o f the manuscript is missing - ho w much is not certain . As thepoem commences, Holofernes invites his senior commanders to attenda banque t wit h spendidly prepared dishe s and bowl s brimming withintoxicating liquor. Judith, who has been in the Assyrian camp for severaldays, does not attend, but remains in a separate 'guest-hall', gysterne (line40). Her absenc e marks a significant change from th e biblical version,in which she dresses in her most seductive clothing, sprawls on a pile offur rug s and lies to the dazzled Holofernes about his chances of successwith her and with her besieged city.


The presenc e o f noblewomen was certainly a feature o f the Anglo-Saxon hall , as shown by Queen Wealhtheow' s appearance i n Beowulf.Why, then, exclude Judith from th e feast? An answer may appear in thepoet's descriptio n o f the banquet . He characterize s the gatherin g as'insolent men' who are the general's 'confederates in evil'. They drinkexcessively, unaware that they are 'doomed' . Holofernes also behavesbadly at the celebration :

Hloh 7 hlydde, hlyned e 7 dynede,|)2et mihten fira beam feorra n gehyran ,hu s e stidmoda styrmd e 7 gylede,modig 7 medugal manod e geneahhebencsittende, J^ae t hi gebaerdon wel.Swa se inwidda ofe r ealne daegdryhtguman sine drenct e mid wine,swidmod sinces brytta o 5 f>ae t hie o n swima n lagon,oferdrencte hi s dugude ealle swylc e hie waeron deade geslegene

(lines 23-31 )19

He laughed and bawled and roared and made a racket so that the childrenof men coul d hear from fa r away how the stern-minded man bellowe d andyelled, insolent and craze d with mead, and frequentl y exhorte d the guestson th e benches to enjoy themselve s well. So the whole day long the villain,the stern-minde d dispenser of treasure, plied hi s retainers with wine untilthey lay unconscious, th e whol e o f his retinue drunk a s though the y ha dbeen struck dead.20

At the en d o f the banquet , Holoferne s commands tha t Judith, whomthe poet calls a 'noble virgin' rather tha n a widow, should be brough tto his tent for hi s use.21 By the tim e she arrives, Holofernes is, like hismen, dead drunk and shortly thereafter dies when Judith, calling uponthe Trinity for aid, decapitates him. The descriptio n o f the feas t showsHolofernes and his men to be debauched and lecherous drunkards headedfor doom, whereas Judith, by staying apart from their uproarious banquet,remains virginal and undefiled .

The sou l of Holofernes sinks under the ground o n its way to hell, tobe eternally wrapped in snakes and fiery torment. In another Old English

19 All Old Englis h quotation s fro m Judith ar e take n fro m Judith, ed . BJ . Timmer(London, 1952 ; revise d an d reprinted, Exeter, 1978).

20 Trans. Bradley, Anglo-Saxon Poetry, p. 497 .21 Trans. Bradley, ibid., p. 497, from torhtan maegd (lin e 43) .

10 Food an d Eating in Medieval Europe

poem base d o n the passio of St Juliana, th e villains suffer a similar fate .Juliana wins sainthood for her refusa l t o sacrifice t o pagan idols and towed a pagan nobleman , Eleusius . The poet Cynewulf adds a new twistto the fate of Eleusius and hi s men. Rather than simply drowning, as inthe Latin version, they go to hell, which Cynewulf compares t o a feasthall:

Ne JDorfta n ja a Jaegnas i n jDa m jDystran ha mseo geneatscolu i n {Da m neolan scraef eto |)amfrumgareewitedra wenan, J)se t hy in winseleofer beorsetle beaga s J)egon,aspplede gold.

(lines 683-88a)22

(The thane s in that dark dwelling, the flock of retainers in that deep pit, hadno reason to look expectantly to the overlord for the appointed treasures,or that they would receive upon the beer-bench rings and embossed gold inthe wine-hall.)

Cynewulf also credits the violence that often erupts in feast halls to demonicinfluence whe n a devil confesses to Juliana tha t he ha s often encour -aged me n drun k wit h bee r t o renew old grievances. The devi l boast sthat 'I have served them strife out of the wine goblet'.23

These example s of hellish feas t hall s and th e demons who populat ethem ma y be a logical development o f the 'hostil e halls' tha t Grende land his mother occupy. In heroic poems such as Beowulf, however, evilhalls are balanced against the 'good' halls and the communal rituals

that take place in them. One reason fo r the demonization of the hall inJudith and Juliana may be that the Christian virtues of the time includedsobriety, fasting and chastity, all of which were codified in rules for church-men and laymen. The Old English poem Christ and Satan describes howChrist set an example of restraint for good Christians by fasting for fortydays in the wilderness, even though the devi l tempted him to show hispower by turning stones into bread.24 Christ's fast set the pattern for theforty-day Lenten fast , just as the Last Supper was the model for Christianfeasts.

22 All Old Englis h quotation s from Juliana ar e take n fro m Cynewulf's 'Juliana', ed .Rosemary Woolf (London , 1955; revised and reprinted, Exeter, 1977). Trans. Bradley,ibid., p. 318.

23 'Ic him byrlade / wroh t of wege' (line s 486b—87a). Trans. Bradley, ibid., p. 314.24 'Christ and Satan' , in Thejunius Manuscript, ed . George Philip Krapp (Ne w Yor k

and London, 1931), lines 667-74.

feohgestealde

HALLS ARE BALANCED AGANIST THE 'GOOD' HALLS AND THE COMMUNAL RITUALS

The Feast Hall i n Anglo-Saxon Society 1 1

By feeding his disciple s on brea d an d win e representing hi s body,Christ supplanted th e rol e of the hlaford a s bread-provider and shifte dthe setting of the feas t from specifi c earthly locations to more spiritualsites, either the church , the world i n toto, or heaven. Fittingly, the firstAdvent lyric of Christ /celebrates Christ as the 'cornerstone' of the 'greathall', locking it together in his strong arms. The hal l is the world thatneeds the care of Christ, the master architect, to remain together.25 Inthe conclusio n o f Th e Dream o f the Rood, th e dreame r ha s a vision o fheaven 'where the people of God are seated at the feast in eternal bliss'.26

In contrast to the heavenly feast, th e eigh t mortal Anglo-Saxon sins,including pride , glutton y and anger , migh t al l appear a t th e worldlydining table.27 In the Old English poem Daniel, for example, the peopl eof Israel lose their power because 'at their feasting, pride and drunke nthoughts invaded them with devilish deeds'.28 Alcuin of York, writing toEthelred, king of Northumbria, after the Vikings had raided the monasteryat Lindisfarne, accuses the English of bringing God's punishment uponthemselves throug h thei r callou s behaviour. 'Som e labou r unde r a nenormity of clothes, others perish with cold; some are inundated withdelicacies and feasting like Dives clothed i n purple, and Lazarus dies ofhunger a t the gate. Where is brotherly love? . . . Let your use of clothesand foo d b e moderate.' 29 Because humanity' s first sin was the ac t ofeating the frui t o f the forbidden tree , gluttony could, understandably,lead to all other sins .

The servant s of Christ in the Anglo-Saxon monastic dining hall di dnot lack for food, but the amount and type were strictly controlled, and

25 Trans. Crossley-Holland, Th e Anglo-Saxon World, p . 197 .You are the corner-stone th e builder sonce discarded. It becomes you wellto stand a s the head of the great hall ,to lock together the lengthy walls,the unbreakable flint , in your firm embrace.

26 bae r is dryhtnes fol cgeseted to symle, bae r is singal blis

(lines 140b-41)Trans. Crossley-Holland, ibid. , p. 204 .

27 Homily 20 of the Vercelli Book lists the eigh t capital sins : ofermodignes, 'pride' , gif-ernes, 'gluttony', forlyger, 'fornication', gitsung, 'avarice', yrre, 'anger', sleacnes, 'sloth',unrotnes, 'melancholy', and idelwuldor, 'vainglory' .

28 . . . hie wlenco anwod ae t winpegedeofoldaedum, druncn e gedohtas.

(lines 17-18)'Daniel', injunius Manuscript, ed . Krapp; trans. Bradley, Anglo-Saxon Poetry, p. 68.

29 Trans. Crossley-Holland, Anglo-Saxon World, pp. 187-88.


a devout monk might never eat meat or drink wine.30 Monastic eatinghabits are describe d i n jElfric' s Colloquy, in which a young novice saysthat he still eats meat 'for I am a child living under the rod'. He eats withmoderation 'a s befits a monk . . . for I am no glutton', and drinks onlywater or ale. 31 The account s o f saintly Englishmen an d wome n ofte nstress their abstemious behaviour. Wilfrid o f Ripon never drank a ful lglass at the dining table, even when alone; ^{Deldryd restricted herselfto one mea l per day ; and Cuthbert , i n his last days, nourished himsel fby nibbling an onion. Bede says that Cuthbert 'was ready to suffer hungerand thirs t in this life in order t o enjoy the banquets of the next'.32

English legal codes specified fast days and the penalties for breakin gthem, marking the acceptanc e of fasting for the lait y as well as monas-tics. Among the laws of Wihtred, a late seventh-century king of Kent, arethese: 'I f anyone gives meat to his household in time of fasting, he is toredeem both freeman and slave with healsfang [one-tenth of one's wergild].If a slave eat it of his own accord [he is to pay] six shillings or be flogged' ,33To do penanc e fo r thei r sins , la y persons migh t fas t o n water , greenherbs an d coars e brea d o r restric t themselves to one mea l a day andoffer the rest to the poor. The wealthy might pay others to fast for them.34

Temperance seemed t o be particularl y important for women, whomight lose their chastity otherwise. Ambrose, commenting on the storyof Judith, credits her sobriet y for her escap e fro m th e Assyrians, 'for ifshe had drun k she would have slept with an adulterer' ('na m si Judithbibisset, dormisse t cu m adultero') . B y her moderation , h e adds , 'th efasting of one woman defeated an innumerable army of drunken men'

30 The Benedictine Rule forbade meat-eating, except for sick brethren and the childrenin the monastery. Monks and nuns were allowed to eat pinguedo, a type of meat drippin gor lard , but ha d t o abstain durin g Len t an d Adven t (Hagen , Handbook o f Anglo-SaxonFood, pp. 94-95).

31 Trans. Crossley-Holland , The Anglo-Saxon World, p . 227.32 The commen t abou t Wilfrid's drinking habits appears in the Life o f Wilfrid, b y his

biographer Eddiu s Stephanus, in chapter 21 . Wilfrid also distinguished himsel f by wash-ing every night in holy water, winter or summer. See 'Eddius Stephanus: Life of Wilfrid',in The Age of Bede, ed. D.H. Farmer, trans. J.F. Webb, revised ed. (New York, 1988), pp.105-82. Bede chronicles jEpeldryd's moderate eating habits in Historia ecclesiastica, iv, c.19. Likewise, Bede mentions many food miracles performed b y Cuthbert as well as mak-ing this comment abou t the sain t in chapter 6 of his life: see 'Bede: Life of Cuthbert',in Th e Age of Bede, ed. D.H. Farmer, trans . J.F. Webb, revised ed . (Ne w York, 1988) , pp .39-102.

33 Crossley-Holland, Th e Anglo-Saxon World, p . 27.34 Hagen, Handbook o f Anglo-Saxon Food, pp. 136-43 .

The Feast Hall in Anglo-Saxon Society 1 3

('unius mulieris ieiunium innumeros stravit exercitus ebriorum').35 Inthe biblical version of her story , Judith fast s in accordance with Jewishdietary laws; in the Old English poem, her absenc e from th e feas t hallkeeps her unpolluted .

Even animals may feast differently in secular and Christian poems. Awell-known topos of heroic Old English poetry is the description o f the'beasts of battle', usually the raven , the eagl e an d th e wolf , who lurknear the battle so that they may feed on the dead bodies of the fallenwarriors. In the Battle of Brunanburh, for example, the victorious Englishreturn t o Wessex, leaving behind th e 'horny-beake d raven', the 'grey -coated eagle' and the 'wol f in the wood' to devour the corpses with rel-ish.36 In th e accoun t o f King Edmund's martyrdom , however, a wolfguards the king's severed head, not daring to eat it although he is hungry,'and for the fear of God he did not dare to taste the head but guarde dit against wild beasts'.37

In heroic poetry the Anglo-Saxon feast hall, rich in treasure, food andjoy, become s th e centr e o f communal celebration s tha t hol d societ ytogether a s well a s of th e devastatio n tha t ma y tear apar t kingdoms .Although the Anglo-Saxons enjoyed their feast halls, the Christian conceptof si n seems t o hav e altered th e wa y in which some poet s describe dbanqueting scenes. Thus, even in manuscripts that may be contemporary,the shining halls found in Beowulf appear in contrast to the licentiousbanquet of doomed Assyrians in Judith. The hlafordv/ho guards the breadin Beowulf i s a secular lord , but i n Judith he has become Christ , who aspart o f the Trinity dispenses heavenly rather tha n secula r bread. Th emultiple interpretation s o f th e feas t hal l i n Ol d Englis h literatur edemonstrate poeti c awarenes s of source materia l an d a sense o f th eappropriate use for the central paradigm of Anglo-Saxon society.

35 Ambrose, Liber de viduis, 7, Patrologia Latino, 16, col. 260: 'Nam si Judith bibisset,dormisset cum adultero' (Fo r if Judith had drunk, she would have slept with an adulterer).Liber de Elia et leiunio, 9, Patrologia Latino, 14, col. 741: 'Itaque unius mulieris jejuniuminnumeros stravit exercitus ebriorum' (Therefore the abstinence of one woman overcameinnumerable [men ] o f an army of inebriates).

36 Trans. Crossley-Holland, The Anglo-Saxon World, p . 21.37 Excerpt from Th e Passio n of St Edmund', trans. Crossley-Holland, ibid., p. 231.

Pilgrims to Table: Food Consumption in Chaucer'sCanterbury Tales

Elizabeth M. Biebel

Food consumption plays a role in medieval society that extends far beyondthe concepts of sustenance and survival. Bridget Ann Henisch's.Fas£ andFeast details th e splendour and formalitie s that accompanied celebra -tory medieval dinners, as well as the dietar y restrictions prescribed bythe Catholi c Churc h fo r solem n observances. 1 Th e Medieval HealthHandbook, compiled b y Luisa Cogliati Arano, reveals an interest duringthe middle ages in the natural benefits and detriments that certain foodsbring about in the body.2 In the late thirteenth and the fourteenth centuriesthe importance of food was heightened due to its increasing scarcity asa result of recurring famine.3 Given this significant valuing of food, it isonly fitting in Chaucer' s Canterbury Tales that Harry Bailly suggest th ereward for telling the best story should be 'a soper at oure aller cost' (A799).4

While the Canterbury pilgrims are never depicted togethe r a t table,there is scattered mentioning o f food consumption throughou t Chau-cer's work. The Monk has a taste for roasted swan ; the friar i n the Sum-moner's Tale prefers capon liver. While the Franklin is a veritable gourmet,the widow in the Nun's Priest's Tale contents herself with a more humble

1 Bridget Anne Henisch, Fast an d Feast: Food i n Medieval Society (Universit y Park ,Pennsylvania, 1978).

2 While some of the effects attributed to foodstuffs are far from accurate - The Tacui-num o f Rouen warns that cabbage i s 'bad for th e intestines' , Luisa Cogliati Arano, TheMedieval Health Handbook: Tacuinum Sanitatis (New York, 1976), p. 54. - certai n beliefsare concurren t wit h moder n nutritiona l remedies . Th e Tacuinum o f Vienna find s dil l'brings relief to a stomach that is cold' (p. 49), and Dr H.C.A. Vogel notes that dill seeds'have a warming affect an d are good for the stomach and intestines, especially in casesof chills', Th e Nature Doctor (New Canaan, 1991), p. 408 .

3 Caroline Walker Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food toMedieval Women (Berkeley , California, 1987) , p. 2.

4 That Innkeeper Bailly stands to profit financially from havin g an awards dinner atthe Tabard is also significant motivation. All quotations of the Canterbury Tales are takenfrom Th e Riverside Chaucer, 3rd edn, ed. Larry D. Benson et al. (Boston, Massachusetts,1987).

2


meal o f 'milk and broun breed ' (B 2 2844). Various critics have notedthe relevance of Chaucer's food references in relation to an individualcharacter; they analyse how diet may be used as an interpretive guidelinefor th e health , personality or morality of a particular consumer. Keep-ing in mind that Chaucer's cast of characters is making a religious pilgrim-age, the concep t of physical food readily lends itself to that of spiritualnourishment. Such a movemen t can tak e tw o directions. While th esymbolic nature of the Eucharist highlights the positive elements of food,the si n of gluttony is the resul t of the abus e of food. These disparat efunctions tha t food ca n assume may incorporate many other polarizedfacets. The physicality of gluttony in its opposition t o the ascetic natur eof the Eucharist provides an illustration of the dichotomy of feast versusfast. The exclusion of meat in a fasting diet results in a juxtaposition o fanimal versus vegetable. Out of this opposition, society has created genderassociations for both o f these food types.5 Men have been and stil l areassociated with animals: they are the hunters , they are known for thei rphysical strength. The high-protein content of meat has contributed tothe traditiona l view that meat is the appropriat e food source for men.Conversely, women have been aligne d both with vegetation and wit hbutchered animals . While the nurturing , gentle an d othe r so-calle dfeminine qualitie s are see n a s being reflecte d in plan t life , woman' sphysical attractiveness to heterosexual man is at times described in meat-like terms. Woman does not benefit from her association with dead animalsas man does from his link with living ones. For woman the analogy canbe both debasing and victimizing. That Chaucer links woman throug hmetaphor t o butchered animal s does result, however, in a sacred con -notation o f her gender with the sacrificial nature of Jesus Christ. Chau-cer achieves this connection throug h th e proces s o f association. Th eawareness of the moti f in which Christ is given feminized attributes inthe middle ages allows the incidents of food consumption found in theCanterbury Tales to be interpreted in a religious light that is reverentialtowards woman, although it does stereotype her in the role of passivevictim.

Before the nature of food consumption in the Canterbury Tales can beexamined as a whole, the significance of diet should be evaluated at theindividual level. In the General Prologue, there are three pilgrims who are

5 In his Philosophy o f Right Hegel wrote, 'The difference between men and women islike that between animals and plants . Men correspond to animals, while women cor-respond to plants because their development is more placid', quoted in Carol J. Adams,The Sexual Politics o f Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory (Ne w York , 1993), p. 37 .

Pilgrims t o Table: Food Consumption i n Chaucer's Canterbury Tales 1 7

expressly linked with food consumption: th e Monk, the Summoner an dthe Franklin.6 What seem to be trivial details have generated a significantamount of critical commentary that enables the reader to understand mor efully th e tru e natur e o f the characte r Chauce r ha s decided t o present .Take, for example, Chaucer' s Monk . Among the many worldly pleasuresthis 'lord ful fat ' ( A 200) enjoys, 'A fat swan loved he best of any roost' (A206). As Heiner Gillmeiste r notes , the sixth-century Rule of Saint Benedictdoes not allow members of monastic communitie s t o consume the meatof quadrupeds.7 History reveals, however, that clever logicians argued thatBenedict's decree could no t include two-legge d fowl.8 Technically, then,the Monk is not breaking a dietary law by indulging in this favourite dish.His specific preference fo r swan , though, doe s revea l certain trait s tha tone would not expect to find in a truly ascetic man. Among the medieva lprices for fowl that Ramona Bressie indexes, a chicken is valued at two anda halfpence, whereas a swan is priced at six or seven shillings.9 The Monk,indeed, has an expensive palate; he is not content with humble fare. Furtherflaws in the Monk's morality are revealed in the writing of Rabanus Mau-rus: 'Cygnus est superbia, ut in lege prohibetur, nequis manducet cygnem[Leviticus, 21:18], id est ne exhibeat se elatum . . .'10 Not only has the swanbeen associated with the sin of pride, but it has been linked to that of slothas well. *1 Through the connotations that arise from an analysis of the Monk'sdiet, the reader witnesses this character mov e from the first of the SevenDeadly Sins to the last. His pride in worldly goods leads him into the spiritualdesperation o f sloth.12 With hi s appetite fo r costl y swan, the Mon k fall sinto both avarice and gluttony in his moral descent .

6 While much has been said about the Prioress and her courtly table manners, MadameEglantyne neve r consumes a specific foo d item. The reade r i s only informed of whattypes of dainties are fed to her dogs . Also, the Cook's portrait consists of the dishes heknows how to prepare; it does not mention what Roger of Ware prefers on his own table.

7 Heiner Gillmeister , 'Chaucer's Monch und di e "Reule of Seint Maure or of SeintBeneit"', Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 69 (1968) , pp. 224-25 .

8 David Knowles, Th e Monastic Order in England (Cambridge , 1940), p. 462.9 Ramona Bressie, 'A Governour Wily and Wys' , Modern Language Notes, 54 (1939) ,

p. 488 .10 Quoted i n Beryl Rowland, Birds with Human Souls (Knoxville, Tennessee, 1978), p.

171.11 In Birds, Rowlan d discusses the appropriatenes s o f the likenin g of friar s i n th e

Summoner's Tale to 'Jovinya n / Fa t as a whale, and walkyng e as a swan ' ( D 1929-30),'because various proverbial expressions imply that the bird is always thirsty and exempli-fies the sin of Sloth' (171) .

12 That th e Mon k has fallen int o the disconsolat e throes of sloth is the premis e ofDavid E Berndt, 'Monastic Acedia and Chaucer' s Characterization of Daun Piers', Stud-ies in Philology, 68 (1971), pp. 435-50.


Another character whose moral condition is revealed by dietary prefer-ence is the Summoner: 'Wei loved he garleek, oynons, and eek lekes' (A634). In addition t o the state of his soul, the health o f the Summoner'sbody is also perceived through food analysis. Referring to the works of,among others, Bartholomaeus de Glanvilla and Bernardus de Gordon,Walter Clyde Curry diagnoses the Summoner as one who suffers fro malopecia.13 Medieval medicine attributed the cause of this form of leprosyto impurities in th e blood . Connectin g the Summoner' s diet with hisdisease, Curry quotesJoannitius and Paulus Aegenita, who believed thatindulging in the bulbs and culinary herbs listed above led to ill effect sin th e bloodstream. 14 Dennis Biggins adds a moral dimension to th eSummoner's food consumption by noting the reported 'aphrodisiaca lqualities of garlic, onions and leeks'; 15 however, the scholar notes thatthe source he is using, Reginald Pecock's Reule ofCrysten Religioun, post-dates Chaucer.16 Biggins hypothesizes that 'the opinion expressed wasdoubtless current in the fourteenth century', 17 and so it would seem.Additional and slightly more timely support for this theory can be foundin the late fourteenth-century Tacuinum ofViennawhich list s 'influencescoitus' among the uses of leeks and 'facilitates coitus' among the benefitsof onions.18 If a reader could possibly be in doubt about the nature ofthe Summoner' s characte r afte r reviewin g Chaucer's presentation ofhim, dietary analysis should confirm suspicions of his lecherous personal-ity.19

A seemingly endless critical debate revolve s around th e true natur e

13 Walter Clyde Curry, Chaucer and the Medieval Sciences (New York, 1960), pp. 38-43.14 Ibid., pp. 45-46.15 Dennis Biggins, 'Chaucer' s Summoner: Wei Loved He Garleek, Oynons, and Eek

Lekes', Notes and Queries, 11 (1964) , p. 48 .16 William Cabell Greet, in hi s Introduction t o the Reule ofCrysten Religioun (EETS

171, 1927) , notes that Tecock dates his work 1443' (p . ix).17 Biggins, 'Chaucer's Summoner', p. 48.18 Arano, The Medieval Health Handbook, pp . 76 , 124.19 Two other noteworthy articles on the Summoner and his diet are R.E. Kaske, 'The

Summoner's Garleek , Oynons, and Ee k Lekes', Modern Language Notes, 74 (1959), pp .481-84; and Chauncey Wood, The Source s of Chaucer's Summoner's "Garleek, Oynons,and Ee k Lekes"', Chaucer Review, 5 (1971) , pp. 240-44. Wood notes Garabaty's belie fthat the Summoner is suffering from secondary syphilis (pp. 240-41) and finds a characteranalogous t o the Summone r in the thir d book of John Gower's Vox clamantis (p. 241).Kaske offers a moral interpretation o f the Summoner by comparing his favourite foodsto the people of Israel's longing for the foods of Egypt in Numbers, 11:5. Such desire issymbolic of a person's longing for the lif e of carnality in his/her past.

Pilgrims to Table: Food Consumption in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales 1 9

of the Franklin.20 Labelled as 'epicurus owene sone' (A 336), the Frank-lin is the pilgrim by far the mos t associated with food consumption :

Without bake mete was nevere his house,Of fissh and flessh , and tha t so plentevousIt snewed in his hous of mete and drynke;Of alle deyntees that men could thynke,After th e sondry sesons of the yeer,So chaunged he his mete and his soper.Ful many fat partrich hadde he in muwe,And many a breem and many a luce in stuwe.

(A 343-50)

If food consumption may be relied upon as a guide for interpreting th eFranklin's character , th e man's adherence to a seasonal diet speaks ofhim in a positive light. Joseph Bryant comments upon Hippocrates' Regi-men in Health, a work that was influenced by the Secreta secretorum, whichadvocates maintaining a diet that focuses on balancing the humours inone's body as a regimen fo r good health . Factors suc h a s 'age, season,habit, land and physique' are to be considered in this plan.21 The Frank-lin's adherence t o the wisdom of such a scheme is witnessed by 'the factthat a perso n o f hi s years is able t o mak e th e two-da y pilgrimage t oCanterbury and back'.22 Bryant emphasizes the Franklin's ability to practisetemperance i n a diet, despit e his being constantl y surrounde d by anabundance o f fine foods.23 This depiction of the Franklin as a temper-ate individual argues against Jill Mann's rendering of him as a glutton.24

Indeed, th e Franklin' s balanced an d seasona l die t no t onl y indicatesgood physical health, it also makes a decided statement about his spiritual

20 In A Commentary on the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales (2nd edn, New York,1967), Muriel Bowden builds a positive view of the Franklin based on his 'sangwyn' (A333) complexion. The Secreta secretorum offers a physiognomy-oriented interpretation ofa sanguine personality: 'The sangyne by kynde sholde lowe loye and laughynge . .. heshal be fre and lyberall ' (quoted, p. 174). On the other hand, D.W. Robertson in his APreface to Chaucer: Studies in Medieval Perspectives (Princeton, New Jersey, 1962), finding anegative reference to Epicureans in Gower's fourteenth-century Mirourde Vomme, believesthe Franklin i s 'blind to anything beneath surfac e appearance' because he is merely apossessor of the 'Superficia l nobility of a wealthy man of the middle class' (p . 276).

21 Quoted in Joseph Bryant, The Die t of Chaucer's Franklin', Modern Language Notes,63 (1948), p. 321.

22 Ibid., p. 319 .23 Ibid.24 Jill Mann, Chaucer and Medieval Estates Satire (Cambridge, 1973) , pp . 153-56.


condition.25 Through hi s distinguishing the time to feast from the timeto fast, it may be seen that the Franklin adheres to the dietary laws of hisfaith mor e closely than does his fellow pilgrim the Monk.

Chaucer's vivid image of it snowing food and drink in the Franklin'shome provides additional commentary for both camps of the Franklin'scritics. While Robert Miller believes the precipitation o f food is a mate-rial substitution fo r spiritual manna, Hugh Keena n finds no adultera -tion of the manna image Chaucer provides: 'The snowing of food as inthe manna storyjoins his feast and the Mass'.26 Since the Old Testament'smanna is seen as the forerunner of the Eucharist in the New Testament,there is an element of true communion and holy feast to be found withinthe Franklin's portrait.27 The 'sop in wyn' (A 334) with which the Frank-lin breaks his fast ma y also be see n a s a Eucharistic image.28 BecauseChaucer's character s ar e makin g a hol y pilgrimage, it i s fitting tha tEucharistic imager y shoul d b e foun d withi n th e Canterbury Tales.Eucharistic imagery does not, however, always appear i n th e positiv econtext that it does in the Franklin's portrait. A corrupted representa -tion of the Eucharist may be found in the Pardoner's Tale. Helen Coopernotes tha t th e bread an d wine that th e third riote r brings back to hisassociates become transformed 'into the vehicle of bodily death' for therioters, not the means of their salvation.29

While physical food assumes its most noble representatio n withi n aChristian context in the form of the Eucharistic feast, it is also reduced

25 In 'Carnival Food Imagery in Chaucer's Description o f the Franklin', Studies in theAge o f Chaucer, 1 6 (1994) , Frederick Jonassen asserts : 'Th e Franklin's change i n die twhich accompanies the change in seasons corresponds to the customary alteration betweenthe meat diet typical for the season of Christmas and Shrovetide and the fish diet prescribedby the church for fasting days, especially during Lent ' (p . 101).

26 Robert P. Miller, '"It Snewed in his House"', English Language Notes, 23 (1985), pp .14-16; Hugh T. Keenan, The General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, lines 345-46: TheFranklin's Feast and Eucharisti c Shadows' , Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 7 9 (1978) , p .36.

27 Since 'Sein t Julian h e wa s in hi s contree' ( A 340), it may be assume d tha t th eFranklin, like the patron sain t of hospitality, shared hi s bounty with others.

28 While The Riverside Chaucer defines the 'sop in wyn' as 'A light breakfast consistingof bits of bread i n wine' (813) , the Tw o Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books (EET S 91, 1888)provide a detailed recipe of fine bread being steeped in wine and almond milk that hasbeen generously laced with saffron, ginger , sugar, cinnamon, cloves and mace (p . 11).

29 Helen Cooper , Th e Canterbury Tales (Oxford , 1989) , p . 269. Thi s poin t ha s alsobeen mad e b y John Leyerle , 'Thematic Interlac e i n th e Canterbury Tales', Essays an dStudies, 29 (1976), pp. 107-21, and it is the focus of Robert E. Nichols, 'The Pardoner' sAle and Cake' , PMLA, 8 2 (1967), pp. 498-504.

Pilgrims to Table: Food Consumption i n Chaucer's Canterbury Tales 2 1

to its basest connotation through the sin of gluttony.30 For Chaucer's Pardoner,gluttony replaces pride as the cause of Original Sin in Eden: 'O cause firstof oure confusioun! / O original of oure dampnacioun' (C 468-69) .'31 Regard-less of what the specific sin was that motivated Adam and Eve to eat the frui tof the Tree of Life, the Genesis myths provided the Fathers of the Churchwith ample fodder t o construct a n allegorical interpretatio n o f the Fall ofMan. A n example of such exegesis maybe found in the Parson's Tale (i, 322-49), in which it is explained that Eve represents the flesh or the senses andAdam portrays the intellect . It is through th e weakness of the senses thatman's reason may be persuaded t o succumb to temptation.32 This rationaleof sin has generated the misogynistic tradition of viewing woman as a creatureof extraordinary appetite. Using Eve's gluttony towards the forbidden fruitas a basis for his argument, Andreas Capellanus wrote:

Woman is also such a slave to her bell y that there is nothing she would beashamed to assent to if she were assured of a fine meal, and no matter howmuch she has she never has any hope that she can satisfy her appetite whenshe is hungry . . . she usually likes to eat more than normal.33

Such attitude s wer e no t confine d t o literature . A mid fourteenth -century sculpture of the Seven Deadly Sins in the Doge's Palace in Venicedepicts Gluttony a s a woman wh o 'holds a jewelled cu p in he r righ thand and gnaws a limb of a bird held in her left'. 34

30 The medieva l conception o f gluttony not onl y involved overindulgence i n foo dbut als o the abus e o f alcohol. Chaucer' s Parso n supplie s such a definition: 'Glottony eis unmeasurable appeti t to ete or to drynke .. . ' (i , 817). This union of food and winein sin further develops gluttony as a dark parallel of the Eucharist .

31 In his 'Aspects of Gluttony in Chaucer an d Gower' , Studies in Philology, 81 (1984),p. 43, R.F. Yeager notes that the Pardoner' s reorderin g o f the cardinal sins agrees withthe fifth-century writings of John Cassian . It was Gregory the Grea t who, in th e sixt hcentury, listed pride as the first of the sins . In his discussion o f the Seve n Deadly Sins,Chaucer's Parso n adhere s mor e closely , although no t exactly, to Gregory's ordering ofthe sins and indexes pride as the foremost of them.

32 This allegory originates from Augustine's De trinitate XII. In A Preface to Chaucer, Rob-ertson offers a thorough explanation of both Augustine's philosophy and Peter Lombard' sincorporation o f the Augustinian account of the Fall in his Sententiae (pp. 74-75).

33 Andreas Capellanus, The Art of Courtly Love, trans. John Jay Parry (New York, 1959) ,pp. 203-4.

34 Morton W . Bloomfield, Th e Seven Deadly Sins (Eas t Lansing, Michigan , 1952) , p .104. In all due fairness, Gluttony has not been exclusively depicted as a woman in medievalart. An illustration from a fourteenth-century manuscript of the Roman de la Rose, reprintedin Robertson, A Preface t o Chaucer, personifies the si n as a man gulpin g th e content s ofthe goble t i n his right hand (fig . 68).


It is interesting to note that , in the two discussions of gluttony in theCanterbury Tales, there is no emphasis placed upon woman as a creatureof inordinate appetite . Indeed , th e Pardoner's Tale uses male historicalfigures to illustrate the folly of gluttony, and the Parson's Tale only refersto the culpability of Eve in its discussion of the allegorical interpretationmentioned above. The absenc e of such traditional notions causes oneto speculate that Chaucer sa w beyond the standard conception s o f hisday.

If the food consumption that occurs in the Canterbury Tales is examinedas a whole, a method doe s begin to emerge. There is a pattern o f pure,balanced o r eve n vegetaria n intak e surroundin g the genuinel y goodindividuals in bot h th e General Prologue and th e separat e tale s that iscountered by a meat-oriented diet evinced by a less upstanding cast ofcharacters. Th e friar in the Summoner's Tale insists that no special atten-tion should be given to the food that will be prepared for him. His requests,however, for 'na t o f a capon bu t the lyvere . . . And after tha t a rostedpigges heed' ( D 1838, 1841) , exhibi t a pampered natur e tha t desire srich food.35

Another noteworth y point in thi s tale is found in th e Summoner' sdetailing of a friar's begging. What begins as simple requests for grainand cheese escalates int o repeated petitions for 'brawn' ( D 1750), and'Bacon o r bee f ( D 1753). In th e Reeve's Tale, Simki n ha s t o send hi sdaughter ou t fo r al e and bread , bu t ther e i s a goose o n han d t o beroasted for his guests. Symbolic of Simkin's lack of ethics and his misguidedworldliness, the Eucharistic symbol of ale and bread i s absent from thisman's house. As with the rioters in the Pardoner's Tale, the image of thekey to salvation is not perceived, and the ale and bread contribute insteadto a gluttonous feat that climaxes in an evening of vengeful lechery andviolence. In sharp contrast to these corrupt diets, the ever-patient Griseldamaintains a vegetarian existence, sustaining herself with 'Wortes or otherherbes . . . / Th e whiche she shredde and seeth for hir lyvynge' (E 226-27). The good widow of the Nun's Priest's Tale also lives simply, drinkingno wine and eatin g milk and brow n bread. Occasionally , she enjoys atreat of bacon and eggs .

At this point, th e subtle emergence o f a pattern tha t allies diet withgender should b e noted . Thos e character s who indulge in mea t are

35 The Medieval Health Handbook inform s us that, while liver was believed to be hardto digest, the meat of gelded animal s was considered t o be extremely tender (p . 126).Roasted meat contributed to a phlegmatic disposition (p . 122) and pork was consideredto be 'very nourishing and quickl y transformed' (p. 106).


predominantly male; those whose diets are either vegetarian or almost-vegetarian ar e female.36 Carol Adams has outlined the historical associa -tion o f animals with man an d aggressivenes s and, conversely , that ofvegetables with woman and passivity. 37 Thus it may be seen tha t Chau-cer has not only refrained fro m personifying gluttony as a woman, buthas associated his food-consuming female characters with a patient, evenabstemious, temperament .

In his negative representation of the more carnivorous food regimen ,Chaucer i s not makin g any direct pro-vegetaria n statement ; however,there ar e trace s o f a humanistic sensitivit y in thi s dietary patterning .For, in addition to the alignment of disreputable natures with the consump-tion o f flesh, there ar e element s woven into certai n segment s of th eCanterbury Tales that link women to meat, thereby suggesting an associa-tion betwee n th e stereotypicall y feminine quality o f passivit y and th ekilling of animals for food.

The primary example of the association o f women with meat is foundin the Merchant's Tale. When January explains to his friends why he wishesto marry a young woman instead o f one close r to his own age, he cre-ates a debasing analogy:

I wol noon oold wyf han in no manere.She shal nat passe twenty yeer, certayn;Oold fissh and yong flessh wolde I have fayn.'Bet is', quod he, 'a pyk than a pickerel',And bet than old boef is the tendre veel.

(E 1416-20)

36 While the diets of Sir Thopas and the Summoner might initially seem to counterthe abov e assessment, Carol J. Adams, i n Th e Sexual Politics o f Meat, notes the followin gsocial connotatio n concernin g diet and sexuality : 'Me n who decide to esche w meateating are deemed effeminate; failur e o f men to eat meat announces that they are no tmasculine' (p . 34). Thus, th e poin t o f having th e her o of Chaucer's mock-romancemunch on gingerbread and liquorice is to highlight his effeminacy. Also, if the hypothesisfound in Dennis Biggins, 'Chaucer's General Prologue, A163', Notes and Queries, 6 (1959),pp. 435-36, is correct in its assumption that the Summoner is carrying on a homosexualaffair wit h th e Pardoner , th e Summoner' s tast e fo r vegetable s als o serve s a s a com-mentary on his masculinity .

37 Adams, Th e Sexual Politics o f Meat, pp . 34-37 . This is not t o sa y that in medieva ltimes the word vegetable or any of its derivation had the same extremely passive connota-tions as it does today. The sense of positive growth surrounde d thi s word to the extentthat it was used in religious writing. In the OED the earliest listing under vegetative reads:'1398 - Trevis a BarthDeP.R. be [soule ] vegetatyf desyreth to be' (p . 75). The humansoul was conceived of as being female in nature during the middle ages.


Were thi s the onl y example o f equating woman with edibl e flesh , th epassage could be dismissed as a rejoinder to the Wife of Bath's insultingremark that refers to her three, old husbands: 'And yet in bacon haddeI never e delit ' ( D 418). Another pointe d exampl e o f linking womenwith slain animals is mentioned i n the Monk' s portrait. Thi s lusty man'lovede venerie' ( A 166). The implications are that this passion is twofold:the Monk not only loves to hunt animals but also desires to prey uponwomen.38 This association of women with mea t tie s in neatly with theParson's transitio n fro m hi s discussion o f gluttony to tha t o f lechery:'After Glotonye thanne comth Lecherie, for thise two synnes been so nycosyns that ofte tyme they wol nat departe' (1836) . The Pardoner as welladdresses 'the fyr of lecherye, / Tha t is annexed unto glotonye' (C 481 -82). Women and animals are used to slake these two strong appetites ofmen.

Traces o f the notio n o f the passiv e victimization of animals can b efound in the Pardoner's diatribe against gluttony when he describes theviolence of cooks in the kitchen:

Thise cookes, how they stampe, and streyne, and grynde,And turnen substaunc e into accidentTo fulfille a l thy likerous talent!Out of the hard bones knokke theyThe mary , for they caste noght awey

(C 538-42)

The concept of breaking the animals' bones is particularly striking herebecause it falls sixty-four lines after a reference to the mutilation of Christ'sown body: 'Oure blissed Lordes body they totere - / Hem thoughte thatJewes rente hym noght ynough -' ( C 474-75). The combination of thecooks' action s with a reminder o f Christ's Passion recalls the words ofPsalm 21; 15,18: 'I am poured ou t like water; and all my bones are scat-tered . . . They have numbered all my bones'. From thi s close associa -tion, the symbolism of physical food consumption moves beyond bot hthe genderization of food and it s moral commentary until it comes tothe spiritual significance of Christ as passive victim, the sacrificial lamb.Just as eating for life entails the death of an organism, so too did Christiansalvation require a death fo r spiritual life . As January likens women to

38 Paull F. Baum, 'Chaucer's Puns', PMLA, 71 (1956), pp. 225-46, discusses the doubleentendre of this phrase, yet The Riverside Chaucernotes 'the OEDdoes not record the lat-ter [sexual ] meaning until 1497' (p . 806).


meat, so too is Christ associated with flesh in Isaiah 53,7: 'He shall be ledas a sheep to the slaughter and shall be dumb as a lamb before his shearer,and he shall not open his mouth'.

That there i s a strong connectio n betwee n butchere d animal s an dChrist i s also eviden t throug h th e Lord' s words a t the Las t Supper.39

What remains t o be seen i s how woman fits into this religious connota -tion. Caroline Walker Bynum has explored a twelfth-century movementamong the Cistercians to write about Jesus Christ using maternal terminol-ogy and imagery. It is believed tha t the Cistercians were inspired by thework of the Benedictine mon k Anselm of Canterbury.40 Anselm base dhis Prayer 10 to St Paul on the words of Christ in Matthew 23:27:

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, tho u tha t killes t the prophets an d stonest them tha tare sent unto thee , how often would I have gathered togethe r th y children,as the hen doth gather he r chickens under her wings, and thou wouldst not.

From thi s nurturing image , Anselm progresses :

But You, Jesus, good lord, are You not also a mother? Are You not that motherwho, lik e a hen, collect s her chicken s under he r wings ? Truly, master, Youare a mother. Fo r what others have conceived and given birth to they havereceived from You . .. It is then You, above all, Lord God, who are mother.41

Because thi s theme wa s prevalent among severa l differen t writers , it ishighly plausible tha t th e well-rea d Chaucer wa s familiar with some ofthese works. Even if Chaucer had no t encountere d th e Cistercian writ-ings, the moti f of describing Chris t in maternal term s did not remai nisolated withi n thi s specifi c religiou s community . Christ appear s i n amaternal light in the writings of Dante, Peter of Lombard and Julian ofNorwich.42 In light of the popularity of this theme, Chaucer ma y haveindeed decide d t o incorporate i t into the Canterbury Tales.

The significance of a feminized Christ, then, provides a key to how anaudience ma y interpret th e variou s symboli c levels of food consump-tion in the Canterbury Tales. Since Christ, the Word made Flesh, offered

39 Luke 22:20 reads, 'This is the chalice, the new testament in my blood, which shallbe shed for you'.

40 Bynum, Jesus a s Mother: Studies i n th e Spirituality o f the High Middle Ages (Berkeley ,California, 1982) , p. 112.

41 Quoted, ibid., p. 114 .42 Julian o f Norwich wrote: This is Jesus ou r true mothe r i n nature fro m ou r first

making', i n Revelations o f Divine Love, trans. M.L . de Mast a (Garde n City , Ne w York ,1977), p. 190 .


his own body as ransom in order to provide spiritual salvation, the foo dconsumption within the Canterbury Tales stands as a reminder that Chau-cer's colourful and entertaining personalities are actually on a spiritualpilgrimage. While the character s th e pilgrims describe i n their storie sare not in the literal process of making a pilgrimage, they are journey-ing throug h thi s world an d movin g on toward s the next . Thos e whoseem mos t prepared for the spiritual afterlif e - Griselda , the Franklinand th e widow of the Nun's Priest's Tale- have either renounced meatcompletely or consume it only in its due season offcast. Those characterswho are depicted a s heavy meat eaters, th e Summoner' s fria r an d th eMonk, consequently live a carnal life . Their tast e for flesh, most oftenwashed down with wine or ale, leads them toward the sin of gluttony.

Chaucer deepen s the spiritua l significanc e of his food patterns no tonly through highlighting the contrast between the concepts of fasting,goodness and vegetation and those of indulging, sin and meat, but alsoby establishing the associatio n o f women with meat. From this linkageChaucer moves from the concept of mortal female to spiritual mother.As a result of the motif of the later middle ages in which Christ is depictedin feminine terms, the identity of this spiritual mother is not the VirginMary, but her son. Thus, in Chaucer, the antifeminist traditions of depict-ing woman as glutton, and of emphasizing that the originating cause ofthe Fal l of Man was Eve's uncontrollable appetite , are absent. The pas-sages that align women with meat do not emanate from Chaucer's voice;they are the opinions of his misguided characters. While the stereotypeof woman as passive victim is, unfortunately, underscored throug h hi smethods, Chaucer does his best to redeem th e connotation o f womenas meat by subtle association with the Redeemer of Christians, who becamethe ultimat e foodstuf f o f salvation , when H e allowe d Himsel f t o b ebutchered.

3

Fast Food and Urban Living Standards in Medieval England

Martha Carlin

I recently completed a book on the urban development of the medievalLondon suburb of Southwark in which the concluding chapter concernedurbanization and how one could identify and define it. After examiningsuch classic urban signifiers as fortifications, street plans, societal stratifica-tion, occupational diversity , public services, and environmenta l pollu-tion, I ended on a less serious note by suggesting that one unmistakablehallmark of urbanity in any era is traffic jams, which betoken a denselysettled population, abundant commercial activity and a teeming volumeof transport. When I was thinking about topics for this essay it occurredto me that another gauge of urbanity might be found in the diversity offoods available for sale, including ready-made or 'fast ' foods.

An essential difference betwee n towns and villages is that towns can-not feed themselves. They are always dependent on the import of bulkfood supplies from their immediate hinterlands or beyond. In the ancientand medieva l world, as in the modern world , two major constraints onthe provisionin g of large towns were transport costs and foo d perish-ability. But, once the food was successfully imported into towns, how wasit distributed, prepared, and consumed? And what can that tell us abouturban populations , economies and standards of living?

It is my contention, first, that the vending of fast food - tha t is, hot,ready-to-eat food, not food cooked to order - in medieval English townsflourished primarily not to serve well-to-do residents and travellers, butrather t o serve the urban poor. And, second, that as a result, fast foodprobably was scarce in medieval England excep t in large towns wherethe populatio n densit y was high, and especiall y where the numbe r ofsingle-adult households was high.

Ancient Roman citie s saw exactly this kind o f development . Romeitself was a city of apartment blocks or insulae reaching up to six storeysin height. In smaller Roman cities, such as Ostia, Pompeii and Hercu -laneum, such apartment houses had fewe r storey s but were otherwisesimilar. The groun d floor of an insula typically was occupied b y shopsand the upper floors by successively cheaper flats, whose tenants had to


carry their water, groceries, waste and rubbish up and down the flight sof stairs. Suc h upper flats normally lacked not only running water butalso ovens and hearths. Portable braziers probably were the usual meansof heating an d cookin g in thes e flats. For example, one insula of thistype in Rome, on th e Via Giulio Romano, survives to a height of fourstoreys. The ground floor was occupied by shops and the upper storeysby successively poorer flats, none of which had an identifiable kitchen.1

As a result of such living arrangements, and also because many of theurban poo r could no t affor d expensiv e fuel, bul k supplies of food o relaborate cookin g equipment, poorer Romans seem to have eaten theirhot meals in public eating houses and wine bars or from stand-up snackbars and stree t stalls. The hom e meal s of the working poor consiste dlargely of bread and vegetables, the bread bought or distributed at publicdoles already baked, and the vegetables - mostly beans and peas - ofte nalready cooked and perhaps heated up at home on a brazier. Those whocould afford it would supplement these with such cold ready-to-eat itemsas olives, lettuce, cucumbers, onions, fruit, cheese, pickled fish, sausageand boiled eggs. 2 In fact, the urban poor of ancient Rome seem to havebeen a s dependen t o n convenienc e food s a s man y modern city -dwellers.

In the de-urbanized worl d of the early middle ages, ready-made foodprobably was a rarity, except for ale, wine, bread, butter and cheese.3 Bythe late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, however, commercial cooksare recorde d in England , especiall y in majo r pilgrimag e centres. 4 AtWinchester, which reached its medieval peak in the first half of the twelft hcentury, surveys record thre e cooks c. 1110, and nine in 1148.5 In Paris

JJohn E . Stambaugh, Th e Ancient Roman City (Baltimore , Maryland, and London ,1988), pp. 176-78 . Stambaugh comments that the resident s of this insula 'mus t haveused charcoal braziers for cooking or have gone out for hot meals' . On Roman insulaesee also Jerome Carcopino, Daily Life in Ancient Rome, ed. Henry T. Rowell, trans. E.O.Lorimer (New Haven, Connecticut, and London, 1940), pp. 23-28, 37-44.

2 Stambaugh, Th e Ancient Roman City, p . 200 ; see als o pp. 148-49 , 184 , 207 , 209;Roman Civilization, Sourcebook II : Th e Empire, ed . Naphtal i Lewi s and Meye r Reinhold(New York, 1955, reprinted 1966) , p. 359 .

3 The fourt h law code of ^Ethelred II lists royal tolls at London on fish, wine, hens,eggs, cheese and butter; some other tolls there were to be paid in pepper and vinegar.The Laws o f the Kings o f England from Edmund t o Henry I , ed. an d trans . A. J. Robertso n(Cambridge, 1925), pp. 72-73.

4 Ann Hagen , A Handbook o f Anglo-Saxon Food Processing and Consumption (Pinner ,Middlesex, 1992), pp. 11 , 18-23, 49-50.

5 Frank Barlow et al. , Winchester Studies, 1 . Winchester in the Early Middle Ages: An Editionand Discussion of the Winton Domesday, ed. Martin Biddle (Oxford , 1976), pp. 429 , 430.

Fast Food an d Urban Living Standards i n Medieval England 2 9

fast foo d wa s available in grea t variety by the mi d thirteent h century ,when John d e Garlan d (c . 1195-1272) describe d suc h popula r item sthere as waffles (gaufres), light pastries (nieuks) and wafers (oublies); boiledand roasted beef, veal, mutton, pork, lamb, kid, pigeon, capon and goose;spiced pasties , filled with choppe d pork , chicken or eel ; and tart s o rflans filled with sof t chees e o r egg. 6 The street-crie s o f thirteenth -century Paris, recorded by Guillaume de la Ville Neuve, included refer-ences to such prepared food s as hot mashe d peas (pois chaus pilez), ho tbeans (fives chaudes), garlic sauce (allie), chees e of Champagne and o fBrie, fresh butter (burrefres), ho t pastie s (chauspastez), ho t cake s (chausgastiaus), hot wafer s (chaudes oublees), hot pancake s (galetes chaudes), ris-soles (roinssoles), hot flans (jlaons chaus), hot tarts and simnels (chaudestartes et siminiaus) .7

London, which was growing rapidly in the twelfth century , had a fast-food outle t by the early 1170s, when Thomas Becket's biographer Wil-liam Fitz Stephen discussed it at length in his 'Description of London'.According to Fitz Stephen's rather glamorized account, thispublica coquinawas located o n th e riverside , between th e wine-ship s and th e wine -cellars. It was open day and night, and offered ready-cooked food to suitall tastes and purses, from those of rich knights and foreign travellers tothose of the poor . Fitz Stephen describe d in detail its provision of ho tdishes of meat, game, fish and poultry , which were available roasted,fried o r boiled. 8 Moder n scholar s generall y hav e assume d tha t Fit z

6 Alfred Franklin , Dictionnaire historique des arts, metiers e t professions exerces dans Parisdepuis le treizieme siecle (Paris, 1906; reprinted New York, 1968), pp. 242 , 359-60,500,528,552; Urban Tigner Holmes , Daily Living in the Twelfth Century: Based o n the Observationsof Alexander Neckam in London and Paris (Madison, Wisconsin, 1952), p. 80 .

7 There were also cakes called gastiaus rastis. Paris, Bibl. Nat., MS fonds francais, no .837, fol . 246 , printed i n Franklin , Dictionnaire historique des arts, metiers et professions, pp .748-51. Simnels were twice-cooked bread (possibl y first boiled, then baked, like modernbagels), made of the finest flour. See OED, s.v.; and Liber Custumarum, ii, ed. HenryThomas Riley, Munimenta Gildhallae Londoniensis, II, ii (Rolls Series, 1860) , pp. 782-83.

8 The text printed by Stow reads:Singulorum officiorum exercitores , singularum rerum venditores, singularum oper-

arum suarum locatores , cotidiano mane pe r s e sunt loci s distincti omnes , v t officiis .Praeterea est in Londonia , supe r ripa m fluminis , inter vina et nauibus et cellis vinariisvenalia, publica coquina. Ibi quotidie, pro tempore, est inuenire cibaria , fercula, assa,frixa, elixa , pisces , pisciculos , carne s grossiore s pauperibus , delicatiores diuitioribus,venationum, avium, avicularum. Si subito veniant ad aliquem ciuium amici fatigati e xitinere, nee libeat ieiunis expectare , v t noui cib i emantur et coquantur , 'Den t famul imanibus lymphas panesque', interi m a d ripam curritur ; ibi praesto sunt omnia desid-erabilia. Quantalibet militum vel peregrinorum infinitas intrat vrbem, qualibet die i velnoctis hora, vel ab urbe exitura , ne ve l hii nimium ieiunent, vel alii impransi exeant ,


Stephen's publica coquinavras a single establishment, but three later refer-ences (c . 1212-21) refe r to the 'cookshops ' (i n plural) on the Thame sin th e Vintry. 9 This riverside location, betwee n th e haven s of Queen-hithe and Dowgate, suggests that the cookshops there catered primarilyto river boatmen and dockworkers, and to travellers who arrived by boat,all of whom would especially welcome a hot meal .

By the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries a variety of special-ist retailers of ready-to-eat foods can be identified in London and in thelarger provincia l towns. The Norwic h leet roll of 1287-88 mentions amustard-seller, and sellers of pork sausages and puddings.10 In 1312-13there were at least nineteen cook s in one of the four 'leets' (wards ) ofNorwich;11 and there was a street there called 'Cockrowe' (Cook Row)

illuc, s i placet, diuertunt , e t s e pro mod o suo singul i reficiunt . Qu i se curare voluntmolliter, accipiunt anserem, vel Afram auem , vel attagen lonicum; non opu s u t qui dquaerant, appositis, quae ibi inueniuntur, deliciis. Haec equidem publica coquina est, etciuitati plurimum expediens, et ad ciuilitatem pertinens. Hinc est, quod legitur in 'Gor-gia' Platonis , iuxta medicina m ess e coquorum officiu m simulacrum , et adulatione mquartae particulae ciuilitatis.

John Stow, Survey o f London (1603 edn), ed. C.L. Kingsford (Oxford , 1908, reprinte d1971), ii, pp. 222-23. Kingsford's notes list some variants among the surviving manuscriptsof Fitz Stephen. Fo r translations , see Stow, Survey, ed. Kingsford , i , p. 79 ; Stow, Survey,ed. H.B. Wheatley (London , 1912, reprinte d 1956) , pp. 504-5; William Fitz Stephen,Norman London, trans. H.E. Butler, with an essa y by Sir Frank Stenton (London , 1934 ;reprinted New York, 1990), p. 52.

9 Stow himself translated Fitz Stephen's publica coquina as 'Cookes row', but moder ntranslators have generally read it as 'cookshop'. See translations listed in note 8, above, andalso Christopher Brooke and Gillian Keir, London, 800-1216: TheShapingofa City (London,1975), p. 115 (where it is called a 'public kitchen'). The earlies t of the thre e later refer -ences is the Assize of Building drawn up after the great London fire of 1212, which orderedthat all the cookshops on the Thames be whitewashed and plastered inside and out. A deeddating from c . 1219-20 describes a plot of land in the parish of St Martin Vintry as lying'on the riverban k b y the cookshops ' (super ripam ad coquinas); and another deed , of 1221,mentions the 'cookshops of the Vintry' (coquinae Vinetrie). Stow, Survey of London, ed. Kings-ford, ii, pp. 322-23 (note citing Assize of Building and dee d of 1221); Cartulary ofSt MaryClerkenwell, ed. W.O. Hassall, Camden 3rd series , 71 (London, 1949), no. 24 1 (deed of c.1219-20). The cartular y (British Library, MS Cotton Faustina B. II, fos 6-106) was ownedby Stow, who underlined th e phrase super ripam (fol . 67). For 'cellars ' (presumabl y wine-cellars) in this vicinity, see ibid., no. 258 (grant, c. 1198, of a cellar in the parish of St James(Garlickhithe), lying between two other cellars) ; and Stow , Survey, i, p. 238.

10 Leet Jurisdiction i n th e City o f Norwich during th e Xlllth an d XlVth Centuries, ed. Wil-liam Hudson, Selde n Society, 5 (London, 1891) , pp. 6, 8.

11 This was the lee t called 'Over-the-Water' , which also supported a t least fourteenbutchers, thirtee n dealer s in cheese, butter and eggs, eleven dealers in oats, and sevenpoulterers. Leet Jurisdiction i n the City o f Norwich, ed. Hudson , p. 60 .

continued


by 1314.l2 York, which housed Edward Fs administration fro m 129 8 to1305, had thirty-fiv e commercia l cook s in 1304; 13 Leicester ha d com -mercial cook s b y 1335.14 In Londo n b y the lat e thirteent h t o earl yfourteenth century there were specialist cooks, flan makers, cheesemon-gers, saucers, waferers, mustard sellers , and pie bakers.15

An English treatise of the late thirteenth o r early fourteenth centur ylists the fas t foods to be found in towns . Pastelers sold pasties of meatand fish , wel l spiced (bene piperatos), a s well a s (cooked ) meats , gam eand poultry, both wild and domestic. Flan makers sold cheesecakes andflans (?opacos artocopos, flaones) mad e of eggs, bread, an d cheese ; at th ewaferers on e woul d fin d wafer s o r griddl e cake s (?lagana) cooke d i nirons or ovens.16 Cooks would also put a customer's meat in dough andbake it; in London th e price regulations o f 1350 forbade cooks to takemore than a penny for putting a capon o r rabbit in a pasty, on pain ofimprisonment.17

Langland's poem Piers Plowman gives fragments of the street-crie s oflater fourteenth-century London, in which cooks and their knaves cried'Hot pies, hot! Good piglet s and geese, go dine, go!', while the tavern-ers offered 'Whit e wine of Alsace and red wine of Gascony, of the Rhineand Rochelle', to drink with the meat.18 The mid fifteenth-century poemLondon Lyckpenny als o report s some o f the stree t cries o f Westminste r

12 Serena Kelly, Elizabeth Rutledge and Margo t Tillyard, Men of Property: An Analysisof the Norwich Enrolled Deeds, 1285-1311, ed. Ursula Priestley, The Norwich Survey (Norwich,1983), p. 26.

13 Michael Prestwich, York Civic Ordinances, 1301, Borthwick Papers, 49 (York, 1976),pp. 22-24 . An inquest of 1304 identified twenty-fou r whit e bread bakers, twelve blackbread bakers, twenty-six taverners, thirty-five cooks, forty-nine butchers, fifty fishmongers,seventy brewers, thirty-seve n poulterers , nine forestallers o f fishmonger s an d twenty -seven regrators who had been active in the city between 1301 and 1304. Ibid., pp. 21-28.See also Heather Swanson, Medieval Artisans (Oxford, 1989) , p. 17.

14 G.T. Salusbury, Street Life i n Medieval England (2nd edn, Oxford, 1945), pp. 73-74,citing Records o f Leicester, ii, p. 21 .

15 Calendar of Letter-Books . . . of the City o f London, 11 vols (A-L), ed. Reginald R. Sharpe(London, 1899-1912), Letter-Book A, pp. 31 , 99, 134, 166, 168; Tw o Early London SubsidyRolls, ed. EilertEkwall (Lund, 1951), roll of 1292, pp. 151,160; roll of 1319, pp. 234,268,271, 336.

16 BL, Add. MS 8167, fos 88-90; printed by G. Waitz in 'Handschriften in EnglischenBibliotheken', Neues Archivder GesellschaftfuraltereDeutscheGeschichtskunde, 4 (1879), pp.339-43.1 am grateful to John Munro for the suggested date of this treatise.

17 Memorials o f London and London Life, 1276-1419, ed. Henry Thomas Riley (London,1868), p. 257.

18 B-text, Prologue, lines 225-29, printed in England from Chaucer to Caxton, ed. HenryS. Bennett (1928; reprinted New York, 1970), p. 144.


and London, many of which concern ready-to-ea t food. At WestminsterGate the narrator of the poem, a poor countryman from Kent, is urgedby cookshop proprietor s to sit down and partak e of bread, ale , wine,and fa t ribs of beef. In Cheapside , stree t peddlers hawk hot peascod sand fresh strawberries an d cherries ; i n Candlewick Street, hot sheep' sfeet; and in Eastcheap cooks proclaim thei r beef ribs and mea t pies.19

It is striking tha t among th e prepared foods recorded in the stree tcries of thirteenth-century Paris and fourteenth- and fifteenth-centur yLondon th e emphasi s seem s to be o n ho t dishes: hot vegetables , ho tbreads, hot pies, hot ribs, hot sheep's feet, hot roasted meat and poultry,hot cake s and wafers , ho t pancake s and flans and tarts . This suggeststhat such foods were generally purchased fo r immediate consumption ,like a McDonald's hamburger and fries today. But by whom? The thre emain categories of potential customers would have been those describedby Fitz Stephen: wealthy and well-to-d o residents, who could afford t opay a premium for ready-to-eat food; travellers, both wealthy and poor ;and poor residents, who were unable t o buy food or fuel i n bulk, andwhose lodgings might have limited cooking facilities, o r even none a tall. Let us examine each of these possibilities in turn.

The houses of wealthy residents normally included extensive kitchenoffices, an d their household servant s included cooks and other kitchenworkers. The notoriou s London vintne r Richard Lyons , for example ,whose goods were seized and inventoried in 1376, occupied a riversidemansion that included a pantry, buttery, larder, and kitchen. The metalpots and pans and utensils in his kitchen, valued at just under £6 10s. Od.,included four-and-a-hal f hundredweigh t o f ironwar e an d si xhundredweight of brassware.20 No kitchenware of wood or pottery is

19 London Lyckpenny, in London is London: A Selection of Prose and Verse, ed. D.M. Low(London, 1949) , pp. 29-32. In the mid nineteenth century Henry Mayhe w recordedthe cries and wares of the street-sellers of food in London. They included four men whosold hot boiled peas (made from dried green peas) to the cry of'Hot green peas! all hot,all hot! Here's your peas hot, hot, hot!' Mayhew added, however, that the hot peascodsdescribed in London Lyckpenny wer e known in many other parts of the country , where,he said, 'it is, or was, customary to have "scoldings of peas", often hel d as a sort of rusticfeast. The pea s wer e not shelled , but boile d in the pod , and eate n by the pod beingdipped in melted butter, with a little pepper, sal t and vinegar, and then drawn throughthe teeth to extract the peas, the pod being thrown away'. Henry Mayhew, London Labourand th e London Poor, 4 vols (London, 1861-62) , i, pp. 158-212 (ho t peas, p. 180) .

20 Lyons' kitchenware consisted o f eight spits, three trivets, a gridiron, tw o andirons,two frying pans , tw o racks, two grease pans , two dressing knives, one othe r knife , on eiron flesh hook , tw o massive iron pestle s (weighin g 4r cwt), eight brass pots, a chafin gdish and a small basin, together weighing 2 cwt, six brass pails weighing - cwt, and three

Fast Food an d Urban Living Standards in Medieval England 3 3

listed, presumabl y because th e secondhan d valu e o f such item s wasnegligible, an d s o we cannot kno w if there were any salting troughs ,kneading troughs o r wooden oven peels. However, it seems likely thatLyons' household bought rather than baked its bread, because the staplefoods found in the larder did not include grain or flour.21 Also, there isno mention of a brewhouse or brewing vessels, which suggests that Lyons'household also bought rather than brewed its ale.22 A similar set of kitchenequipment was inventoried in 1373 in the house of Thomas Mockying,a wealthy fishmonger, and these inventories are typical of the period.23

In France i n th e 1390 s an elderly householder, know n through hi smodern editor s a s 'the Menagier of Paris', wealthy but no t well-born,wrote a book of household managemen t for his fifteen-year-old wife.24

Unusually, he include d for her us e a large collection of recipes for allkinds of foods, including soups, sausages, vegetable dishes, stews, roasts,pasties, fish and eg g dishes, flans, jellies, crepes, mustard , sauce s andpreserves. There are even recipes for cooking frogs and snails . He alsocopied out a selection of sample menus for ordinary dinners and sup-pers, great feasts , smalle r parties and othe r occasions . It is clear fro mthe Menagier's text that in his wealthy bourgeois household, as in wealthyhouseholds generally, meals were prepared from raw ingredients cookedat home, except for the bread, drink and some of the condiments, andthat only for large parties was it usual to employ caterers or to buy quanti-ties of prepared foods .

Travellers might be expected to have been amon g the chief consum-ers o f hot, ready-to-ea t food . However , the location s of cookshops i ntowns suggest otherwise. In London, for example, the cooks had movedaway from the Vintry docks by the 1280 s to cluster in Friday Street, tothe sout h eas t of St Paul's, remaining there unti l the earl y 1300s.25 By

continued

brass mortar s weighin g 3 ^ cwt. A.R. Myers, The Wealt h of Richard Lyons', in Essays i nMedieval History Presented to Bertie Wilkinson, ed. T.A. Sandquist and M.R . Powicke (Toronto ,1969), pp. 317-18.

21 The staple s in the larder consisted o f honey, salt, vinegar, verjuice and almonds ;the spice s in the wardrobe include d si x pounds o f gingerbread. (O n gingerbread, se ebelow, pp. 102-4. )

22 Myers, 'Wealth of Richard Lyons' , pp. 315, 318-19.23 Mockying's eight-room house contained furnishings valued at £238 16s. 3d., includ-

ing kitchenware worth £4 8s. Od., Calendar of Plea and Memoranda Rolls of the City of London,6 vols (1323-1482), ed. A.H. Thomas (Cambridge, 1926-61) , 1364-81, pp. 154-56.

The Goodman o f Paris (Le menagierde Paris), ed. an d trans . Eileen Power (New York,1928).

25 Calendar o f Letter-Books, B, ed. Sharpe , pp. 4 , 104, 159.

24


the 1320 s they had shifte d slightl y east to Bread Street ; in the 1350 sboth Brea d Stree t and Ironmonger Lane were recognized cookshopdistricts; an d b y 1410 th e centr e o f the trad e had move d t o Eastch-eap.26 None of these streets lay near the gates or the waterfront. Acrossthe river in Southwark the poll tax return of 1381 listed six cooks andfour pie bakers among those assessed. None of these, however, seemsto have lived near London Bridge, the choices t commercial locationfor trader s hopin g t o sell to travellers crossing the rive r by bridge o rboat. Instead , thre e o f the ten , al l paying average o r above-averageassessments, lived around the middle of the High Street; another three ,all with average or below-average assessments, lived at the foot of theHigh Street , nea r th e Marshalse a an d King' s Bench prisons , whichmay hav e supplie d the m wit h customers ; an d four , al l with below-average assessments, were among a group of 174 poor householders ,mostly single adults, who apparently were clustered within the precinctof St Thomas's Hospital. 27

The spendin g habit s o f poor visitor s to medieva l town s are , o fcourse, almos t impossibl e t o document, bu t there ar e many surviv-ing travel accounts that document th e expenditures of wealthy travel-lers, and thes e revea l a positive aversion t o fast food. For example ,the earliest surviving English household account lists the daily expensesof an unidentified househol d i n London an d Windso r durin g th emonth of October sometime in the late twelfth century . At Londonthe household' s food expenditure s consiste d o f daily purchases ofale, frequent purchase s o f bread and occasiona l purchase s o f mod-est amounts of pottage, eggs , fish, spices,28 wine, flour, apples, herbs,29

mustard, pea s and milk . No mea t o r poultr y wa s purchased, an dthere is only one recorded payment, o f a penny, t o a baker.30 Thissuggests tha t the unidentified lord's household di d its own cooking

26 Calendar of Coroners Rolls of the City o f London, AD 1300-1378, ed. Reginald R. Sharpe(London, 1913) , p. 15 5 (1326) ; Calendar of'Plea an d Memoranda Rolls, 1323-1364, ed.Thomas, pp . 251 , 255 (1355) ; Chronicles of London, ed. C.L . Kingsford (Oxford , 1905;reprinted Dursley , Gloucestershire, 1977), pp. 268 , 341 (1410).

27 PRO, E 179/184/30; Martha Carlin, Medieval Southwark (Londo n and Rio Grande,Ohio, 1996), appendix I, figure 3, and table 7.3. The poll tax entry numbers (in appendixI) fo r the six cooks and four pie bakers are: nos 390-91, 550, 604-5, 616, 631, 779-80,802-3, 876, 930 and 960 .

28 The spices purchased were salt, pepper, cumin , saffron an d sugar.29 Garlic, onions and savory.30 Household Accounts from Medieval England, ed. C.M. Woolgar, British Academy, Records

of Social and Economi c History, new series 17 (Oxford, 1992), i, pp. 107-10 . At Wind-sor the household's foo d purchases consisted only of ale, bread and herring. From the


and supplie d much of its own provisions. Ther e is no referenc e i nthis account to any purchases fro m th e riversid e publica coquina soextolled by Fitz Stephen.

In the spring and summer of 1267 Sir Roger Leyburn was engaged invarious military duties on behal f o f the crown , which entailed numer -ousjourneys. While his expense accounts for a three-day stay in Canterburyat the beginning of Lent (6-8 March) record purchases offish and shellfish,almonds, rice, oil, dried fruit, and spices in quantity, the only preparedfoods that he seems to have purchased there were wine, ale, bread, mustard,and vinegar. Even his sauces were made from scratch , from ginge r andcinnamon bough t fo r that purpose.31 Leyburn was back in Canterburyfor on e da y at th e beginnin g o f June, afte r a week of negotiations inCalais and nearb y Wissant, to mee t a party of two French count s an done hundred knights. He arrived from France on 1 June and travelledthe sam e da y to Canterbury , where he thre w a banquet fo r them . I tprobably is due to this haste and the need to provide so immediately fora large party of hungry travellers that his expenses at Canterbury on 1June included 16s . 2d. for sixty-eight capon pasties , the onl y hot foodthat he seems to have bought ready-made.3'2

In the winter of 1337 a wealthy East Anglian widow, Dame Katherinede Norwich , travelled t o Norwich . She arrived i n January an d stayeduntil April or beyond. Her accounts show that she supplied many of herhousehold's provision s while in Norwic h from he r ow n Norfolk an dSuffolk manors . Bread was made from her own wheat and oatmeal fromher own oats, although she paid to have the grain milled and the loavesbaked in the city . Ale was brewed from he r ow n barley. Whole carcassesand ham s an d som e poultr y were supplie d fro m he r ow n manors.Additional livestock and liv e poultry, fresh meat , fish and shellfis h werepurchased a s needed, a s were preserved fish and modes t amounts of

continued

style of the hand and the weekdays and feast days mentioned, Woolgar dates this accountto one o f the followin g years: 1168, 1174, 1185, 1191, 1196 or 1202 .

31 In gingibor'canell'. . . ad salsationemfaciendamx s'. Alun Lewis, 'Roger Leyburn andthe Pacificatio n o f England, 1265-7' , English Historical Review, 54 (1939) , pp. 193-214 ;the accounts for 28 February-6 June 1267 (from PRO, E 101/3/9, m. 4) are printed onpp. 211-14.

32 His other kitchen purchases o n that day were bread, wine, ale, almonds, rice, newbeans, clove s an d ginger , one-and-a-quarte r carcasse s o f beef , bacon , mutton , geese ,chickens, pigs , fis h (various) , porpoise, eggs, sauce an d tw o ells of canvas ad coquinam;he also served six peacocks, which he had received as gifts. The kitchen expenses for theday totalled £9 15s. 7-d. Lewis, 'Roger Leyburn', p. 214.

36 Food an d Eating i n Medieval Europe

wine, fresh and dried fruit, milk, eggs, spices , vegetables and herbs. 33

The only prepared foods that she purchased were the occasional halfpen-nyworth of pottage and small quantities of condiments (mustard , vinegarand galantine). On the anniversary of her late husband's death she helda great dinner a t Norwich for which she purchased larg e quantities ofmeat, poultry and game-birds, 1200 eggs, and the necessary spices andcondiments. Most of the food, as usual, was prepared at home, but evidentlyher kitchen facilities and staff had reached their limit, for the day's accountalso records th e purchase of twenty-four baked hens and 15 7 pyes, an dof 200 loaves of wastel bread that were distributed t o the poor.34

Later that same year, at Christmas time in 1337, the abbot of Ramsey(Huntingdon) wen t to London a t the behest of the king to meet som evisiting cardinals.35 He an d hi s party travelled about fifteen to twenty -five miles eac h day . The firs t tw o nights the y stayed a t Elswort h andTherfield, whic h were Ramse y manors, th e thir d nigh t a t Ware i nHertfordshire an d on the fourth day they reached London , where theabbot stayed in his own town house. At Elsworth the abbot and his partyconsumed bread an d wine carried from Ramsey , and herring from th emanor's larder , an d purchase d onl y ale. At Therfield the y consumedherring from stoc k and purchase d bread , ale , oysters, fish,36 garlic andmustard. At Ware, where they stayed at an inn or in hired lodgings , th eabbot purchase d bread , ale , mutton, pork , fresh fish , eggs , flour, salt ,saffron an d mustard, and also kitchen fuel. Thus, although th e abbot' sparty purchased quantitie s of ale, bread, mustard and ra w foods alongtheir route, not once do they seem to have purchased any hot, ready-to-eat food, even at Ware, which for centuries was the first major overnightstop north of London. Similarly, in London, where fast food was plenti-ful, th e abbot purchased almost no prepared foods other than bread ,wine, ale and condiments (mustard and galantine). The only hot foodshe bough t were a pennyworth o f pottage eac h day , fifteen pasties fo r4d., and 2d. worth of baked lampreys. Some of the food for his Christmasbanquet - te n hens and capons and twenty-six pyes - was sent out tobe baked, at a cost of 18d., but th e only hot foods that he purchase d

33 Caulibus, onions and garlic .34 Household Accounts from Medieval England, ed. Woolgar, i, pp. 203-27 (accounts for

anniversary dinner, pp. 204-5). The account notes that ninety-two fercula (messes) wereserved a t this dinner .

35 His travel account is printed in Sir William Dugdale , Monasticon Anglicanum, ed.John Caley, Henry Ellis, and Bulkeley Bandinel, ii (London, 1819) , pp. 583-86. For thisreference I am grateful to Nigel Ramsay.

36 Smoked herring , fres h fish and stockfish.


on tha t occasio n wer e th e dail y pennyworth of pottage an d a pen-nyworth o f fritters. 37 A n equall y modest degree o f outside cateringcan be see n i n th e account s of the abbo t o f Shrewsbury, who spentabout three weeks in London a few months later, in February-March1338. While he supplied his table with a variety of meats, seafood andpoultry, and with modest amounts of vegetables, oatmeal, frument yand rice, he bought no prepared foods at all except for an occasionalpurchase of wastel bread, mustard and galantine, even having his breadbaked in-house.38

One might have expected that travellers along the Great North Roadbetween London and Scotland would have purchased quantities of ready-to-eat hot food at the major stopping-points along the way but, althoughthey bought raw food in plenty, on this road also the fast food that theypurchased seem s t o hav e been limite d to bread, pottag e an d condi -ments. For example, when the ear l o f Ross travelled from Londo n t oScotland in October 1303, 39 only once (at Nottingham, where he boughtsome cheese) do his accounts record tha t he purchase d provisions totake alon g for th e road . H e seem s to hav e had n o difficult y buyin gsubstantial amounts of ale, bread, meat, fish, poultry and eggs whereverhe stopped, although the selection clearly was greater in cities and largetowns than in small towns. However, the only ready-to-eat foods recordedin his daily accounts, apart from al e and wine, were bread and pottage.Even at York, where he stopped for four nights , and where, as we haveseen, there were dozens of cooks at this time, his meals seem to havebeen cooke d t o order , an d th e onl y prepared food s recorde d i n hi saccounts there were bread, pease pottage and condiments.40

37 The food s purchased by the abbot in London, i n addition t o the pottage , bake dpasties (pastettis furnitis) and baked lampreys (laumpriisfurnitis), consisted of oysters, beef,mutton, whole sheep (skaldyng'), fres h fish, eggs, lampreys, shrimps, geese, gurnards, ginger,garlic and onions. On Christmas Day the abbot's household consume d twenty-fou r hens,three capons, three partridges, one-and-a-half sheep and half a veal, and purchased bread ,wine, ale, pottage, mutto n an d beef ; paid for the baking of ten hens and capon s and oftwenty-six pyes; bought a bushel of salt for salting the meat; and also purchased apples andfritters (frutuyris), eggs , flour, skirwhittes (skirrets: water-parsnips) and verjuice.

38 J. Armitage Robinson, ed., The Househol d Rol l of Bishop Ralph of Shrewsbury(1337-8)', in Collectanea, i, A Collection of Documents from Various Sources, ed. T.F. Palmer,Somerset Record Society , 39 (1924), pp. 134-57.

39 PRO, E 101/365/9, mm. 2r-4r.40 His purchases included bread, ale, red and white wine, pears, almonds, geese, pullets,

doves, larks, herring, lampreys , perches, roach, sauces, pease pottage, sal t and fres h her-ring, haddock, codling, eels and dace (served with mustard, galantine, verjuice, and onions),beef, pork and mutton (seasone d with salt and garlic), apples and salmon.


Seventy-five years later, in the summer (May-June ) o f 1378, Edmun dMortimer, earl o f March, travelled from London t o Scotland a s a com-missioner t o discus s border issue s with the Scots . Hi s travel accountsshow that he an d his party had n o trouble obtainin g larg e supplie s offood and drink along the road, and indeed were so confident of beingable to do so that the only foodstuffs tha t the earl carried with him fromLondon were spices: three pounds of saffron, sixteen pounds of powderedginger, and eigh t pounds of ground pepper . However , all the food tha tthey purchased o n their journey, with the exception o f ale, wine, breadand sauces, was purchased raw and cooked from scratch. They purchasedno ho t food s a t all , no t eve n a t suc h majo r stopping-place s a s Ware,Royston, Huntingdon , Stamford , Grantham, Newark, Doncaster, Dar-lington, Durham and Newcastle-on-Tyne.41 Similarly, Chaucer's fictionalpilgrims, wh o were travellin g along th e bus y roa d fro m Londo n t oCanterbury, evidently did not expec t t o be able t o find suitable ready-to-eat food along the way, since they brought their own cook with themto prepare their food. 42

Yet we know that there were commercial cooks, sometimes dozens ofthem, in cities such as Canterbury, Norwich, York and London. Wealthytravellers would not hav e been deterre d by reasons o f economy frompaying for the convenience o f getting fast , hot food , so why didn't theypatronize thes e cooks ? An itemize d lis t of th e food s sol d by Londo ncookshops i s recorded i n 1378 , when the mayor and alderme n se t thelegal prices that cooks could charge for their wares. The most expensiveitems were game birds . A roast bittern wa s priced a t 20d. , a heron a t18d., and a pheasant at 13d. Next came roasts costing 6d . to 8d. each:pork (8d.) , lamb (7d.) , goose (7d. ) and curle w (6^d.) . The pric e o f aplain roasted capo n was 6d.; a capon baked in a pasty was 8d. In the 3d.to 5d. price range were roast hen, at 4d. each, or baked in a pasty for 5d.;rabbit, at 4d. each; and mallards, at S^d. to 4^d. each (th e lower price fortame mallards, the higher for wild birds). For 2^d. one could buy a roastpullet, tea l o r woodcock , or thre e roas t pigeons . Th e cheapes t item swere small roasted birds: one could buy three thrushes for 2d., a snipeor five larks for Igd. , and te n finche s o r te n egg s for a penny. Thriftycustomers who provided their own poultry for a pasty were to be charged

41 BL, Egerton Roll 8728, printed in Household Accounts, ed. Woolgar, i, pp. 245-58.The siz e of the party is not given, but the number o f horses employed fluctuate d fro mabout seventy to about 150 .

42 'A Cook they hadde with hem for the nones/To boille the chiknes with the mary-bones' (etc.) . Geoffre y Chaucer , Th e Riverside Chaucer, ed . Larr y D. Benson (Boston ,1987), Canterbury Tales, General Prologue, lines 379-87.


l|d. for the dough, baking, and 'trouble' for a capon, or 2d. for a goose.43

It is clear from thi s lis t that th e cook s of London ha d a t least som ewell-to-do clients. It is likely that much of their more substantial customcame fro m caterin g fo r th e guil d feasts , dinne r parties , weddings andfunerals of those who hosted thes e festivities but did not have their ownlarge kitchens and staff.44 Why did wealthy residents and travellers routinelyshun the cookshops? The answer seems to be, at least in part, that cooksin general had a reputation fo r dishonesty and uncleanliness. The Norwichleet roll of 1287-88, for example, cites men from nearby Sprowston forselling sausages and puddings (hillas etpudinges) in the Norwich marketthat were made of measled pigs (porcos superseminatos) an d were unfit forhuman consumption. 45 I n th e lat e thirteent h an d earl y fourteent hcenturies th e cook s and pasteler s (pastiliarii) o f Norwich were repeat-edly accused o f reheating pastie s and meat that were two or three daysold.46 In York , ordinances o f 1301 forbad e cooks to buy fresh meat insummertime tha t had been on sale for more than a day, or to sell past-ies that were badly cooked or filled with unwholesome meat, but in 1304the cooks there were said collectively to have been guilty on every count.47

In London i n 132 7 the cook s were among nine victualling companies

43 Memorials of London, ed. Riley, p. 426. In 1350 and again in 1362-63 London cookshad been forbidden t o charge more than a penny for putting a capon or rabbit into apasty. Ibid., p. 157 ; Calendar o f Letter-Books, G , ed. Sharpe , p. 150.

44 In 1355 a London chaplain invited some friends fo r supper, and serve d veal tha the had purchased from a local cook. The supper evidently was a disaster and the chaplainsued the cook in the mayor's court, alleging that the veal had been reheated and unwhole-some, 'stinking and abominable' , to the dange r of himself and hi s friends. Th e cook ,Henry de Walmesford , wa s acquitted o n th e testimon y o f six of his fellow-cook s wh oinspected the meat and pronounced it wholesome, a finding confirmed b y public inspec-tion. Calendar of Plea and Memoranda Rolls, 1323-64, ed. Thomas , p . 251 . In 142 4 thecooks of York claimed that thenceforth the y were to have a monopoly over the cateringoffcasts, funerals and weddings (Swanson, Medieval Artisans, p. 17). The fifteenth-century accounts of the brewers ' an d goldsmiths ' companie s o f London recor d pay-ments to cooks and thei r assistants for preparing dinners and feasts . Willia m Herbert,The History of the Twelve Great Livery Companies of London, 2vols (London, 1834-36), i, pp .77-80 (Brewers , 1419 , 1425), ii, pp. 238-39 (Goldsmiths , 1474 , 1495, 1498, 1499).

45 Leet Jurisdiction i n the City o f Norwich, ed. Hudson , p. 8 .46 In 1312-1 3 they were also accused o f reheating fish . Leet Jurisdiction i n the City of

Norwich, ed . Hudson , pp . 13 , 15 , 16 , 1 9 (1287-88) , 3 2 (1288-89) , 4 9 (1295-96) , 5 4(1299-1300), 60 (1312-13) . Cf. the amercemen t o f a cook in 1390-9 1 for sellin g a nunwholesome cooked goose, p. 71.

47 Prestwich, York Civic Ordinances, pp. 15-16 , 21.


who were identified in a royal writ as 'lax in thei r work' and who wereordered t o be punished.48

In 1380 a set of ordinances was imposed on the pastelers of London,because they had been illegally making pasties of unwholesome rabbits,geese and 'garbage' (offal),49 'sometimes stinking', and had also beenbaking beef into pasties and sellin g it as venison. The new ordinancesforbade th e pasteler s to bake rabbits and gees e into pasties, or t o sellbeef pasties as venison. We are not told where the pastelers had obtainedtheir putrid rabbit s and geese, but they evidently purchased thei r offa lat the back doors of up-market cookshops and wealthy households. Thisis revealed by an additional injunction, which forbade the pasteler s tobuy 'an y garbage ' o f capons , hen s o r gees e fro m an y cook o f BreadStreet, or from cook s at the private houses of great lords, to bake intopasties.50 Similar ordinances were promulgated i n fourteenth-centuryWinchester and Nottingham.51 Much the same picture is to be found inCoventry, where in 1421 cooks were forbidden to sell reheated meat; tocast feathers, hair or pig entrails in the street ; to sell the best goose formore than 4d. ; or to buy dead pike or eels to bake into pies.52 In Yorkin 1424 the cooks' own company ordinances acknowledged that untrainedwomen did much of the actual cooking, and ordered tha t thenceforth'the wives of any other artisans should no t bake, boil nor roas t food inpublic shops, for sale, unless they are competent to do so'.53

Contemporary literature als o presents a picture of sleazy pie shops .Chaucer's Cook of London, Hodg e o f Ware, had a suspiciously ulcer-ated leg and was mocked by Harry Bailly, the Host of the Tabard Inn in

48 Calendar o f Plea and Memoranda Rolls, 1323-64, ed. Thomas, p . 45.49 Two fifteenth-century English cooker y books include recipe s for 'garbage ' tha t

begin: Take fayre garbagys of chykonys, as the hed, the fete, the lyuerys, an the gysowrys'.Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books, ed. Thomas Austin, EETS, original series, no. 91 (London,1888), pp. 9 , 72.

50 Memorials o f London, ed. Riley, p. 438; Calendar o f Letter-Books, H, ed. Sharpe , p . 139.Bread Street evidentl y was known fo r its respectable cookshops; cooks o f Bread Stree twere routinely empanelled to scrutinize the products sold by other cooks and pie bak-ers of London. Cf. cases in 1355,1373 and 1374 in Calendar of Plea and Memoranda Rolls,1323-1364, ed. Thomas, p. 251; ibid., 1364-1381, p. 163; and Calendar of Letter-Books, G,ed. Sharpe, pp. 332-33.

51 Keene, Winchester Studies 2, p. 274 and n . 8.52 Th e Coventry Leet Book or Mayor's Register, ed. Mar y Dormer Harris, EETS, origina l

series, vols 134-35 (1907), p. 26. In 1474 the cooks of Coventry were forbidden t o seethe,roast or bake unwholesome mea t or fish, or to reheat it, on pain of 40d. for the first twooffences, an d the pillory for a third. Ibid., pp. 398-99.

53 Swanson, Medieval Artisans, p. 17.


Southwark, a s notorious fo r hi s sogg y pasties, hi s reheate d pies , hi sunwholesome parsley garnishes and his fly-filled shop.54 Hodge's identifica-tion with Ware may be intended t o reflect the unappealing character ofthe cookshop s there , which would explain why wealthy travellers didnot patronize them. His unsavoury shop finds an earlier parallel in Francein the early thirteenth-century sermons ofjacques de Vitry. 'I have heard',he said, 'of a certain butcher who used to sell cooked meats.' When oneof the butcher's customers , hoping t o get a discount, said that he hadbought mea t fro m n o on e els e fo r th e pas t seven years, the butche rreplied i n astonishment , 'you hav e done thi s for s o long a time , an dyou're still alive?'55 In Paris in the 1390 s the Menagier included recipesin his household boo k for making sausages, puddings and pasties , butdid no t sugges t that his wife purchas e thes e from a commercial cook,although he did recommend the system used by Paris cookshops to fat-ten geese.56 In England, the saying 'God sends meat, but the devil sendscooks' had become proverbial by the 1540s. 57

Since people of means evidently avoided cookshops, the cooks' mainclientele must have been th e poor , for whom hot meat , and eve n ho tfood, was a luxury.58 In Piers Plowman, Langland writes that poor towns-men wit h families lived on bread an d thi n ale, with perhaps a scrap ofcold mea t o r stal e fish; while poor widows , who kept themselves andtheir children by spinning, spent thei r meagre earnings on rent , milkand oatmeal. 59 Francois Villon draws a very similar picture of the die tof the poor in mid fifteenth-century Paris . The friar s and nuns, he say sscornfully, enjo y flans, capons and fa t hens;60 the wealthy layfolk regale

54 Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, General Prologue, lines 379-87, and Cook's Prologue.55 TheExempla . . . ofjacques d e Vitry, ed . Thomas Frederick Crane (1890 ; reprinted

New York, 1971), pp. 70 , 201 .56 Goodman of Paris, ed. Power , pp . 223 , 224 , 248-50, 269-70, 278, 282 , 291-92, 308 .57 John Simpson, Th e Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs (Oxford , 1982) , p. 94 .58 This was true even in the countryside. Langland asserts that during the lean months

of the year, in late winter and spring, poor peasants made do with cheese, curds, oatcakesand loave s made of peas and beans. Lacking even eggs and bacon, their main hot foo dconsisted of vegetables and bake d apples. After th e harvest , however , the y demandednot onl y fresh food , bu t hot food: meat and fish, either fried o r baked, and served uppiping hot . Piers Plowman, B-text , passu s VI, lines 282-313 . Similarly , Chaucer' s poorwidowed dairywoman, who lived wit h he r tw o daughters in a little cottage, survived o nslender meals made up largely of cold food - mil k and brown bread - wit h bacon andan occasional egg as her mai n source of hot food . Nun's Priest's Tale, first 26 lines.

59 Piers Plowman, C-text, x , lines 71-97.60 Villon, Th e Poems o f Francois Villon, ed. an d trans . Galway Kinnell (Boston , 1977) ,

The Legacy' , lines 249-52: '/temje laisse aux Mendians/Aux Filles Dieu et aux Beguines/Savoureux morceaulx et frians/Flaons, chappons , grasses gelines' .


themselves on goo d wines, sauces, stews , fat fish, tarts, flans, poachedand fried eggs, cream, frumenty and rice;61 while the poor make do withtoast made of brown bread , eaten with onions , leeks , curds (mathon)and soup (potee, a 'potful' of anything), or starve all year round on a dietof barley bread or oat bread and water. When patrons need refreshmentin the brothel where Villon lives and works, he offers them water, cheese,bread and fruit - al l cold foods. 62

The poor in medieval English towns, like the poor of imperial Rome,often ha d scant y cookin g facilitie s o r eve n non e at all . Purpose-builtkitchens, with ovens as well as hearths or fireplaces, were largely restrictedto the house s of the wealthy. 63 In Colcheste r in 1301 , only 3 per cen t(eleven out of 389) of the taxpaying households were described as hav-ing a kitchen.64 The row s of small houses built for rent to artisans typi-cally lacked kitchens altogether.65 Those whose lodgings included a hearth,or perhaps the share d use of one, still might own little or no cookin gequipment, nor migh t they be able to buy staple provisions or fue l i nbulk. A number of inventories survive that allow us to look right insidethe homes of individual householders to see not only what kitchen facili-

61 Villon, Poems, ed. Kinnell, The Testament' , lines 249-52: 'Bons vins ont, souventembrochiez/Saulces, brouet z e t gro s poissons/Tartes , flans , oef s frit z e t pochiez /Perdus e t e n toute s facons' ; line s 1762-64 : ' . . . seigneurs o u dames/Soue f e t ten -drement nourris/De cresme, fromentee ou riz'.

62 Villon, Poems, ed. Kinnell, The Testament' , lines 1485-87,1493-94, 1595-97.63 In the fourteenth centur y such kitchens were still frequently housed in detache d

buildings. John Schofield, Th e Building of London from th e Conquest to the Great Fire (London,1984), p. 91.

64 Rotuli parliamentorum, ed. Record Commission, 6 vols (n.d. , c . 1767-83; index vol.1832), i, pp. 243-65. In London, on e detached kitchen , dating t o the late fourteenthcentury, was found i n excavation s in Abchurch Lane , althoug h elsewher e in th e cit ydemand fo r space seem s more commonl y to have pushed th e kitche n into th e mai nhouse-building. John Schofield and Alan Vince, Medieval Towns (London , 1994) , p. 72.

65 For example, in 1335 in York a carpenter contracte d t o build a row of seven rentalhouses, eac h consistin g simpl y of a ground-floor roo m an d a jettied chambe r above ,with a chimney. L.F. Salzman, Building in England down t o 1540: A Documentary History(rev. edn , Oxford, 1967) , pp. 430-32. There are surviving examples of such rows at Yorkat Lady Row (60-72 Goodramgate), buil t c . 1316 a s a row of nine o r te n two-storeye dhouses, eac h store y containing a single room o f about te n fee t b y fifteen feet; an d asimilar row in Newgate, built in 1337. Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, YorkHistoric Buildings in the Central Area: A Photographic Record (London, 1981), p. 11 , pis 117,135. These rows are discussed in Philip Short, Th e Fourteenth-Centur y Row s of York',Archaeological Journal, 13 7 (1979), pp. 86-136. Archaeological evidenc e of houses on eroom dee p has been foun d in London (elevent h century), Winchester (thirteent h orearly fourteenth century) , Norwich and Perth . Schofiel d an d Vince , Medieval Towns,p. 74.


ties they had, bu t eve n what cookware and food the y contained.66 Forexample, in th e fourteenth-centur y Londo n coroners ' rolls , man y ofthe men named fo r murder or manslaughter wer e said to have had n ochattels; o f thos e wit h chattels , man y had n o cookin g equipmen t o rtableware.67 In fact , i n th e nin e surviving rolls , onl y seve n entrie s listkitchen utensils among the goods of accused felons.68 The kitchen itemsmost commonly noted were brass pots, of which the cheapest was valuedat about 6d., or more than a day's wages for most Londoners,69 while themost expensive cost 6s. or more.70 A man who killed his wife in 1339, fo rexample, had chattel s worth 15s . 5d., of which the only kitchen utensi lwas a brass pot valued a t 3s.71

Similar level s of poverty can be documented i n other English town sat this time. In Oxford, the coroner's rolls and the records of the eyreof 1285 record that , a s in London, man y of the accused felon s had n o

66 See, e.g., Christopher Dyer, Standards ofLivingin th e Later Middle Ages: Social Changein England, c . 1200-1520 (Cambridge, 1989), p. 206.

67 One suc h man was William de Grymysby , a shopkeeper of the parish of St BenetFink who killed a man in 1322. His chattels consisted of three small pigs, a board (ship-pingbord), a broken chest and table , a pair of sheets, a blanket, a cloth and other smallthings, altogether worth only 6s. llrd. Of two men who killed a third in 1323 , one ( afishmonger) had no chattels, and the other (whos e occupation is not given) had chat-tels worth only 21d., consisting of two worn sheets, a blanket, a cloak and a chest contain-ing hal f a bushel of beans, but n o cookwar e or tableware. Calendar o f Coroners Rolls, ed.Sharpe, pp . 70-71.

68 Other kitche n items recorded include d bras s and iron pans , a brass bowl, a tinpitcher, trencher knives, basins and ewers, and a few items of tableware: costrels, woodencups, a mazer, and som e posnets and dishes . Calendar o f Coroners Rolls, ed. Sharpe , pp .74-75, 75-76, 87-89,147-48,161-63,173-74, 245-47. Cf. Calendar of Letter-Books, B, ed.Sharpe, pp. 256-79 (Londo n coroner' s roll , 1275-76, an d rol l of felonies, 1278; manyof these entries are given in ful l in Memorials o f London, ed. Riley, pp. 3-20) . Similar listsof brassware occur amon g th e item s pledged b y defaulting Londo n debtor s i n 1303 .Memorials o f London, ed. Riley , pp. 48-50; see also pp. 199-200 .

69 The daily wages of skilled building workers in southern England rose during th efourteenth centur y from 3d . in the 1340 s to 5d. in the 1390s ; those of unskilled crafts -men rose from l^d . to 3d. per day during the same period. Christopher Dyer and SimonA. C. Penn, 'Wages and Earnings in Late Medieval England: Evidence from the Enforce-ment of the Labour Laws', Economic History Review, 2nd series, 43 (1990), p. 305; reprinte din Christopher Dyer, Everyday Life in Medieval England (London and Rio Grande, Ohio,1994), p. 167.

70 Before the fourteenth centur y clay pots were commonly used for cooking, bu t inthe fourteent h century these were increasingly superseded b y much more expensiv epots and pans of metal, chiefly brass. J.B. Ward Perkins, London Museum: Medieval Catalogue(London, 1940 , reprinted 1975), p. 220; Michael R. McCarthy and Catherine M . Brooks,Medieval Pottery i n Britain, AD 900-1600 (Leicester, 1988), p. 107 .

71 Calendar of Coroners Rolls, ed. Sharpe, pp. 245-47 ; cf . pp. 87-89, 183-84.


chattels, those with chattels often had very little, and few had any kitch-enware.72 An especially full set of inventories was compiled at Colcheste rin the course of the assessment of a fifteenth in 1301. The return givesdetails of personal property for 389 taxpayers in the town and its suburbs,listing all items of value, both domesti c and commercial. 73 Items relat-ing t o food include metal cookware; stocks of wheat, rye, barley, oatsand oatmeal ; pigs , cattle and sheep ; fres h an d preserve d meat; beansand peas; and a few miscellaneous other foods, such as spices and lard .Stocks of malt are noted in thirty households, but stocks of ale do no tappear; wine is noted in two entries, an d fish in only one. Poultry anddairy products are not mentioned and evidently were not assessed.

The overwhelming impression conveyed by this return is that the generalstandard of living in Colchester i n 130 1 was low and tha t many of th etaxpayers, who after all represented the economically sufficient household-ers,74 bought thei r food from da y to day, lacking the resources to buy itin bulk , and perhap s als o lacking the mean s t o cook it a t home. Fo rexample, of the 389 taxpayers, only 47 per cent (184 out of 389) ownedany metal cookware . Despite th e fac t that this assessment was taken a tMichaelmas, just afte r the harvest , only about 44 per cen t (17 1 out of389) ha d stock s of grain o r oatmeal . Forty-si x per cen t (177 ) ownedcattle or sheep, and 40 per cent (155 out of 389) owned pigs. Only 2 percent of the households (nine out of 389) had beans or peas; and abou t1.5 per cen t (si x out of 389) had some salt meat.

Another striking feature of this list is the absence of prepared food savailable at retail in the town. Two men sold mustard, and one had somevinegar, bu t n o othe r condimen t o r sauce; 75 one woman, a huckster ,had 15d . worth of bread fo r sale. 76 Of the tw o identifiable cooks, one

72 In 1298, for example, a man from Holywell, who fled after killing a man, had onlya worn hanging and a pair of worn sheets, altogether worth 20d. Oxford City Documents,Financial and Judicial, 1268-1665, ed.J.E. Thorold Rogers, Oxford Historical Society , 18(1891), pp. 145-236 (coroners ' roll s and eyre) , pp. 153-54 (chattels worth 20d.).

73 Rotuliparliamentorum, \, pp. 243-65; see also a briefer assessment for Colchester in1296 on pp . 228-38 . The fou r suburbs are Lexeden, Miland', Grenested, e t West Donylandinfra libertatem ejusdem Burgi existent'. The assessment of 1301 is described in M.W. Barley,TheEnglishFarmhouse and Cottage (London, 1961), pp. 18-20; both assessments are discussedin Georg e Rickword , 'Taxations of Colchester , AD 1296 and 1301' , Transactions o f theEssex Archaeological Society, new series, 9 (1906) , pp. 126-55 .

74 They included a handful of priests and heads of religious houses.75 Rotuli parliamentorum, i, pp. 250 (Robert le Mustarder).76 Rotuli parliamentorum, i, p. 254 (Agnes la Regratere). Her 15d . worth of loaves for

sale (pane venal*) were the only taxable chattel s she possessed.


had 3s. worth offish; the other had no commercial stock on hand.77 Theassessors listed no stocks of bread among the chattels of the seven identifi-able bakers, and two of them also lacked any stock of grain.78 The near-absence of commercial food stocks suggests that much of the commercialbaking and cooking at Colchester was done with dough an d meat sup-plied by the customers.

These inventories all date from the 1280s to the 1330s, when the popula-tion was at or near its medieval peak, and when poverty was widespread.In the century and a half following the Black Death the living standardsof peasants generally rose, but Michel Mollat has argued that 'the sceneof poverty shifted from th e countrysid e to the cities'. 79 He found , forexample, that among the agricultural labourers in the grain-producingareas of the Ile-de-France the poverty rate was only 10-12 per cent in thefifteenth century . In heavil y urbanized Hainaut , Artois , Braban t an dparts of Holland, however, about 2 0 to 30 per cen t of the populatio nwere poor, while in Basel, Genoa, Liibeck, Augsburg and Dijon the levelof poverty was even higher, sometimes much higher.80

There are a number of extant city-wide enumerations of populationand food stocks for continental cities that support Mollat's grim picture.At Reims in Februar y 1422, for example , recent rises in th e pric e ofgrain triggere d th e cit y authoritie s t o conduc t a censu s of residents('mouths') an d thei r stocks of rye, wheat and oats . The return s of twoof the city' s thirteen parishes survive, those for Saint-Hilaire and Saint-Pierre. They were among the wealthiest parishes in the city, at the heartof the main commercial district.81 Their returns yield a picture of urban

77 Thomas Cocus (Rotuliparliamentorum, i , p. 247) had chattel s worth 18s . 8d., includ -ing a cooking pot, a pan an d th e fish; Dyke Coquus (p. 254) ha d onl y 4s. worth o f chat -tels, comprising a surcoat (2s. ) and tw o piglets (2s.) .

78 The seve n identifiabl e baker s are: John de Geywood (Rotuli parliamentorum, i, p.247; assessed for 63s. 5d. in chattels, including wheat and rye) , William so n of Note (p .256; 21s. 7d. in chattels, includin g wheat), Walter Moteky n (p . 257; 11s. 9^d. in chattels ,including wheat and rye), Thomas Tynnot (p. 257; 44s. 8d. in chattels, including wheat),William Pistor de Schrebstrate (p. 258; 20s. 6d. in chattels; no grain), Peter Pistor (p. 258;his only chattel a tunic valued at 19d.), and Germanus Pistor (p. 263; 7s. 6d. in chattels,including wheat).

79 Michel Mollat , Th e Poor in the Middle Ages: An Essay i n Social History, trans. ArthurGoldhammer (Ne w Haven and London, 1986), p. 233.

80 Mollat, Poor in th e Middle Ages, 233-35; Bronislaw Geremek , Th e Margins o f Societyin Late Medieval Paris, trans. Jean Birrell (Cambridg e and Paris , 1987), p. 81 n. 57.

81 Pierre Desportes, 'La population de Reim s a u XVe siecle', Moyen age, 77 (1966),pp. 463-509 . The retur n fo r th e paris h o f Saint-Hilair e liste d 181 0 residents in 472households; that of Saint-Pierre listed 136 5 residents (to which should be added abouttwenty for eight blanks in the MS) living in 381 households. Saint-Pierre definitely, an d


provisioning strongly resembling that of Colchester in 1301. Almost halfthe households of Saint-Hilaire, and 4 1 per cen t of the households ofSaint-Pierre, had no stocks of grain at all.82 The return for Saint-Pierrealso listed stocks of peas and beans (potage), an d bacon (lars) ; only about10 per cent of the households had these . In that parish almos t a thirdof the households , representin g 2 0 per cen t of the populatio n o f theparish, had n o stocks of provisions at all, not even the least quantity ofpeas and beans. Not surprisingly, it was the richest households that hadthe largest stockpiles of food. In Saint-Pierre twelve households, represent-ing 6 per cent of the residents, had more than 39 per cent of the stocks,and in Saint-Hilaire twelve households, representing only 5 per cent ofthe inhabitants, accounted for 44 per cent of the stocks.83

In England, Christopher Dyer has found extensive evidence that urbanliving standards in general were rising during this period, exemplifiedby such indicators as increased consumption of meat and larger, better-built housing.84 However, there clearly remained a large stratum of poortown-dwellers, whose needs were not met by public charity. In fifteenth-century Worcester, for example , wit h a population o f about 4000 , hefound tha t th e municipa l charities could provid e for onl y about 120paupers, representin g 3 per cent of the population, while the elderlyalone should have made up a t least 9.5 per cen t of the population, orclose t o 400 people.85 The ful l numbe r o f paupers in Worcester mayhave been twic e that figure. David Shaw has estimated that the poor inlate medieval Wells numbered u p to 20 per cent of the population, i nline with sixteenth-centur y figures for Coventr y (about 2 5 per cent) ,Norwich (2 2 per cent ) an d Worcester ( 2 to 20 per cent).86

Many of the urban poo r in late medieval England, despite generally

continued

Saint-Hilaire probably, included infants in these enumerations; both also included religious.The total population o f the city at this time probably was about 9000. Ibid., pp. 479-80,495.

82 Of those with stocks, the principal grain was rye (listed for 55 per cent of households),followed by wheat (33 per cent ) and oats (12 per cent).

83 None of the latter twenty-four householders was a grain merchant. Desportes, 'Lapopulation de Reims,' pp. 504-8. Interestingly, ten out of the eleven bakers listed in thereturns had no grain stocks themselves, and the eleventh only a modest supply, suggest-ing that the bakers were forbidden t o deal in grain themselves, and that their principa lwork was baking dough furnished by their customers. Ibid., p. 505 and n . 112.

84 Dyer, Standards o f Living, chapter 7, pp. 188-210. Cf. pp. 67-70 , below.85 Dyer, Standards of Living, pp. 252-53.86 David Gary Shaw, Th e Creation o f a Community: Th e City o f Wells i n th e Middle Ages

(Oxford, 1993) , p. 229.


rising wages and falling food prices and rents, were unable t o afford th erent of an entir e house . Thi s was especially true o f single adults . Fo rexample, th e accounts of the churchwardens of the London churc h o fSt Mary-at-Hill for 1483-85 list ten men, including three of the church' sstipendiary priests , who each rented a single chamber from the church,at annual rents ranging from 6s. 8d. to 12s. The same accounts also listtwo male tenants who shared a house.87 Some working men had meal sprovided a s part o f their wages . In th e 1420s , some o f the carpenter sand othe r workmen doin g day-wor k at S t Mary-at-Hill were given , aspart of their wage, noontime dinner s of bread, ale and joints of muttonor ribs of beef.88 But many single working men did not receive meals aspart of their wages, and would have had to take their meal s out .

Elderly and invalid men who lived alone seem generally to have beenconsidered unable to cook for themselves. This is suggested by the regula-tions an d intak e record s o f almshouses, whic h heavily favoured mal einmates. Of the 326 or so medieval hospitals and almshouses in Englandand Wale s tha t at some stage in thei r existence housed th e non-sic kpoor,89 the sex of the poor inmates is known for 169 houses. More thanhalf o f these (eighty-nin e houses; 5 2 per cen t of 169) too k poo r me nonly. A third (fifty-si x houses ; 3 3 per cen t of 169) too k both men an dwomen, and several of these took no single or widowed women, but onlythe wive s of almsmen. A mere 1 4 per cen t (twenty-fou r houses ) too kpoor women only.90 For example, a t the hospital of the Holy Saviour inWells (founded in 1436 ) Davi d Shaw has found that, of thirty-one alm-speople whose sex is known, twenty-four (7 7 per cent ) were men. Only

87 The Medieval Records of a London City Church (St Mary at Hill), AD 1420-1559, ed..Henry Littlehales, EETS, original series, 128 (London, 1905), pp. 112-13, 115 .

88 These meals were described as nonsiens (nuncheons) or none mete. Medieval Records,ed. Littlehales, pp. 64,65,71 (1426-29). Forty-five years later, in 1479-81, the churchwardenswere no longer providing dinners for workmen, but the y did sometimes supply themwith snacks of bread and ale , and a n occasional breakfast (pp . 102, 104); this customhad largel y disappeared, however , by the 1490s . In Durham, the masons hired in 139 8and 140 2 to rebuild th e dormitor y o f the cathedra l prior y were given thei r meal s inaddition to a set fee for the work and a new gown each year. Salzman, Building in England,pp. 473-77.

89 David Knowles and R . Neville Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses, England and Wales(rev. edn, London, 1971) , pp. 339-410. In al l they list about 1103 hospitals and aims -houses (th e number is approximate because there is uncertainty in some cases aboutthe nature of the foundation or the existence of the house). Many of these houses alsohad other inmates, such as poor wayfarers, local sick people or scholars, in addition totheir staffs of brothers and sisters.

90 The se x of the poo r inmates is unknown in 15 7 of these houses (48 per cen t of326).


seven (2 3 per cent ) were women, and a t least two of these were admit-ted because thei r late husbands had been benefactor s of the house.91

Poor single women and widows, who were thus largely excluded fromthe almshouses, must have fared badly. Some shared a house with another;for example , th e renta l o f the Londo n churc h o f S t Mary-at-Hill fo r1483-85 lists two widows who shared a house at the annual rent of 8s.92

Some unmarried women boarded with families.93 But many must havelived in garret rooms and other cheap lodgings, lacking not only kitchensbut eve n hearths . Widow s especially were often identifie d a s a needygroup. I n Coventr y in th e earl y 1520s, where there wer e almost ninetimes as many widows as widowers, about half of these widows lived alone,many o f them , accordin g t o Charle s Phythian-Adams , 'in extrem epoverty'.94 In London, widows of husbands who died seised in fee of afamily hom e wer e entitled t o thei r 'fre e bench ' fo r lif e o r unti l theyremarried. That is, they had the right to the exclusive use of the hall, theprincipal private chamber and the cellar, and to share in the use of thekitchen, stable, privy and courtyard.95 However, this custom only protectedthe widows of home-owners, and was no protection for those who livedin rented accommodation . The latte r could have remained only for solong as they paid the rent, and many must have ended up moving intocold, cheerless rooms. Some evidence for thi s can be seen in the will sof poor widows, in which bequests of articles of clothing and beddin gare common, while furnishings, cooking utensils and tablewar e occurmuch les s frequently. This is the pictur e suggested b y Robert Wood'srecent study of the archdeaconry court wills of forty-nine poor London

91 Shaw, Creation o f a Community, pp. 241-43 .92 Medieval Records, ed. Littlehales, p. 115.93 Some single women boarded with families. In the 1470s-80s the rates paid by poor

women fo r bed and board ranged from 6d. a week in Romford (Essex) , to 16d. a weekin Exeter and London; by contrast, the board costs in Cambridge of a lawyer's fianceeand her maid came to 3s. 4d. a week. PRO, C 1/67/20 (Romford), C1/60/168 (Exeter),C 1/64/764 (London), C 1/61/584-85 (Cambridge). In 1381 th e London widow whohad bee n the guardian for the previous fou r years of the son of Sir Thomas Salesbur yclaimed cost s of 5s. a week for the meals of the boy and hi s servants. Memorials o f London,ed. Riley , p. 448 .

94 Charles Phythian-Adams, Desolation of a City: Coventry an d th e Urban Crisis of the LateMiddle Ages (Cambridge, 1979) , p . 92.

95 Barbara A . Hanawalt, The Widow' s Mite: Provisions for Medieval London Widows',in Upon M y Husband's Death: Widows i n th e Literature and Histories o f Medieval Europe, ed .Louise Mirre r (An n Arbor , Michigan , 1992) , p. 23 . This was more generous than th ecommon la w of England, which allowed a widow to remain i n the capita l messuag e fo rforty days only (ibid. , p. 41 n. 5). For an Oxford lawsui t over free bench, se e Oxford CityDocuments, ed. Thorold Rogers, pp . 234—3 5 (eyre of 1285).


widows for th e years 1393-1415.96 The thirty-fiv e women's wills surviv-ing in the registers of the consistory court of London for the years 1514-47give a similar impression: the bequest s of well-to-do women generallyincluded kitchenware or tableware, as well as furniture, furnishings andother househol d items . The poore r women , however, often lef t littl ebeyond clothing and bedding. Their wills suggest that these women endedtheir days in cheap lodgings and bare rooms, unprovided with the meansto make their own meals.97 Indeed, in 1541 one husband acknowledgedthis likelihood in his will, mourning that his estate was 'to little for theperfirmance o f my beriall and t o rendre m y wyfe a poore chambre'. 98

For all such households the onl y source o f baked food, and ofte n o fhot food of any sort, would have been the commercial bakers and cooks.At least some municipal authorities saw cookshops a s places intendedspecifically to provide hot food for the poor. London, a s we have seen,attempted to legislate price controls on the foods sold by cooks in 1350,in 1362-63 and in 1378; in 1379 the pie bakers of London were specifi-cally ordered t o 'bake pasties of beef a t one halfpenny , just as good asthose a t a penny', on pain of a fine of half a mark.99 Other towns alsotried to enforce the availability of such cheap, hot fare. In Coventry in1427, for instance , the cook s also were ordered to make halpeny pyes asother Townes doth on pain o f half a mark for each default. 100

In fac t it seems likely that cooks and cookshops can serve as a roughgauge o f population and econom y in medieval towns. They are not, aswe have seen, a n indicato r o f wealth: wealthy residents and traveller salike seem generally to have avoided cookshops, preferring to buy rawfood in bulk and to have it prepared and cooked for them in their homesor lodgings , excep t when they were entertaining such large number sthat their own kitchens and staf f were insufficient. Nor are cookshops asimple indicator of poverty: the poor in small or underpopulated townslived in meagre bar e dwellings , but ha d hearth s and coul d boi l or fry

96 Robert A. Wood, 'Poor Widows, c. 1393-1415', in Medieval London Widows, 1300-1500, ed. Carolin e M . Barren an d Ann e F . Sutton (Londo n an d Ri o Grande, Ohio ,1994) pp . 59-69. (This essay gives an impressionistic rathe r tha n a statistical account ofthe provisions o f the wills of forty-nine 'poor' and 'ver y poor' London widows , makingmy commen t abou t th e relativ e reference s o f clothing/bedding an d kitchenware /tableware tentative rather tha n certain. )

97 London Consistory Court Wills, 1492-1547, ed. Ida Darlington, London Record Society,3 (London, 1967) .

98 London Consistory Court Wills, ed. Darlington, no . 128 .99 Memorials o f London, ed. Riley , pp. 157 , 432 ; Calendar o f Letter-Books, G , ed. Sharpe ,

p. 150 .100 Coventry Leet Book, ed. Harris , p . 111 .


hot food at home, although the y must have carried thei r bread dough ,pies and joints of meat to the ovens of the local bakers. Rather, I wouldsuggest, as a rough rul e o f thumb, that in a town where the cooks wereabout a s numerous a s the baker s o r outnumbere d them , on e woul dexpect t o find a high populatio n density , and probably a high rati o ofsingle-adult households , where poor residents were crowded into cheaplodgings that were unprovided with the means to cook a meal. In a townwhere, by contrast, the bakers greatly outnumbered th e cooks, the popula-tion densit y probably was much lower , and th e percentag e o f single-adult households probabl y also was much lower.

Population studie s for several towns provide some evidence for test-ing this model. Around th e year 1300, for example, Colchester , with apopulation of about 3000,101 had seven identifiable bakers and only twoidentifiable cooks;102 while York, which was much more densely inhabited,had some three dozen bakers and an equal number (thirty-five ) of cooks.103

In Winchester there were about twelv e bakers in 1300 . As the popula -tion there fell in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, so too did thenumber of bakers: only about six or seven bakers were active in Winchesterat any one time between c . 1360 and c . 1380, and only about three to fivewere working at a time in the first three-quarters of the fifteenth century.104

In the fourteenth century there were about as many cooks as bakers inWinchester, but as the city's population continued to erode in the fifteenthcentury the number o f cooks there dropped belo w the number of bak-ers. The fe w remaining cooks als o sol d fres h meat and fres h and sal tfish,105 which suggest s that there wer e insufficient customer s for meatpies and cooked meat s to keep even the small number of cooks in busi-ness. The poll-tax returns o f 1377 and 138 1 provide some comparativefigures for Worceste r an d Southwark . Worcester had a population a tthat time of about 2500-3000 people.106 Most of the householders ther e

101 Richard Britnell, Growth and Decline in Colchester, 1300-1525 (Cambridge, 1986),p. 16.

102 Rotuliparliamentorum, i, pp. 243-65 (1301).103 Prestwich, York Civic Ordinances, pp. 21-2 8 (1304) .104 Keene, Winchester Studies, 2, pp. 254-55.105 Keene, Winchester Studies, 2, i, pp. 273-74 and table 26. (N.B.: the victualling entries

in table 26 are mistakenly printed back to back, rather than on facing pages.) Winchester'spopulation fell from a total of about 10,000-12,000 , c. 1300, to c.5000-8000 in 1400; bythe earl y to mid sixteenth centur y it had falle n agai n t o about 3400-530 0 residents .Ibid., i, pp. 142-43, 366-68.

106 Caroline M. Barren, The Fourteenth-Centur y Poll Tax Returns for Worcester',Midland History, 1 4 (1989), p. 7.

Fast Food and Urban Living Standards in Medieval England 51

were married, and only about 13 per cent were single men or women.107

In contrast , Southwark , with a population o f about 2000-2100, 108 hadan extremely high rati o of singletons: 41 per cen t of the householder sthere wer e single adults. 109 Strikingly, the return fo r Worcester identi -fies thre e baker s and n o cooks, 110 while the retur n fo r Southwark listssix bakers and te n cooks (si x cooks and four pie bakers).111

In conclusion, it seems to me that what we are seeing here is a patternthat wa s as familiar in th e pas t a s i t i s today. Fast food flourishe d i nmedieval English towns among those who could least afford it, but whosecircumstances made it irresistible. For the working poor, especially thoseliving alone , snatchin g a meal i n th e middl e o f the day , or returnin gexhausted t o a chilly room afte r th e market s were closed,112 fas t foo dvendors offered a hot mea l that was ready to eat and required n o time -consuming, laborious preparation an d clean-up. For the very poor andthe homeless , who lacked acces s to cooking facilities an d equipment ,and wh o did no t have stocks of food and fuel , fas t food was often thei ronly source o f hot foo d at all. Those colourfu l street cries of Paris andLondon, s o vividly reported b y Guillaume d e l a Ville Neuve , WilliamLangland and the unknown author of London Lyckpenny, thereforerepresent no t only the liveliness and opportunitie s of medieval city life,but als o its darker sid e of poverty, misery and hunger for a hot meal .

107 For this tabulation I have used Barren's figures from 137 7 o f 845 total taxpayersand 31 3 wives (p . 3), 159 servants and seve n children (p . 14) , forty-eight single-personhouseholds (p . 13) , an d eleve n unmarrie d householder s wit h servant s o r childre n(P- 14) .

108 Carlin, Medieval Southwark, chapter 5, 'Population'.109 Of the 576 householders in Southwark, 19 per cent were single men and 2 2 per

cent were single women. Carlin, Medieval Southwark, table 5.4 .110 PRO, E 179/200/27, printed in Barron , 'Fourteenth-Centur y Poll Ta x Returns

for Worcester' , pp. 24-29. Worcester's 138 1 retur n largely exclude s single men, singl ewomen and servants . Ibid., pp. 6-7.

111 PRO, E 179/184/30; Carlin, Medieval Southwark, appendix 1.112 In London the cookshops, unlike the markets , were open at night. Fitz Stephen

noted that the publica coquina near the river was open day and night (qualibet diei velnoctis hard). In 1410 the king's sons Thomas and John were eating supper in Eastcheapon midsumme r eve after midnigh t when the y became embroiled in an affray ; thi s ledto th e impositio n of a nine o'clock curfew o n th e cookshop s and taverns . Chronicles ofLondon, ed . Kingsford , pp. 268 , 341 .

51

4

Did the Peasants Really Starve in Medieval England?

Christopher Dyer

My title i s taken from a chapter headin g fro m Th e World W e Have Lost.In that distinguished book on historical demography and social structuresin earl y modern England , Peter Laslet t was anxious t o enquire i f theEnglish had suffered th e same miseries as their French contemporaries ,revealed in Goubert's work. In England, although Laslett felt that condi-tions were far from idyllic, and that in some years the harvests failed insuccessive years , as in th e 1590s , periodi c episode s o f high mortalit ywere more likely to be th e product s of epidemic disease than crise s offood supply.

In characteristically colourful fashion he produced an example of anindividual who showed tha t som e peopl e survive d the threat s o f th eperiod. This was Alice George, who encountered John Locke in Oxfordin 1680 . She said that she was 108 years old, having been bor n i n Salt-wich in Worcestershire, and remembered a t the age of sixteen going tosee Elizabeth I at Worcester in the year of the Armada in 1588. The oldlady's claims make a good story, though she must have been misleadingLocke, as Elizabeth visited Worcester in 1575 . No r can she be dennedas a peasant, if we use the term to describe a small-scale rural cultivator.Alice George cam e from th e salt-makin g town o f Droitwich, an d ha dlived in an urban environment for al l of her life . But let us not b e to opedantic abou t thi s example ; th e poin t i s that , althoug h sh e ha dexperienced hunge r i n he r youth , sh e ha d live d to a rip e ol d age .Incidentally, sh e attributed he r longevity , not t o abstinence fro m th epleasures of life of which centenarians normally boast, but to her avoid-ance of any medicines.1

1 P. Laslett, Th e World W e Have Lost (2nd edn , London , 1971) , pp . 115-16 ; reissue das, The World We Have Lost, Further Explored (London , 1983) , pp. 124-25 . Various scholarshave contributed information an d advic e to this paper, includin g Mark Overton, Rich-ard Smith and Christopher Thornton. Earlier versions of this essay were given as papersat the universitie s of Birmingham, Exeter an d Kent . I have benefited fro m comment sand criticism s mad e o n thos e occasions . I am gratefu l to Joel Rosentha l an d Marth aCarlin for their subsequent help.


More recent research, using quantitative rather than anecdotal evidence,has served to confirm Laslett's belief that English people in the sixteenthand seventeent h centurie s di d no t suffe r majo r crise s of subsistence .Appleby argued that the people of the north suffered in bad years because,unlike their souther n an d midland contemporaries , they did not haveinferior grains on which to fall back when bread corns failed - there wasnothing cheaper than the oats grown exclusively in much of the northernuplands. Eve n in the north th e ris e in agricultural productivity in th eseventeenth century , and the improvements in the marketing network,meant that the English rural population suffere d much less in the crisesof the 1690s than did their French counterparts.2 More recent work hasoffered a n even more optimistic picture. If those relying on wages weremost vulnerable a s food price s were drive n u p b y shortages, w e nowunderstand tha t earlier calculations of real wages exaggerated the povertyof those who received them, because the y did not tak e sufficient not eof the earnings of the whole family, nor o f such benefits as payments inkind, nor o f the availability of cheaper foo d than tha t recorded i n th eaccounts o f institutions normally used as sources of data. Even our viewof the plight of the unemployed or partially employed has been raise dby new and mor e positiv e assessments o f the effectivenes s o f the poo rlaw system.3

If th e peasant s di d no t starv e i n Englan d i n th e sixteent h an dseventeenth centuries , how far bac k mus t we look t o fin d a differen tsituation? In the early middle ages there are plenty of chronicle accountsof famine deaths. Indeed fo r the Continent Bonnassie has attempted atypology of such descriptions, picking out reports of cannibalism as indicat-ing an especially severe episode.4 English chronicles record famines inthe elevent h an d twelft h centuries , an d th e pric e series suggest som e

2 A.B. Appleby, 'Die t in Sixteenth-Centur y England : Sources, Problems , Possibili -ties', in C. Webster, ed., Health, Medicine and Mortality i n theSixteenth Century (Cambridge ,1979), pp. 97-116; A.B. Appleby, Famine in Tudor and Stuart England (Stanford, California,1978).

3 J. Walte r and R . Schofield, eds, Famine, Disease and the Social Order in Early ModernSociety (Cambridge, 1989); S. Rappaport, Worlds Within Worlds: Structures of Life i n Sixteenth-Century London (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 123-61; P. Solar, 'Poor Relief and English EconomicDevelopment befor e th e Industrial Revolution' , Economic History Review, 48 (1995), pp.1-22.

4 P. Bonnassie, 'Consommation d'aliment s immondes et cannibalisme de survie dans1'occident du hau t moye n age' , Annales: economies, societes, civilisations, 44 (1989) , pp .1035-56. Cf. Chapter 5, below.

Did th e Peasants Really Starve in Medieval England ? 5 5

very bad harvests at the end of the twelfth centur y and in 1201-4.5 Ourfocus must be the period between 1204 and 1500 , with a view to discover-ing when the threat of starvation receded .

We could attemp t t o investigate the questio n o f peasant hunger b yanecdote - m y example i s Margare t Norto n o f Hartlebur y i nWorcestershire (no t far from Alic e George's birthplace , bu t Margare tlived in a village and ca n be regarded a s a real peasant). When she wasburied on 12 September 1545 the compiler o f the parish register notedthat she had died when she was sixteen days short of her 122nd birthday.6Now we should b e as sceptical of this piece of folklore as of Locke's gul-lible account of Alice George, except that a widow called Margaret Nor-ton appear s i n th e Hartlebur y records o f the 1490s , and i f it was thesame person wh o died i n 154 5 she must have been ver y old. She ha dcertainly survived the food shortages of the 1480s and 1520s , even thoughshe may not have been old enough t o have experienced th e famine ofthe late 1430s. 7

These isolated individual s have an immediate interes t for us, but theycannot provide us with conclusive evidence to solve our problem. InsteadI will turn to more scientific evidence for peasant eatin g and for theirlack o f food, beginning wit h th e lat e thirteent h an d earl y fourteenthcenturies, and then turning to the period afte r the Black Death and thesupposed lifetim e of Margaret Norton.

Peasant food in the decade s around 130 0 is recorded i n some detailby agreements t o maintain retired peasant s in manoria l court rolls . Acharacteristic example was the record of the transfer of a five-acre hold-ing in 1328 at Oakington i n Cambridgeshire b y Richard Valletus to John,son of John Sybily.8 Richard had made a contract with his successor thathe should be provided with a retirement home converted from the formerbakehouse of the holding. His 'pension' was to come partly from accessto a curtilage ( a garden) nex t to the hous e an d seve n selions of land;and partly from an allowance each year of two bushels of wheat and twobushels of rye, both a t Michaelmas, and o f four bushels of barley andfour bushels o f peas at Christmas. This could be interpreted in a com-mercial light - the purchaser of the land was providing an annuity thesize of which was related to market demand. While we should not ignore

5 D.L. Farmer, Trices and Wages', in H.E. Hallam, ed. , Th e Agrarian History of Englandand Wales, ii, 1042-1350, pp . 717-18, 722, 787-88.

6 Hereford an d Worceste r Count y Record Office , ref . 985/B.A. 5807, vol. 1, fol. 4.7 Hereford an d Worceste r Count y Record Office , ref. 009:1 B.A . 2636/169 92372 .8 Queen's College Cambridge , 7 (I am grateful to Richard Smit h who provided m e

with a transcript of this document) .


the shortage o f land and John's willingness to sacrifice a great dea l togain a precious holding at that time, the wording of other agreement smakes i t clear tha t non-commercia l considerations , such a s the loca lcustomary rules about what was decent and fitting for the support of anelderly person , playe d some par t i n th e fixing of the amounts. 9 Th eallowances had been obtaine d fro m th e crops of the holding and wereintended for the consumption of the retired peasant , not for sale. Rich-ard Valletus was being provided with the raw materials for the baking ofbread (from wheat and rye, and perhaps barley), and the major ingredientsof a thick pottage (pea s and some of the barley). The tota l allowance oftwelve bushels would not have provided much grain for ale , as a gooddeal of the calorific value of the barley would be lost in brewing, and toobtain approximatel y 2000 calories per da y it would have been neces-sary t o hav e consume d th e barle y in soli d form . A good numbe r o fmaintenance agreements did provide twelve bushels or thereabouts, sug-gesting that many retired peasants did not drink ale regularly.10 In Rich-ard Valletus's case, ale consumption would have been possible becausehe had crops from seve n selions - perhap s two acres. Above Valletus inthe hierarchy of village society were prosperous peasants , often tenantsof ayardland of thirty acres or so, whose allowances of sixteen or twenty-four bushels, or even more, would have contained enough food to feeda servant, and plenty of malting grains to allow them regular and abundantale consumption.

The maintenanc e contracts, as well as indicating the differen t levelsof food and drink consumption amon g peasants with varied resources,also tell us a good dea l about the marked regional differences in eatingpatterns, from the wheat-eating peasants of the south east- the inhabit-ants of counties like Essex and Surre y enjoyed especially high levels ofwheat-bread consumption - whil e quantities of rye were consumed inNorfolk an d Worcestershire . Norfolk grew limited quantities of wheat,and th e peasant s ther e ofte n at e barley bread, as they did i n part s ofSuffolk. There were important differences also in the pottage and brew-ing corns - ale brewed from barley malt was available in many counties,but th e meagre amount s of barley and th e prominenc e o f oats in the

9 The agreements are discussed in R.M. Smith, The Manorial Court and the ElderlyTenant in Late Medieval England', in M. Felling and R.M. Smith, eds, Life, Death and theElderly (London, 1991), pp. 39-61; C. Dyer, Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages:Social Change in England, c . 1200-1520 (Cambridge, 1984), pp. 151-54 .

10 C. Dyer, 'English Diet in the Later Middle Ages', in T.H. Aston, P.R. Coss, C. Dyerandj. Thirsk, eds, Social Relations and Ideas: Essays in Honour of R.H. Hilton (Cambridge,1983), pp. 197-206.


allowances of Essex and Somerse t peasant s sugges t th e us e of malte doats to brew an inferior ale. Similarly in Surrey, Norfolk and Hampshire,peasants were not allowed many pulses (peas and beans) an d their pot-tages would have been base d o n oatmea l o r barley. 11 A few contractsmention th e availabilit y of food an d drin k in addition t o cereals an dlegumes. Some allow the retired peasant the use of a garden or orchard.A few make specific reference to supplies of cider. The keeping of pigs,poultry and other animals imply that the diet included eggs, bacon anddairy products. Carcasses of salted meat were to be delivered annuallyto a few prosperous retired peasants .

These maintenance agreements, summoning up as they do a pictureof at least adequate quantities of bread, pottage and sometimes ale, givea rather favourable picture of peasant diet. First, they tell us only aboutthe die t of those with land holdings that could be used as the basis fora retirement contract. Some agreements specify such small quantities ofgrain - eight bushels or less - tha t they must have provided only a smallproportion of the income of the retired peasant. The existence of poorerpeople wh o ate muc h les s well i s indicated by a comparison betweencontracts from Somerse t manors and tol l corn payments recorded fo rthe mills of Taunton in the same county. The toll corn presumably reflectsthe balance of overall grain consumption in the district , because mostgrain was ground by households or commercial food processors, whereasthe contracts for maintenance relate to the retirement of the better-offpeasants. While wheat accounted fo r almos t two-third s of the retire dpeasants' grain allowances, and rye and maslin (a rye and wheat mixture)only about a tenth, the grain processed b y the mills contained onl y 26per cent wheat and 23 per cent rye and maslin. 12

We have negligible evidenc e for maintenance agreements fro m th esouth wes t an d nort h wes t (Devo n and Cornwall , and nort h o f th eDerbyshire Peak), but we can be sure of the predominance o f oat cultiva-tion i n thos e region s fro m mil l tolls , tithe receipts , carbonized grainfrom archaeologica l excavation s and other stron g indirect evidence. 13

The inhabitants must have depended on oat cakes baked on hot stonesor iron plates , oatmeal pottage an d al e brewed from oa t malt , which

11 Dyer, Standards o f Living, p. 153 .12 Hampshire Recor d Office , pip e rolls of the bishopri c o f Winchester, 1209-1342,

from informatio n kindly supplied b y Christopher Thornton .13 Hallam, ed., Agrarian History, ii, pp. 381,392-94,406; G. Beresford, Three Deserted

Medieval Settlement s o n Dartmoor : A Report o n th e Lat e E . Marie Minter' s Excava-tions', Medieval Archaeology, 23 (1979), p. 143 .


caused visitor s to vomit, according t o a sixteenth-century traveller toDevon.14

In th e ligh t of this evidence we must remember tha t the bulk of ourdirect information comes from sociall y and geographically advantagedsections of the population in the thirteenth and early fourteenth century,and that we should therefore be cautious in taking too favourable a viewof peasant diet.15

A further strand in our assessment of the quality of peasant food mustrelate to its nutritional balance - it s proportion o f protein for example,and the amount of vitamins and minerals consumed. Abundant evidenceshows that peasants ate meat, fish, dairy products, fruit and vegetables;although these appear rather inconsistently in the maintenance contracts,peasants were involved in pastoral husbandry and horticulture, and wewould expect a t least a small proportion o f products from animal s andgardens to find their way onto the peasants' tables. Detailed inventoriesof peasants' possessions and tax assessments sometimes include the baconand salt meat stored in the house.16 And excavations of deserted villagesites yield th e bone s o f a variety of domesti c and (mor e rarely ) wildanimals and birds, and sometimes fish.17

In order to gain insights into the daily quantity of such foods, and th eproportion o f the die t tha t thes e represented , w e have to turn t o th efood an d drin k give n a s part o f th e reward s of wage earners. Thes eemployees belong t o the lowe r levels of rural society : they would tendto be cottagers and smallholders, or entirely landless workers, many ofthem young people who might aspire to hold land later in life, but whoin the meantime had to accept a more precariou s standard than thos ewith a holding. They had a lower standard of living than better-off peas-ants, and ar e representative of a large section of society.

Often w e are told th e value of the differen t food s consumed, whichalerts us to the very high proportions of cereal foods in the diet. Harvest

14 For an iron plate , see E.M. Jope and R.I . Thelfall, 'Excavations of a Medieval Set-tlement at Beere, North Tawton, Devon', Medieval Archaeology, 2 (1958), p. 138 ; on ale,H.S.A. Fox, 'Devon and Cornwall' , in E . Miller, ed., Th e Agrarian History o f England andWales, iii, 1348-1500 (Cambridge , 1991), p . 304 .

15 Cf. H.E. Hallam, The Worker' s Diet', in Hallam, ed., Agrarian History, ii, pp. 825 -45, which gathers a great deal of data and draw s some optimistic conclusions.

16 P.D.A. Harvey, Manorial Records ofCuxham, Oxfordshire, circa 1200-1359 (OxfordshireRecord Society , 50, 1976), pp. 153 , 712-14.

17 E.g., M.L. Ryder, 'Animal Remains from Wharra m Percy' , Yorkshire ArchaeologicalJournal, 46 (1974), pp. 42-52; D.J. Rackham, 'AnimalRemains', inD. Austin, TheDesertedMedieval Village ofThrislington, County Durham (Society for Medieval Archaeology MonographSeries, 12 , 1989), pp. 146-58.


workers in the north Worcestershire manor of Bromsgrove in 1321-22,for example , received bread and oatmeal which accounted for a half ofthe foo d payment s b y value. Ale accounted fo r anothe r 2 8 per cent ,leaving meat, fish and dair y produce wort h less than a quarter o f thetotal wage in kind.18 As the latter group of foodstuffs wer e much mor ehighly priced tha n th e grain , thei r meagr e quantit y can be assumed .When the quantities are indeed specified , as on the manors of NorwichCathedral Prior y in Norfolk aroun d 1300 , the die t consisted mainly ofbarley bread and oatmeal pottage, supplemented by herrings, salt cod,cheese and bacon, but with the latter foods in such small quantities thatwe can calculat e for ever y 2 pounds o f barley bread a harvest workerreceived 2 ounces o f cheese, 1 ounce of meat, and 4 ^ ounces offish. I fwe quantif y thes e allowance s in term s o f calories, we find tha t 76 pe rcent were derived from bread an d pottage.19

This heavy bias towards cereal foods of course relate s to an unusua ltime of year, when demesne manager s were anxious to attract workersso as to complete the harvest on time, and no doubt expected them towork hard, well fuelled with energy from a relatively full diet . This doesnot fill us with much optimism in estimating the quality of normal dailyfood consumption .

A furthe r approac h t o th e estimatio n o f peasan t die t come s fro mreconstructing th e incom e an d outgoing s o f different households , inwhich th e productio n o f grain and othe r foodstuff s ca n be calculatedwithin tolerable degree s o f accuracy, and we can see how much wouldbe lef t fo r th e family' s consumptio n afte r rents , tithe s an d taxe s ha dbeen paid , and the needs of the land in terms of seed and animal feeddeducted. Thi s leads us to conclude tha t th e uppe r laye r of peasants,the yardlanders, with about thirty acres of arable and access to an appropri-ate share of common pastures , in midland or southern England , wouldhave been abl e t o provid e fo r a family o f five to seve n (thei r familiestended t o be rather large ) with ample quantities of bread, pottage andale. They would have had no difficulty in supplying themselves with dairyproduce regularl y and preserved meat; and indeed would have had suf-ficient surpluse s of cash in good year s to buy fish, joints o f meat, an dprepared foods such as puddings and pies from retailers, whether in thevillage or the local market town. Maintaining an average food intake ofc. 2000 calories per da y would have presented n o difficulties , an d thei r

18 Worcestershire Cathedral Library, C 545.19 C. Dyer, 'Changes in Diet in the Late Middle Ages: The Cas e of Harvest Workers',

Everyday Life i n Medieval England (London, 1994) , pp. 77-99 .


diet would have been quit e varied and palatable.20 On the other hand,the halfyardlanders with about fiftee n acre s would have had difficultie sin supplying a family of five with ale or meat in any quantity regularly,and smallholders , with insufficien t lan d t o feed thei r families , wouldhave needed t o buy grain to supplement their own produce. Given thelow rates of pay for unskilled workers around 1300, and the shortage ofpaid work outside the peak seasons, it is hard to conceive of the smallhold-ers, who accounted fo r a substantial minorit y of the rural population ,as eating much more than basic rations of cheap cereals, with very smallquantities and infrequent supplies of ale, meat and dairy produce.

Peasant eating fluctuated much more than that of the more privilegedgroups in medieval society. Within each year there would be periods ofrelative abundance during and after the harvest and slaughter of animals- from August to December. Poorer peasants observed Lent out of neces-sity as well as piety - deprivation o f meat imposed no great hardship onpeople who ate meat irregularly in any case. But the hardest time wouldhave been i n the early summer, as provisions began t o run out , grainprices rose, and the new year's crops were not yet ready to harvest. Theprovision i n village by-laws tha t th e poo r coul d pic k green pea s an dbeans from th e ends of strips in the fields would have been a valuablemeans of keeping families going at this difficult time. 21

In addition to the seasonal cycle, the annual harvest fluctuations madea large differenc e t o the well-being of all groups, depriving the better -off of their surplus (and incidentally making it difficult t o employ otherpoorer neighbours , o r t o give much i n charity ) an d threatenin g th ehealth of the smallholders who depended o n the market for their staplediet.

A longer-term cyclical fluctuation again affected all peasant households— the changes in the fortunes of the household as the parents aged an dchildren matured. Tenants of middling holdings must have encounteredspecial hardship if they had man y children who reached maturity , andwould have sought positions for them in households which needed serv-ants and could afford t o feed them. We have seen that old age posed nogreat threat to tenants who could trade off their land against a pension,but not all old people had enough acres to negotiate successfull y for anadequate allowance . In any case not al l contracts were kept; they were

20 Dyer, Standards of Living, pp. 110-18; C. Dyer, 'Were Peasants Self-Sufficient? Englis hVillagers and th e Market , 900-1350', in E. Mornet, ed., Campagnes medievales: I'hommeetson espace (Paris , 1995) , pp. 660-62 .

21 W.O. Ault, Open field Farming in Medieval England: A Study of'Village By-Laws (London,1972), pp. 38-40.


formally recorded because the retiring peasant suspected that the incom-ing tenant might no t keep hi s or her word, and occasionally dispute sappear in the court records or are mentioned in contemporary literature.At any time in any peasant community a sizeable minority of householdswere suffering from some life-cycl e disadvantage, whethe r becaus e ofold age or the premature death of an adult family member. Widows areconventionally regarded as a major deprived group, but a widower wouldalso have encountered serious difficulties in managing the holding withouthis wife's contribution o f labour and skills .

All tha t thi s evidenc e fo r fluctuation s and variation s in th e foo dconsumption o f peasants tells us is that some section s of rural societywere poorer an d mor e vulnerabl e than others . Bu t it does no t prov ethat they actually starved.

That they did can be demonstrated simply enough. In the Great Famineof 1315-18 between 10 and 1 5 per cen t of the populatio n die d o n th emanors where there i s good evidenc e for the siz e of the mal e popula-tion. There were in addition occasional bouts of high mortality in otherbad harvest years in the same period-in 1293-95,1310-12 and 1321-22for example - depending on the locality.22 As the population of Englandat this time stood i n the region o f six million, the Great Famine alonemust hav e claime d a t leas t 600,00 0 lives , and i f we add th e tol l fro mlesser episodes the tota l figure must amount to near a million people ,who died at times of low grain yields and consequently high food pricesbetween 1290 and 1325.

Now there ar e some important arguments that can be used t o ques-tion an d qualif y th e simple conclusion that the peasant s did starve inthe worst years of the decades around 1300 , and thi s resulted in almosta million deaths. I will deal with them in turn under six headings.

First, the theor y tha t th e peasantr y were poised o n a knife edge ofsubsistence at this time, which was advanced by Professor Postan and DrTitow in the 1960s , has to some extent been discredited. They countedthe heriots (death duties) paid by tenants on the estates of the bishopricof Winchester, and argue d tha t every time wheat prices rose above 7s.per quarter , ther e wa s an accompanyin g rise i n th e deat h rate . The ymade the mistake of presuming that every heriot represented a death,

22 L. Poos, The Rura l Population of Essex in the Later Middle Ages' , Economic His-tory Review, 38 (1985) , pp. 515-30 ; Z. Razi, Life, Marriage an d Death in a Medieval Parish:Economy, Society an d Demography i n Haksowen, 1270-1400 (Cambridge , 1980) , pp. 38-45;R.M. Smith , 'Demographi c Development s in Rura l England , 1300-48 : A Survey', i nB.M.S. Campbell , ed. , Before th e Black Death: Studies i n th e 'Crisis' o f the Early FourteenthCentury (Manchester , 1991), pp. 53-56.


but it is much more likely that on the Winchester manors, as elsewhere,heriots were paid when a tenant surrendered a holding, and that highprices le d t o increase d activit y in th e lan d market . Poorer peopl e i nconsiderable numbers sold lands in hard times, demonstrating a degreeof social hardship, but not necessarily mortality.23 Granted that episodesof high mortalit y were not occurrin g as frequently a s Postan thought,we ar e stil l lef t wit h a number o f bad year s in additio n t o th e Grea tFamine, which by no means removes the idea that starvation was part ofthe medieval English peasants' experience. The notion that these yearswere just an accident of climate will not provid e an adequate explana-tion. As modern experienc e shows , disaster s happen everywhere , butfloods or droughts in poverty-stricken societies like those of Bangladeshor Ethiopia cause much more suffering than an earthquake in Californiaor inundation s i n th e Netherlands . The vulnerabilit y of the Englishpeasantry to episodes of bad weather tells us something about the peas-ants as well as about the climate.

Secondly, anothe r lin e o f argument , associate d wit h th e Italia ndemographer Livi-Bacci , would emphasize that people d o no t di e inlarge numbers from th e effect s o f hunger but from disease , and that inperiods such as the fifteenth centur y there was no connection betweennutritional statu s and 'crisi s mortality'.24 A number of the episodes ofhigh death rate s in the lat e thirteenth an d earl y fourteenth centurieswere no doubt the result of epidemic diseases, because higher than aver-age mortality is reported amon g the parish clergy and gentry who can-not hav e been sufferin g fro m hunger. 25 But this still does not removethe association between hunger and ill-health, as the coincidence betweenhigh grain prices and high mortality is clearly established in a numberof local studies. We must presume that famine-related diseases such astyphus spread from the hungry poor to their better-nourished neighbours.

A third argument would be to suggest that we have miscalculated theresources of the peasan t population. For example, perhaps we are too

23 M. M. Postan andj. Z. Titow, 'Heriots and Prices on Winchester Manors' , in M. M.Postan, Essays on Medieval Agriculture and General Problems of the Medieval Economy (Cambridge ,1973), pp. 107-49 ; B.M.S. Campbell , 'Populatio n Pressure , Inheritance an d the LandMarket in a Fourteenth-Century Peasant Community', in R.M. Smith, ed., Land, Kinshipand Lifecycle (Cambridge , 1984) , pp. 87-134; B.F. Harvey, 'Introduction : The "Crisis " ofthe Earl y Fourteenth Century', in Campbell , ed. , Before th e Black Death, pp. 7-9 .

24 M. Livi-Bacci , Population and Nutrition: An Essay o n European Demographic History(Cambridge, 1991).

25 RJ. Rowberry, 'Late Medieval Demography: A Study of Mortality among the BeneficedClergy in Western England ' (unpublishe d BA dissertation, University of Birmingham ,1974), pp. 9-15 .


fixated on the supply of grain from the fields, and do not take sufficien taccount of the peasants ' undocumente d gardens , o r th e food for fre ethat could be found in woods and wastes - wil d fruits, smal l game andother supplements. Alternatively, the 'cottage economy' of the smallhold-ers depended no t just on the meagre wages of the head of the household ,but als o on th e whol e family' s earning s fro m employment , an d fro mactivities such a s retail trade , o r fro m th e sal e of such commoditie s asrushes gathered fro m th e commons or peat dug in the local turbary. Tosome extent these items in the peasant economy are recorded an d canbe quantified . It must be emphasized initially that coasta l villages hadready acces s t o seafish , whic h gave thei r inhabitant s advantage s overinland peasants in thei r abilit y to consume cheap anima l protein. Butfor the majority of inland peasants the story looks less optimistic. Thereare tith e record s fo r garde n produce , an d th e siz e of garden plot s isrecorded in both documents and the archaeological remains of desertedvillage sites. They do not suggest that gardens were either large or veryproductive.26

Peasants probably ate more vegetables and fruits than the aristocracy,but thi s was not a culture which put muc h value on th e fresh produc ewhich we regard as so important for a healthy diet, and the upper classesseem to have survived on remarkably low levels of vitamin C.27 Nor wouldthe bon e remain s from village sites support th e notio n tha t peasant sconsumed much game. We should not ignore the ecological balance inthe lowland districts where most people lived ; outside th e woodlands,uplands and wetlands , the arabl e acreag e was so extensive that only afifth or less of the land was uncultivated, leaving a limited range of wildflora and faun a either fo r dietary supplements o r sources of revenue.We cannot escape from the miserabl e wage rates of the period , whichpoint to an abundance of labour priced at a very low level because of thelack of employment opportunities.28 The petty trading and manufactur-ing which helped many cottagers was very vulnerable to economic fluctua-tions - in periods of food shortage the market was depressed. As customerswho normally drank ale saved their money to buy food, for example, theale wives were deprived of a market for their products.

Fourthly, another apparent assurance of an underlying prosperity amongthe peasants might be sought in the commercial growth of the thirteenth

26 C. Dyer, 'Gardens and Orchard s in Medieval England' , in Dyer , Everyday Life, pp .116-21, 128-30.

27 B. F. Harvey, Living and Dying in England, 1100-1540: The Monastic Experience (Oxford,1993), pp. 60-61,63.

28 Farmer, Trice s and Wages', pp . 760-79.


century. Surely the proliferation of local markets and the rise in the urbanpopulation poin t to a wealthy society? Many craftsmen and trader s weregaining a living from supplyin g the peasants with their clothing, leathergoods, housing, pots and pans, agricultural tools and so on.29 The problemhere is that there has never been any doubt about the spending power ofthe many thousands of households of the upper and middling sections ofthe peasantry, but they were not the direct victims of the hungry years. Thecommercialization of the period should not be underestimated, becaus eit represented a fundamental social and economic shift in the late twelft hand thirteenth centuries.30 But it did not always aid the plight of the ruralpoor. Short-term employmen t opportunities an d the expansion of retailtrade must have played a part in fuelling population growt h by temptingyoung people who lacked stable resource s t o marry and se t up a newhousehold i n a cottage, but of course these were precisely the people whosuffered from the high prices in hard years. They specifically were temptedto borrow money and food, and then found that they could not repay.31

They benefited from th e market but then found that it offered n o mor ethan an illusion of opportunity. And cottagers are the people who appearfully in our records - there was also a shadowy, semi-documented cohortof servants, subtenants and casual workers who sometimes owed small pay-ments of cash or labour to lords, or who when they died were expected t oyield up pathetic heriots of old and nearly worthless clothing, but whoseprecise number s remai n uncertain . Th e urban populatio n containe d aproportion of traders and artisans prospering from the growth in demand,but als o a fringe o f migrants driven in from th e countryside , who livedprecariously from occasiona l earnings and marginal activities.

A fifth interpretation tha t ha s emerge d fro m recen t researc h int oregional farming systems emphasized the productivity that could be gainedfrom intensiv e exploitatio n o f th e fields. 32 Agraria n historian s hav e

29 R.H. Hilton, Th e English Peasantry in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford, 1975), pp. 76-94.30 R.H. Britnell, The Commercialisation of English Society, 1000-1500 (Cambridge, 1993),

pp. 79-151; N. Mayhew, 'Modelling Medieval Monetisation', in R.H. Britnell and B.M.S.Campbell, eds, A Commercialising Economy, England, 1086 - c.1300 (Manchester, 1995),pp. 68-73.

31 On the problem of indebtedness, see Razi, Life, Marriage, andDeath, pp. 37, 81-82;on some o f the trap s of commercialization, see R.H. Britnell, 'Commercialisation an dEconomic Development in England, 1000-1300', in Britnell and Campbell, eds, A Com-mercialising Economy, pp. 19-23.

32 B.M.S. Campbell, 'Land , Labour, Livestock , and Productivit y Trends in EnglishSeignorial Agriculture, 1208-1450' , in B.M.S. Campbell and M. Overton, Land, Labourand Livestock: Historical Studies in European Agricultural Productivity (Manchester , 1991),pp. 144-82.


presumed tha t th e mediocre yield s of the midlands and the south -between thre e and four time s the seed plante d - wer e universal, andthat consequently production was inadequate to meet the needs of society.However, in densel y populated part s o f Norfolk, th e us e of abundan tinputs o f labour allowe d much highe r grai n yield s per acre . Bu t thi sdoes not mean that the inhabitants of this region escaped from hunger,because th e very cheapness o f labour whic h allowed intensive cultiva-tion method s gav e the workers a reduced diet. 33 The sam e researche rwho discovered th e Norfol k farming system has now turned hi s atten-tion to the rest of the country, and has to conclude that in normal yearsthe subsistence requirements of the population were barely matched bytotal agricultural production , which must imply that bad harvests speltdanger for the poor.34

Finally, there is the question of social institutions. Surely in this closelyregulated, responsible and caring society, a variety of mechanisms wouldprevent mass impoverishment and starvation? Perhaps the most importantof these institutions were the social customs and practices surroundingthe decision to marry.35 Although the church maintained the legality ofvows exchanged between couples as constituting valid contracts, in popularcustom marriages still depended o n agreements between families, withproper provision of land and goods to give the new household a soundbasis. If we look at the lists of tenants and holdings in surveys of manorsin the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, with their remarkably stable listsof customary tenements, we cannot imagine that peasants were marry-ing casually or hastily. There is, however, some evidence that during thethirteenth centur y customar y restraints o n marriag e ma y have beenrelaxed. W e find peasant father s taking advantage o f the land market,or the assarting of new land, to endow children with smallholdings whowould no t ordinaril y have inherited an y land, enabling the m t o formnew households. 36 As we have seen , th e openin g u p o f a more com-mercial society may have led these beneficent fathers to believe that aliving could be made without a substantial land holding .

If the restraint s o n populatio n growt h were to some extent pushe d

33 I owe this observation to Mark Overton.34 B.M.S. Campbell, J.A. Galloway , D. Keene and M . Murphy, A Medieval Capital and

its Grain Supply: Agrarian Production and Distribution in the London Region, c. 1300, Histori -cal Geography Research Series, 30 (1993), pp. 37-45.

35 E. Clark, Th e Decisio n t o Marry in Thirteenth - an d Earl y Fourteenth-CenturyNorfolk', Mediaeval Studies, 49 (1987), pp. 496-516.

36 Z. Razi, The Myt h of the Immutable English Family' , Past and Present, 140 (1993),pp. 7-10.


aside by new economic developments in the period, the casualties wouldsurely have found a safety-net i n th e various charitable organizations?We are aware of a wide range of methods by which charity was distributed- churc h institutions provided relief for the poor, from the almonries ofgreat monasteries to the distributions made by the incumbent and thelaity of the paris h church. 37 Families looked afte r thei r own members,for example, by the type of maintenance agreement already mentioned,or by providing non-inheriting children with parcel s of land or allow -ances of grain. Villagers must have aided thei r poo r neighbour s withfree meals or offers o f employment. The village community in its moreformal guis e allowed gleaning and pea-picking to the genuine poor -the others had to earn thei r living in the harvest.

But doubts must surround the effectiveness of these measures, especiallywhen they were tested by an extremely bad harvest . Many villages, andfamilies, no matter how well disposed towards their neighbours, especiallyin many places which lacked a stratum of wealthy tenants, would simplynot have enough spare capacity to feed the many poor. In addition weshould not idealize excessively the medieval sense of responsibility. Afterall, the bulk of our information about the remedies for poverty duringthe Great Famine and other years of hardship relates to self-help, as theless well-off borrowed money and food or sold their land in order to paydebts. And in desperation man y people turned to crime, or at least thestatistics reveal a sudden ris e in accusations.38

To complete the discussion of the period c. 1290-1325, we cannotescape the conclusion that large numbers of English peasants really didstarve i n th e wors t years. Normal peasant eatin g o f the perio d pu t aheavy emphasi s o n a n imbalance d intak e of cereals , and th e vulner-ability of the poore r sections of the communit y was increased by theirdependence o n th e purchase o f grain. The populations of the mainlyoat-growing counties were in danger from bad harvests as no adequat echeaper substitute was available to them. The mortalit y and th e suffer -ing of those whose lives were disrupted by these years cannot be attributedsimply to an accident of bad weather. We do not need to accept Postan'sthesis o f overpopulation an d th e ecologica l damage t o th e lan d t orecognize that this was a period o f crisis. But the crisi s had a s much todo with the overheating of the market and the various dislocations thiscaused as with the Malthusia n excess of people.

37 Dyer, Standards o f Living, pp. 234-57.38 B. Hanawalt, 'Economi c Influence o n th e Patter n o f Crime i n England , 1300 -

1348', American Journal o f Legal History, 1 8 (1974), pp. 281-97 .


Peasant eating in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries went througha real transformation. All of the causes of earlier hardship were amelioratedas the population declined . The amount of land cultivated by each fam-ily increased. The number of smallholders was reduced as they found itpossible to acquire more acres. Those who remained as wage labourersfound themselves in a superior bargaining position; the tenants of largerholdings sough t t o emplo y them , an d th e deman d fo r craf t workersincreased with the growth of rural cloth-making. In the late thirteenthcentury, a labourer would have needed t o work for forty-eigh t days topay for a quarter (eigh t bushels) of wheat. In fac t such a worker wouldnot have aspired to buy so expensive a commodity as wheat. In the fifteent hcentury a comparable unskilled worker could acquire the cash to buy aquarter of wheat in fifteen days' employment, and many of them couldhave afforded t o eat wheat bread, and much else besides.

The direc t evidenc e o f food allowance s to workers shows a steadyincrease in the late fourteenth century in the quantities of ale and meatgiven to workers. Norfolk harvesters in the early fifteenth century wereallowed for every two pounds of bread, one pound of meat and six pintsof ale.39 All over the countr y the qualit y of foodstuffs give n to harvestworkers improved - wheat bread was baked instead of that made frombarley and rye. Fresh meat, including beef, was provided instead of bacon.In districts with a cider-drinking tradition such as Sussex, ale was preferred.And fresh fish was substituted for dried cod and sal t herrings. So muchmeat was provided for workers that cheese diminished in importance inthe diet. Always we must remember tha t harvest workers were especiallyprivileged, and that everyday production and consumption of preservedfish, bacon and dairy products continued at a high level.

The trend s in food consumption are confirmed by the comments ofcontemporaries, who complained in particular that servants and labour-ers could demand wheat, white bread, good ale (instead of the second-best brew, or water), and hot dishes of fresh meat, and despised cabbages.40

The prosecutions under the Statute of Labourers in the late fourteenthcentury show ploughmen refusing to accept employment without receiv-ing fresh mea t (rathe r than salted ) and wheat bread.41

Developments in the food trades suggest a shifting demand. Butchersincreased in numbers and prominence in both towns and country. Land

39 Dyer, 'Changes in Diet', pp. 83-85.40 E.g., G. Kane and E . Talbot Donaldson, eds, Piers Plowman: The B Version (London ,

1975), passus 6, lines 303-11.41 S.A.C. Penn and C. Dyer, 'Wages and Earnings in Late Medieval England: Evidence

from th e Enforcemen t of the Labou r Laws', in Dyer , Everyday Life, p . 185.


everywhere was converted from arabl e t o pastur e i n respons e t o th emarket for meat - a more important and valuable commodity than thewool that has received most historical attention. In th e villages the alehouse became a more permanent institution, where ale was sold regularly,often alongside prepared foodstuffs, which tended to replace the intermit-tent and short-term ale selling of the pre-plague era.42 This must reflecta more sustained demand, perhaps from better-off households who boughtale rather than brewing it themselves, and above all from groups of poorerpeople who had previously been unable to afford t o drink ale regularly.Finally, the records of small-town courts contain references in the lat efourteenth an d fifteent h centurie s to the enforcemen t of the assize ofbread, which was bought by customers from th e surrounding villages aswell as the townspeople themselves. Indeed we know that urban bakerscarried thei r wares into the countryside for sale.43 The striking featureof the records is that even in a district not previously noted for its wheatconsumption, such as Norfolk, the bakers were producing notjust wheatbread, but that made from th e finest white flour, the wastel loaf.44

We ca n detec t i n al l these change s a cultura l a s well a s a materia ldimension. A feature of the new peasant diet was a tendency to emulatethe consumptio n an d styl e of the aristocracy . The mode l provide d bythe upper class must have been familiar to the peasantry. The sons anddaughters o f peasants were recruited into service in the households ofthe loca l gentry and clergy . Lords and ladie s (lik e Alice de Bryene ofActon in Suffolk) woul d invite their tenants to special meals, often dur-ing the Christmas season.45 When village fraternities held their annualfeast they presumably hired a cook experienced in preparing meals forthe gentry.46

We should therefore not be surprised to find that, when peasants andrural workers gained th e opportunity to improve their diet, they apedthe standards o f their lords. In particular they aspired to ample dishes

42 P. Clark, Th e English Ale-House: A Social History, 1200-1830 (London , 1983) , pp .20-38.

43 E.g. PRO, SC2 210/71 (cour t roll of Pershore, Worcestershire, which shows 'cokett','treat' and 'wastell ' loaves being sold in 1374); Hereford and Worcester County RecordOffice, 009: 1 B.A. 2636/169 9237 2 (i n 147 4 bakers from Bewdle y and Worceste r soldbread at Hartlebury, Worcestershire).

44 Norfolk Record Office, MCR/B/26 (wastels were sold in the market of Hingham,1420, 1461).

45 M.K. Dale and V.B . Redstone, eds, The Household Book o f Dame Alice de Bryene (Suf -folk Institut e of Archaeology and Natura l History, 1931) , p. 28. See below, Chapter 9.

46 A.G. Rosser, 'Going to the Fraternity Feast: Commensality and Social Relations inLate Medieval England', Journal o f British Studies, 33 (1994), pp. 430-46.


of meat and fish, and doubtles s hoped t o drink the daily gallon of aleregarded as standard in aristocratic household budgeting. They aimedalso to be able to eat fine white wheat bread.47 They may also have sharedthe aristocratic disdain for fresh vegetables - contemporary writers thoughtthat garlic, onions and leeks were typical poverty foods, and this prejudicemay have influenced peasant tastes . There i s certainly no evidenc e ofexpanding peasant horticulture in the post-Black Death period, rathe rthe opposite a s gardens and orchard s were abandoned becaus e of thedifficulty o f finding labour t o work them . They would not hav e beenable to afford muc h wine or spices, though the presence of 'spicers' insmall towns and market villages might hint at a more general market forimported condiments, at least for special occasions.48 But then the lessergentry and parish clerg y - th e most immediate rol e model s fo r theimproved peasant diet - did not use large quantities of these expensiveimports either.

There are indications also that the prevalence of boiling as a meansof food preparation was supplemented by more roasting and fryin g inthe style of the wealthy in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.49 Notonly were the foodstuff s an d cookin g of the aristocrac y imitated, bu talso thei r tabl e manners , judging fro m th e tabl e cloths , towels, ewersand basin s liste d i n th e inventorie s of peasan t households . Peasan ttableware - decorated jugs from the late thirteenth century, attractivelyglazed drinkin g cups by the fifteenth - provid e further evidence forpeasant meals as occasions for a little display and refinement. 50

We should note , however , the negativ e side of this emulation of thearistocracy because, although peasant s were acquiring patterns of eat-ing which added t o th e variet y and attractivenes s of meals, they werealso adopting a diet unlikely in the opinion of modern nutritionist s tolead to good healt h - a higher intake of refined bread , fatt y meat andalcohol - whil e at the sam e tim e reducin g the amount o f fruit an dvegetables, cannot be regarded as an improvement according to modernfashion.51 But they undoubtedly felt happier with their new style of eat-ing, and ca n we be certain that they were wrong?

47 On emulation in diet, see S. Mennell, All Manners o f Food: Eating and Taste in Englandand France from th e Middle Ages to the Present (Oxford , 1985) , pp. 54-61 .

48 For example , a t Fishlak e i n Yorkshire : Rotulorum collectorum subsidii (poll-ta x o f1379), Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 6 (1879-80), p. 15.

49 M. McCarthy and C.M . Brooks, Medieval Pottery i n Britain, AD 900-1600 (Leicester,1988), pp. 107-8 .

50 Ibid., pp. 110-14.51 Harvey, Living and Dying, pp. 34-71.


In fac t the lif e expectation o f the peasantr y seems to have increasedat this time, and on e dimensio n o f that development lay in the virtualdisappearance of life-threatening subsistence crises.52 After a concentra-tion of bad years between the Black Death and 1375, grain prices becamerelatively low and stable . Som e shortfall s in harvest s returned i n th eearly fifteenth centur y and culminate d in a run o f very poor crop s inthe late 1430s. After tha t there was little evidence of serious food short-age until the early sixteenth century . We cannot doubt tha t the famineof the 1430 s caused muc h disruption, especially in the north, and tha tit was a turning-point for the economies of some magnates' estates, andof some towns. But, except in East Anglia, where an epidemic coincidedwith the famine, there is little evidence for excess mortality.53 The generalincrease in wheat eating presumably meant that in hard times the cheapercereals and pulses , ofte n used i n thi s period a s animal feed, could b econsumed by humans once more. There may even have been accumulatedstocks of corn hanging over from one year to the next, acting as a cushionagainst hunger .

In addition , fo r thos e wh o di d suffe r deprivation , th e safety-ne t ofcharity would have been growing in effectiveness. Parish-based suppor tfor th e poor , with almshouses, and collection of money on the basi s ofrates or other local levies, managed b y churchwardens, constables andperhaps with contributions from the parish fraternities, had been develop-ing from the mid fourteenth century, and supplemented or even replacedthe more informal machinery of personal and famil y charity of earliergenerations.54

If my analysis of eating and food shortage among the medieval peasantsis right, and th e historian s o f the earl y modern perio d are correc t i ntheir upbeat view of food crises in the succeeding centuries, an importantturning-point in history occurred during the fourteenth century. Perhapsthe year 1375, which ushered i n an er a of cheap and plentifu l food , isthe key date. After the n th e peasants no longer starved , and the era ofhunger-driven mortality had ended. This takes us beyond the history offood, because it implies that English people could spend more on non-

52 Dyer, Standards o f Living, pp. 271-72 .53 A. Pollard, Th e North-Easter n Econom y and the Agrarian Crisi s of 1438-1440',

Northern History, 2 5 (1989) , pp . 88-105 ; R.S. Gottfried, Epidemic Disease i n Fifteenth-Century England (Leicester, 1978) , pp . 96-97.

54 M.K. Mclntosh, 'Local Changes and Community Control in England, 1465-1500',Huntingdon Library Quarterly, 9 (1988), pp. 219-42; E. Clark, 'Social Welfare and MutualAid in the Medieva l Countryside ', Journal o f British Studies, 33 (1994) , pp. 381-406 .


food items than ever before, and we can trace to this period the growthof steady demand from a mass market for such goods as woollen cloth.55

And, furthermore, we can observe a divergence between the history ofEngland an d tha t of mainland Europe . Fo r generations after Si r JohnFortescue compared the well-nourished and independent-minded Englishpopulation wit h thei r miserabl e Frenc h counterparts , th e continenta lpeasants stil l occasionally went hungry.

55 The proportion o f income spent on food in pre-industrial societies is discussed inC. Shammas, 'Food Expenditure and Economic Weil-Being i n Early Modern England' ,Journal o f Economic History, 43 (1983) , pp. 89-100 .

Cannibalism as an Aspect of Faminein Two English Chronicles

Julia Marvi n

From 131 5 t o 1318 Englan d - an d much o f Europe - suffere d thre erainy years and six ruined harvest s in a row. By 1316 famine had begun .Seed-corn rotted in the damp, mass malnutrition led to death from disease,and th e desperat e resorte d t o crime, all in tim e of war. A year or twoafter the rains stopped an d the harvests began to improve, England wasvisited with the murrain , fata l epidemic s among such livestock as hadsurvived the famine. In some places, prosperity did not return until wellinto the 1320s ; in others, th e famine seems to have marked the begin -ning of the century's economic decline.1 Some manorial records indicatemortality of 10 per cen t or more over the course of the famine, and th erate may have been highe r stil l in the towns : fourteenth- and fifteenth-century English chronicles describe the dearth with language as potentas that of the Blac k Death of 1348.2

Medieval accounts o f the famin e address a set of common themes ,including the rains that provoked the crisis, high prices, scarcity of goods,mass hunger, widespread mortality , murrain, corpses too numerous tobury, strange diet and the explicit attribution of the disaster to the wrathof God.3 These topic s are by no mean s unique to 1316; many of themcan b e foun d i n Josephus' first-century Jewish War, 4 an d i n report s o f

1 Ian Kershaw, The Grea t Famin e and Agrarian Crisi s in England, 1315-1322' , Pastand Present, 59 (1973) , p . 50 .

2 Michael M. Postan and Jan Z . Titow, 'Heriots and Price s o n Winchester Manors' ,Economic History Review, 2nd series , 1 1 (1958), p . 407, table 1 , graphs 1, 2; Kershaw, Th eGreat Famine' , p. 11.

3 See the Appendix for a list of chronicles consulted , o n which thes e observation sare based.

4 Josephus' description of mass starvation i n the besieged city of Jerusalem circulate dthrough Eusebiu s an d the n (vi a Eusebius) th e Golden Legend. A version o f th e stor yappears in the late fourteenth-century Middle English poem Th e Siege of Jerusalem. Josephus,The Jewish War, Books 7V-V77, ed. and trans . H. St J. Thackeray (Londo n an d Cambridge ,Massachusetts, 1928) , v . 424-25; vi. 193-213; Eusebius, Th e Ecclesiastical History, ed . an dtrans. Kirsopp Lake, i (London and New York, 1926), 3.5.5-3.6.28; Jacobus de Voragine,The Golden Legend, trans. William Granger Ryan (Princeton , New Jersey, 1993), c. 67 (o n

5


other medieval famines, such as that of 1258 in the chronicle of Bury StEdmunds:

Penuria omnium bonorum sequitur precedentis anni inundacionem; namquartarium frumenti, quod raro inueniebatur, ad xv. solidos et eciam usquexx. solidos uendebatur. Vnde tanta fames orta est ut pauperes carnem equinam,cortices arborum, uel quod deterius est, comederent; innumerabiles famedefecerunt.

(There was a great shortage of everything because of the floods of the previ-ous year, and corn , which was very scarce, cost from 15s . to as much as 20s.a quarter. Famine resulted so that the poor had to eat horsemeat, the barkof trees and even more unpleasant things. Many died of hunger.)5

Only a few chronicles o f the famin e o f 1316 refer t o tha t stranges t o fstrange diet , cannibalism, but their stories are striking, and some moder nreaders have give n the m credence. 6 In thi s essay I examine tw o suchaccounts, the fourteenth-century VitaEdwardi Secundi and the fifteenth-century annals of Bermondsey, in order to analyse the immediate func -tion o f cannibalism in thei r representatio n o f famine, and t o conside rwhat these particular episodes demonstrate abou t their authors' method sof constructing history .

One o f the mos t nearly contemporary account s o f the famine , th eanonymous VitaEdwardi Secundi, dates from 1325 or 1326 and appearsto be a n entirel y original work , according t o its modern editor , Noe lDenholm-Young.7 The chronicle a s a whole offers a detailed accoun t ofthe reign o f Edward II, with careful attention t o the English campaign s

continued

St James th e Apostle) , i, pp. 275-76 ; Th e Siege o f Jerusalem, ed . E . Kolbing and M . Day,EETS, origina l series , 188 (London, 1932) , lines 1063-96.

5 Chronicle of Bury St Edmunds, 1212-1301, ed. and trans . Antonia Gransden (London ,1964), p. 22.

6 Henry Lucas, for example, asserts in the first major article on the famine that can-nibalism 'certainly was common:', The Grea t European Famine of 1315,1316 and 1317',Speculum, 5 (1930) , p. 355. Kershaw more cautiously suggests that report s 'ma y havebeen exaggerated bu t they testify to the stark horror . . . impressed upon th e memorie sof contemporaries', Kershaw , The Grea t Famine' , pp. 9-10. William Chester Jordan'smagisterial book, The Great Famine: Northern Europe in the Early Fourteenth Century (Prince-ton, Ne w Jersey, 1996) , appeare d afte r thi s essay was written. See pp. 148-5 0 for hi sconsideration o f accounts of cannibalism.

7 He believes that the surviving version lacks a final revision: the text ends with 1325,expressing hopes that would be crushed by the events of 1327, when Edward II wasdeposed and murdered, VitaEdwardi Secundi, ed. and trans. Noel Denholm-Young (London,1957), pp. xiv , xvii-xviii.

Cannibalism as an Aspect o f Famine in Tw o English Chronicles 7 5

in Scotland, Wales an d Ireland , baronial politics and th e affair s of thechurch. It is opinionated and moralistic - the author never hesitates topoint out the lessons to be learned from th e bad ends of rebels - and itspeculates freely about the future, so freely that Denholm-Young consid-ers the chronicler 'outspoken in a degree that would be madness in anyrising man' an d conclude s that he mus t have retired from publi c lif ebefore writing the Vita. 8

The chronicle' s account of the famin e extend s across three annals:that for 1315 , whe n th e rain s tha t cause d th e deart h began ; tha t for1316, whe n governmen t price controls failed an d widespread hungerset in; and that for 1318, when th e famine abated . Throughout, the textis in a vivid historical present. The write r begins ,

Per alia quedam signa apparet manus Dei contra nos extenta. Nam annopreterite tant a fui t habundanti a pluuie quo d ui x licui t hominibu s fru-menta colligere uel horreo salua recondere. Anno uero presenti deteriuseuenit. Nam inundatio pluuiarum omne fere semen consumpsit , in tan-turn u t uaticiniu m Ysay e ia m uideretu r expletu m esse ; ai t enim dece miugera uinearu m faciun t laguncula m unam, e t trigint a modii sementisfaciunt modios tres . . . Oues autem communiter perierunt et alia anima-lia subita peste ceciderunt . Valde autem nobis timendum est ne, s i Domi-nus post hec flagella incorrigibiles nos inueniat, homines et pecora simuldisperdat; et constanter credo quod, nisi intercederet Anglicana religio,dispersi fuissemus elaps o tempore multo.

(By certain other portents the hand of God appears to be raised against us.For i n th e pas t year there was such plentiful rai n tha t men coul d scarcelyharvest the corn or bring it safely to the barn. In the present year worse hashappened. Fo r the floods of rain have rotted almost all the seed, so that theprophecy of Isaiah might seem now to be fulfilled; fo r he says that 'ten acresof vineyard shall yield on e littl e measure an d thirt y bushel s of seed shal lyield three bushels'. . . Sheep generally died and other animals were killedby a sudden plague . I t is greatly to be feared tha t if the Lord finds us incor-rigible afte r thes e visitations, he wil l destroy at once both men an d beasts;and I firmly believe that unless the English church had interceded for us, weshould have perished long ago.)9

The chronicler alludes specifically to Isaiah and, appropriately , consider-ing the endless rain and widespread mortality, uses the language of that

8 Ibid., p. xix.9 Ibid., p. 64.


great biblical catastrophe, the Flood.10 Though he speaks of 'the presentyear', his past-tense reference to the murrain shows that he was writingor at least revising his text after the fact: manorial records indicate thatthe murrain in most places began later than 1315 and reached it s heightin late 1316 and 1317. 11 The chronicler cannot be simply recording th eevents as they happen. Instead , he i s taking the authoria l stanc e o f animmediate eyewitness, using his foreknowledge to indicate the full scaleof the disaste r a t the outse t and t o emphasize its likeness to the Flood,another tribulatio n brough t o n b y human wickednes s and alleviatedthrough God' s grace and the effort s o f the virtuous.

The anna l for th e followin g year, 1316, als o sounds a t first as if it iswritten in mid crisis: the beginning of the dearth is past tense, England'sdesperate situation present tense and the desired resolution future tense.Nevertheless, even at the start of the passage, the writer is quick to providereassurance, describing the failure of the government's attempt to regulateprices but concluding, 'Na m licet raritas annonam faci t cariorem, habun-dantia subsequens reddet meliorem' (fo r although scarcity of corn raisesthe price, subsequent plenty will improve the situation) ,12 He then claimsthat the famine is the worst in a century, that many thousands have diedof hunger and pestilence, an d tha t

Aquibusdam etiam audiui relatum, quod in partibus Northumbrorum caneset equi et alia immunda sumebantur ad esum. Hii enim propter frequentesincursus Scotorum maior i tedio laborabant, quos maledicti Scot i sui s uic-tualibus cotidie spoliabant.

(I have even heard it said by some, that in Northumbria dogs and horses andother unclean things were eaten. For there, on account of the frequent raidsof the Scots , work is more irksome, as the accursed Scots despoil the peopledaily of their food.)13

10 Cf. Isaiah 5:10: 'decem enim iuga vinerarum facient lagunculam unam et trigintamodii sementia facient modio s tres' (translate d in text), and Genesi s 7:18, 21 and 23:'Vehementur inundaverunt [aquae ] e t omnia repleverunt in superficie terr a . . . con-sumptaque est omnis caro ... et delevit omnem substantiam quae erat super terram abhomine usque ad pecus' (fo r they [the waters] overflowed exceedingly: and filled all onthe face of the earth . .. and all flesh was destroyed . .. and he destroyed all the substancethat was upon the earth , from man even to beast). All Latin quotations from th e Biblecome fro m Biblia sacra iuxta vulgatam versionem (Stuttgart , 1975 ) an d al l translationsfrom th e Bibl e from Th e Holy Bible, Douay version (New York, n.d.).

11 Kershawuses records of wool exports and manoria l sales of livestock to assess thetiming and extent of the murrain, 'The Great Famine', pp. 20-29.

12 Vita, p. 69.13 Ibid., pp. 69-70.


The chronicle r is cautious here, carefu l t o balance the stor y with th ewarning that he has only heard of these distant events from others , andhe even offers an explanation of the circumstances that might have driventhe Northerners to such an extreme. After bemoaning England's destitu-tion, complaining of the wickedness o f the inhabitants of the land an dimploring God's mercy i n a passage that is a collage of biblical quota-tions, he makes another sudden, cheerful turn , bolstered by both astrol-ogy and th e Psalms:

Saturnus enim securus et frigidus asperitates procreat inutiles seminibus;triennio iam regnans cursum consummauit, et sibi mitis Jupiter ordine suc-cessit. Porro Joue regnante cessabun t pluuiales unde, ualle s habundabuntfrumento e t campi replebuntur ubertate ; eteni m Dominus dabit benigni-tatem, et terra nostra debit fructum suum.(For Saturn, cold and heedless , brings rough weather that is useless to theseed; in the ascendant now for three years he has completed his course, andmild Jupiter duly succeeds him. Under Jupiter these floods of rain will cease,the valleys will grow rich in corn, and the fields be filled with abundance. Forthe Lord shall give that which is good and our land shall yield her increase.)14

Again, such prophetic serenity in the face of disaster does not speak fortrue contemporaneity , but i t prepares the wa y for th e Vitas entr y for1318, th e year the famine abated . The chronicle r takes the end of thefamine as one of a series of signs that God's favour is returning to England:

[Cessauit] sterilitas ilia que diu nos afflixit, et habundantia omni[um] bono-rum terra m Anglorum multiplicite r foecundauit. Modius tritici, qui ann opreterito pro xl. denariis uendebatur, hodie pro sex denariis emptori libenteroffertur. Si c olim tamdiu obsessa Samaria, ut mater filii carnibus uescereturpro penuri a uictualium, recuperauit diuina gratia. Nam caput asini, quodoctoginta aurei s pridie uendebatur , omnibu s inmundu m i n crastino repu -tatum erat , et modius simile pro stater e uno uenundatus , sicut predixeratuir Dei Heliseus.

14 Ibid., p. 70 and nn. 1-3 . Th e preceding passage runs, 'Terr a fructifera uertitur i nsalsuginem; aeri s intemperies deuorat pinguedinem; seritu r frumentum e t procreaturlollium. Eueniunt aute m omnia a malitia habitantium i n ea. Parce, Domine, parce populotuo. Subsannant et derident nos qui sunt in circuitu nostro ' (Fruitfu l land is turned intoa salt-marsh; th e inclemency of the weather destroys th e fatness of the land; corn is sownand tare s ar e brough t forth . Al l this come s fro m th e wickednes s o f th e inhabitants .Spare, O Lord, spare thy people! For we are a scorn and a derision to them who areround about us). The writer quotes Vulgate Psalm 106:3 4 (also recalling Jeremiah 12: 4and 13) , as well as Joel 2:17 and Vulgat e Psal m 43:14 , and i n the following passage h equotes Vulgate Psal m 64:1 2 an d 1 4 and Vulgat e Psal m 84:13 . The text' s shift s in ton ecould also be said t o reflect psalm structure .


(The dearth that had so long plagued us ceased, and England became fruit -ful wit h a manifold abundanc e of good things. A measure of wheat, whichthe year before was sold for forty pence, was now freely offered t o the buyerfor sixpence. Thus it once happened when Samaria was besieged for so longthat for lack of food a mother fed upon the fles h o f her son, that the landrecovered through divine grace. For an ass's head, which had one day soldfor eight y pieces o f gold, was on th e morro w held unclea n b y all, and ameasure of fine flour was sold for a shekel, according to the word of the manofGodElisha.)15

The story cited is that of the siege of Samaria in II Kings, 6 and 7. Thoughthe writer recalls it as much for its happy ending a s for its desperation,it is one o f the more gruesome episodes in the Bible. Here is the storyin part: a woman has called upon the king of the besieged city for help,complaining, 'Mulier ista dixit mihi da filium tuum ut comedamus eumhodie e t filium meu m comedemus eras coximus ergo filiu m meu m e tcomedimus dixiqu e e i die altera d a filiu m tuu m u t comedamu s eu mquae abscondit filium suum' (thi s woman said to me: Give thy son, thatwe may eat hi m today , and we will eat m y son tomorrow. So we boiledmy son, and ate him. And I said to her on the next day: Give thy son thatwe may eat him. And she hath hid her son) ,16 The author of the Vita seesthe biblical dearth both as a genuine historical event and as an analoguefor hi s own time, useful a s a means o f reinforcing the readin g o f th efourteenth-century famine that he has already offered through his otherscriptural citations and his use of prophecy. As a model story of despera-tion, sin and strange die t beyond even that of the Northumbrians - andof God's deliverance - th e Samarian famine lends moral resonance tothe contemporar y account , an d s o emphasizes the connection s th echronicler see s between God's grace and the health of the entire realmof England. H e ends his list of good portents with a citation of Paul: 'SiDeus nobiscum, quis contra nos?' (If God be for us, who can be againstus?).17

In her survey of English historical writing, Antonia Gransden character -

15 Vita, p. 90. Cf. II Kings 6:25, 28-29; 7:1, 16 (IV Kings in the Vulgate): Tactusqueest modius similae statere uno e t duo modii hordei statere uno iuxt a verbum Domini'(and a bushel of fine flour was sold for a stater, and tw o bushels of barley for a stater,according to the word of the Lord).

16 IV Kings 6:28-29.17 Vita, p. 91 and n.l, quoting Romans 8:31. Among the other auspicious signs are

the apparent reconciliation of Edward II and Thomas of Lancaster at the parliament of1318 and a Host miracle in which a dove snatches the sacrament from th e chaplain ofthe interdicted Robert Bruce (Vita, pp. 89-91).

Cannibalism as an Aspect o f Famine i n Tw o English Chronicles 7 9

izes the Vita Edwardi Secundi as 'not a chronicle in the stric t sense but aliterary piece' . However, it is exactly those element s often considere d'literary' - biblica l plot , phraseology , and prophetic techniqu e - tha tconstitute the anonymous author's basic narrative material.18 Althoughhis prophecies ma y seem disingenuous t o modern readers, the y do notrepresent merely compulsive or lapidary use of biblical language. Theyare his means of describing and explaining the recent past and puttingit into context - a n activity we can recognize as the writing of history.Within a n understandin g o f history as a series of exemplary, morallycomprehensible tales , the write r may see the relatio n o f the event s ofthe ancient and moder n famines , and the role of Providence in them,as innate: his job i s not t o create a new connection bu t t o discern andpoint out the one tha t God has already made. As Matthew Paris puts it:

Prodigia aute m vel portenta praeterit a qua e famem , ve l mortalitatem, ve lalia supernae vindictae flagella fidelibus innuunt, ideo memoriae pe r literascommendantur, u t s i quando similia evenerint, peccatore s qui se iram Deiin aliquo incurriss e meminerint , mo x ad remedium poenitentiae, per hae cDeum placaturi, festinent .

(Prodigies or past portents that announce t o the faithful hunger , o r mortal -ity, or other scourges o f divine vengeance, ar e therefore t o be commende dto the memory by letters, so that when such events occur, sinners who rememberhaving incurre d th e wrat h o f God agains t the m i n somethin g ma y hastenquickly to the remed y o f penitence, b y which they may appease God.) 19

By invoking the two famines as demonstrations of God's justice and mercy,past and present, the writer of the Vita Edwardi Secundi is doing what hadlong been recognize d as the historian's job.

The chronicle s writte n in late r years generally offe r les s dramaticaccounts o f the famin e of 1316 . Withou t exception, the y make somemention of the high price of grain and of widespread death, but accountsof strange diet are uncommon, and sensational details are not the onlyones to drop out ; references to bad weather and murrain also tend todecrease over time, as do those to the government's attempts to controlprices. That is , interest in causes of the crisi s dwindles, while that in its

18 Gransden, Historical Writing in England (London, 1982) , ii, p. 3.19 MatthaeiParisiensis chronica majora, ed. H.R. Luard, Rolls Series, 57 (London, 1880),

i, p. 1 and n. , after the prologu e t o Robert o f Torigny (d. 1186), in Sigeberti Gemblacensismonachi opera omnia, vol. 16 0 of Patrologia latina, ed. J.-P. Mign e (Paris , 1880) , col. 421 .Translation mine .


effects survives . In general , th e aspect s o f th e famin e tha t remaine dnoteworthy to later historians were high prices, high mortality, scarcityof food and mass hunger.20

The exception t o this rule of increasing moderatio n i s the annals ofBermondsey. They were probably written around 1433, though the por-tions o n th e year s after 120 6 were largely compiled from olde r docu -ments within the priory, according to their editor, H.R. Luard, who believedthat 'the compiler had access to a considerable number of authorities,and re-wrote the accounts they narrate in his own words'.21 The annals 'few sentences given to the famine of 1316 are, then, far removed fro mthe fact, if based on earlier sources. The account does not mention therains that caused the dearth or the murrain that followed, but it neverthe-less covers in som e detai l mos t of the spectacula r elements of earlierversions, including this tale of strange diet: Tauperes enim pueros suosmanducabant, canes, murelegos, stercus columbarum'.22 The claim thatthe poor ate their children, dogs and cats is lurid enough, but the Ber-mondsey book's last item, dove droppings, goes beyond sensationalisminto surrealism. An explanation i s called for, and i t is not t o be foundin the event s of 1316 .

It is once again in the Bible, in the same story of the siege of Samariathat inspired the author of the VitaEdwardi Secundi. The price of an ass'shead is not the only one mentioned: 'Factaque est fames magna in Samariaet tamdiu obsessa est donee venundaretur caput asini octoginta argen-teis et quarta pars cabi stercoris columbarum quinqu e argenteis ' (an dthere was a great famine in Samaria: and so long did the siege continue,till the hea d o f an as s was sold for fourscor e pieces of silver , and th efourth par t o f a cab o f pigeon's dun g fo r five pieces of silver).23 Th edove dropping s hav e lon g presente d a challeng e t o Bibl e readers .Augustine allegorize s th e famine as the spiritua l hunger o f those whoturn away from th e worship of God and the droppings as the idols fromwhich they vainly seek nourishment.24 The Geneva Bible explains that

20 See the Appendix for the sources on which these observations are based.21 Annales monasterii de Bermundesia, in Annales monastici, ed. H.R. Luard, iii, 421-88,

Rolls Series, 36 (London, 1866), iii, pp. xxxv , xxxvi, xxxviii.22 Ibid., p. 470. It continues, 'e t ita crebro moriebantur, ut deesset morituris cura et

mortuis sepultura' (an d thus they were dying so thick and fas t tha t there was not car efor the dying or graves for the dead). Translation mine .

23 IV Kings 6:25.24 Commentary on IV Kings 6 in the Glossa ordinaria (Patrologia latina, vol. 113, cols

615-16).


the dun g wa s burnt i n lie u o f firewood. 25 The Ne w Jerusalem Bibl edismisses the dove droppings a s impossible and suggests an alternativeHebrew term meaning 'wil d onions'. The lates t English version of theTanakh, while translating th e phras e a s 'doves ' dung' , glosse s i t a s apopular term for carob pods.26 The writer of the Bermondsey book, ina day when the droppings were understood t o have served as food, hasnot only taken the words literally but transplanted and represented th econsumption o f the dung as a fourteenth-century event, one s o outra-geous that it can have no basis but the literary one.27

Once we have seen thi s biblical particular so wholly assimilated intorecent history , we may begin t o consider II Kings as a potential sourc efor othe r elements o f the Bermondse y account a s well, specifically fo rthe parent s who devour thei r own children. The stor y of the canniba lmothers of Samaria is by no means the only or even the most grisly can-nibalism in the Bible , though i t is the only specific instance recounte das historical fact. Cannibalis m - alway s parents eating their children -otherwise appears i n curses , predictions o r laments , invariably associ-ated with famine and usually with the wrath of God.28 In these instances,the beleaguered peopl e of Israel must sacrifice their children not out ofdutiful obedienc e t o the Lord, as Abraham was ready to do, but a s thefinal consequence of the sinfulness tha t separates them from Go d andbrings disaster upon them .

Although the brief Bermondsey annal has not adopted precis e bibli-cal language and makes no explicit reference to the Bible, we must suspectthat th e Bible' s cannibalism has influenced the accoun t when we seewhat has unmistakably happened to the dove droppings. The writer neednot have consciously chosen to exploit the biblical detail, as the autho rof th e Vita Edwardi Secundi does , fo r i t ma y wel l hav e emerge d a s a

25 Th e Geneva Bible, reprint (Madison , Wisconsin, 1969).26 Th e New Jerusalem Bible (Garden City , New York, 1985); Th e Tanakh (Philadelphia ,

1985).27 Even Josephus' claim that the starving citizens of Jerusalem picke d apart 'old cow

dung' i n searc h o f undigested plan t matte r (feiuish War, v . 571) i s more credibl e tha nthat for bird droppings, since their ammonia content would make them not only unpalat-able but poisonous .

28 See, for example, Leviticus 26:27-29, Deuteronomy 28:53-57, and Lamentations4:10. Josephus similarly offers in some detail the story (repeated i n the subsequent ver-sions listed in n. 4) of a cannibal mother, who acts as much in protest and witness as forsurvival. She tells her child , 'With the Romans slavery awaits us, should we live til l theycome; but famine is forestalling slavery, and more cruel than both are the rebels. Come,be thou food for me, to the rebels an avenging fury, and to the world a tale such as aloneis wanting to th e calamitie s of the Jews' (feiuish War, vi, 206-7).


fourteenth-century incident in another of the sources he used. Whateverthe Bermondse y chronicler's intentions , the stor y in II Kings informsthe narrative not as a particular example but as a universal type of famine.The biblical story has assumed such authority that the monastic historian(whether the Bermondsey annalist or his source) knows through it whathappens in terrible famines. He knows that the famine of 1316 was ter-rible, and therefore he knows what happened i n it, or at least he knowsa way to communicate th e truth of its horror, a truth about famine tha tdoes not depend on the incidental specifics we think of as facts. In short,he understands and represents the famine as a disaster of biblical propor-tions.

The appearanc e o f Samarian pigeo n dun g i n fourteenth-centuryEngland remind s u s t o exercis e cautio n whe n consulting this or anyannal for factual information, for the last thing it means is that peoplereally ate bird droppings , muc h les s each other . I n fact , al l medievalEnglish report s o f cannibalism know n to m e eithe r themselve s voicereservations abou t the stor y or appear to be of biblical descent : the yconstitute no evidenc e of the actua l incidence of cannibalism.29 As W.Arens says, in his critical study of anthropological belie f in cannibalismas a socially accepted phenomenon, 'Lik e the poor, cannibals are alwayswith us, but happily just beyond the possibility of actual observation'.30

I d o no t i n th e slightest , however, wish t o imply tha t al l the commo nthemes of narratives of famine are reall y or primarily literary. Many ofthem recu r in the descriptio n o f this an d othe r famines because th esame sad things do recur in time of famine: prices do rise, people do gohungry and - as recent years in Africa have shown - the dead may trulybe to o numerou s t o bury . Nevertheless , as the Bermondse y boo kdemonstrates, thes e topics can also take on a literary existence of theirown. Some of these topoi, such as reports of parental cannibalism, maybe entirely literary in origin, and their literary nature may affect or even

29 English accounts o f cannibalism i n the famine of 1316 not discusse d in this essayare those of the Long Continuation of the Anglo-Norman prose Brut (publishe d an dbetter known in its later Middle English translation), which bears some similarity to theBermondsey account ; th e chronicle o f John de Trokelowe; an d Thomas Walsingham' sHistoria anglicana, which draws directly on John de Trokelowe. BL, MS Cotton CleopatraD.3, fos 152v-153r; The Brut: or The Chronicles of England, ed. F.W.D. Brie, EETS, originalseries, 13 1 (London , 1906), i, pp . 209-1 0;Johannis d e Trokelowe e t Henrici d e Blanefordechronica et annales, pt 3 of Chronica monasterii S. Albani, ed. H . T . Riley, Rolls Series, 2 8(London, 1869) , pp. 88-98; and Thomas Walsingham, Historia anglicana, pt 1 of Chronicamonasterii S. Albani, 1, pp. 144-50 .

30 W. Arens, Th e Man-Eating Myth: Anthropology an d Anthropophagy (Oxford , 1979) ,p. 166.

Cannibalism a s an Aspect o f Famine in Tw o English Chronicles 8 3

govern other medieval historica l narratives as they clearly do thi s one .The stylized account i n the Bermondsey book call s attention t o itself

precisely because i t defies acceptance a t face value . Unti l th e biblica lnorm o f description tha t so dominates the plot is recognized, the storymakes no sense - if it makes sense even then. Although the annal's depic-tion o f the crisi s o f 131 6 partakes o f a general ide a of famine tha t isfounded in scripture, in this case the allusion no longer bears any explicitrelation t o the mora l lesson s associated with it both in the Bible and inthe VitaEdwardi Secundi. In the Vita, the author draws an analogy betweenSamaria and England, bu t the famine as represented i n the Bermond-sey book does not resemble the Samarian famine: it is indistinguishablefrom the Samarian famine . We have moved from analogy to equivalence.As an authoritative definition of famine, the biblical story gains a certainpower, but, whereas th e interpretiv e mechanism by which to read th eSamarian and English famines is firmly in place in the VitaEdwardi Secundi,in the Bermondsey book it is not apparent . It is either implicit , with theburden of recognition and interpretation on the reader, or it has droppedout altogether.

The Samarian famin e is important and useful t o a Christian writer inthe firs t place because o f its peculiar exegetical status as part of the OldTestament record : i t is both a particula r pas t historica l even t and a nobject of textual interpretation, both actual and metaphorical, both literaland allegorical . But in the case of the Bermondsey book, we are not ina position to judge whether the chronicler or his readers even knew thatthe dove droppings came from the Bible. Their appearance i n the annalcertainly constitutes evidence o f the Bible' s pervasive presence i n th elife of a monastic writer; they may also constitute evidence of the breakdownof a system of signification into dead metaphor. In its role as a universaltype of famine, the Samaria n famine may in a sense become to o figura-tive for its own good and compromise the privileged textual and histori-cal statu s tha t gav e i t it s original allegorica l power . A t thi s remove oftextual transmission , th e famin e may still provide mora l commentary,or it may simply be a manifestation of a topos that has come loose fro mits original interpretive moorings .

These two accounts of the famine of 1316 extract thei r truths from IIKings in different ways. In the annals of Bermondsey, the dramatic storyof the English famine loses its particularity to become a n illustration ofa general idea of famine grown out of scripture. The VitaEdwardi Secundiprovides a concrete exampl e of a moral theory of history in practice, asit borrows biblical authority to confirm past events, to predict ostensiblyfuture one s an d t o mak e it s ethica l point s clear . Th e Bermondse y


chronicler certainly has a perspective on the events he describes, a universaland universalizing one that reveals much more about the idea of faminein the fifteenth centur y than about the events of the famine of 1316. Ina les s drastic bu t stil l discernibl e way, the autho r o f the Vita EdwardiSecundi seems t o have shrouded th e immediac y of his story for u s bytailoring it to flatter its historical and moral shapeliness. In both cases,the Bibl e does more than provid e a pattern fo r historical narrative: itpossesses universal applicability and even the power to define historicaltruth.


Appendix

Published Medieval English Reports of the Famine of 1316

Annales Londonienses, in Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I and Edward II,ed. W. Stubbs, Rolls Series, 76 (London, 1882) , i , pp. 231-41.

Annales monasterii de Bermundesia, in Annales monastici, ed. H.R . Luard ,Rolls Series, 36 (London, 1866), iii , p. 470.

Annales Paulini, in Chronicles of the Reigns o f Edward I and Edward II , i, pp .278-79.

Geoffrey le Baker, Chronicon Galfridi le Baker de Swinbroke, ed. E.M. Thomp-son (Oxford , 1899), p. 9.

The Brut: or The Chronicles o f England, ed . F.W.D . Brie, EETS, origina lseries, 131 (London, 1906) , i, pp. 209-10.

John Capgrave, The Chronicle of England, ed. EC. Hingeston, Rolls Series,1 (London , 1858) , p . 181 .

Chronica monasterii de Melsa, ed . E.A . Bond, Roll s Series, 4 3 (London ,1867), ii, pp. 318 , 332-34, 392.

ChroniconabbatiedeParcoLude, ed. E. Venables (Lincoln, 1891), pp. 24-27.Chronicon de Lanercost, 1201-1346, ed.J. Stevenso n (Edinburgh , 1839),

p. 233.Chroniques de London depuis Va n 44 Hen. Ill jusqu'a Va n 17Edw. Ill, ed .

GJ. Aungier (London , 1844) , pp. 38-39.Eulogium historiarum, ed. F . S. Haydon, Rolls Series, 9 (London , 1863) ,

iii, p. 195 .Flares historiarum, ed. H.R . Luard, Roll s Series, 95 (London , 1890) , iii,

pp. 160-61 , 171-74, 186, 340-41.Gesta Edwardi d e Carnarvon auctore canonico Bridlingtoniensi, in Chronicles

of th e Reigns o f Edward I and Edward II , ii , pp. 47-50 .Ranulph Higden, Polychronicon, ed. J.R. Lumby, Rolls Series, 41 (London,

1882), viii, pp. 300, 306-9.Henry Rnighton, Chronicon Henrici Knighton, ed.J.R. Lumby, Rolls Series,

92 (London , 1889), i , pp. 411-12.Adam Murimuth, AdaeMurimuth continuatio chronicarum Robertus deAves-

bury d e gestis mirabilibus regis Edwardi Tertii, ed. E.M . Thompson, Roll sSeries, 93 (London, 1889), p. 24.

John de Trokelowe,/o/ianrm de Trokelowe annales, injohannis de Trokeloweet Henrici de Blaneforde chronica et annales, pt 3 of Chronica monasterii S.Albani, ed. H.T. Riley , Rolls Series, 28 (London, 1869) , pp. 88-98.

Vita Edwardi Secundi, ed. and trans. Noel Denholm-Young (London, 1957),pp. 64-70, 90.


Thomas Walsingham, Historia anglicana, pt 1 of Chronica monasterii S .Albani, i, pp. 144-50.

, Ypodigma Neustriae, pt 7 of Chronica monasterii S. Albani, pp. 247-49 .–

Driven by Drink ? Ale Consumption and the AgrarianEconomy of the London Region, c. 1300-1400

James A. Galloway

This essay explores some economic implications of changes in humandiet, taking as an example the consumptio n of ale in London an d it sregion during the fourteenth century.1 It touches only briefly upon thebrewing industry in it s social and technica l aspects, areas which havebeen the subject of detailed researches by such scholars as Rodney Hilton,Judith Bennett and Richard Unger.2 Instead, after reviewing some generalfeatures of ale production and consumption, the essay moves on to assessthe evidence for an increase in per caputale consumption after the BlackDeath. It concludes by examining the relationship between this appar-ent increase and changes in the patterns of crop production and disposalduring the fourteenth century, as revealed by recent research into demesneagriculture within the London region .

Alcoholic drinks constitute a ready and rapidl y absorbed source ofenergy for human beings.3 This factor, allied to their potentially pleasur-able effect s an d associatio n with socia l intercourse, have led t o thei rwidespread consumption across different cultures and historical periods.Europe, in the middl e ages as today, broadly divided into areas whichproduced their principal alcoholic drinks from the grape and those which

1 I am grateful to Derek Keene and Margaret Murphy for their helpful comments onan earlier version of this essay.

2 e.g. R.H . Hilton , Tai n e t cervois e dan s le s ville s anglaise s a u moye n age' , i nL'approvisionnement de s villes de VEurope occidental au moyen age et aux temps modernes, Cin-quiemesjournees Internationales d'histoire, 16-1 8 Septembre 198 3 (Auch , 1985), pp.221-29; J.M. Bennett, 'Conviviality and Charity in Medieval and Early-Modern England',Past and Present, 134 (1992), pp. 19-41 ; eadem, 'Women and Me n in the Brewers ' Gildof London, c . 1420', in E.B . DeWindt, ed., Th e Salt o f Common Life: Essays i n Honor ofj.AmbroseRaftis (Kalamazoo, Michigan, 1995), pp. 181-232; R. Unger, Technical Changesin the Brewing Industry in Germany, the Low Countries and England in the Late MiddleAges', Journal of European Economic History, 21 (1992), pp . 281-314 .

3 Manual of Nutrition, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food reference book 342(London, 1985) , pp. 82-83.

6


brewed ale, and later beer,4 from grain. The boundary between the twozones has not always been sharp, but it is evident that for most of recordedhistory southern England has lain at, or close to, the northernmost limitfor viticulture in Europe, a limit set not by the coldness of winters, bu tby the lack of sufficient summer warmth and sunshine to ripen grapes.5

Today commercial vineyards, using modern grape varietals and techniques,produce palatable , mostly white wines in Kent and Sussex, the Thamesvalley and parts of south-western England. These were also the principalareas where wine-making took place in the middle ages, as indicated byDomesday Book and by later manorial accounts and extents.6

Although quite common, medieval English wine-making seems to havebeen generally small-scale and unreliabl e a s to quality , production o fwine alternating with that of verjuice (th e juice of unripe grapes, usedin cooking) and vinegar. Thus, the earl of Lincoln's garden in the Londonsuburb o f Holborn produce d onl y verjuice fro m it s vines in 1295-96 ,but both verjuice and wine in 1304-05.7 It seems that only large-scaleand sustained investment in skilled labour and plants could ensure reason-ably consistent productio n o f drinkable wine , as at the roya l vineyardadjoining Windso r Castle. 8 Mos t o f th e win e drun k i n Englan d wasimported, and hence it remained relatively expensive and largely restrictedto the better-of f sections of society.

Mead was probably drunk by the peasantry of parts of western England,while cider was quite widely produced and drunk.9 Nevertheless, in theabsence of large-scale domestic wine production, the mass-consumptionalcoholic drink of England was undoubtedly ale, brewed from a varietyof malted grains , but, in the London region of the fourteenth century,principally from barle y and th e mixtur e o f barley and oat s known asdredge.10 Oat s o n thei r ow n - althoug h primaril y a fodder crop for

4 Ale, unlike beer, is produced without the use of hops. Beer was known in fourteenth-century England, but was not at that period a significant domestic manufacture.

5 T. Unwin, Wine and th e Vine: An Historical Geography o f Viticulture and th e Wine Trade(London and New York, 1991), pp. 34-35, 42-43.

6J. Harvey, Medieval Gardens (London, 1981), p. 54.7J.A. Galloway and M . Murphy, 'Feeding the City : Medieval London an d it s Agrar-

ian Hinterland', London Journal, 16 (1991), pp. 3-14, here p. 9.8 R.A. Brown, H.M. Colvin and A.J. Taylor, The History of the King's Works, ii, The Middle

Ages (London, 1963) p . 881 n. 4.9 P. Clark, The English Alehouse: A Social History (London , 1983) , p. 24.10 For the use of the various grains in the London region , see B.M.S. Campbell, J.A.

Galloway, D . Keene an d M . Murphy, A Medieval Capital an d it s Grain Supply: AgrarianProduction and Distribution in the London Region, c. 1300, Historical Geography ResearchSeries, 30 (1993), esp. pp. 24-27.

Driven by Drink ? 8 9

working animals - were sometimes used to produce a lower-grade ale, apractice which, although stil l followed even in some London establish -ments, was becoming les s common within the region . Whea t was alsomalted on occasion, in order t o produce a high-grade ale , but ther e isno evidence that rye was used as a brewing grain in south-eastern Englandat this period. Broadly, then, the brewing industry drew upon the region'sproduction o f barley an d dredge , whil e wheat an d ry e were grownprincipally for baking into bread.11

By the fourteenth century ale production was an almost omnipresentindustry i n England . Al e was brewed fo r consumptio n withi n th ehousehold, for sale to others, and for consumption a t the 'ales' held forvarious social and charitabl e purposes. 12 Every community of any sizehad its brewers, the majority operating on a small scale, whose existenceis documented i n series of surviving court rolls from rural manors andtowns alike . Brewer s were regularly fined , nominall y for breache s o fregulations but, in reality, probably as a form of licensing.13 The brew-ers were very often women and, in the countryside , commercial brew-ing seems to have been most characteristic of the middle years of women'smarried lives. 14

Brewers have left distinctive archeological evidence of their activities,particularly in towns, in the form of malting ovens, hearths and furnacesand, occasionally, deposits of germinated, burnt grain.15 Large numbersof townsmen and women were involved in the manufacture and retail -ing of ale. In 1386 , 10 6 brewers were fined at one o f the regular cour tsessions held a t Maidstone in Kent, implying that as many as one-thirdof the town's households may have been involved in the production o fale a t tha t time. 16 Each cour t a t th e Esse x market tow n of (Saffron )Walden c . 1400 saw some twenty-five brewers amerced, but i n additio nan average of thirty people were fined for 'regrating' ale , that is, buyingto resell.17 Larger town s may have been hom e t o larger-scale brewingoperations, although her e too there were many small producers. Early

11 Although barle y was widely used to make bread in some othe r parts o f England,this does not see m t o hav e bee n th e cas e i n Londo n an d it s immediate hinterland .Campbell e t al., A Medieval Capital, p . 26.

12 Bennett, 'Convivialit y and Charity' .13 R.H. Britnell, Growth and Decline in Colchester, 1300-1525 (Cambridge, 1986) , p . 89.14J.M. Bennett, Women i n the Medieval English Countryside (Oxford , 1987) , pp. 120 -

24.15 J. Schofield and A. Vince, Medieval Towns (London , 1994) , pp . 76 , 119 .16 R. Holt, Th e Medieva l Marke t Town', chapter 2 of P. Clark and L . Murfin, Th e

History o f Maidstone (Stroud , 1996) , p. 31 .17 Essex Record Office , D/DB y Ml-4.


fourteenth-century Colchester, with perhaps 300 0 to 4000 inhabitants,regularly ha d ove r on e hundre d brewer s amerced a t it s thrice-yearlylawhundred courts. 18 In the muc h larger tow n of Norwich, which mayhave had a population of 25,000 in 1330,250 to 300 brewers were amercedeach year in the pre-Black Death period.19

Strictly comparable figures are not available for London. However , ifthe ratio between population and number of brewers was similar to thatat Norwich, then, on the basis that London ma y have had a populatio nof some 80,000 in 1300, it might have supported the activities of somewherebetween 800 and 100 0 brewers at that date.20 If, on the other hand, theratio more closely resembled tha t prevailing at Colchester, the Londonbrewers may have numbered mor e tha n 2500 . A chronicle source, th eAnnales Londonienses, report s tha t 133 4 brewer s responded t o a sum-mons to appear a t the Guildhal l in 1309 , together wit h 354 taverners,numbers which would not have included thos e living in the inhabite dareas beyond the city'sjurisdiction.21 Although we cannot tell how accuratethese apparently precise figures were, the order of magnitude they denoteseems entirely plausible.

Clearly, it is dangerous t o assume any fixed relation between popula-tion and numbe r of brewers. There was some tendency for the scale ofbrewing operations t o increase durin g th e late r middl e ages , a tren dwhich has been documente d i n both rura l and urban contexts. 22 Thisdevelopment, though in part explicable by administrative changes, andby the growth of beer-brewing after c. 1400, is probably also to be associ-ated with an increase in permanent or semi-permanent alehouses, whichmay have been more characteristi c o f town than of countryside, and oflarge tha n o f smal l towns , from a n earl y date.23 Such premise s werehighly visible; 'ale-stakes' - pole s with brush-leaves or some other sig nat the end - were displayed to advertise a fresh brew, and a well-known

18 R.H. Britnell, Growth and Decline, p. 269 .19 E. Rutledge, 'Immigratio n and Populatio n Growt h in Early-Fourteenth Century

Norwich: Evidence from the Tithing Roll', Urban History Yearbook 1988, pp. 15-30; Hilton,Tain et cervoise', p. 228.

20 For London's population, see D. Keene, 'Medieval London and its Region', LondonJournal, 14 (1989), pp. 99-111.

21 W. Stubbs, ed., Chronicles of the Reigns o f Edward I and Edward II , 1 , Annales London-ienses and Annales Paulini, Rolls Series (London, 1882) , p. 267 .

22 D. Postles, 'Brewing and th e Peasan t Economy : Some Manor s in Lat e MedievalDevon', Rural History, 3 (1992) , pp. 133-44 ; Victoria County History o f Oxfordshire, iv , Cityof Oxford, p. 47.

23 D. Keene, Survey o f Medieval Winchester (Oxford, 1985), pp. 267-69; Clark, EnglishAlehouse, p. 31.


London ordinance prohibite d thes e stakes from being more than sevenfeet long.24

The ubiquit y of brewing is in par t a reflection o f the difficultie s o fpreserving ale, which quite rapidly 'went off. Cartin g or shipping aleover long distances was thus problematic, although not unknown.25 Mostale was drunk where it was made, or obtained from a close at hand townor village. The exten t of the marke t was consequently quite restrictedfor most brewers and, as a result, frequent small brewings had advantagesover the production o f large batches. The requirement that ale shouldbe drunk while fresh also influenced the pattern of brewing in aristocratichouseholds.26 As well as reflecting technical limitations on the scal e ofproduction an d marketing , however, the hug e numbe r o f brewers infourteenth-century Englan d undoubtedly point s to th e widesprea dconsumption o f al e acros s th e socia l spectrum , from peasantr y toaristocracy. Different grades and strengths of ale were brewed, aimed atdifferent tastes and pockets. There is no truth in the statement, sometimesencountered i n olde r studies , that medieva l ale was universally weakand watery.27 Household accounts show that a quarter of malted grainnormally produced somewhere between fifty and one hundred gallonsof ale , with mos t brewings in th e rang e o f fifty to seventy-five ; i f th ebrewing were effective, in that the bulk of the natural sugars in the maltwere converted into alcohol, this would imply alcohol-by-volume contentsat least comparable to modern beers.28

Intoxication i s shown in literary references to follow levels of consump-tion o f al e which, although high , ar e no t beyon d moder n north -European comprehension . Thus, in Piers Plowman, Glutton consumes 'agallon and a gill' in a London alehouse before finding that he canno twalk or stand without his staff, stumbling about like a bird-catcher o r aminstrel's dog , an d finally passing out , fallin g fla t o n hi s face a t th e

24 R.R. Sharpe, ed., Calendar of Letter-Books Preserved among the Archives of the Corpora-tion o f London a t the Guildhall, Letter-Book H (London , 1907) , p. 12 .

25 Barrels of ale are frequently listed i n th e Calendar o f Close Rolls (London , variou sdates) amon g provisions sent to Calais: see, for example, ibid., 1389-92, pp. 28-29; and1392-26, p. 143 .

26 This is well illustrated b y the househol d of Dame Alice de Bryene , where ther ewere never more than six days between brewings in the year 1412-13: E.M.M. Price, 'ATally of Ale', Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, series A, 123 (I960) , pp. 62-67 . Se ebelow, Chapter 9.

27 See for example G.T. Salusburyjones, Street Life i n Medieval England (Oxford, 1938),p. 98.

28 H.S. Corran, A History o f Brewing (London, 1975) , pp. 29-30.


alehouse door.29 Again, according to a rhyme found endorsed on a Courtof Common Pleas roll for 1371 and translated by Edith Rickert, a gallonof ale was sufficient to 'bind legal senses, legal tongues', smaller quanti-ties being associated with varying degrees o f euphoria an d loquacious-ness.30 Such references suggest that the alcoholic content of ale sold ina fourteenth-century London alehouse may have been broadly comparableto that of a medium-strength moder n beer, although spee d and degreeof intoxication are influenced by many other factors. 31

Did the average quantities of ale drunk increase during the fourteenthcentury, as population fel l under the impact of plague an d rea l livingstandards rose ? Common sens e suggest s tha t the y did, a s wages rosemarkedly after 1349 while the prices of the grain and mal t from whichale was made moved more cyclically (Fig. I).32 The divergence betweenprices an d wage s is particularly marke d fro m th e 1370 s onwards, a s alonger-term slum p in grain price s se t in. Nevertheless , hard evidenc erelating to ale consumption, particularly of a quantitative kind, is scarce.The issue is, however, one with major implications fo r the agricultura leconomy. Brewing is much more wastefu l o f the energ y value of grainthan is baking; while converting a given quantity of raw grain into breadentails a calorific loss of the order of 15 per cent , in brewing the loss isaround 7 0 per cent, four to five times greater, a difference only partiallyoffset b y the us e o f the by-product s of brewing as animal fodder.33 I nother words, brewing is very greedy of grain and is, in pure energy terms,an inefficient use of grain resources . Patterns of consumption o f breadand ale , and an y changes in thei r relativ e importance i n human diet ,can thus have a major impact upon both the overall size and the structureof the market for grain.

Any changes i n th e leve l of ale consumption in fourteenth-centuryLondon -which formed by far the largest and most concentrated centr eof demand fo r foodstuffs i n medieval England - coul d b e expected t ohave had a significant effec t upon thos e rural areas which supplied the

29 W. Langland, Will's Vision of Piers Ploughman, trans. E.T. Donaldson (Ne w York andLondon, 1990) , p. 50.

30 E. Rickert, Chaucer's England (Oxford, 1948) , p. 239 .31 Food consumption , acquired toleranc e and genetic factors can all play a role: see

D.B. Goldstein, Th e Pharmacology o f Alcohol (New York and Oxford , 1983) .32 The dat a on which Figur e 1 is based ar e drawn fro m D.L . Farmer , 'Price s and

Wages' in E. Miller, ed., The Agrarian History of England and Wales, iii, 1348-1500 (Cambridge,1991), pp. 444 , 471 ; and J.E.T. Rogers, A History o f Agriculture and Prices in England, ii,(Oxford, 1866) , pp. 54-168.

33 Campbell et al., A Medieval Capital, p . 34.

Driven by Drink ?

Movement of wages and pricesTen-year means

93

Figure 1 : Movement of barley and mal t prices compared to carpenters' wages,1300-1410 (source : see note 32) .

city with grain. It seems likely that London's population virtually halvedbetween th e beginning an d en d o f the fourteenth century , decliningfrom perhap s 80,00 0 or mor e t o 40-50,00 0 people . However , if it ispostulated that Londoners obtained the same total quantity of energyper caputfrom grai n in 1400 as in 1300, but that their average ale consump-tion increased between the two dates from on e pint to three pint s perday, that change would by itself have substantially offset the effec t of thesteep decline in the city's population upon its total grain requirement.34

It would, however, imply a very marked shif t i n th e structur e o f tha trequirement, away from th e bread grains, wheat and rye, an d towardsbarley and dredge, the principal brewing grains. An absolute or relativeincrease in brewing would also have had implications for the city' s fue lsupply, a crucial constraint upon pre-industria l urban growth. 35

34 Based upon the calculations in Campbell, e t al., A Medieval Capital, p. 35.35 J.A. Galloway, D. Keene and M. Murphy, 'Fuelling the City: Production an d Distribu-

tion o f Firewood an d Fuel in London's Region , 1290-1400' , Economic History Review, 49(1996), pp. 447-72, here pp. 469-70.


Unfortunately, direc t evidenc e o f consumption levels , which mightserve to validate such assumptions, i s scarce, often ambiguous and usu-ally relates to restricted and probabl y atypical sections of society. It willthus never be possible to say with confidence how much ale the averagemedieval Londoner drank in a day, or in a year. It is, however, possibl eto dra w upon evidenc e relating t o som e o f those better-documente dgroups in order to assess whether there was a general movement in levelsof ale consumption, an d in the balance of cereal-derived calorie s whichcame fro m al e vis-a-vi s bread , durin g th e fourteent h century . Thus ,accounts for aristocratic and monasti c households she d some light onthe overal l quantities of bread an d ale consumed. Per capita consump-tion is, however, usually elusive. Where daily allowances of ale are recorded,they are ofte n ver y high, reaching one t o two gallons each pe r da y insome religious houses, but i t is difficult t o be sure that these quantitieswere intended t o slake the thirs t of just one individual ; sometimes it isclear that they were not, and that servants consumed a part of the allow-ance. I t is, however, sometimes possible to examine relative quantitiesof bread and al e consumed acros s households a s a whole, or t o chartrelative expenditure on bread vis-a-vis brewing grains, and hence to deducebroad changes in consumption patterns. Available statistics for a varietyof households point t o a generally highe r leve l of expenditure o n alerelative t o bread i n th e fifteent h centur y than i n the pre-Blac k Deathperiod.36 In absolute, as well as relative, terms more was often spen t onale and brewing grains than o n bread and wheat; thus John de Veere'shousehold spen t some £36 on mal t in the year 1431-32, compared t o£27 on wheat.37 Any shift away from bread towards ale within aristocratichousehold budgets seems more likely to reflect a change in the consump-tion pattern s o f househol d officer s an d servant s tha n o f th e famil ymembers themselves .

Even i n ecclesiastica l households, wher e allowance s (i f not actua lconsumption) o f ale were already very high by c. 1300, there seem s tobe a tendency for a shift in relative quantities to take place. At WestminsterAbbey in 1304- 5 more wheat was consumed tha n barle y and dredge ,but by the 1370 s the situation had been reversed. 38 This trend appear s

36 See for example C. Dyer, Standards o f Living in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge,1989), table 3, p. 56.

37 C.M. Woolgar, ed., Household Accounts from Medieval England (Oxford , 1993) , no .20.

38 Campbell et al., A Medieval Capital, p. 204; Westminster Abbey Muniments (WAM),19177-8. There is, however, some uncertainty over the precise uses to which large quanti-ties of oats received at the earlier date were put.


to hav e continue d throug h th e late r middl e ages , a s in 1526-2 7 th eabbey's brewhouse used 1209 quarters of malt, while the bakehouse used555 quarters o f flour, probably the produc t o f 555 quarters of wheat.39

Monastic drinkin g ma y have peake d aroun d tha t time ; i t ha s beenestimated that alcohol, taken in the form of wine as well as ale, may havecontributed a s much as 19 per cent to the energy value of the daily dietof monks at Westminster Abbey c.1500, compared t o perhaps 5 per centin average diets today.40

Evidence from quite different sections of society also points to increasedconsumption o f ale . Christophe r Dyer' s study of th e foo d an d drin kallowances given to harvest workers demonstrates a marked increase inboth absolut e an d relative quantities of ale between the thirteenth an dearly fifteent h centuries. 41 At Sedgeworth in Norfolk ale , measured i nterms of the value of foodstuffs consumed , rose from around 10-1 5 pe rcent of the total before 1300 to over 30 per cent after 1400. Bread showeda corresponding decline, fro m nearly 50 per cen t o f the tota l value tounder 2 0 per cent . It seems probable tha t an increase in ale consump-tion took place across rural society as a whole, and tha t the proportio nof the population to o poor to drink it at all, or only rarely, was significantlysmaller in 1400 than in 1300. Much of this drinking probably took placeoutside the home; fifteenth-century preachers and moralists frequentlynote and deprecate th e tendency of the English peasantry to congregatein alehouses.42

The urban poo r were also probably drinking less water and more aleby 1400. In 1345 a London ordinance had described water as the drinkof the poor, in censuring the brewers for taking water from a conduit inthe city . While the brewers were said to be depriving 'the rich and mid-dling sort' of water for preparing food, they were robbing 'the poor [of ]their drink' .43 A generation later, after the impact of plague had wroughtmajor change s in society , there are indications that ale, like bread, wascoming to be regarded as a staple food. A London ordinanc e of 1381-82required brewer s a s well a s bakers t o sel l thei r product s b y farthingmeasures 'in order to assist the poor . . . the mayor and aldermen deem-

39 WAM 18941.40 B. Harvey, Living and Dying in England, 1100-1540: The Monastic Experience (Oxford ,

1993), pp. 57-58.41 C. Dyer, 'Change s in Diet in the Late Middle Ages: The Case of Harvest Workers',

in idem, Everyday Life i n Medieval England (London , 1994), pp. 77-100 .42 Mark Bailey, 'Rural Society', in R. Horrox, ed., Fifteenth-Century Attitudes: Percep-

tions of Society i n Late Medieval England (Cambridge , 1994), pp. 150-68 .43 H.T. Riley , ed., Memorials o f London and London Life (London , 1868) , p. 225 .


ing [ale ] equall y necessary to th e poo r a s in th e cas e o f bread'. 44

Henceforth no brewer was to refuse t o sell a farthing's worth of best aleon demand, o r to refuse to give change for a halfpenny.

Drinking alcoholic beverages had, of course, long been an importantfeature of metropolitan life -Fitz Stephen, in the twelfth century, countedthe 'immoderate drinking of fools' among the plagues afflicting the city- bu t in the later fourteenth century it was probably an enjoyment opento more o f the population tha n eve r before.45 The alehous e i n whichGlutton passe d ou t i s depicted a s filled b y representatives of a broa dswathe of middling- and lower-clas s London society , male and female ,among the m craftsmen , musicians , aliens , petty traders, a Cheapsid escavenger, the Tyburn hangman, a parson, a parish clerk, a watchmanand s o on.46 There seem s little reason t o doubt, whatever Langland'swider allegorical purpose, that this was intended as an entirely plausibleclientele for a London alehouse .

These change s i n drinkin g habit s were beginning t o have a majo rimpact upon the agricultural economy of London's region, as revealedby a systematic study based upon th e evidence of manorial accounts.47

By the last quarter o f the fourteenth centur y the tota l amount o f landdevoted to arable farming in southern England was probably somewhatsmaller than i t had been i n 1300 , as the area under pastur e expandedand livestoc k numbers increased . Muc h more striking , however , werechanges within the arable sector, where cultivation of the brewing grains,especially barley, expanded markedl y (Fig . 2). Thus barley, which hadoccupied 1 3 per cen t o f the tota l are a sow n wit h grain o n manoria l

44 Calendar o f Letter-Books, H, ed. Sharpe , p. 183 .45 W. Fitz Stephen, ' A Description o f London', in Norman London, introduction by

F.D. Logan (Ne w York, 1990) , p. 55.46 Langland, Piers Plowman, p. 49.47 The 'Feedin g the City ' project , whic h ran fro m 198 8 t o 199 4 a t the Centr e for

Metropolitan History , Institut e o f Historica l Research , University of London, i n col -laboration with the Queen' s University, Belfast. Funded i n its successive stage s by theLeverhulme Trus t an d th e Economi c an d Socia l Researc h Counci l (awar d numberR000233157), the project compiled computer databases from manorial demesne accountsfor 20 4 manors in the London regio n i n the period 1288-131 5 and 14 1 manors in theperiod 1375-1400. Statistics on crop production and disposal quoted here derive fromthose databases. Aspects of the project's methodology are discussed in the essay by Mar-garet Murph y in thi s volume. I a m gratefu l to th e director s o f the firs t stag e o f th eresearch, Derek Keene and Bruce Campbell, and to Margaret Murphy with whom I andthey co-directed the second stage, for permission to use 'Feeding the City' data. Changesin grain production , distributio n an d consumptio n i n the London regio n durin g th efourteenth centur y form the subject of an extended paper currently in draft.

Driven by Drink ? 97

1290-1315 1375-1400

% of total grain acreage

Figure 2: Percentage of sown grain acreag e occupied by individual crops ondemesnes in the London region, 1290-1315 and 1375-1400 (source: see notes47 and 48).

demesnes in the Londo n region c . 1300, accounted fo r 23 per cen t inthe period 1375-1400. 48 While wheat retained it s preeminent position ,the grains used for making cheaper and coarser bread - principally ryeand its admixtures known as maslin and mancorn - shrank from 10 percent to less than 5 per cent of the grain acreage .

Even mor e tellin g are statistic s relating to the relativ e quantities ofthe different grains which entered into commercial exchange (Fig . 3).In the years around 130 0 wheat had accounted for 43 per cent of all thegrain sold by manorial demesne s in the London region , but by the lastquarter of the fourteenth century this had declined to 28 per cent. Tradein the cheape r brea d grains base d o n rye had shrun k awa y almost t onothing between the tw o periods, although the y continued t o form asmall component of the liveries given to manorial servants.49 Over thesame period th e principa l brewing grains, barley and dredge , in bothraw and malted state, expanded from 2 9 per cen t to 49 per cent of the

48 The 'Londo n region ' for which figures are quoted comprises the historic (pre -1974) counties of Bedfordshire, Berkshire , Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent,Middlesex, Northamptonshire , Oxfordshir e an d Surrey , and i s shown o n Figure 4 inMargaret Murphy's essay in this volume (p . 123 , below) .

49 Wheat becam e increasingl y importan t i n these liveries durin g the cours e o f thefourteenth century .


1290-1315 1375-140 0

% of total grain sold

Figure 3 : Percentage of al l demesne grain sol d (b y volume) represente d byindividual crops in the London region, 1290-1315 and 1375-1400 (source: seenotes 47 and 48).

total amount of grain sold. Thus, by the end o f the fourteenth century,around one-hal f o f all the demesne grai n which was marketed in th eLondon regio n was probably destined t o be turned into ale.

These changes form part of a complex transformation in the economicgeography of the London region, and of the economic and social structureof the cit y itself. In 130 0 productio n o f grain in London's hinterlan dhad been characterized by patterns of specialization intelligible in termsof established geographical models, whereby relative bulk and transport-ability exert key influences upon th e decision to grow one crop ratherthan another. 50 Change in the structure o f metropolitan an d regiona ldemand fo r grai n promote d reorganizatio n o f this grain productio nhinterland after the Black Death. The major expansion in cultivation ofthe brewing grains took place not in the immediate vicinity of London,but furthe r afield. 51 Norther n an d easter n Kent , which had bee n a nimportant barley-producing area £.1300, continued to be so in the laterfourteenth century. The most marked expansion came to the north andwest of London, in parts of the counties of Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire,

50 Campbell e t al., A Medieval Capital, pp. 5-7, 111-13 .51 See the map s forming figures 1 and 2 in J.A. Galloway , 'London's Grain Supply :

Changes in Production, Distribution and Consumption during the Fourteenth Century' ,Franco-British Studies, 20 (Autumn 1995), pp. 23-34.


Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire . In these parts of the region barleyand dredge seem to have been replacing wheat as the main commercialcrop, perhaps because when malted they could economically withstandtransportation ove r greater distances tha n could wheat. Here the brew-ing grains frequently came to occupy 50 per cen t or more of the acre-age under grai n b y the late r fourteent h century . This zone probablyextended into the counties of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire,52

which wer e name d togethe r wit h Hertfordshire , Bedfordshir e an dNorthamptonshire in a parliamentary ordinance, proclaimed in the cityin 1394 , a s sources o f mal t which should b e carrie d t o London an dthere sold for the benefit of the royal household, nobl e households an d'the entire population'.53

Associated with this developing specialization, overland dealers andcarriers of grain become increasingl y prominent in both Londo n an dnational records i n th e late r fourteenth an d earl y fifteenth centuries .These dealers, often described as 'maltmen', appear particularly prominentin a range of small towns in north Middlesex and southern Hertfordshire,among th e mos t importan t o f which were Barnet , Enfiel d an d Wat-ford.54 The maltmen appear to have acted as middlemen in the overlandtrade, usin g thes e town s as bases for thei r operation s an d cartin g t oLondon th e supplie s needed by the city' s brewers; muc h o f the mal tthey handle d seem s likely t o hav e originate d furthe r north , i n th especialised barley-producing zone. Later evidence points to the regular-ity with which maltmen from suc h towns visited the capital ; a maltmanfrom Aldenham , nea r Watfor d in sout h Hertfordshire , charge d i nChancery with abducting a female apprentice in the 1470s , was said tohave visited London 'weekel y by cause of his occupacion'.55 In contrastto the increasing visibility of malt dealers and carriers, large-scale London-based cornmongers , specializin g in th e grai n trad e an d handlin gprincipally wheat, become scarce r in the records , and appea r t o have

52 Not covered in the 'Feeding the City' databases .53 Calendar o f Letter-Books, H, ed . Sharpe , p . 411.54 See for example Calendar o f Letter Books, H, ed. Sharpe , pp. 17 , 354; A.H. Thomas,

ed., Calendar of the Plea and Memoranda Rolls Preserved among the Archives of the Corporationof th e City o f London a t Guildhall, 1364-81 (Cambridge , 1929) , pp. 191-92 . Other refer -ences ar e contained in databases compile d fro m records o f debt litigation in nationa land local courts by the project 'Marke t Networks in the London Region : The Trade inAgrarian Produce e.1400' , funded by the Leverhulme Trust and based at the Centre forMetropolitan History . The work of this project includes a more detailed reconstructio nof the trad e i n malt, c.1400.

55 Victoria History o f the County o f Hertford, i v (London, 1908) , p. 411 .


declined i n influenc e as a group.56 Early fourteenth-century Londonhad bee n uniqu e amon g Englis h town s in having an organize d corn -mongers' guild. After 1350 the guild seems to have declined in numbersand influence , however, and soo n afte r 140 0 references t o i t cease .Although man y factors undoubtedly lay behind thi s development, th erelative decline in th e consumptio n o f the brea d grains , th e trad e i nwhich had c. 1300 been heavily concentrated alon g the axis of the RiverThames between Henley in Oxfordshire an d Faversham in Kent, seemslikely to have been among the most significant. A reduction in the overallsize of the market , allied to falling prices, may have reduced the scop efor the assured profits on which large-scale, specialized dealers depended.57

Shifts in grain consumption pattern s thus appear to have been promot-ing far-reaching changes in London-centred distributive systems, as wellas in the agricultural sector. The post-Black Death changes were complex,as new regiona l specialization s emerged an d existin g ones becam estrengthened or weakened in response to changes in demand. Som e ofthe development s of the period , suc h as the rise to prominence o f theoverland trade in malt, appear to have laid the foundations for networksof supply which persisted into the sixteenth and seventeenth centuriesand beyond. The grain sector was not the only one to undergo significantchange, drive n by improving living standards an d shiftin g patterns ofconsumption. Parallel shifts were taking place with regard to the produc-tion and consumption of other commodities , as meat came to be morewidely eaten,58 and standards of domestic comfort improved. However,perhaps no change was more influential than the shift from bread to alein restructurin g th e hinterlan d o f one o f medieval Europe's greates tcities.

56 Campbell et al., A Medieval Capital, pp. 81-82.57 Members of other London companies occur in the records as occasional dealers

in grain (ibid., pp. 84-87). Fishmongers were prominent amongst those acquiring licencesto ship bulk consignments of wheat: examples can be found in the Calendar of Close Rollsand Calendar of Patent Rolls (London, various dates); many o f these instances relate t oyears of high grain prices.

58 Dyer, 'Changes in Diet', pp. 86, 89.

7

Making Sense of Medieval Culinary Records:Much Done, But Much More to Do

Constance B. Hieatt

The las t decade has seen a remarkable growth of interest in the subjectof medieval culinary records and , naturally enough, ther e has been a nenormous numbe r o f valuable publications arising from this interest ;the extremely limited selection listed in the Appendix ranges from suchwell-informed an d seriou s books about th e foo d o f the perio d a s P.W.Hammond's Food and Feast in Medieval England; through various edi-tions, to accumulations of relevant historical records, such as those i nC.M. Woolgar's two volumes of Household Accounts from Medieval England;and even a new basic research tool, the Repertoire des manuscrits medievauxcontenant des recettes culinaires, which contains bibliographical details o nall such manuscripts known - before 1992 , the year of publication - tothose o f us who compiled it .

It i s about tim e thi s kind o f information becam e readil y available.Right up t o the perio d i n the 1980 s when a great deal of new materialbegan t o become available , much o f what was written about medieva lfood wa s just plai n wrong , whethe r becaus e th e evidenc e wa smisinterpreted o r because it was still insufficient in quantity (or, in somecases, quality) . Any number o f painful instance s can b e foun d i n Wil-liam Edward Mead's The English Medieval Feast,1 which was for many yearsthe mos t valuabl e sourc e o f information abou t th e foo d o f medievalEnglish (an d French) aristocrats . Bu t saying that i t was the mos t valu-able i s tantamount t o calling it the bes t o f a bad lot : it is riddled withsuch misconception s a s that 'practicall y ever y dish wa s smothered i nspices' an d thu s tha t 'eve n the best [medieva l recipes] contai n one ormore ingredients repulsive to modern tastes o r . .. combined in a fashionthat would now make them nauseating in the extreme' (pp . 57 and 55).

It also states as fact such myths as that medieval cooks used spice s todisguise the flavour of spoiled meat (p. 77), a myth which is, unfortunately,still current amon g the general public ; and that vegetables were hardly

1 W.E. Mead, Th e English Medieval Feast (London , 1931 ; reprinte d Londo n an d NewYork, 1967).


eaten at all, at least by the well-to-do (e.g., p. 100). However, there is onething I can report to Mead's credit: he did not perpetrate th e misconcep-tion common today that medieval diners chewed messily on large bonesand thre w them around with wild abandon. I presume we owe that onelargely to Charles Laugh ton's memorable film performance a s HenryVIII.

Sometimes Mead's misinformation is simply a matter of misinterpret-ing scant y evidence, a s when h e say s tha t 'suc h beverage s a s brandy,whisky, champagne and gin were quite unknown in medieval times' (p .48). The OED does not, indeed, cit e any of these terms in sources prio rto th e seventeent h century , nor d o an y of those word s appear i n th ecookery books Mea d knew . However, distilled wines (i.e . brandy) ar eamply documented in such sources as the confectionery collections foundin primarily medical manuscripts, and there is one reference to 'ew ardaunt',one of the medieval terms for distilled spirits, in the fourteenth-centuryForme ofCury, a source which Mead drew on extensively.

He may , however, have been misled by an error mad e by one o f theearly editors of the Forme ofCury. Richard Warner, whose edition appearedin 1791, glossed 'ew ardaunt'as 'hotwater', although the recipe concernedis for a pastry castle which was evidently meant to be served dramaticallyaflame. One shudder s t o think of the disastrous effects o f pouring ho twater over a pastry castle. It can be presumed tha t neither Warner no rMead had any expertise i n kitchen matters .

It may also be culinary ignorance o n Mead's part which leads him tostate, in the same passage, that 'Macaroni. . . appears to have been whollylacking on English tables during th e period w e are studying' , when infact the Forme ofCury give s a recipe entitled, in the edition he consulted,' macrows . This i s pasta cu t i n smallis h pieces, boiled an d serve d withcheese an d butter. In what was probably the first book in English to tryto adapt medieval recipes for modern kitchens , Esther B. Aresty at leastrecognized that this pasta dish was an early version of macaroni,2 althoughI cannot say much fo r the authenticit y of her 'adapted ' recipes .

One of the medieval recipes that Mead treats with scorn continues tobe a locus of misinformation to this day. That is, gingerbread. Citing therecipe with that title in MS Harleian 279 , Mead, after complainin g thatthe names of medieval recipes are often 'misleading', says, 'Gingerbreadsounds familiar, but when we learn how it is made we see that the nam econnotes nothing we have known before . . . This is gingerbread withoutginger!' Indeed, tha t particular recipe did leave out the ginger - but no

2 Esther B. Aresty, Th e Delectable Past (New York, 1964) , p. 22 .

Making Sense o f Medieval Culinary Records 10 3

doubt by scribal error; ther e i s at least on e othe r similar , and slightlyearlier, recipe which makes no such error. 3

That is not th e onl y problem w e face wit h medieva l 'gingerbread' .Readers of Chaucer are misled if they assume that the gingerbread enjoyedby Sir Thopas was exactly like the cake you can run u p from a mix avail-able at any grocery store nowadays, but the medieval recipes for a spicedcake made of bread crumbs and honey are still recognizably of the samefamily; as I trust those will agree who have tried the recipe Sharon Butlerand I adapted.4 The glosses for Sir Thopas's gingerbread assure d read -ers that that was what was meant in the Skeat and F.N. Robinson edition sof Chaucer; but, starting with Baugh's 1963 edition, the prevailing glosshas become 'preserve d ginger', which is what the Chaucer Glossary (1979)and th e Riverside Chaucer (1987) tel l students is the meaning .

I cannot trace this change back to its origin beyond th e fact that thisis the meanin g o f the wor d given a s the 'apparent ' meanin g o f 'earlyexamples' i n the OED. But the examples cite d there which may (or maynot) suppor t thi s definition are no t reall y references to ginger bread a tall; they ar e simpl y earlier spellings fo r ginger . An d th e recip e in MSHarleian 279 , which is obviously not on e fo r preserved ginger , is citedby the OE D immediately after the quotation from 'Sir Thopas'; the pos-sible implication of the tempora l proximit y of the cakelike recipe an dthe literary reference is not noted.

Culinary historians have long known that the OE D is not entirel y reli-able in these matters, but Chaucer editors now seem to have more faith inthat dubious definition than I find to be justifiable. However, I must confessthat I have probably also been among thos e givin g misleading informa-tion on this subject. I wrote, in an article published in 1979, that 'the delicacywhich refreshed Sir Thopas had a flavour which would be quite recogniz-able to today's gingerbread fanciers'. 5 But in the years which have passedsince I wrote that remark I have read my way through scores of manuscriptsand edited , in part or in whole, around thirt y of them: and I now know Iwas drawing my conclusions on insufficien t evidence .

There is overwhelming evidence that the usual meaning of'gingerbread'in manuscript s o f the fourteent h an d fifteent h centurie s was neither

3 Curye on Inglysch: English Culinary Manuscripts of the Fourteenth Century (Including theForme ofCury), ed . C.B . Hieat t and S . Butler (London, 1985) , pt v, 19 (p. 154. )

4 Constance B. Hieatt and Sharo n Butler, PleynDelit: Medieval Cookery for Modern Cooks(Toronto, 1976) , no. 122 ; (2n d edn , 1996) , no. 128 . Th e recipe adapted here is takenfrom BL , MS Harleian 279 - th e one Mead scoffed at .

5 To boill e the chiknes with th e marybones' , in Chaucerian Problems and Perspectives,ed. E. Vasta and Z.P . Thundy (Notr e Dame, Indiana, 1970) , p. 160 .


preserved ginger nor a cake made with honey and breadcrumbs, althoughthe latter remained popular for some centuries; there is a recipe almostidentical t o th e fourteenth-centur y versio n i n Marth a Washington' seighteenth-century 'American ' cookbook. 6 Bu t th e vas t majorit y o fmedieval recipes with thi s title are for a chewy but fairl y hard candy , aconfection resemblin g toffee , mad e o f nothing more tha n honey andspices.

I now think it is far more likely that Sir Thopas refreshed himself withcandy, rathe r tha n anythin g resemblin g cake , an d th e context ,re-examined, seems to suggest thi s strongly; we are told tha t his 'merrymen' brought hi m sweet wine and mead :

And roial spiceryeOf gyngebreed that was ful fyn ,And lycorys, and eek comyn,With sugre that is trye.

That is , they brought him tw o kinds of sweet drinks and thre e kinds ofexpensive candy: gingery 'toffee', liquorice and candied cumin seeds. Ifind the whole passage, thus understood, very funny; it is such a thoroughlychildish treat !

It is not surprising that we all know a lot more now than we did fiftee nyears ago - le t alone earlie r i n the century - give n the outpouring ofserious published work in the field which I commented on above. Thesimple statistics here ar e really remarkable. The following estimates ofpublication records deal only with recipes recorded in England, althoughmy colleagues interested i n the continental record s have been far fromidle (a s the Appendix shows, selective although i t most definitely is) .

By 1900 around thirteen culinary manuscripts of English provenance,whether Latin , Anglo-Norman or Middle English, had been edited andprinted, in whole or in part, including those simply collated. The numberof recipes printed from these manuscripts amounts to about 1850. Since1900 (and almost all in the last decade or so), something like twenty-oneadditional manuscripts have been edited, in whole or in part - not count-ing those re-edited - giving us around 2075 recipes not previously printed,as well as a great many new (and often corrected) versions of some which

6 Martha Washington's Booke of Cookery, ed . Kare n Hess (Ne w York, 1981) , p. 342. AsMrs Hess clearly shows, Martha Washington's 'cookbook' was neither 'American ' no reighteenth-century in its origins. It is all the more interesting in tha t it gives us a cleardemonstration o f the persistenc e of far more ancien t recipes righ t into what we havealways considered t o be the 'American ' culinary heritage.

Making Sense of Medieval Culinary Records 10 5

had bee n edite d before . Obviously , our basic database ha s more tha ndoubled. Ye t it stil l cannot b e sai d tha t th e field has been adequatel ycovered.

The fac t i s that ther e ar e a t least twelve English manuscripts whichhave never been edited at all; and these manuscripts contai n hundred sof recipes. Furthermore, when we add to these completely unpublishedcollections the unedited recipe s in manuscripts which have only beenedited o r collate d i n part , and thos e i n unsatisfactory editions whichstill need re-editing, there remains a total of almost 2000 recipes in needof editorial attention: about as many as have been edited in this century,and more than th e total number edited in previous centuries.

We must also remember that , of the 'published ' recipes , many haveonly been 'collated ' in editions of parallel recipes; in some cases, thesemay have significant variants which remain unnoticed, although we canhope tha t such cases are only a small minority now. In any event, whilethe job o f recording medieva l English recipes is surely now more tha nhalf done, ther e i s unquestionably still a great deal of work to be done .We must realize that any conclusions based on what appears to be onlytwo-thirds of the presently extant evidence are tentative and subjec t tofurther correctio n a s more evidence becomes available.

It is not just the evidence to be found in English culinary manuscriptswhich can cast new light on medieval English recipes. The haute cuisineof western Europe was an international one: with distinctive local vari-ants, of course, but one must often look well beyond national boundariesto explain recip e terminology . Consider, for example, a glossary entryI wrote some time before 1980 , on a recipe from a very early source:

EMELES I 46, translating Emeles in MS Al. The Frenc h nam e seem s to indicat ethat these cakes are a n enriched variety of the Alumellepile a u sucre of MP,p. 208 , an d tha t th e word i s thus etymologicall y related t o 'omelet' ; note,however, tha t 'Cyuele' , th e spellin g indicate d i n 1 . 5 here, i s also use d by[MS] L:cf. CB , p. 113.7

I soo n cam e t o realiz e thi s was incorrect. 'Emeles' , I discovered , is aspelling for 'almonds ' in a fourteenth-century Catalan cookbook,8 andalmonds - whic h are not an ingredient o f an 'alumelle' at all - ar e an

7 Curye o n Inglysch, p . 185 ; 'CB' refer s to Tw o Fifteenth-Century Cookery Books, ed. Tho -mas Austin (EETS , original series , 91, 1888; reprinte d London, 1964) , and 'MP ' to Lemenagier de Paris, ed. Jerome Pichon (Paris , 1847 ; reprinted Geneva, n.d.), vol. ii.

8 Rudolf Grewe , ed., Libre de Sent Soft (Barcelona , 1979) , p. 237 .


essential, primary ingredient of the Anglo-Norman (and English) 'eme-les'. Furthermore, i t is easy to see how the spellin g 'cyuele' would have(almost inevitably) arisen fro m a misreading of 'emele' ; it is often dif-ficult to distinguish between th e capita l letter s C and E in hands of thisperiod, and an m, written with three minims , could easily be read as iu.The scrib e who substituted y for i was trying to prevent what he took tobe 'iu ' from bein g 'misread' as 'm'.

I made this discovery too late to correct the entry in the printed edi-tion, and had to give a revised version in an article in which I correcteda number o f erroneous reading s i n the book; 9 this was far from bein gthe only one, and if I were redoing tha t article now I would have to addyet more. If those of us working on early culinary history are ever to beable to call on all the data we need t o make well-informed judgements,what we clearly need i s a computerized databas e containin g informa-tion about the individual recipes included in all the known English andEuropean manuscripts , along with dishes mentioned in other sources ,notably medical treatises and menus .

For a while, it seemed w e were going t o ge t something o f the sor tfrom a group based in Paris. A decade o r so ago, this group, under th eleadership of Professor Jean-Louis Flandrin, announced a database t obe undertaken unde r the general heading o f 'Nommes de plats ' (th etitles o f recipes) , and I was asked t o b e responsibl e fo r th e Englis hcomponent. At that time, however, I was busy with other projects , andnow tha t I have considered th e matte r mor e closely , I doubt tha t th emethods proposed for use with French materials by the Paris group areadequate for a project o f more international scope . They do not workat all well for the English and Scandinavia n recipes which I know best.

The information considered minimally essential by those who designedthat project consisted of the titl e of the dish, the document in which itappears and the principal ingredient and general category of the dish.10

However, I found tha t grav e difficultie s aris e i n handling th e title s ofEnglish and Scandinavian recipes, difficulties which apparently did notoccur to those working primarily with French, Italian and Spanis h col-lections. I suspect this will turn ou t to be the case with other recipes inGermanic languages.

The principa l problem s are , first , that later modification s t o many

9 'Further Notes on "The Form e of Cury" et al.'; see the Appendix .10 As stated (althoug h I was informed a t a later dat e tha t this had bee n somewha t

modified) i n the programme for a conference hel d at the University of Montreal in May1990.


recipes may make them almos t unrecognizable; secondly, that a greatnumber o f their titles are - lik e that of 'emeles' - borrowe d fro m othe rlanguages, and transcribed by scribes whose corruptions of the originalsmay border o n the bizarre; and, thirdly, that we still have a long way togo in establishing th e original etymolog y (and thus , in part, meaning)of many medieval food names. A further problem is the changes in titleswhich wer e sometime s made whe n a recipe wa s translated fro m on elanguage into another. One example is the French 'brouet houssie', whichProfessor Flandrin has argued i n an important and influential article isexclusively French because the French titl e does not appear in Englishrecipe collections. 11

However, when I analysed the content s and procedure s involve d inthis recipe, I found i t to be essentiall y identical t o a recipe i n severa lEnglish collections. While the English scribes do not call the dish a' bruef,their tide is only gradually corrupted otherwise.' Hauseleamye' i n an Anglo-Norman version becomes 'hauceleamye' in an early Middle English transla-tion, an d 'hocchee ' i n Th e Forme o f Cury. Th e ke y ingredients remai nexactly the same : chicken , sauced wit h sour grapes (th e equivalen t ofthe French verjuice, which means the juice of sour grapes), and notablygarnished wit h parsley, which is what one medieva l authority tells us ismeant by 'houssie'.12

The Frenc h culinar y term 'houssie'is, thus, clearly the ancesto r ofthese strange English names, although I have not found any explana-tion fo r th e puzzlin g Anglo-Norman addition 'leamye'. ls Presumabl ylater English cooks or scribes didn't understand i t either, since hauce-leamyewas shortened to hocchee. Note how misleading a change in titl ecan be i f we have not caugh t other detail s in the recipes which showthem t o be more o r less identical; there ar e a number of other casesin which Professor Flandrin was wrong in thinking a 'French' dish didnot appea r i n Englis h versions. I believe, therefore, tha t we need amuch mor e detaile d approac h t o recipe s an d thei r title s than wasproposed t o those o f us present a t the meetin g in Montreal in 199 0(much less what was vaguely circulated a few years earlier).

No computer wil l be able to enlighten us much unless we provide itwith enoug h informatio n t o extrac t th e specia l characteristics whichmake a particular dish different from other similar dishes, with enough

11 'Brouets, potages et bouillons'; see the Appendix.12 Le menagier de Paris, ed. Georgine E. Brereton and Janet M. Ferrier (Oxford, 1981),

p. 216.13 Nor have any of the Anglo-Normanists I have consulted.


specific informatio n t o make it possible t o ignore th e accidental s andaccretions - such as whether brouet houssie/hoccheeis thickened, and if sohow (bread and/or eggs): a matter which, in this case, is of no importancewhatsoever, althoug h th e presenc e o r lac k o f a thickene r ma y be adistinguishing characteristic of certain other dishes .

Must we, then, record the entire recipe ? Thi s is the approach take nby Terence Scully , who reported in 1993 that he has recorded hundred sof entire medieval recipe s - in fact, entire collections - in a database ,apparently by simply using a scanner on them.14 Yet, while Scully said hehad no w recorded 'al l known collections ' o f such recipes , he di d no tstate explicitl y that h e ha d use d thi s technique o n material s existingonly in unprinte d manuscripts . Therein, fo r anyon e concerne d wit hEnglish materials, lies the obvious difficulty, considering tha t a substantialproportion o f th e manuscript s containin g English recipes remain sunedited.

I have some microfilms of manuscripts I cannot decipher a t all, on amicrofilm reader or in photocopies; how could a scanner help in a casewhere I know I will never be able to read thi s manuscript unless I canfind the time and money to visit the library which holds it? Some are sodifficult tha t even studying the original under ultra-viole t light does notresolve al l problems. I f I were to tr y t o ente r complet e recipe s in al lcases, th e chore would n o doubt take up more years than I have left .Sometimes i t can tak e me several days of brooding an d checkin g vari-ous references before I can be reasonably sure I have correctly deciphere da single recipe .

While Professor Scully' s database may eventually be able to lend itselfto far wider uses than any more selective method o f collecting informa-tion, I fear his procedure i s not practicable if we are to achieve a completerecord o f the English manuscripts in anything like the next twenty yearsor so. I therefore propose t o transcribe more limite d entries, which, ifthe detail s included ar e chosen and classifie d carefully , could give us afoundation for the kind of analysis I am urging. Fortunately, a record ofall the recipes in the corpus in their entirety is not really necessary, sincelarge parts of identifiable collections with a common source are foundin multiple versions with little variation in the essential details .

There are, for example, at least eight collections representing or draw-ing extensively on Th e Forme ofCury, an d a number of other collection s

14 A paper delivered at the Kalamazoo Medieval Institute that year, and not , as far asI know, subsequently published. My information is limited to the oral paper and a reportfrom anothe r schola r who had talke d to Scully about hi s methods .


where smalle r groups of virtually unchanged recipe s from thi s sourcecan be identified. Such recipes can be noted briefl y as variants, as longas they are examine d wit h a carefu l ey e to what may turn ou t t o b esignificant variants , which may change our understanding of individualrecipes or related groups. This was, for example, the case with my earlierdiscovery that the Forme of Cury fritter recipe called 'nysebek', whichappeared to be an odd mixture of sorrel and flour, was actually a miscop-ied version of an older recipe called 'mistembec', named for the funnelthrough which the batter was poured and consisting of a simple mixtureof flour leavened with sourdough .

My idea o f a usefu l wa y to describ e a recipe whic h will includ e al lnecessary details but not take an undue amount of time to draw up hasbeen deeply influenced by consultations with other scholars in the field.It is still only tentative: I am now in touch with an expert on computer s(and databases ) wh o may considerably modify m y proposals. I t seemsclear, however, that certain basic information about the recipe and themanuscript in which it appears mus t come first. It also seems obviousthat 'mai n ingredients ' mus t be handled with care: you cannot simplycategorize a dish as using 'chicken ' as against, say, 'meat' or 'fish' . No tonly did many popular dishe s have 'fast day ' versions, substituting fish(or cheese o r fruit) fo r the 'mai n ingredient' used on a day when fleshmeat was permitted, but also many recipes routinely suggest alternativesubstitutions in more o r less the sam e category. Brouet houssie typicallycalls for chicken o r veal.

I propose t o handle thi s situation by initially classifying a dish as fall-ing into one o f four large groups, dividing 'principal ingredients' int oMeats (including poultry), Fish, Vegetable (including fruits), and Dairy(including eggs). When a recipe has one or more alternative versions,each woul d have a separate listin g - fo r example, 'blancmanger' usingpoultry might be one listing, and ' blancmanger of fish' a separate entry .But i t is also necessar y to lis t th e mino r ingredients : som e dishe s aredistinguished as a group by their seasonings o r garnishes, as is the casewith what I have noted is distinguished b y the us e o f verjuice (o r sou rgrapes) and parsley .

Placing a recipe int o a category describing in genera l wha t type ofdish it is can also be useful, but here we get onto ground where i t maybe difficult to make distinctions which are valid in more than one country.The pioneer s in Franc e starte d with the categorie s used i n medieva lFrench cooker y books and menus ; I, on th e othe r hand , started withthose used in England, whic h were often very different and, when westopped t o consider th e matter, often inconsistent.


A modern cookbook generally sorts foods into categories which dependon the order in which we customarily serve them. So did many medievalcollections; but since that order is not necessaril y the same, it is apt tobe very confusing for modern students of the subject. A typical twentieth-century cookbook begins with 'appetizers' (or 'hors d'oeuvres', or 'cana-pes', or something of the sort), then progresses through 'soups' , 'meat',etc., to 'desserts' and (usuall y finally) 'confections' . But, when we lookat a medieval cookbook, the logic of the groupings may elude us.

Neither French nor English medieval culinary manuscripts start withhors d'oeuvres; although many French menus suggest that formal mealsin France began with just such delicate titbits, the major French recip ecollections invariabl y group suc h dishe s a t th e en d of th e collection ,under the general rubric of'entremets', along with the delicacies whichwere served a t the end o f the meal . 'Entremets ' usually resemble th especial delicacies and 'subtleties' which also make up the final course ofa medieval English festive meal ; such recipes also usually come a t th eend o f a medieval English recipe collection.

The sweets and tiny confections which often followed the meal properare not usually found in culinary recipe collections at all, for the simplereason tha t the y were likel y t o b e purchase d fro m a professiona lconfectioner rather than made in the manor house (o r palace) kitchen.Note that the dishes which the recipe collections, as well as the menus,indicate were to be served in the final course were not necessarily sweet,as our 'desserts ' are: while many of them were sweetened, or served witha dusting of sugar, they were not always noticeably sweeter than some ofthe dishes customarily served earlier in the menu. The medieval rationalewas, simply, that they were special treats , and thu s came later, whetheror no t the y were 'sweet' . The headnot e t o Th e Forme o f Cury declare s'First it teachiJD man for to make commune potages and commune metisfor howshold . . . [and] aftirwar d i t techiJD for to make curious potage s& meetes and sotiltees'. 15

On these broad divisions, between the 'common ' and the 'curious' ,English and French collections - at least, those which take care to makethe rational e o f their orde r clea r - ar e agreed. Bu t when it comes tosmaller subdivisions , they part ways. For example , French collection soften mak e distinctions between thickened and unthickened pottages ,which no English collection sorts into separate groups; and, while Englishrecipes often specify that a particular pottage must be 'chargeant 'or 'stand-ing', thick, or, on the contrary, 'running', thin, neither of these categories

Curye on Inglysch, p . 20 .15


is necessarily unthickened . A 'running' pottag e is usually one tha t i sonly moderately thick, like a modern crea m soup, whereas a 'standing'pottage is one that is thickened to the consistency of a thick porridge.16

On the other hand , the delicacies which come at or towards the endof the meal which are generally grouped together as 'entremets'in Frenchcollections are in England often consigned to separate categories entitled'lechemetes' (foods served in slices) and'fried metes ' (suc h as fritters).None o f thi s is necessarily consistent with men u designations . A dishwhich an English menu calls a 'pottage' maybe listed in a contemporarycookery book as a 'lechemete': and indeed if a 'pottage' is basically somethingboiled in a pot, it is a pottage. Or started out to be one; some end up asgrilled dishes, too.

If we are to agree on a category classification that will suit both Englishand continenta l examples , we may have to adher e t o th e metho d o fcooking as a guide; this would allow me to categorize 'furmenty' -whichis grouped wit h humble vegetable pottages in England but classifie d asan 'entremet'm some French collections - a s a pottage without offenceto French researchers. Yet even if we put a pottage which, when cold, issliced and grille d in a separate category, that stil l leaves us with a vastnumber in the 'pottage' group, and researchers must be able to see thecharacteristics of a particular pottage.

This means that we must be meticulous in recording such specifica -tions as 'make it standing' as part of the record for an individual recipe,just as we must include all ingredients, including garnishes. While I donot think we really must record the entire recipe, there is one part of itwhich shoul d indee d b e recorde d verbatim , just a s it appear s i n th emanuscript. This is the first line or so of the recipe , or around a dozenwords.

That is usually enough to make it possible for a researcher who comparesit with a recipe recorded in another manuscript t o determine whethe rit i s - a t least, in its beginning - substantiall y the same recipe. Whenrecipes i n differen t manuscripts clearl y are th e same , the y belong towhat I term the same 'family' group of recipes: for example, the famil yof The Forme ofCury or of Le viandier de Taillevent. Most of the recipes inEnglish manuscripts can be traced to one source collection or another,and I am sure many French recipes coul d als o be classified in 'family 'groups, with a considerable gain in our understanding of the history ofparticular recipes.

16 Or eve n thicker : 'jellies ' are ofte n categorize d as 'a potage called gelee ' in themenus of the period.

112 Food an d Eating i n Medieval Europe

Ten English familie s can be identified, most of which dra w on earlierones. I thu s propose t o include in a recipe descriptio n th e famil y towhich i t belongs, or from which i t descends, i f this can be identified, a swell as the opening clause (s). With thi s information, i t is often unneces-sary to give full detail s other than ways in which the particular examplediffers: reader s can be referred t o the prototype.

Here, then, is the information I propose to record for each recipe:Line 1 M S title; author (i f known); approximate date.Line 2 Nam e of recipe as it appears here; folio on which it begins; number

in this collection.Line 3 Normalize d spelling of recipe name; recipe category , 'principle

ingredient' category; recipe 'family' i f identified.Line 4 Firs t line or so of recipe - which will usually be enough to character-

ize this particular version and t o locate it in its family group if thatis not ye t known.

Line 5 Ingredients , in order called for, with semi-colons separating groupsrequired at different stage s of cooking.

Line 6 Cookin g procedures; semi-colons to correspond to stages indicatedin the ingredient list.

Line 7 Characteristic s of this particular recipe not already noted.

Of course, some of the information demande d on a line of the entry doesnot always exist: for example, folio number for a collection in a scroll withno suc h numbers . When n o gues s or explanation ca n be hazarded, anitem (such as the name of an anonymous author) will simply be passed by.

As examples of how this might work, here are three recipes for a dishcalled 'mawmenny' :

1

1 BL , MS Add. 46919; c. 13252 Maumenee ; 19r; 73 Mawmenny ; PO, M; 24 Wyn ; braun of chapoun ipolled al to poudre, & sojajaen d o pryn5 Wine , dark meat of capon, ground almonds, clove powder; fried almonds,

ground 'gretvlehs ' [beef?] , sugar; indigo colouring [?]17

6 Boi l7 Suga r to 'abaten \>e streynjie' o f the spicing

17 Two people who had actually cooked using this recipe tol d me they did not needto add any colouring: the colou r produce d by this combination o f ingredients turne dout t o be lavender, which is close enough to the colou r o f indigo. Note , however , thatseveral other medieval recipe s cal l specifically for indigo as a food colouring . I do no tknow whether indig o would be considered fi t fo r human consumptio n today .


2

1 Bodleia n Library, Oxford, MS Douce 257; 13812 Maumene ; 89r; 303 Mawmenny ; PO, M; 4 (< 2?)4 Ta k be byys ober be flesch o f be caponys. Sebe hem an d ker f5 Capo n meat; almond milk , beef broth, ground rice or wastell bread, egg

yolks, saffron; cloves , 'galentyn' powde r6 Boil , grind; mix (and simmer); garnish7 Dar k or white meat; very thick: 'charchant'

1 BL , MS Add. 5016; c . 14202 Mawmenny ; roll; 1943 Mawmenny ; PO, M; 44 Tak e be chese and o f flessh o f capouns or of hennes and hakke5 Capo n o r hen meat ; almond milk , beef or other mea t broth; rice flour

or crumbs or wheat starch (res t as in recipe 2 above)6 Cho p and grind; mix and simmer; thicken; garnish7 Preliminar y cooking omitted; 'thighs' miscopied as 'cheese'

The firs t of these, dating from ver y early in th e fourteenth century,translates an Anglo-Norman recipe of the late thirteenth; the secondis from the later fourteenth century and the last from the early fifteenthcentury. Like almost all English collections, these are anonymous , sono author s appear, an d th e las t is a scroll , which i s not divide d intofolios.

All three o f these ar e vaguel y related, but not e tha t the secon d isnot a t all the 'same ' as the first: the wording is entirely different, an dthe ingredients differ just enough t o matter. Instead of ground beef ,which never again appears in any English 'mawmenny' recipe, we aretold t o use beef broth or some other meat broth and a thickening ofrice flour or breadcrumbs. The whole almonds have disappeared. Thedish i s no longe r t o be coloure d indig o blue (o r lavender), an ide awhich was just a s exotic then a s it would be now , but i s simply to b esaffron yellow , a commonplac e colouring i n th e period . Eg g yolkscreep in - no t so much as a thickening agent but, the recipe says , tohelp, along with the saffron , t o make the dish 'yellow'. And the clovesare supplemented with 'galentyn' powder-which may mean the spicegalingale.

The thir d recipe , on th e othe r hand , i s 'the same ' a s the second ,although no t a n exact duplicate: more alternatives appear in the lis t

3


of ingredients, which is normal for a later copy - th e later the copy,the mor e elaborate d i t is apt t o be. Bu t one differenc e shoul d havecaught th e ey e at once . Here 'chese ' make s a unique an d startlingappearance a s a prime ingredient in a dish well known, and lackingcheese, elsewhere . Had chees e crep t in a s a substitute ingredient inthe fifteent h century?

No indeed! As my last line indicates, this is a scribal error for 'thighs':that is, dark meat of the capon, possibly spelled 'thees' in the exemplarhere miscopied . As anyone who ha s looked a t medieva l manuscriptsknows, it is easy to misread t as c in many scribal hands. That this is thecase here is clear only because the recipe is easily identified as the sameas that in M S Douce 257, in recipe 2 above. You can se e that this is sobecause i t begins the sam e way, with on e omission ; contains the sameingredients - plu s a few alternatives; and follows the same procedures,except omittin g directions for first cooking the capo n meat . Anyonewho looks at the res t of the recip e wil l see that it follows th e origina lwording very closely.18

It is, therefore, quite improbable tha t any cook ever actually addedcheese to the 'mawmenny'. This shows how vital it may be to establishthe recipe's ancestry, which can give important clues when somethingwent wrong in the transmission. A culinary historian who looked a tthat thir d mawmenn y recipe withou t realizin g it s relationship t othe on e abov e migh t wel l reach a n entirel y wrong conclusion ; as,indeed, Esther Aresty did when she chose that recipe for a modernadaptation.19

Incidentally, some may be surprised to hear tha t 'mawmenny' is nota dish of French origin - ther e is, in fact, no known French example ofthe dish - but one adapted in Italy and England from an Arabic source.Inevitably, the Italian and English versions of the dish are very differen tfrom th e origina l Arabi c ma'mumya, whic h was often simpl y a fat-enriched porridge. 20

18 All three recipes are printed i n Curye on Inglysch: se e pp. 45 , 68 and 144 .19 Aresty, Th e Delectable Past, pp. 23-24.20 The mos t illuminating discussion o f the histor y of this dish i s Maxime Rodin-

son's essay 'La Ma'muniyyat en Orient et en Occident', originally published in Etudesd'Orientalisme dediees a l a memoire d e Levi-Provenfal (Paris , 1962) , trans , b y Barbar aInskip as 'Ma'muniyya East and West', in Petitspropos culinaires, 33 (1989), pp. 15-25.Professor Rodinso n include d a number of recipes; thos e closes t to medieval Italianand English versions call for rice, milk and breast meat of chickens, sometimes garnishedwith pistachio s - fo r which the whole almond s i n the Anglo-Norman version wer eprobably a substitute .

Making Sense o f Medieval Culinary Records 11 5

It is clear, therefore, tha t the culinary historian's frame of referencehas to be a wide one. I n thi s essay I have cited French , Catalan , Arabicand (obliquely ) Scandinavian examples. This rather dauntin g situationmay explain, in part , my relatively isolated positio n i n attemptin g t ocomplete th e record of medieval English culinary manuscripts. I wouldbe only too delighted to welcome more recruits to the field to help inwhat sometimes look s like an impossible mountain o f work.


Appendix

Some Important Recent Publications on Medieval Food

[Anglo-Norman MSS] 'Two Anglo-Norman Culinary Collections', ed.C.B. Hieatt and R.F. Jones, Speculum, 61 (1986), pp. 859-82.

Anonimomeridionale,Duelibridicudna, ed. I.Bostrom (Stockholm, 1985).Jean de Bockenheim, 'Registre de cuisine' , ed. B. Laurioux, Melanges de

I'ecolefrancaisedeRome, 100 (1988), pp. 709-60.'Maistre' Chiquart, 'Du fait de cuisine', ed. T. Scully, Valesia 40 (1985), pp.

101-231; trans. Scully (Ne w Yor k and Bern, 1986).Curye on Inglysch: English Culinary Manuscripts oftheFourteenth Century (Includ-

ing the Forme ofCury), ed. C.B. Hieatt and S. Butler (London, 1985).J.-L.Handrin, 'Brouets, potagesetbouillons', Medievales, 5 (1983), pp. 5-14.R. Grewe, ed., 'An Early Thirteenth-Century Northern-European Cookbook',

Current Research, 1986, pp . 27-4 5 (conferenc e proceedings; CulinaryHistorians of Boston, for 1985).

Ann Hagen , A Handbook o f Anglo-Saxon Food: Processing and Consumption(Pinner, Middlesex, 1992).

—, A Second Handbook o f Anglo-Saxon Food and Drink: Production and Distribu-tion (Pinner, Middlesex, 1995).

P.W. Hammond, Food andFeast in Medieval England (Stroud , Gloucestershire,1993).

C.B. Hieatt , 'Further Notes on Th e Forme ofCury e t al.: Additions and Cor-rections', Bulletin o f the John Ry lands University Library o f Manchester, 7 0(1988), pp. 45-52.

—, 'The Middle English Culinary Recipes in MS Harley 5401: An Editionand Commentary' , Medium aevum, 65 (1996), pp. 54-71.

D. Menjot, ed., Manger et boire au moyen age, 2 vols (Paris, 1984).An Ordinance of Pottage: An Edition of the Fifteenth-Century Culinary Recipes in

Yale University's M S Beinecke 163, ed. C.B. Hieatt (London, 1988).Le Recueil de Riom, ed, C. Lambert (Montreal , 1988).'Repertoire des manuscrits medievaux con tenant des recettes culinaires',

ed. C.B. Hieatt, C. Lambert, B. Laurioux and A. Prentki, in Du manuscrita la table, ed. C. Lambert (Montreal , 1992), pp. 315-88.

Terence Scully, The Art o f Cookery i n the Middle Ages (Woodbridge, Suffolk ,and Rochester, New York, 1995) .

Le viandierde Taillevent, ed. T. Scully (Ottawa, 1988).C.M. Woolgar , Household Accounts from Medieval England, 2 vols (Oxford,

1992-93).

8

Feeding Medieval Cities: Some Historical Approaches

Margaret Murphy

It has been recognized for some time that the issue of urban provision -ing is central to our understanding of the role of urban centre s in th eprocesses of economic development.1 However, when Roger Scola's bookon Manchester , Feeding th e Victorian City, appeare d i n 1992 , it s editor sclaimed (wit h some justification) tha t i t represented th e firs t book -length stud y of the suppl y of food to , and it s distribution in, a majo rcity.2 Although in recent years historians have turned thei r attention tothe question of how medieval towns and cities were provisioned and theeffect of their demands upon their regions, there is still a notable absenceof large-scale studies of particular places.3

In the modern perio d th e supply zones of large cities have widenedto national an d internationa l scope , presentin g th e historia n wit h analmost impossible task in getting to grips with the source material. Scolaindeed acknowledged that he had been forced to abandon several aspectsof his provisioning study, most notably an examination o f the respons eof food producers across an ever-widening area of supply to the demands

1 See, e.g., E.A. Wrigley, 'A Simple Model of London's Importance in Changing EnglishSociety and Economy , 1650-1750', Past and Present, 37 (1967) , pp. 44-70 ; P. Bairoch,Cities and Economic Development from the Dawn of History t o the Present (Chicago, 1988) .

2 Roger Scola , Feeding th e Victorian City: Th e Food Supply o f Manchester, 1770-1870(Manchester, 1992) , p. xix.

3 Recent works on medieva l English towns contain muc h useful materia l on provi-sioning. See for example R. Britnell, Growth and Decline in Colchester, 1300-1525 (Cambridge,1986); M . Kowaleski , Local Markets an d Regional Trade i n Medieval Exeter (Cambridge ,1995). Fo r Europea n town s see L'approvisionnement de s villes d e I'Europe occidental a umoyen ag e et aux temps moderns (Cinquieme s journees internationales d'histoire , 1985 ;Auch, Centre culture l de 1'abbaye de Flaran), especially the papers by P. Wolff, C.M. dela Ronciere, R. Van Uytven and F. Irsigler. A group of eight papers which examine aspectsof the provisionin g o f London an d Pari s in th e middl e age s has been published as aspecial number o f Franco-British Studies, 20 (1995). For an exemplary study of a moderncity's role in shaping the landscape and economy of its region, as well as channelling th eproduction o f an extensive geographical area, see W. Cronon, Nature's Metropolis: Chicagoand th e Great West (Ne w York and London , 1991) .


of the growing city.4 In the medieval period th e supply zone of most basicconsumables to cities was much more constrained, thereby permitting, intheory at least, a more manageable study to be undertaken. However, thesurviving evidence comes from a wide variety of sources and requires expertisein many areas. Th e subjec t is best undertaken b y a team of researcherswho can bring a number o f different approaches t o the topic .

This essay presents and discusses some of the historical approaches whichhave recently been applie d t o the subjec t of provisioning the capita l ofEngland in the fourteenth century. It is based upon research undertake nas part of the 'Feedin g the City ' projec t in the Centr e fo r MetropolitanHistory in London an d seek s to introduce and summariz e some o f theprincipal finding s o f thi s research, a s well a s considering whether th emethodology might have a wider applicability. This project was set up in1988 in order to investigate the supply of food, fuel an d building materi-als to medieval London an d to study the impact of the city' s demands onthe agricultural and distributive systems of its hinterland.5 The first phaseof the project focused on the period c. 1300, when the population of Londonreached it s medieval peak. Further funding allowe d a second phase ofwork to be undertaken, this time focusing on the post-Black Death capital,whose reduced population generated smaller aggregate demands but morediverse ones. This collaborative researc h projec t brought together urba nand rura l historians and historical geographers in an in-depth investiga-tion o f one o f the mos t crucial aspects of the relationship between townand country. It marks the beginning of systematic study of the impact whichthe demands of medieval London had on its agricultural region.6

The historical approache s applie d by the project can be divided int o

4 Scola, Feeding the Victorian City, p. 3 .5 Feeding the City I, co-directed by Derek Keene (Centre for Metropolitan History)

and Bruce Campbell (Queen s University, Belfast) was funded by the Leverhulme Trust;Feeding the City II, co-directed by Derek Keene, Bruce Campbell, James Galloway andMargaret Murphy, has been funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (grantnumber R000233157) . For an introduction t o the aims and some preliminary findingsof the projec t see J.A. Gallowa y and M . Murphy, 'Feeding the City : Medieval Londonand it s Agrarian Hinterland', Th e London Journal, 1 6 (1991), pp. 3-14.1 would like tothank Jim Galloway and Derek Keene for their helpful comments on this present essay.

6 There have , however, been man y useful survey s of London's food-suppl y regionduring the early modern period: J. Chartres, 'Food Consumption and Internal Trade',in A.L. Beier and R . Finlay, eds, London 1500-1700: The Making o f the Metropolis (1986) ,pp. 168-96 ; A. Everitt, 'The Marketing of Agricultural Produce', in J. Thirsk, ed., TheAgrarian History of England and Wales, iv, 1500-1640 (Cambridge, 1984), pp. 466-92; FJ.Fisher, Th e Developmen t of the Londo n Foo d Market , 1540-1640', in E.M . Carus-Wilson, ed., Essays in Economic History (1954) , pp. 135-51 .

Feeding Medieval Cities: Some Historical Approaches 11 9

three principal groups: those concerned with reconstructing the require-ments o f th e medieva l city ; thos e concerne d wit h th e productio n o fbasic foodstuff s i n th e countrysid e an d th e developmen t of regiona lspecialisms; an d thos e concerne d wit h th e system s o f distribution b ywhich produce was transferred from th e rura l producer t o the urba nconsumer.

London achieved the position of England's largest and wealthiest townas early as the tenth century. In 1100 perhaps one in one hundred Englishpeople lived in the capital and by 1300 the figure was one in seventy orless while the city may have contained 2 per cent of the national wealth.7Research publishe d durin g th e las t decade has resulted in an upwardrevision of the estimated populations of several medieval English townsand cities.8 It is now believed that c. 1300 the population of London wasbetween 80,000 and 100,000, and fell to around 50,000 in the post-BlackDeath period. 9

Not onl y was London's population ver y large, it was also extremelyvaried i n socio-economi c terms . Th e cit y contained disproportionat enumbers of both the richest and poorest of England's inhabitants. Mostof the richest magnates of the day had London houses where they spentsome of the year. The cit y was full o f ecclesiastical establishments, largeand small , and man y bishops and abbot s followed th e example of thenobility and ha d metropolita n residences. 10 The households o f theselay and ecclesiastical nobles could spend up to half of their considerableincomes on food.11 Furthermore , Londo n ha d a large class of well-offmerchants, some with incomes which placed them in positions of equal-ity with the nobility , as well as many wealthy individuals who derive dtheir incomes from offic e holdin g or legal practice.12 There were alsosmaller traders , artisans and wage-earners big and small . Under the mwere the 'marginals' , the huge mass of poor, often destitute , frequently

7 D. Keene, 'London, circa 600-1300: The Growth of a Capital', Franco-British Studies,17 (1994), p. 25.

8D. Keene, Survey o f Medieval Winchester, Winchester Studie s 2 (Oxford , 1985) ; E.Rutledge, 'Immigration and Population Growt h in Early Fourteenth-Century Norwich:Evidence from the Tithing Roll', Urban History Yearbook 1988 (1988), pp . 15-30 .

9 D. Keene, 'A New Study of London Before the Grea t Fire', Urban History Yearbook1984(1984), pp. 11-21 .

10 C. Barren, 'Centres of Conspicuous Consumption : The Aristocratic Town Housein London, 1200-1500' , London Journal, 20 (1995), pp. 1-16 .

1 C. Dyer , Standards o f Living i n th e Later Middle Ages: Social Change i n England,c. 1200-1520 (Cambridge, 1989) , pp. 55-67.

12 Ibid., pp. 110-26 ; S.L. Thrupp, Th e Merchant Class o f Medieval London (reprinted ,Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1989), pp. 108-30.


homeless Londoners. Then a s now poor peopl e flocked to the cit y insearch of jobs, a better life and charitable hand-outs. By the mid thirteenthcentury London contained large numbers of poor. Henry III in 1244made provisio n for 20,00 0 meals t o b e distribute d t o th e poo r i nWestminster and 15,00 0 at St Paul's.13 By 1300 it is likely that Londoncontained an even greater number of poverty-stricken inhabitants.

The consumption need s of the capital were therefore not only largein scale but very diverse. The richest people required luxury items andconsumed large amounts of fresh mea t and fish. During the months ofJuly and August 1302 the royal household spent £1454 on food (morethan hal f o f that sum on mea t alone ) i n Londo n an d it s immediat eregion.14 Fresh mea t and fish were beyond th e norma l reac h o f lesswell-off Londoner s but the y could affor d poultry , salt- and stock-fish ,dairy produce, vegetables, legumes and fruit. Most importantly, however,all classes required grains fo r thei r basic bread an d ale . Studies haveshown that , while the number o f calories consumed per capit a variedgreatly between social groups, grains provided the most substantial propor-tion of the daily nutritional needs of rich and poor alike.15

This dependenc e o n grain calorie s in pre-industria l towns explainswhy many provisioning studies have been dominate d by the examina-tion of grain supply. The first major work produced by the Feeding theCity project concentrated o n London' s grain supply c. 1300.16 In thi swork the projec t evolved a methodology for estimating the aggregat edemand fo r grain generated b y a city of London's size in thi s period.This bega n wit h a n estimat e o f a daily per capit a nutritional intake

13 R.C. Stacey, Politics, Policy and Finance under Henry III, 1216-1245 (Oxford, 1987) ,p. 240.

14 D. Keene, 'Medieval London an d its Region', London Journal, 1 4 (1989), p. 102.15 A study based o n th e estimate s of food supplies needed fo r soldiers garrisonin g

English castles in Scotland a t the beginning o f the fourteenth century revealed a dietin which 78 per cent of calorific intake was provided by grains in the form of bread, aleand oatmeal flour: M. Prestwich, 'Victualling Estimates for English Garrisons in Scotlandduring the Early Fourteenth Century' , English Historical Review, 82 (1967), pp. 536-43.Christopher Dyer's work on the diets of harvest workers confirms the predominance ofgrains with bread and ale supplying up to 80 per cent of dietary calories, c. 1300: C. Dyer,'Changes in Diet in the Lat e Middle Ages: The Cas e of Harvest Workers', AgriculturalHistory Review, 36 (1988), pp. 21-37. A study of the diet of the English lay nobility indicatesthat bread, ale, pasties and pastries probably accounted for 65-70 per cent of per capitacalories consumed; J.M. Thurgood, The Die t and Domestic Households of the EnglishLay Nobility, 1265-1531' (unpublishe d M.Phil , thesis, University of London, 1982) .

16 B.M.S. Campbell, J.A. Galloway, D. Keene and M . Murphy, A Medieval Capital andits Grain Supply: Agrarian Production and Distribution in the London Region, c. 1300, Histori-cal Geography Research Series , 30 (1993).


necessary t o sustain life , based on the work of nutritionists (2000-250 0kilocalories). It was then assume d tha t between 60 and 7 5 per cen t ofthese dail y calories wer e supplied b y grain i n th e for m o f bread an dale.17 The next step involved calculating the quantity of raw grain whichwould be needed to provide the requisite number of daily calories, build-ing in an element for the fodder requirements o f animals used to bringgrain overland to the city , as well as allowing for calorie loss arising fromthe processes of milling, malting, baking and brewing. A range of estimateswas therefore produced fro m thi s admittedly approximate exercise. Forthe purposes of further calculation a mean annual figure of 1.65 quartersof grain pe r capit a was taken, leading to the conclusio n tha t London ,with a population of 80,000 persons, would have required 132,000 quartersof grain each year. In the latter half of the fourteenth century, when thepopulation of London fell to around 50,000, the aggregate grain require-ment als o fell . However , the rise in living standards, which occasione dan increase in ale consumption, had the effec t o f raising the per capitaconsumption o f grains, so that overal l demand di d not fal l by as muchas the population figures would suggest.18

A different methodology has been applie d t o estimating the quanti-ties of firewood needed t o supply London i n the fourteenth century. 19

The medieva l city generated a n enormous deman d fo r both domesti cand industrial fuel. In this period, although othe r fuels such as charcoaland coa l were available, wood was by far the mos t important source ofenergy. There are no contemporar y record s of total quantitie s o f fue lconsumed by London and, unlike with grain, it is virtually impossible tocalculate an average per capita fuel requirement which would incorporat egeneral domestic heating and cooking needs as well as the fuel consumedby industry. I t was therefore necessar y in th e cas e of fuel t o dra w onevidence concerning a later period, specificall y th e annua l pe r capit acoal consumption figur e o f 0.75 tons estimated fo r London i n 1600. 20

The quantities of coal had first to be converted into a dry wood equivalent,

17 Ibid., pp. 32-36. It was assumed that each Londoner consumed 1600-2000 grain-derived kilocalories a day, of which ale comprised 160-200 kilocalories .

18 James A. Galloway, 'London's Grain Supply: Changes in Production, Distributionand Consumptio n durin g th e Fourteent h Century' , Franco-British Studies, 20 (1995) ,pp. 23-34 .

19 J. Galloway, D. Keene an d M. Murphy, 'Fuellin g the City: Production and Distribu -tion of Firewood and Fue l in London's Region, 1290-1400', Economic History Review, 49(1996), pp. 447-72. See also Margaret Murphy , Th e Fue l Suppl y of Medieval London ,1300-1400', Franco-British Studies, 20 (1995) pp. 85-96.

20 J. Hatcher , Th e History o f the British Coal Industry, i , Before 1700: Towards th e Age ofCoal (Oxford, 1993) , p. 41.


an exercise which resulted in the figure of 1.76 tons of firewood requiredby each Londoner each year. On that basis it was estimated that Londonwould have consumed 141,000 tons of wood per annum in 1300, with apostulated populatio n o f 80,000, an d 88,00 0 ton s per annu m in 140 0when th e populatio n ma y have been 50,000 . As with grain, the ris e inliving standards whic h followed th e Blac k Death resulte d in a rise inindividual demand for fuel both for cooking (including baking and brew-ing) and domestic heating. 21

Reasonable estimates of the city's demand for other products, such asmeat, fish and dairy produce, have yet to be postulated and, if the exerciseis possible, differen t methodologie s agai n ma y have to be employed .Dietary evidence suggests that in the early fourteenth century meat andfish were largely absent fro m the table s of the poor , while persons inwealthy or aristocratic households could consume two to three poundsof meat and fish per day. 22 The situation was not static and in the late rfourteenth centur y there was a marked increase in meat consumptionamong th e les s well-off. A very wide range o f animals an d fish , bothfresh an d preserved , was available for purchase in fourteenth-centuryLondon. Some impression of the relative importance of various productsin the metropolitan diet at different periods might be gained by analys-ing the numbers, wealth and influence of the occupational groups involvedin particula r victuallin g trades. Thi s approach , amon g others , wil l beexplored i n future research.

In th e medieva l perio d mos t citie s relied o n thei r agraria n hinter -lands for the supply of basic foodstuffs (i n addition t o fuel for cookingand heating, timbe r for building, clot h for clothing and raw materialsfor industry) . Without a regular sourc e of these necessities, concentra-tions of urban population could not survive. In order for towns and cit-ies to grow, rural hinterlands ha d t o be capable of increasing supplieseither b y more efficien t an d productiv e farmin g methods o r bette rtransport networks allowing further-flung area s to enter th e city' s sup-ply zone.

The diet of most urban dwellers was to a large extent dictated by whatthe countrysid e coul d efficientl y produce . A t th e mos t basi c level,therefore, examinin g broad patterns of land-use and the range of cropsgrown and animals reared in a city's hinterland is an excellent first stepin th e constructio n o f a picture o f urban foo d supply and als o in th eanalysis o f rura l respons e t o th e challeng e o f provisionin g a majo r

21 Dyer, Standards o f Living, p. 177 .22 Thurgood, 'Diet and Domestic Households'; Dyer , Standards o f Living, pp. 58-62.

Feeding Medieval Cities: Some Historical Approaches 123

concentration o f non-rural population . Th e Feedin g the Cit y projec thas undertaken suc h a study of land-use and agricultura l practices inten counties in south-east England (Figure 4)

The study area denned by the project was not intended to representthe limit s of the London agraria n region . In it s demand for food an dother supplies London exerted influence upon a series of overlappingregions, some extending a few miles from the city, others taking in muchof the country . The te n counties chosen fo r study were considered t oform an area sufficiently compact to enable detailed work to be carriedout, yet large enough to contain regions with contrasting soils, topography,differential acces s to marketing and transport networks, and distinctiveagrarian regimes .

The survivin g source material s which permit the reconstructio n ofagrarian practice s in medieval England ar e quite unparalleled an d forthe period around 130 0 are particularly rich. The two principal sourcesused in the Feeding the City project are inquisition post mortem extents

Figure 4: The 'Feedin g the City' project study area.


(hereafter IPMs) and annual demesne account rolls. Both sources relateto demesne lands held by lay or ecclesiastical lords and d o not directlyreveal the agricultural practices of small landowners and peasants whocultivated approximately two-thirds of al l arable land. 23 However, it isassumed tha t agrarian pattern s identified within the demesn e secto rmay be taken as broadly diagnostic of the rural economy as a whole.

IPM extents relate to the holdings of deceased, lay, tenants in chief ofthe crown and record the amount and value of the principal land typesand othe r resources o f each o f the lord' s holding s (typically , but no tinvariably, a manor). They quantif y th e arable , pasture , meado w andwoodland and assign a value to each acre as well as recording the pres-ence of mills, fishponds, dovecotes and vegetable gardens. During thetwo stages of the projec t data have been collecte d from just over 2100IPM extents relating to manors and holdings in the study area.24

The second sourc e used by the projec t is the demesne accoun t roll,which again survives in greatest numbers from th e fourteenth century.These accounts, rendered annually by manorial bailiffs, provide in moreor less standardized form highly detailed information on most aspectsof agricultural practice, acreage under different crops, crop yields, disposalof crops by sale, transfer to household fo r consumption o r use by themanorial workforce. Data are given concerning each livestock type kepton the manor, numbers of males and females, births, deaths and slaughters.Over 800 annual accoun t rolls have been used in the tw o stages of theproject.25

Analysis of the data from both IPM extents and demesne accounts hasallowed a detailed picture of land use over a wide area to be built up, inthe course of which some previously held assumptions have been givenfirm statistica l backing. For example, given the medieva l population'soverwhelming reliance on grain-based calories, it has always been appreci-ated that in most parts of medieval England, arable was the most important

23 Campbell, Galloway, Keene and Murphy , A Medieval Capital, p . 17.24 Two databases have been compiled from the IPM extents. FTCI IPM database uses

1966 extents from the period 1270-1339, and FTCII IPM database uses 168 extents andrelates to the period 1350-80. Towards the end o f the fourteenth century the extentschange in format and no longer include detailed land-use information. For a discussionof the methodolog y employed in analysing the extent s see B.M.S. Campbell, J.A. Gal-loway and M . Murphy, 'Rura l Land-Use in th e Metropolita n Hinterland , 1270-1339 :The Evidenc e o f Inquisitiones Post Mortem', Agricultural History Review, 40 (1992) , pp .1-22.

25 Again the data have been organized into two databases. The FTCI accounts databaseuses 461 accounts for 204 manors during the period 1290-1315, and the FTCII accountsdatabase uses 360 accounts for 141 manors during the period 1375-1400.


land use . The statistic s generated fro m analysi s of the IP M material sug -gested i n fac t tha t a s much a s 75 per cen t o f agricultural lan d i n th eLondon region lay under the plough c. 1300, reflecting the impact ofconcentrated urba n deman d i n additio n t o th e need s o f a densely-populated countryside .

Demesne account rolls can be used to show how the arable land wasdivided between cultivation of bread grains, brewing grains, fodder grainsand legumes . Pattern s i n th e cultivatio n of different arable crop s canfrequently be linked to the varied demands of the metropolitan market .The city' s agrarian hinterlan d did not of course have uniform soils andterrain an d th e choic e o f which crop t o gro w was also influenced byenvironmental patterns. However, the patterns of arable farming whichhave emerged a s a result o f the stud y of London's hinterlan d clearl yshow that the demand s o f a large cit y could profoundl y influence th echoice of crop grown, in some cases overriding environmental factors,in othe r case s encouragin g a n environmenta l predisposition. 26 Th esignificant increas e i n the cultivatio n of brewing grains in parts of theLondon region in the later fourteenth century is a good example of thisfeature.27

Spatial analysi s of grain cultivatio n has led t o th e revisio n o f sometraditional views about the medieval diet. One o f these is that in south-east England, and particularl y in London , wheate n brea d wa s almostuniversally consumed b y the fourteenth century , and therefore that , inthese areas , ther e was little demand fo r the cheaper brea d mad e fro mrye and mixtures of rye and wheat known as maslin and mancorn.28 Thediscovery tha t a significan t cluste r o f manors clos e t o th e metropoli sand strung out along the navigable River Thames devoted sizeable acre-ages to rye and maslin cultivation suggests that, in fact, the early fourteenth-century cit y generated a substantial demand fo r thes e cheape r brea dgrains. This combination o f land-use data with evidence from Londo nsources leads t o the conclusio n that , a t its medieval populatio n peak ,many of the city's inhabitants could not afford t o eat wheaten bread andthat there was a sizeable market for cheaper brea d grains. 29 A related

26 A town ha d t o achieve a certain size , probably over 10,000 , before i t could mark -edly affect th e agricultur e of its region; see Kowaleski, Local Markets, p . 323.

27 See James Galloway, 'Driven by Drink? Ale Consumption and the Agrarian Economyof the Londo n Region, c . 1300-1400', above, Chapte r 6.

28 N.S.B. Gras , Th e Evolution o f the English Corn Market from the Twelfth t o the EighteenthCentury (reprinte d London, 1926) , p. 37.

29 Campbell, Galloway , Keen e an d Murphy , A Medieval Capital, pp. 26 , 121-23 ,164-66.


example of urban demand influencing crop specialisation can be foundin the hinterland of medieval Paris. There the growth in popular demandfor chea p wine led t o the replacemen t in many areas of high qualit ycepagesby mauvais gamay, which produced an inferior wine but one whichwas affordable by poorer consumers. 30

Demesne accoun t rolls , a s mentioned above , contai n detaile dinformation on annual sales of manorial produce, which can help inidentifying areas where crop specialisms were primarily market-led.Methods employed include assessing the frequenc y with which dif-ferent crops were sold, comparing proportions sold and measuringthe contribution o f income from sales of each crop to overall mano-rial sales income.31 Applying these measures to the products of pastoralfarming is , however , less straightforward . Animal s were kep t o ndemesnes fo r a variety of differen t purpose s an d wer e no t alway sdestined fo r consumptio n whe n the y were sold. The exceptio n t othis rule wa s the adul t porke r (castrate d pig) , which was virtuallyalways sold for food. Animal products such as milk, butter and cheesewere also destined for fairly rapid consumption. A key tool in determin -ing th e spatia l dimensio n i n demesn e sale s of these product s ha sbeen compute r mapping . The data contained in demesne accountsare well-suited to mapping, relating as they do to discrete and identifi -able places. Mapping those manors with above-average income fromsales of pigs, for example , ha s revealed th e possibl e impact of th emetropolitan market , while mapping those manors which specialisedin dairy produce point s to the crucial importance of cheap (usuall ywater) transpor t linkin g demesne an d market.32

While it is clear that the demands of London did influence agriculturein its hinterland, a concern of the project has been to assess the degree towhich this influence was manifest in ways consonant with the predictionsof geographical location theory. This body of theory holds that urban hin-terlands will tend to develop zones or regions of specialized production asproducers adopt the forms of land use which are most profitable in any

30 'Avant-propos', Franco-British Studies, 20 (1995), p. 3.31 B.M.S. Campbell, 'Measuring the Commercialisation of Seigneurial Agriculture ,

c. 1300', in R.H. Britnell and B.M.S. Campbell, eds, A Commercialising Economy .-England,1086-1300 (Manchester, 1995), pp. 132-93.

32 M. Murphy andJ.A Galloway, 'Marketing Animals and Animal Products in London'sHinterland, circa 1300', Anthropozoologica, 16 (1992), pp. 93-100.

Feeding Medieval Cities: Some Historical Approaches 127

Figure 5: Simplified representation of Von Thimen's model of land-use zones.

given location.33 It is only in recent years that historians have attempted totest the relevance of these theories to the medieval economy.34

The Feedin g th e Cit y project has drawn particularly on th e work ofthe nineteenth-centur y Germa n theoris t J.H. vo n Thiinen , whoconstructed an idealized model of the pattern of farming systems likelyto be generated by a large centra l market. 35 The mode l predict s th eemergence o f a series o f concentric zones characterized by differen tpatterns and intensities of land use (see Figure 5). Von Thiinen assumedthat his town was situated, in isolation, at the centr e of a level plain ofuniform fertility , crossed by no navigable rivers or canals. The presenc eof other, smaller markets and of geographical features both facilitatingand impedin g transpor t would of course distor t th e predicte d zones ,but would not fundamentally change thei r logical order.

During the course of the research on agriculture in the London region,certain patterns have emerged which are indeed explicable in terms ofvon Thiinen' s theory . Thus , th e perishabl e product s o f market -gardening and dairying assumed importance, and were profitable activi-ties, o n manor s within a few miles of the city . Similarly , firewoo d an dcharcoal sales were significant components of manorial income close to

33 M. Chisholm, Rural Settlement and Land-Use: An Essay o n Location (1962).34 See for example F. Irsigler, 'L'approvisionnement des villes de 1'Allemagne occi-

dentale jusqu'au XVIe siecle', in L'approvisionnement de s villes, pp. 117-44 .35 P. Hall, ed. , Vo n Thiinen's Isolated State: An English Edition of Der Isolierte Stoat by

Johann Heinrich von Thiinen, trans. C.M. Wartenberg (Oxfor d an d Ne w York, 1966).


London, and i n locations with ready access to cheap wate r transport .With grain crops a definite tendency is evident for bulkier and low-valuecrops such a s oats and ry e t o be grow n close t o th e city , while wheat,whose hig h pric e greatl y increased th e are a ove r which i t coul d b etransported, wa s more o f a speciality on manor s a t a further remove.Although the fit between theory and historical evidence is by no meansperfect, a n awareness of the predictions of location theory has provedto be an important interpretative too l for the historian of urban provi-sioning.

Complex and extensive distributive systems had to evolve in order totransport the produce of the countryside into cities as large as medievalLondon. When towns grew beyond a certain size, perhaps 10,000 persons,they began t o exceed th e provisionin g capacities of local trade . I t wasstill possible for some town dwellers to obtain supplies of foodstuffs b ydirect provisioning ; majo r religiou s institution s base d i n th e citie sdeveloped regular, formal arrangements whereby food was sent in fromtheir country estates. The provisioning needs of the canons of St Paul'sCathedral, for example, were met throughout th e medieval period by acomplex system of food farms involving manors up to forty miles distantfrom London. 36 However, the majorit y o f urban dweller s had n o suchability to bypass the market and therefore trad e prevailed over alterna-tive methods of supply.

Demesne accoun t roll s frequently provide valuable material on th emarketing and transport of agricultural produce and highlight the varietyof method s use d b y producers o f food t o marke t surpluses . Thi s i sparticularly true of accounts for manors in the London region , whererates of market participation were conspicuously high.37 However, evenon manors where all surpluses were diverted to meet the consumptionneeds of the lord's household, enlightening details can be found concern-ing the movement of goods from manor to household, such as the meansof transport chosen, its cost, or the number of carts and draught animalsinvolved. When the household was situated in or near London this informa-tion is particularly valuable.

Sales to London merchant s as well as direct selling in the capita l aredocumented in the account rolls. However, in general, the rural evidencewould suggest that such direct , unmediated link s with the capita l were

36 W.H. Hale , ed, Th e Domesday o f St Paul's o f the Year MCCXII, Camde n Society , ol dseries, 69 (1858).

37 It has been calculate d for exampl e tha t c . 1300 hal f th e grai n produced by thedemesne sector in th e Londo n region was distributed via the market . Campbell, Gal-loway, Keene and Murphy , A Medieval Capital, p . 74.


in the minority. This was in large part due to the growth and increasingsophistication of the network of local markets and fairs within the Londo nregion. Over 400 places within the study area had acquired market rightsby the middl e o f the fourteent h century , a network of markets whichprovided near at hand outlets for the producer o f agricultural surpluse sand served to channel the produce of the countryside towards the centresof consumption.38 It is reasonable to assume therefore that a large propor -tion of agrarian produce entered into commerce via these local outlets.The importanc e o f certain markets is shown by their repeated appear -ance as places of sale in account rolls. Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshir efor grain and the fairs of Kingston in Surrey and Uxbridge in Middlesexfor livestoc k are among these prominent centres .

Urban evidence corroborates and augments the picture produced bythe rura l evidence . Judicial an d administrativ e records o f the cit y ofLondon are highly informative on the practice o f trade by Londonersand by those who came into the capital from the countryside.39 Municipalregulations document th e ways in which producer an d consumer cam einto direct contact in the metropolitan marke t places, where suburbangardeners came to sell fruit and vegetables and bakers from nearby smalltowns came to sell bread. These records also suggest that in fourteenth-century London such direct links between consumer and producer wereprobably lessenin g i n importance . I t i s possible t o documen t th eemergence an d growt h o f groups o f specialized traders based i n th ecapital, but frequently operating in the countryside, who acted as mid-dlemen, linking capital and hinterland .

One approach adopted by the project has been to assemble evidenceregarding the activities and interests of occupational group s within thecity involved in the food and fue l trade . It has been possibl e to compilesome prosopographical database s from municipa l regulations, judicialand administrative records (both municipal and central), taxation returnsand chronicles . So far this has been undertake n for the London 'blad -

38 The project 'Market Networks and the Metropolis' at the Centre for MetropolitanHistory is examining the rol e of small towns and othe r market s in the circulatio n ofagrarian produce i n the London region .

39 H.T. Riley, ed., Liber custumarum, in Munimenta Gildhallae Londoniensis, ii, pts 1 and2 (Roll s Series, 1860); idem, ed., Memorials o f London and London Life (London , 1868);R.R. Sharpe, ed. , Calendar o f the Letter-Books Preserved among the Archives of the Corporationof London at the Guildhall: Letter-Books A-L (London , 1899-1912); idem, ed., Calendar ofEarly Mayor's Court Rolls, AD 1298-1307 (Cambridge, 1924); idem, ed., Calendar o f Pleaand Memoranda Rolls, AD 1364-1381 (Cambridge, 1929).


ers' o r cornmongers an d th e cit y woodmongers. Work is underway onthe butchers .

Examining th e activitie s o f th e well-documente d earl y fourteenth -century cornmongers has provided valuable evidence for the organiza-tion of the grain trade within the city and also for the extent of the city'sgrain provisioning zone. This frequently corroborates evidence providedby the demesn e accounts. 40 For example, Henley-on-Thames emerge sas the singl e most important place of resort for London cornmonger sand the only place outside London where they owned granaries. All themost significant interests of the cornmongers lay within the counties ofthe study area, thereby confirming the impression produced by the agrar-ian evidenc e tha t th e productiv e capacit y of th e hinterlan d wa s suf-ficient t o feed bot h it s own population an d tha t o f a city of betwee n80,000 and 100,00 0 persons.

The London woodmongers formed a less wealthy and influential groupthan the cornmongers and are therefore less well documented. However ,it has been possibl e to draw together informatio n about som e ninetyindividuals involved in London's wood market between the years 1275and 1375.41 Within the city the woodmongers held property and pursuedbusiness activities in various riverine locations, underlining the importanceof the Thames in the supply of fuel to the capital. Outside the city, therewas a particular concentratio n o f woodmongers' interest s i n Surrey ,especially in Kingston-upon-Thames and Ham, which emerge from othe rsources as important entrepots for the fuel trade .

The degre e t o which the method s use d t o study medieval Londonand it s region ca n be used fruitfull y elsewher e are, of course, largelydependent upon the nature and survival of source materials. The highlydetailed documentatio n available on agricultural practices in London'shinterland i n the fourteenth century is probably unmatched elsewherein Europe . However , the archive s o f some Europea n cities , Pari s fo rexample, are extremely rich in records on the regulation of trade, mak-ing it possible to reconstruct many aspects of the distributive system ina way that it not possible for medieval London.42

Despite these differences, the fundamental features of the approac h

40 Campbell, Galloway, Keene and Murphy , A Medieval Capital, pp. 87-107.41 Galloway, Keene and Murphy, 'Fuelling the City', p. 452.42 See C. Bourlet, 'L'approvisonnement de Paris en poisson de mer aux XLVe et XVe

siecles, d'apres le s sources normatives' , Franco-British Studies, 2 0 (1995) , pp. 5-22 ; B.Auzary-Schmaltz, 'Les contentieux en matiere d'approvisionnement, d'apres le s regis-tres d u parlemen t d e Paris' , ibid. , pp . 49-68 ; Y . Le Maresquier-Kesteloot,'L'approvisionnement de Paris en bois (XIVe-XVe siecles)', ibid., pp. 69-84.


adopted in the 'Feedin g the City' project should hav e wider applicabil-ity. The systematic interrogation of a range of urban and rural documentarysources in orde r t o tes t th e plausibilit y o f independently-develope dconsumption estimates , and the use of geographical model s to predictthe emergenc e o f specialised systems of production withi n urban hin -terlands, ar e methods which can be employed in the study of the provi-sioning o f other citie s and o f London itsel f at differen t tim e periods .The study of medieval London's food supply has identified several linesof enquiry which can now be taken further by members of the projectteam and others. Medieval townspeople were largely dependent on thelabours of others for their daily food and drink; the impact of that depend-ency upon wider economic development was great, and its implicationsare as yet far from exhausted.

9

The Household of Alice de Bryene, 1412-13

ffiona Swabe y

Acton i s a small village in Suffolk , som e twent y miles north of the ol dRoman town of Colchester and twent y miles south of Bury St Edmunds.The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon Aketon, meaning an oak enclosureor settlement, though barely a vestige of that ancient forest now remains.The lan d i s flat and fertile , mostly medium t o heavy clay, watered byseveral small streams and suitable for both arable and pastoral farming.Acton's population o f around seventy , a s recorded i n th e Domesda ysurvey of 1086 , and 50 0 at the beginnin g o f this century, has risen t omore tha n a thousand people today.

Approaching Acton from th e south , the first visible landmark is thesquare bell tower of the church . A few minutes' walk from ther e acrossthe fields is Acton Hall, an early Victorian farmhouse on the site of theoriginal manor . I t i s still a working farm. Evidence from a few extantbailiffs' report s suggests that in the fifteent h century , apart from farmand woodland of nearly 900 acres, the manor comprised numerous barnsand stables, as well as a large dwelling house surrounded by a moat witha great hall, brewhouse, bakehouse and separate chapel. A small streamran throug h th e enclose d grounds, where there was also a well and awindmill.1

From Michaelmas 1412 to Michaelmas 1413 Alice de Bryene servedmore than 16,500 meals at her Acton manor house, an average of forty-five meals a day. During this one year daily totals varied greatly. Sometimes,

1 I am gratefu l to Martha Carli n an d Joel Rosentha l for their encouragement . Mybook, Medieval Gentlewoman: Life i n a Gentry Household i n th e Later Middle Ages, focusingon the life and times of Alice de Bryene, will be published by Sutton Publishing in 1999.See PRO, Acton bailiffs' reports , SC 6/989/6, SC 6/991/1, 6 and an undated steward'saccount, SC 6/1297/22. Below is a list of all the Compotu s Roll s in the Publi c Recor dOffice, London, relating to the estates of Alice de Bryene, receivers', bailiffs', and stewards'accounts for Dorset, Gloucestershire and Eas t Anglia: SC 6/833/12, SC 6/842/25, SC6/858/16-20, SC 6/989/1-18, 20, 21, SC 6/990/1-21, SC 6/991/1-6, 19, SC 6/1002/10-13, SC 6/1003/6-9,21, SC 6/1007/3, SC 6/1245/9-17, SC 6/1247/3-5, SC 6/1249/1-10, S C 6/1297/22, DL/430/6904.


as at the New Year's feast, more than 30 0 people cam e to dine; at othertimes only three were invited to join he r an d thos e o f her househol dwho were present on that particular day. Some of her guests were eminentmen, whose wives and children visited as well. About three times a weekthe bailiff s o f one o f her adjacen t manors cam e t o eat, as did the maid-servants and various estate workers. In addition, there were also about fiftyclerical and religiou s visitors, many of whom came severa l times, nearly200 boon worker s during th e harves t season, visits from mor e tha n on ehundred assorte d casua l labourers and 120 other unnamed guests . Mealsalso had to be provided for the two dozen members of Alice's household .

This information come s from Alice de Bryene's Household Book , afragment o f her househol d account s originall y edited by Vincent Red-stone in 1931. 2 Alice was not unusua l i n keeping such accounts ; ever ylarge lay or ecclesiastical household seem s to have kept similar records.Their primary purpose wa s to record th e dail y expenditure o f victualsby the steward i n charge of the overall managemen t o f the household.Keeping such accounts also helped deter household servant s from thef tand carelessness, enabled the detection o f corruption an d mismanage-ment, an d assisted officials with future budgeting.3

Some accounts that have survived, such as those of Elizabeth de Burgh,Lady of Clare, a few decades earlie r tha n Alice's, are very extensive andcover all aspects of housekeeping, including goldsmiths ' account s an dtravelling expenses.4 Alice's are much more modest. They relate primarilyto the quantities of food serve d each day . Entries are prefaced with thedate an d a list of guests, man y of whom are named ; othe r visitor s aredescribed by their occupations or from where they came. A pantry accountfollows with the numbe r of loaves delivered to the table . Note is madethat wine and al e were served , thoug h n o quantit y is specified. Thenthere are details of meat and fish sent from the kitchens, followed by thedaily purchases whic h supplemented thes e provisions . Provender sup -plied to the horses in the stables and the total sum of purchases, where

2 The Household Book of Alice deBryene, ed. Vincent Redstone, Suffolk Institute of Archaeol-ogy and Natural History (2nd edn , 1984). The MS is at the PRO, C 47/4/8a & b.

3 C.M. Woolgar, Household Accounts from Medieval England ( 2 vols, Oxford, 1992-93) .4 Two other accounts worth looking at are those of Lady Margaret Cromwell, 1417-

18, and Elizabeth , countess of Warwick, 1420-22 . The forme r has been discussed by E.Price (unpublishe d thesis , the Institut e of Historical Research, Universit y o f London,1948, 'Ralp h Cromwel l and Hi s Household'). The latte r is the subjec t of an article byC. Ross, 'The Household Accounts of Elizabeth Berkeley, Countess of Warwick, 1420-21',Transactions o f the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeology Society, 70 (1951) , pp. 81-105 .

The Household o f A lice de Bryene, 1412-13 13 5

relevant, complet e eac h entry . Figures are also given of the householdbrewing and baking, which took place at least once a week.

Such hospitality must have been the norm in most gentry householdsin th e late r middl e ages . Th e evidenc e comes no t onl y from Alice' sHousehold Book , but als o from ove r eighty bailiffs' report s no w in th ePublic Record Offic e relatin g t o he r variou s manors, a s well a s a fewcompotus roll s deposite d a t th e Departmen t o f Specia l Collections ,University of Chicago Library. The surviva l of so many of these record sis no mere accident. On the death of Alice's great-granddaughter, Avice ,countess of Wiltshire, in 1457 with no surviving issue, there was a propertydispute tha t took thirty years to resolve. All available records appear t ohave been taken into Chancery and now shed light on Alice de Bryene'sdinner guest s in 1412-13.

Alice was probably born a t the Acton manor in Suffolk around 1360 , theyear her grandfathe r died, followed shortly by the deat h o f her father,Sir Robert de Bures. Soon afte r her mothe r remarried Si r Richard Wal-degrave, an eminent courtier and politician. It must have been throug hWaldegrave's acquaintanc e wit h Guy , Lord Bryan , a formidable an dversatile statesman , tha t Alice's wedding was arranged wit h his eldes tson, Sir Guy Bryan, around 1375 . Two daughters survived this marriage,which ende d wit h Guy' s prematur e deat h eleve n year s later . Th esubsequent history centred around th e devolution of the Bryan estates-with burglary, fraud, forgery and a well-documented family quarrel, aswell a s Alice's long widowhood in Suffol k - bu t tha t i s another story .What is relevant here is that Alice did not remarry and sometime afterher grandmother's death in 1391 she returned from Dorset to East Angliato farm her estates. On her mother's death in 1406 her entire patrimonyin Essex and Suffolk totalled over 3000 acres, with an equivalent amountin the west country, property tha t was her marriag e jointure from SirGuy. She died i n 1435 , age d ove r seventy-five . A brass commemoratesher burial place in Acton church, where she also founded a chantry thatsurvived until the Reformation. 5

Before looking a t specific details o f Alice's hospitality it may be use-ful t o mak e a few comments abou t he r househol d economy . Alice'shousehold an d guests enjoyed an average daily mess of one two-poun dloaf of bread an d at least three and a half pints of ale, with wine for he rsocial peers, more than a pound o f meat a day, more than a dozen varie-ties of fresh fish and half a dozen types of shellfish, as well as the traditional

5 PRO, Chantry Certificates, E 301/45/13.


dried an d smoked fish, plus a plentiful suppl y of dairy produce. Gamebirds were also on the menu, the food was moderately spiced and consump-tion o f sugar very low.6 Adding together th e estimate d value of far mproduce, mea t and grain it would appear tha t Alice spent about 65 percent of her household expenditur e o n food and drink. Discounting thevalue of home produce consumed and the cost of producing it, it seemsshe spent around 40 per cent of her total income of about £400 runningthe household, a figure that accords with the averages worked out forthe period b y Christopher Dyer and Christopher Given-Wilson. 7

Let u s now return t o Alice's table an d thos e 16,50 0 meals. First weshould dispel the thought that Alice was a merry widow with an insatiableappetite for company. There i s evidence that she did enjoy herself andthat others enjoyed her company too, but that was not the main purposeof her hospitality. Nor should we conclude that such largesse was a resultof charitable intentions. There are indications of her dispensing alms inthe sense of food or grain, but not a t dinner; late r we shall look at oneexample o f bread actuall y distributed fro m he r table . And we cannotpresume tha t Alice kept open house ; far from it . Guest lists appears t ohave bee n carefull y planned . Traditionall y meal s wer e serve d fo rconvenience to diners in pairs; on onl y fifteen occasions in 141 3 werethere a n odd number o f guests. Again that year very few people visitedthe manor who might literally have knocked on her door in the hop eof a meal, and one of them is specifically named in English (in the Latinaccounts) as a wayferour, while another is called an extraneoor foreigner.8So who were Alice's dinner guests , and why was she feeding them?

We can start with the workers, both casual and permanent estate staff ,since they comprised th e largest proportion o f Alice's guests. Some canbe identified from th e bailiffs ' reports , others by their trades. On 15 , 16and 17 February, for example, two carpenters engaged to make a ploughdined at the manor. Two aspects should be considered here . First , therate for this type of job, tha t of a craftsman or skilled labourer, as item-

6 The ale was fairly weak and may not have been drun k by all, but wine was regularlyserved. See Christophe r Dyer , Standards o f Living in th e Later Middle Ages: Social Changein England, c . 1200-1520 (Cambridge, 1984), pp. 57 , 58, 63, for details of the compara -tive strengths of ale and an analysis of meat and spice consumption i n Alice's household.

7 Christopher Given-Wilson , The English Nobility in the Late Middle Ages (London, 1987),p. 93.

8 Most likely the wayferour wa s a wayfarer, a medieval back-packer, but we cannot becertain. He could also have been a wafer-maker, like Langland's Haukin , in Th e Visionof Piers Plowman, who represente d Activ e Life . Othe r passers-b y included tw o 'sisters' ,travelling from Canterbury; there is no indication whethe r or not they were nuns.

The Household o f Alice de Bryene, 1412-13 13 7

ized in various compotu s roll s relating t o Alice's estates, was 4d. a daywith a meal; in other words, dinner was a part of the remuneration. 9

Secondly, it was also a practical measure, for the carpenters could hardlyhave got on their bikes, so to speak, and gone down the road for a snack,or home for a quick sandwich.

The othe r thing we may notice i s that, thoug h gues t list s were care -fully planned, little attempt was made to separate the social classes. Alice'ssister-in-law Lady Waldegrave was also staying at the manor a t this timewith a son, maidservant, squire and various household members . In fact16 February appears to have been a feast day , since a swan - th e pin -nacle of Alice's culinary offerings-was on the menu. The more honouredguests woul d hav e sa t with Alice at th e hig h tabl e an d th e lesse r fol klower down. But eating at Acton was apparently stil l a communal affair ,a custom which, writers like William Langland remarke d a few decadesearlier, was gradually disappearing. 10 It is important t o note this since,despite th e obviou s visibl e sign s o f a hierarchy with the lad y and he rpeers eating together, probably literally above the other guests, the ritualof breaking bread i n th e hal l woul d hav e reinforce d a sense of com-munity bonding, added t o which courtesy dictated tha t small helping sof delicacies be sent down to less honoured guests.11

Another practical reason for Alice's hospitality is that meeting at thedinner tabl e migh t hav e been th e onl y way people coul d actuall y sitdown together , exchang e view s and d o business. The frequen t visits of

9 The Household Book, pp. 39 , 40; 4d. per da y appears t o have been th e usual rate forprofessional craftsmen working at the manor. Many of the anonymous visitors, for examplethe various 'boys ' who came from the nearby villages and were hired to act as humanscarecrows in the fields after the seed was sown, were paid only Id., but were also fed atAlice's table . See The Household Book, pp. 6 , 37, 44, 55, 58, 78, and PRO , Acton bailiffs 'Reports, S C 6/989/10, 17, 18, for terms of employment and paymen t of casual labour-ers under Minutiae. Rates were not always consistent, however , and women were alwayspaid less than men. In 1425 Margaret Fouler, relative of one of Alice's shepherds, received1-d. for helping Edward Christmas with the thatching; he got 4d. for the job. However ,they were both fe d at the manor . PRO, SC 6/1249/5.

10 William Langland, Will's Vision o f Piers Plowman, ed. E. Kirk and J. Anderson (NewYork and London, 1990) , p. 91: 'Unhappy is the hall, every day of the week,/Where theLord an d Lady have no liking to sit./ Now has each rich man a rule to eat by himself/In privat e parlou r t o avoid poor men/ O r in a chamber with a chimney-corner, andleave the chief hall empty/ That was made for men to eat their meals in.'

11 In the thirteent h centur y Robert Grosseteste advised his patron, th e countess ofLincoln, 'to order tha t your dish be so refilled and heaped especiall y with light course sthat you may courteously giv e from your dish to right and left to all at the high table andto whom else it pleases you': D. Oschinsky, ed., Walter of Henley and Other Treatises on EstateManagement (Oxford, 1971), p. 403.


the bailiffs, auditors, trustees, estate workers and maidservants from Actonand Alice's other manor s illustrate this. If Alice had project s to discuss,or wanted, for example , t o make a new appointment o r rewar d har dwork, what better way than over a meal? Though sh e may have had th eopportunity of seeing her workers in the meadows and pasture s of herestates, i t would no t hav e been the same as a discussion a t the dinne rtable. Besides, eating itself is a great social leveller and often eases negotia-tions. Sometimes it may have been the only way she could make contac twith one of her employees .

From 1 0 to 14 April 1413 a man calle d John Lytleton was a guest atActon manor. He could hardly have come just for the day, since he wasbailiff o f Alice's Oxenhall mano r i n Gloucestershire , som e 30 0 milesaway. From th e fe w extant bailiffs' report s from Oxenhal l w e know hemade this journey every year, bringing cash from th e rents and profit sof the manor , togethe r with news of the estate. 12 He was not th e onl yofficial who came from far afield and therefore had a claim on Alice forbed as well as board. In November 1412 Morgan Gough, a former Bryanretainer from th e west country, came to stay for a week. It seems he alsoworked for Alice, probably as receiver for her Gloucestershire and Dorsetproperties, a rathe r superio r gentlema n a s we may deduce fro m th especial dishe s served ever y day of his visit . Hi s arrival , not lon g afte rMichaelmas, suggests there was business on the menu a s well as food.13

Occasionally the specifi c reaso n fo r one o f Alice's invitations is veryclear. Many of the tenants from some of her larger properties appear tohave been aske d to dinner onc e a year. On 2 6 and 2 7 February and 1and 2 March 1413 John Talmache was invited to the manor. Hi s father,who had rented land in Acton for more than twenty years, had just died.Obviously a new lease ha d t o be negotiated; Talmach e was a tenant ofsome social standing and hi s annual ren t o f 28s. was not a paltry sum.But the fac t tha t h e twic e stayed the nigh t suggests there wa s more t othese meetings than routin e organization , as may have been th e cas ewith the other tenants: time to commiserate, perhaps and to offer somesympathy, as well as to do business.14

12 The Household Book, pp. 54-55 ; and PRO , SC 6/858/16-20 and S C 6/1247/3-5:Oxenhall's bailiffs' accounts .

13 The Household Book, pp. 16-17 .14 Ibid., pp. 42-44, 47. PRO, Acton bailiffs' reports , SC 6/989/1-18: John Talmache

was first invited for Sunday lunch just a week after his father died. It appears he and Alicemay have been distantly related, since there is a seal o n a contemporary document atHelmingham Hall, the family' s ancestral home, that bears the arms of both Waldegraveand Talmache: E.D. Tollemache, The Tollemaches of Helmingham and Ham (1949), p. 29.


It was not unusual for guests to sleep at the manor as well as to havedinner, especially during the festive season. However, we may occasion-ally question the motives of some of Alice's overnight guests and considerher entertainmen t in a different light . Sir Robert Corbet , a sixty-year-old widower with an estate just a few miles away, visited Alice on five dif-ferent occasions , four time s staying the night , while enjoying supperand extras.15 Corbet had substantial properties in several counties, acquiredthrough two well-planned marriages, and had been a member of Parlia-ment for both Wiltshire and Hertfordshire. But it is unlikely that politicswas the chief topic of his dinner conversation . Sir Robert, it seems, wasprospecting fo r a new wife. Two years later he was elected to representSuffolk i n the April and Novembe r parliaments but spen t mos t of theyear in Shropshire. It was here that he successfully wooed his third wife,another rich widow like Alice.16

Sir Robert Corbet was not th e only politician to call. In 141 3 at leasthalf a dozen members of parliament were invited to Acton manor.17 Nodoubt they were interested i n Alice's views and opinion s a s a wealthyresident and landowner, and they were conscious of the patronage sh ecould dispense. It would also have benefited her t o keep in touch withthem and with the latest developments . Furthermore , the y would haveprovided her with stimulating company. Evidence of Alice's social stand-ing is scant, but th e fac t that one da y an unnamed squire of the newly -crowned Henr y V came t o visi t suggests tha t sh e als o ha d friend s i ncourtly circles.18

If her politicall y minded dinne r guest s helped Alic e keep i n touc hwith government , the n th e visitin g churchmen woul d hav e provide dher with all the gossip of the countryside , omnes rumores patriae. Clericaland religious visitors add up to over 20 per cent of the total for the year.

15 ad noctem et com 'and ad cenam et com'. Companagium was anything eaten with bread,including fruit , vegetables and meat , as well as raisins, almonds and figs.

16 The Household Book, pp. 6 , 7, 41, 58, 78,100. J.S. Roskell, L. Clark and C . Rawcliffe ,eds, History o f Parliament: House o f Commons, 1386-1421 (Stroud, 1992) , pp. 654—56 , fo ra resume o f Corbet's lif e and career .

17 Apart from Corbet they were Sir Andrew Boteler , MP for Essex; Sir John Howard ,MP fo r Essex , Cambridgeshire an d Suffolk ; John Doreward , M P for Essex ; Si r JohnIngoldisthorpe, MP for Suffolk ; an d Willia m Rokewode , anothe r Suffolk MP. PossiblyAlice's son-in-law Robert Lovell also visited in 1412; he became MP for Dorset in 1421.For detail s of their careers , se e Roskell et al. , History o f Parliament.

18 The Household Book, p. 66 . Much of the evidenc e o f Alice's courtly connections iscircumstantial but, judging by a letter he wrote her around 1393, Richard II knew Alicequite well. PRO, S C 1/51/24-iv; and Edit h Rickert , 'Document s and Letters : A Leaffrom a Fourteenth-Century Lette r Book' , Modern Philology, 25 (1917), pp. 249-55.


In some instances the reason for their invitations can be easily deducedas when, for example, they came to celebrate anniversaries. On 7 October1412 and 1 0 June 1413 two friars from th e neighbourin g town of Sud-bury dined at the Acton manor. They were there to commemorate withAlice the death of her father, fifty-three years previously, and of her motherseven year s before.19 Apar t from specifi c religiou s festivals , whethe rtraditional or personal, many of the friars would have come questing foralms, but prepared apparently to sing for their suppers. Such were thevisits of the Austin friars from nearby Clare on 28 February, the date ofthe translatio n of St Augustine's relics, and at the Annunciation, bothoccasions being special dates in their liturgical calendars. The friars maywell have left with bulging purses and full stomachs, but Alice's householdwould also have been refreshe d by interesting discourse.20

Entertainment was sometimes more importan t tha n th e mea l itself.On 1 1 May Alice invited four loca l ladies for wha t must have been arather specia l occasion. The y were her cousi n Margare t Sampson, Iso-bel Chapman, the wife of a tenant, and th e tw o Agnes Whytes, wives oftwo members of her retinue. Apart from the rector of Withersfield whowas a house guest and the unidentifiable John Blake, all the other maleguests were labourers except for two friars who came from Norwich. 11May was one o f the days dedicated t o St John of Bridlington, an Austincanon who died i n 1379 . His reputation a s a wise and piou s man ha dprecipitated th e manifestation of numerous miracles near his tomb andhe wa s canonized i n 1401. 21 Everyone loves a story about a moder nhero and i t is even possibl e tha t th e Norwic h friars ha d me t John ofBridlington. In this instance, we may consider Alice's dinner invitationsto her friends more in the light of an opportunity to satisfy their appetitesfor education, curiosity and amusement than merely for a meal.

On 4 and 5 May Lady Joan Swinburne, one of Alice's distant relatives,paid a visit to Acton. She was a wealthy widow with manors of her ownas well as property she inherited from her husband on his death in 1391.

19 The Household Book, pp. 3 , 70. On 3 1 May 1413 two priests came some 400 milesfrom th e Bryan chantry at Slapton in Devonshire to visit Alice. It was the day dedicatedto St Petronella, when prayers were said for Lady Elizabeth Bryan, Alice's mother-in-law,who actually died before Alice was born. Despite their long journey the Slapton priestsonly stayed one night. It was a Wednesday, traditionally a fish day, but nevertheless Alicepurchased butter and cream to provide some exotic sauces, ibid., p. 68.

20 Ibid., pp. 43, 49.21 Ibid., p. 62. C.R. Cheney, A Handbook of Dates for the Student of English History (London,

1991); D.H. Farmer, ed., Th e Oxford Dictionary o f Saints (2nd edn, London, 1989) . Th elatter volume has 11 March as the date of the translation of St John of Bridlington's rel-ics, while the former, which is more closely related to medieval sources, has 11 May.


A stepson, Sir Thomas Swinburne, who once tried to oust her from he rinheritance, ha d died the previous year. It appears Lady Swinburne mayhave been visitin g Suffolk i n order t o oversee the constructio n of herlate husband's and stepson's double brass and altar tomb at Little Horkes-ley, just a few miles away. 22 She travelled with a maidservant, son , twosquires, a chaplain, four valets and two grooms. Though she must havebeen able to enjoy a very sumptuous life style, Alice did not provide anyfestive food, though the purchase of eggs that day indicates that someonein the party was vegetarian, possibly the Lady Joan herself. She and Alicemust have shared simila r experiences and concern s and, even if theywere not old friends, would at least have identified with each other. But,though they would have had much to talk about, leisure was not a fifteenth-century concept and Lady Swinburne's visit should no t be seen in thenature of holiday.

Women figure less in Alice's household accounts than men; I hesitateto suggest that they were probably busy at home, tending their livestockand preparing their own family meals, but this may have been the case.When the y were invited to th e mano r i t was often t o help Alice withextra work in th e household . Fo r example , on 2 9 December 141 2 atleast eleve n ladie s were asked t o dinner , togethe r wit h a harper, a nunnamed fria r and Richard Scrivener, who appears to have lived up tohis name. Obviously the preparations fo r the forthcoming New Year'sfeast would have been considerable: decorating the hall, making garlands,preparing sweetmeats , setting up trestl e tables, even composing wordgames, mummeries and riddles. The company dined well on beef, bacon,goose and conies, but we should notforget that this was aworking lunch.23

The New Year's feast was the busiest time of the social calendar. Aliceinvited a dozen or so of her intimate friends t o help her hos t a dinnerfor mor e tha n 30 0 tenants and 'othe r strangers. ' This descriptio n o fsome of her guest s suggests that on thi s particular day there was openhouse at Alice's manor, or at least her tenant s were able to bring alongtheir friends and families. Here we may recognize one of the traditionalaspects of medieval hospitality - tha t of social obligation. Everyone inthe vicinity seems to have been invited and the tables were spread withtwo pigs, two swans, twelve geese, two joints of mutton, twenty-four capons,

22 Th e Household Book, p. 95; also, Roskell, Clark and Rawcliffe , History o f Parliament,for th e careers of Sir Robert and Si r Thomas Swinburne.

23 The Household Book, p. 26. Most of the women who came were tenants and can beidentified fro m th e bailiffs ' reports , one b y her name . This was Agnes Lavender, whocame with her daughter. No doubt there was a great deal of extra washing and cleaningto be done before the New Year festivities.


seventeen conies, beef, veal, suckling pig and whatever delicacy was madewith twelve gallons of milk and spice from Alice's store cupboard.24 Apartfrom th e entertainment tha t may have been provided a s a result of thelabours of Alice's women friends a couple of days earlier, there was alsoa harper there to help liven up the party.

Another traditiona l aspec t o f medieval social obligation wa s charityand the giving of alms. The onl y time we can be certain Alice gave awayfood from her table was on Maundy Thursdays, when double the-quantityof bread compare d t o the usua l proportion o f one loa f per dine r wassent ove r from he r bak e house. 25 She also made occasiona l grant s ofgrain. It appears there was an annual gif t to three of the orders of friarswho frequently came to dine: the Austin Friars of Clare, the Franciscansfrom Babwell and the Dominicans from Sudbury.26 The quantities werehardly lavish, an average of four bushels each, which would have madethirty gallon s o f al e o r 12 5 two-pound loaves , th e minimu m basicsustenance for one man for a couple of months. Paupers from the estatewere also occasionally granted corn;27 and twice note was made of quanti-ties of grain give n by Alice to help fund th e repair of the bell tower atActon church.28

Corn was one of the most important commodities in the middle ages,providing essentia l basi c nourishment . I t was also use d fo r payment ,occasionally for barter and frequentl y as part o f an annua l wage . AllAlice's estate staf f receive d liverie s of grain commensurat e wit h thei rjobs, varying between two and six quarters per year. It is hardly surpris-ing the n tha t th e harves t festiva l wa s an importan t celebration ; a ful lbarn mean t security for th e nex t twelv e months. At Acton harvestingwas done mostl y by boon worker s with some paid labour . During this

24 Ibid., p. 28.25 Ibid., pp. 56 , 107. There is a fragment of another household accoun t for 1412 ,

from 2 9 March to 30 April, also printed b y V. Redstone. On Maundy Thursday for thisyear a double quantity of bread was also supplied to the table. Maundy Thursday was theday traditionally set aside for large-scale distributions and acts of charity.

26 See PRO, Acton bailiffs's reports, SC 6/989/8-11, SC 6/990/1, SC 6/1249/1 andSC 6/1245/15, 17.

27 PRO, Acton bailiffs' reports , S C 6/989/8, 10, 13-15 and SC 6/1249/2, 3, 5. Oneyear the recipients of Alice's charity were actually named, which makes it easy to identifywith thei r need s and indicates furthermor e that they may have been destitut e rathe rthan just needy . They were Adam Blindman, Agnes Shepherd, John Wafer , Thoma sGrye, Bartholomew Hykyn and William Prat.

28 PRO Acton bailiffs' reports , SC 6/1249/2, SC 6/989/10. The later occasion wasin 1405-6 , the year both Alice's mothe r an d eldes t daughte r died , which may partlyexplain thi s second gift .

The Household o f A lice de Bryene, 1412-13 14 3

time twice the usual quantity of bread was baked in Alice's ovens for theharvesters, wh o also receive d ale . Extr a mea t an d fish were commis -sioned from the larders as well. Where there are details of harvest feastsit is apparent tha t little expense was spared and new dishes, jugs, spoonsand cloths were also purchased for the occasion.29

We should perhaps consider the provisions made for the harvest feastnot onl y as an inducement o r reward for the workers, but als o in th enature of a talisman or charm. Successful farming could not be entrustedto factors in the material world alone; it was always wise to invoke a lit-tle extra help. Candlemas on 2 February, the date of the commemora -tion o f the Purification of the Virgin Mary, was another popular feast ,when all the candles that were to be used in mass throughout th e yearwere consecrated. Alice gave her estat e workers a penny on this day, tohelp them fulfil their financial obligations to the church, for all parishion-ers were obliged to process with a candle and offer a penny to the pries tat mass.30 But, like most Christian festivals , Candlemas als o had paga nand folkloric elements ; the burning of candles at this time of year wasbelieved to help drive away the evi l spirits that abounded i n winter.

Not onl y was it essential to take steps to ward off misfortune in th eprecarious world of agriculture, but advisabl e to have a benefactor onyour side as well. One of the saints depicted o n the late medieval roodscreen a t Foxearth church , of which Alice was patron, was St Walstan.He was an eleventh-century prince who had renounced hi s claim to thethrone and espoused a life of poverty as a reaper in Norfolk. WhateverSt Walstan touched was believed to be fruitful . A s patron of the harvesthe enjoyed a substantial local following in East Anglia. His presence onthe rood screen suggests that he was also one of Alice's personal saints;it can be n o coincidenc e tha t sh e invited Thomas Malcher , her far moverseer an d supervisor, to enjoy some pigeons with her on 20 June, StWalstan's day.31

This brief survey of some of Alice's guests who dined with her at Actonin 1412-1 3 should give us an idea o f the motivatio n behind muc h ofmedieval hospitality. It would seem that in most instances a meal at themanor preceded or was part of the business of household or estate manage-ment. Sometimes it was part of the overal l wage for a particular job o fwork, at other times guests came to help Alice in the household and to

29 PRO, SC 6/989/8,10, 13, 18, 20. In 140 1 the harvesters ate a whole cow at theirfeast and nine years later butter was served with their bread.

30 Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars (New Haven, Connecticut, 1995), pp. 16-22.31 The Household Book, p. 73; Duffy, Stripping o f the Altars, pp. 200-5.


sell or buy goods. Ofte n th e guest list suggests that a business meetingwas in progress. The invitations to various churchmen can be viewed asconnected not only with religious observance and social obligation, bu talso in the wider aspect of involvement with the outside world, beyondthe narrow confines of the manor and small community of farmers; thedissemination o f information was an importan t feature o f their visits .Likewise the arriva l of various politicians indicates a concern t o keepabreast of national affair s as well as a natural identification with a peergroup. And there seems to have been time for Alice to enjoy and entertainher personal friends as well.

Focusing more specifically on the significance of food in the middl eages, we may consider Alice's hospitality in another light . Although themajority of her guests were connected in some way or another with herestates, the ultimate goal was the production o f food, that is principallygrain an d stock . Here we may see Alice as providing the means for thesustenance an d livelihoo d o f numerous people . Ye t she wa s in manyways a s dependent o n the m fo r thei r service s as they were on her , asmuch a servant a s she was served. Th e dail y dinners a t Acton mano rreinforced thi s sense of mutual dependency; food was the tie that boundthem all .

10

Queu du Roi, Roi des Queux:Taillevent and the Profession of Medieval Cooking

A.S. Weber

Guillaume Tirel , di t Taillevent (c . 1310-95), repute d autho r o f th efourteenth-century cookbook Le viandier,1 is still celebrated today as oneof the greatest French cooks in history. He is mentioned by food historiansand cookboo k writer s in th e sam e reverent tone s reserve d for Marie-Antoine Careme and Auguste Escoffier, th e 'Empero r of Chefs'. Yet, byhowever far Taillevent surpassed his contemporaries i n culinary skill, henevertheless remained a man of his age and culture. The social disrupt -ion brough t abou t b y the Frenc h conflic t with England i n th e lat efourteenth century , as well as the subsequent centralization an d expan -sion of the power of the Valois courts during Taillevent's lifetime, providedcivil servants such a s Taillevent with unprecedented opportunitie s fo radvancement. Taillevent's financial and socia l rise through th e Valoiskitchens ca n therefor e b e profitabl y examined a s a reflection , not atranscendence, of the social conditions of the French court at the heightof the Hundred Years ' War.

Fortunately, several court documents and charter s concerning Tail-levent's career have survived and were assembled byjerome Pichon andGeorges Vicaire in their 1892 edition of Taillevent's Le viandier. Thanksto this material and the recent research o f Terence Scully, Constance B.Hieatt and Christopher Dyer, as well as the participants of the colloquiaon medieva l cuisin e hel d a t Nice , Tours, Montrea l an d SUN Y StonyBrook, it is now possible to make some educated guesses about the profes-sional context within which Taillevent worked. We are now able to tracethe connection s betwee n the circumstance s surrounding hi s employ-ment and th e precipitous events of fourteenth-century French society.If we accept Pichon's chronology , Taillevent died in his eighties, outliv-ing severa l of his royal employers, a meritorious fea t i n a n ag e whichwitnessed the ravages of the Black Death, the bloody Jacquerie, agricultural

1 On the question of attribution of Le viandier to Taillevent, see Paul Aebischer, 'Unmanuscrit valaisan du Viandier attribue a Taillevent', Vallesia, 8 (1953), pp. 73-85.


decline and the incursions an d destruction o f the English during th eHundred Years ' War.

It is only within the last twenty years that food and eating habits havebeen seriously studied a s social history. An examination of Taillevent'scareer reveals an intimate portrait of the courts of Charles V and CharlesVI, and ofte n provides a corrective to previous historical accounts. AsScully has pointed out, the fact 'that food is one of man's absolute neces-sities means that i t must be a principal object of study by anyone whoseriously hopes to understands th e history of humanity'.2

According t o th e documentar y an d archaeologica l evidenc e col -lected b y Pichon, Taillevent attained the rank of ecuyeror squire. Histomb, near Saint-Germain-en-Laye and now preserved in the museumthere, depict s a squire in ful l armou r with a coat of arms incorporat-ing thre e cookin g pots . The dat e o f death, unfortunately , has beendamaged.3 Ecuyer, however , was not necessaril y a hereditary title inFrance. Tailleven t is named o n hi s tom b an d i n on e documen t o f1368 as a sergent d'armes,4 but ther e is no indication in surviving docu-ments tha t any of Taillevent's title s was hereditary o r tha t he was ofnoble birth . I n 134 9 Tailleven t was granted fund s by Phillipe VI tofound a chapel adjacent to his house called 'Larchiere' , but this doesnot necessarily indicate noble status.5 Of course, noblemen often servedand carve d a t the tabl e o f the king : at a feast given by the comt e deFoix between 1458 and 1461 , for example, the mattres-d'hostelviere thecomte Gaston de Foix, the comte de Dunois, the comte de la Marcheand the grand-senechal de Normandie.6 Although there ar e numer-ous examples of noble children servin g as pages in the more prestigiou shouses in England and France, I strongly suspect that Taillevent himselfcame from a wealthy merchant o r haul bourgeois family.

In Taillevent's period we can find several cases of French bourgeoi sartisans who rose to social and financial prominence a s a result of theirinvolvement in the Hundred Years' War. Pierre Bailie, for example, beganin the shoemaking trade and ended his career as treasurer of Normandyafter 1436 . Charles V's contemporaries perceive d his court as one that

2 Terence Scully, The Viandier of Taillevent: An Edition of All Extant Manuscripts (Ottawa ,1988), p. 30.

3 Jerome Pichon an d George s Vicaire , eds, Le viandier de Guillaume Tirel, di t Taille-vent (1892; reprinted, ed. Sylvie Martinet, Geneva, 1967), pp. xix-xx .

4 Ibid., pp. 264-65, 'pieces justificatives', no. 10.5 Ibid., pp. 260-61, 'pieces justificatives', no. 4.6 Pierre Jean Baptiste le Grand d'Aussy, HistoiredelaviepriveedesFranfaisdepuis I'origine

de la nation jusqu'd no s jours, Hi (Paris, 1782), p. 304 .

Queu du Roi, Roi des Queux 14 7

encouraged talen t over noble birth. The low-born counsellors of Charles'sadministration were scornfully dubbed 'les Marmousets 'by jealous noble-men. After 136 6 roya l counsellors were chosen solel y by merit, rathe rthan by alliance or birth.7

I suspect that Taillevent was not of noble birth primarily because h eis first mentioned i n 1326 as an enfant d e cuisineai the coronatio n feas tof Jeanne d'Evreux, wife o f Charles le Bel.8 Another titl e for this low-est o f kitche n position s wa s garfon d e cuisine, whose responsibilitie sincluded roug h an d unskille d manua l labou r suc h a s cleaning fishand plucking poultry.9 It is difficult to imagine someone o f aristocraticor eve n wealthy mercantile birt h assigne d t o thes e tasks , especiallysince enfants d e cuisine were often employe d i n turnin g th e roastin gspit, a dirty and ill-requite d tas k which was later performe d b y dogs,although i t may have been though t tha t this would toughen the m fora late r militar y career.10 How then d o we explain Taillevent' s socia lleap from turnspi t t o escuier de cuisine, a position ofte n held by a l gen-tilhomme, responsible fo r liaison between kitchen and table , betweencooking staf f an d servin g staff? 11

We know that the period between the reigns of Philippe VI (1328-50) an d Charle s V I (1380-1422 ) witnesse d explosiv e clas s conflict swhich erupted i n the peasant revolt of 1358 and in several civil disrup-tions in Paris , including the dictatorshi p of Etienne Marce l in 1358 .We can therefor e expec t a certain measure o f social flux and mobil -ity during this period. Unlike the Capetiens, who had allied themselveswith the bourgeoisie agains t the feudal lords, the Valois kings, in whoseservice Taillevent spent the greater par t of his career, supported an dadvanced the nobility, whose resources and military training were neces-sary in the continuing struggle against the English. During the reignsof Charle s V (1364-80 ) an d Charle s VI the bourgeoisi e constantl yattempted to assert the rights of their professional organizations againstthe prerogatives of the crown, leading to a number o f confrontationsbetween th e kin g an d th e cit y of Paris. In 138 2 th e cit y of Paris roseagainst Charles VTs reimposition of the gabelle, or salt tax, and refused

7 Francoise Autrand, Charles V le Sage (Paris , 1994) , p. 712 .8 Pichon and Vicaire , Le viandier de Guillaume Tirel, p. viii. See p. xxx for a summary

of Taillevent's documented titles .9 Le Grand d'Aussy, Histoire de la vie privee, Hi, p. 304 .10 Alfred Gottschalk , Histoire de I'alimentation e t de la gastronomie depuis l a prehistoire

jusqu'd nos jours, i i (Paris , 1948) , p. 323 .11 Terence Scully, '"Aucun e science de 1'art de cuysinerie et de cuysine": Chiquart's

Du fai t de cuisine' , Food andFoodways, 2 (1987) , p. 207 .


the kin g entry into th e gate s o f Paris. When Charle s finally gainedentry into the city , on 1 1 January 1383 , h e promptly executed score sof the rich bourgeois who had opposed him. Later, in 1413, th e butch-ers of Paris, dubbed Cabochiens after their leader, rose and seized controlof the city .

One effec t of these class conflicts was that the Valois grew increasinglydependent on court servants such as Taillevent, not for only the prepara-tion but also for the supplying of food. Royal procurement of food becamean important issue for the Valois kings because of the severe shortagesof food (especiall y during th e famines of 1351 an d 1539) , an d becaus eof the disruption cause d b y the relate d agraria n revolt s and th e inter-ruption o f the Pari s food industry . I suspect tha t Tailleven t served aspanetier du roi (although thi s was not on e o f hi s recorded titles) , th eofficial responsible for obtaining foodstuffs for the royal household unde rthe syste m of prise. A civil servant who could successfull y procur e foodfrom a ravaged countryside , an d fro m a peasantry ben t o n hidin g itsproduce fro m th e prise collectors in specially-buil t greniers, would havewon immediate royal favour. Taillevent's success in these ventures mayhave aided him in his career.

In th e treacherou s time s o f the Hundre d Years ' War and o f cor-responding civi l conflicts in Paris and France, when poison could eas-ily be slipped into a dish, or an assassination attempted i n the diningroom, a trusted kitchen servan t was worth hi s weight in saffron. Tail -levent was well rewarded for his services, receiving land and high wages,as well a s grants o f hay and lodgin g t o ai d him i n hi s requisition o fprovisions fo r th e king' s household . I n Taillevent' s survivin g wagereceipts, we see a sharp ris e i n hi s income, a s well a s his increasingfinancial obligation s to the king . In 135 5 he receive d fiftee n livres asan escuyer d'hostel, and fro m 136 7 until the tim e of his death his wagesstabilised a t around fifty-five livres (six sows per diem). 12 In 1346, in anordre iteratifofPhillipe VI, Taillevent is called 'our beloved cook' ('nos-tre ame queu Guillaume Tirel}. 13

Taillevent obviousl y benefited fro m th e intimat e atmospher e o fCharles V's court, at which, as Christine de Pisan reports in her biographyof the king, Charles frequently 'exchanged with his servants, in agree-able familiarity , som e pleasan t an d happ y remarks, so that hi s kind-ness and gentleness would encourage eve n the leas t of them t o joke

12 Pichon an d Vicaire , Le viandier de Guillaume Tirel, pp. 261-68 .13 Ibid., p. 258 .

Queu du Roi, Roi des Queux

and enjo y themselves with him, however humble the y might be'. 14

Whatever Taillevent's origins, it is clear he was drawn into th e circl eof the court and perhaps identified himself with the nobility. A charterof 1355 shows him selling horses to the Dauphin (late r Charles V). In1370 he was asked to lend sixty-seven francs to Charles V 'to reinforceour constable, so that he can better and more powerfully combat ourenemies'.15 I t i s very possible tha t Tailleven t saw military service inthe Hundred Years ' War or in the suppression of the numerous Paris-ian revolts of artisans and bourgeoisie which plagued both Charle s Vand Charle s VI. He was at th e ver y least involve d financially in th ewars.

Taillevent also benefited from th e labou r shortage s and increase sin real wages following the Black Death, which killed perhaps a thirdof th e populatio n o f Europe, thu s reducin g th e number s o f valets,chambermaids, servant s an d kitche n helpers. 16 I n 135 1 King Jeanpublished a n ordinanc e establishin g wag e limit s for artisan s an dchamberlains; similar legislation ha d appeare d i n England with theStatute o f Labourer s (1351). 17 Taillevent , a s an experience d an dtrustworthy servant of the royal household, would have seen his statusand value increase as wage labourers became scarce and began demand-ing higher wages. Taillevent also took advantage of the cash-strappedroyal finances and received land and privileges in return for his services.He mad e hi s career i n a court tha t displaye d increasing hostility tothe working and bourgeoi s classes , and i t is possible tha t he himselfno longer identified with those classes or viewed himself as the work-ing artisa n whic h he essentiall y was. Eustache Deschamp s (1346 -1406) wrote about thi s flight towards the upper classe s among thos ewith the requisite wealth and cour t connections:

14 Christine d e Pisan, 'The Book of the Deeds and Good Character o f King Charle sV the Wise' , trans. Glenda McLeod , i n Th e Writings o f Christine dePizan, ed. Charity Can -non Willar d (Ne w York, 1994), pp. 236-37.

15 Pichon an d Vicaire , L e viandier de Guillaume Tirel, p . 265, 'pour enforcie r nostr econnestable, afin qu'i l puist miex e t plus poissanment combatre noz ennemis'.

16 On thi s question i n relation to food productio n and consumption , se e FernandBraudel, Capitalism and Material Life, 1400-1800 (London, 1974), chapter 2; StephenMennell, Al l Manners o f Food: Eating and Taste in England an d France from th e Middle Agesto the Present (Oxford, 1985), pp. 42-47; G. Persson, 'Consumption, Labour, and Leisurein th e Lat e Middl e Ages' , i n Manger et boire au moyen age, ed. Deni s Menjot , i (Paris ,1984), pp . 211-23.

17 E. Levasseur, Histoire des classes ouvrieres et de I'industrie en France avant 1789, i (Paris ,1900), pp . 500, 501 n.l.

149


Today everyone i s misled.For each person wants to maintain great stateAnd thus there i s no one anymor eTo undertake th e labours of the age .Everyone should keep to his own degreeWithout being ashamed t o do his job,But everyone want s to become a squire,So that today one ca n hardly find a worker.18

Service i n th e king' s househol d guarantee d no t onl y protection, bu talso the possibility of making connections leading to advancement. Cax-ton's compilation entitle d Th e Book ofCurtesye (1477-78 ) urged:

Awayte, my chyld, whan ye stonde at table,Off mayster or soverayne whether yt be,Applye you for to be servysableThat no defawte in you fownden be;Loke who dothe best, & hym folow ye,& in especyall vse ye attendavnceWheryn ye shall your selfe best avaunce. 19

Despite Taillevent's movement in royal circles, and his financial trans-actions with Charles V, he must always have encountered some contemptfor being connected with a dirty and manual occupation. Even thoughthe jobs of sergent d'armes and premier queu (two of Taillevent's titles)required a variety of skills, such as basic reckoning, financial responsibil-ity and manageria l ability , the tain t of the kitchen cannot entirely haveleft Taillevent . Scully has shown, however, with the exampl e of MaistreChiquart Amiczo, cook of the duk e of Savoy, that a master cook couldbe literate an d well-educated enoug h to spice his cookbook wit h Latinquotations from Virgil. 20 As the provisione r of a royal household, Tail -levent's final position at the court of Charles VI, he was responsible for

18 Quoted in Levasseur, Histoire des classes ouvrieres, i, p. 526:Deceus est tout le monde aujourdhui .Car chacuns veult grant estat maintenir,Et si n'est mes aussi comme nullui,Pour les labours du secle maintenir :Chascun deust son etat retenir,Sanz honte avoir de faire son mestier,Mais chascuns veut escuier devenir:A paine est-i l aujourdhui nul ouvrier.

19 FJ. Furnivall, ed., Caxton's Book ofCurtesye, EETS, extra series, 3 (1868), p. 13.20 Scully, 'Chiquart' , p. 205.


the transfer and safekeeping of large sums of money, goods and expensivespices. Le Grand d'Aussy , following an account by Olivier de la Marche(Etat d e la Maison d e Bourgogne) writte n in th e mi d fifteent h century ,describes the duties and privileges of the master cook under th e Valois:

The master cook had the privilege of carrying a dish to the duke's table, tohave a seat next t o th e fireplac e o f the kitchen , and t o si t there when h ewanted. The keepin g of the spice s was entrusted to him . H e commandedeveryone in the kitchen; and, i n accordance with his title, he carried, whenhe was working, a great wooden spoon, which he used as much to taste thesoups as to correct his subordinates when they were negligent.21

We see here the master cook organizing and supervising the kitchen ina managerial capacity, much like the executive chef in large hotels today.The instructions for managing a feast in Le menagierde Paris, an anonymousconduct and home econom y book written near th e end o f Taillevent'slife, show the haute bourgeoisie imitating Taillevent's culinary and execu-tive practice s with multiple course s and highly-processe d and labour -intensive dishes .

Another importan t responsibilit y of the maste r coo k was to ensur ethat his foods provided a proper diet in accordance wit h contemporar ydietary science. The prefac e o f Th e Forme o f Cury, a recipe collectio ncompiled by the maste r cook s of Richard II of England, state s that 'i twas compiled by assent and auysemen t of Maisters and [i.e. , of] phisikand of philosophic that dwellid in his court'.22 Numerous Latin dietar-ies from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries have survived, such asthe Mensaphilosophica (attribute d to Michael Scott, thirteenth century) ,the Tacuinum sanitatis (popular from th e fourteenth to the seventeenthcenturies) and Andrew Borde's Dietary and Breuiary ofHelthe (bot h 1547).All of these works draw on the dietary traditions o f Galen, Hippocrate sand Arabic medicine and quote Avicenna, Averroes and Dioscorides asauthorities. In the dietary tradition, foods had to be mixed or temperedaccording to their Aristotelia n elementa l and humoural propertie s -hot, cold, wet and dry. The Tacuinum quotes Avicenna as recommend-

21 Le Grand d'Aussy , Histoire de la vie privee, iii, pp. 303-4 ; 'Le Maitre-queux avail leprivilege d'apporter a la table du Due un plat , d'avoir un sieg e dans la cheminee de lacuisine, & de s' y asseoir quan d i l voulait. La garde de s epices lui etait confiee. I I com-mandait a tous les gens de la cuisine; &, a ce titre, il portait, quand i l etait en fonction ,une grand e cuillier e de bois , qui lui servait tant a gouter les potages qu' a corriger sessous-ordres, lorsqu'ils manquaient en quelque chose' .

22 Constance B . Hieatt an d Sharo n Butler , eds, Curye O n Inglysch: English CulinaryManuscripts o f the Fourteenth Century, EETS, new series, 8 (1985) , p. 20 .


ing '"tha t a contrary i s reduced t o a tempered mea n b y means o f itscontrary", just as if he were to say that the moist should be tempered byadmixture with the dry, and th e cold with the hot, and the fat and oil ybe tempered by blending with the salt and acid, etc.'23 Similar advice onmatching th e elementa l qualitie s o f foods with humoural disposition soccurs in Sir Thomas Elyot's Castel ofHelth (1534). The oldest Frenchcookbook, dubbed the Enseignements (c. 1300), follows in manuscript amedical treatise of Henri de Mondeville (1306) , surgeon to Philippe leBel. Mondeville stresses th e importance o f diet in medical treatment :'those who are healed by foods are more easily brought to health [tempera -ment] than those who are healed by medicines'.24 Andrew Borde echoesthis sentiment in the sixteenth century: 'A good cook is half a physician,for the chief physic (the counsel of a physician except) doth come fromthe kitchen'.25 Editions of Taillevent's Le viandier, such as that of themid fifteenth-centur y Vatica n manuscript, contain recipes for the sick ,and i t seem s t o hav e been commonl y expected tha t th e coo k wouldconsult the court physicians in matters of proper food mixtures.

Scully observes tha t althoug h th e recipe s of the various editions ofthe Viandier do not demonstrate a detailed knowledge of humouralism,'what is usually reflected in the Viandier, however, is a culinary practicethat recognizes in a general way the doctrines propagated by contemporarymedical schools concerning the most wholesome means of cooking andpreparing particular meat s and the most salubrious condiment s t o beconsumed in conjunction with them'.26 Chiquart's cookbook, also contain-ing recipes for the sick, states that the doctor should always be consultedbefore servin g dishes to an invalid. 27 Thus we see the important , on emight say essential, role of the cook in aristocratic society: if the princ ewas the head and heart of the body politic, his cook was the physician,instrumental in protecting the health of both the monarch and the realm.

The idea that meals served as a binding social function, and provideda site for the display and propagatio n o f power, has now become com-

23 Arthur Way, trans., The Science of Dining (Mensa Phiksphica) (London, 1936), p. 6.24 Marie-Christine Pouchelle, 'Une parol e medicale prise dans 1'imaginaire: alimen-

tation et digestion chez un maitre chirurgien du XWe siecle', Pratiques et discours alimen-taires d la renaissance: actes du colloquede Tours 1979, ed. Jean-Claude Margolin an d Rober tSauzet (Paris, 1982), p. 183: 'ceu x qui sont gueris par des aliments sont plus facilemen tramenes a leur temperament que ceux que Ton guerit par des medicaments'.

25 Charles Cooper, Th e English Table in History an d Literature (London, 1929), p. 23.26 Scully, The Viandier, p. 23.27 Idem, 'Chiquart' , p. 204 .


monplace among food historians . Bruno Laurioux sums up this widelyaccepted observation:

In manuscript illuminations, meals appear clearly as a social stage play, wherethe rank of each banqueter is carefully indicated by, among other things, theplace tha t on e occupie s at th e table , th e richnes s of the sea t that one i sallotted, the possessio n of tableware and th e proximit y to luxurious tableornaments.28

Taillevent's employers - Phillip e VI, Charles V and Charles VI - mor ethan an y other French monarchs exemplified the use of the table an dfeast to establish a n ordered hierarchy . At the feast , the most powerfulprinces of the blood could instantly witness who was in and who was out:for example , 'th e most bitter injur y that one could inflic t on a knightwas to cut the tabl e cloth on his right and left , which signified tha t h ewas cut of f from societ y as having been false t o honour; thi s traditio nhad been instituted by Bertrand Du Guesclin' during the reign of CharlesV.29 At the table , noble s an d king assembled int o a microcosm of therealm, together, yet separate in power and station. Even communal eat-ing an d drinkin g demonstrate d socia l distinction s which divided th eranks of society. As Georg Simmel has pointed out: 'common eating anddrinking unleashes a huge socializing power, which allows one to overlookthe fac t tha t man i s scarcely in realit y "the same", but eat s and drink scompletely individual portions'.30

Taillevent would have been entangled in the complicated web of socialdistinctions at the Valois court - a s cook he knew what went down the

28 Bruno Laurioux, 'Table et hierarchic sociale a la fin du moyen age' , in Du manu-scrit a la table: essais sur la cuisine au moyen age et repertoire des manuscrits medievaux conten-ant de s recettes culinaires, ed . Carol e Lamber t (Montreal , 1992) , p . 87 : 'Su r bie n de senluminures, l e repas apparai t clairemen t comme une mi s en scene de la societe o u laqualite de chaque convive est soigneusement indique e par, entre autres , la place qu ecelui-ci occupe autour de la table, l a richesse du siege qui lui est alloue, la possessionde couverts, la proximite d'objets de table luxueux' .

29 Gottschalk, Histoired'alimentation, p. 329: 'la plus sanglante injure qu'on putinflige ra un chevalier etait de trancher la nappe a sa droite et a sa gauche, ce qui signifiait qu'onle retranchai t d e l a societe comm e ayan t forfai t a 1'honneur; tradition qu i aurai t et cinstitute par Bertrand Du Guesclin'.

30 Georg Simmel , Soziologie der Mahlzeit (1910) , quote d i n Margaret e Zimmerman ,'Kochkunst im spatmittelalterlichen Frankreich: Le menagier de Paris', in Essen und Trinkenin Mittelalter un d Neuzeit, ed . Irmgar d Bitsc h e t al . (Sigmaringen , 1987) , p . 103 : 'Da sgemeinsame Esse n und Trinke n . . . lost eine ungeheure sozialisierend e Kraf t aus , dieubersehen lasst, dass man ja gar nicht wirklich "dasselbe", sondern volli g exklusive Por-tionen iss t und trinkt . . .'


gullets of the nobility, who got the expensively spiced dishes, the delicatesongbirds, th e larges t and most prime portions . Th e court cook musthave played a central role in disseminating gossip and information aboutthe political happenings at court and the social standing of its members.He, afte r all, implemented th e king' s public punishment and rewardsystem instituted a t the table and bridged th e two worlds of kitchen anddining-room, servin g as an intermediary and messenger between thosetwo domains.

The king's master cook was expected to maintain a high level of decorumand, in the use of spices and elaborate subtleties, to reinforce on a dailybasis both the power of the monarch and his largesse. As Bridget Henischpoints out , 'the concep t o f understated eleganc e wa s not on e whichcame easil y to the medieva l mind , and a host like d t o use expensiv eingredients, and be seen to use them, as a compliment to his guests anda proof of his own prosperity. For the purposes of conspicuous consump-tion, spices were a godsend.'31

We have inherite d fro m th e middl e age s a surprisin g number o fmetaphors for socia l distinctio n draw n from food an d eating : sittin g'below the salt ' indicated inferior rank, being served the 'upper crust'signalled access to the choicest privileges of wealth, and being born witha 'silver spoon' in one's mouth guaranteed a life among society's elect.The sumptuar y law s o f medieva l England , Franc e an d Ital y als odemonstrate the contemporary awareness of food as a central indicato rof social status. Phillipe le Bel, in a sumptuary ordinance of 1294, 'forbadeevery subject to have served as an ordinary meal more tha n on e dishand on e sid e dish; and, for larger meals , more than tw o dishes with apotage au lard'.52 In 1363 in England 'it was enacted that the servants ofgentlemen, merchants and artificers should have only one meal of fleshor fish in the day, and that their other food should consist of milk, but-ter and cheese'.33 One function of these sumptuary laws was obviouslyto decrease consumptio n and t o foster religious , political and judicialtemperance and good judgement, especially in times of famine; and toforce the lower classes to remember their place and dress their tables inaccordance wit h their social class. But in the case of sovereigns such asPhillipe l e Bel, the king also hoped t o regulate th e tabl e as a politicalevent. For example, outdoing the king in lavishness and liberality at the

31 Henisch, Fast and Feast, pp. 103-4 .32 Le Grand d'Aussy, Histoire de la vieprivee, Hi, p. 229, 'defendit a tout sujet de se faire

servir, pour un repa s ordinaire , plu s d'un mets et d'un entremets; et , pour le s grand srepas, plus de deux mets avec un potage au lard'.

33 Cooper, Th e English Table, p. 5.


feast was not only an act of bad tast e but also a serious political affront ,since the splendor of one's table was a transparent allegory of both one'ssocial rank and politica l or military power. This was an important issu ethroughout th e Hundred Years ' War since the various noble houses ofFrance were continually warring among themselves for status and politi -cal power.

An examination of the culinary habits of Taillevent's main employer,Charles V, can provide us with an alternative perspective on the historyof his realm. Although Charles V won the sobriquet of lle Sage' for hisinterest in learning an d th e sciences , estimates of his judgement andgoverning abilities have varied. Joseph Calmett e expresses a standar dview o f Charle s V : 'he certainl y governed, i n al l loyalty , fo r wha t h eunderstood t o be th e greates t goo d o f France'.34 Christin e d e Pisan ,whose father Thomas ha d serve d as Charles's court astrologer, wrot e acommissioned biograph y o f th e kin g which agrees wit h Calmette' sinterpretation. Her description of Charles's eating habits paints a pictureof a sober, deliberate king absorbed in the cares of defending a kingdom.She wrote: 'he would go to the table around te n o'clock. Hi s meal wasnot long , for he di d no t favou r elaborate food , saying that suc h foo dbothered hi s stomach an d disturbe d hi s memory. He drank clea r an dsimple wine, light in colour, well cut, and not much quantity nor grea tvariety' ,35 This is the same king, however, who along with his wife received'through a papal bull of Gregory XI, the permission to eat milk, butter,cheese and eggs during Lent . His kitchen staff were authorized t o tastehis dishes and hi s officers t o check for poison.'36 Le Grand d'Aussy , aneighteenth-century historian, printed an inventory of the gold and silvervessels in Charles V's household and the list is stunning. Le Grand d'Aussythen asked , with some sarcasm , 'ho w could Charle s V have procure dsuch treasure ? Or rather , ho w could th e nation , i n a tim e whe n th emines of America were not yet in existence for Europe, have accumulatedso much metal for the use of the sagest of France's kings?'37

34Joseph Calmette, Charles V(1945; reprint, Paris, 1979), p. 214: 'II a certainementgouverne, en tout loyaute, pour ce qu'il entendait etr e le plus grand bien de la France'.

35 The Writings o f Christine dePizan, ed. Willard, p. 237 .36 Gottschalk, Histoire d'alimentation, p. 346: 'par une bulle du pape Gregoire XI, la

permission de manger du lait , du beurre, du fromage e t des oeufs en Careme; les cui-siniers d u roi etant autorises a gouter ces plats et les officiers d'e n fair e 1'essai'.

37 Le Gran d d'Aussy , Histoire de la vie privee, iii, p. 222 : 'comment le Ro i Charles Vavait-t-il pu se procurer un parei l tresor! ou plutot, comment l a Nation, dan s un tern sou les mines de 1'Amerique n'existaient pas encore pour les Europeans, avait-elle attirechez elle assez de metaux, pour que le plus sage de ses Rois en employat.. . ?'


Under Charles V and Charles VI, the kitchen run by Taillevent includedforty-eight persons, not including the thirteen maistres d'hostel.^8 BothCharles V and Charles VI employed more kitchen personnel than eventhe ostentatiou s Louis XV. Our imag e of Charles V ruling solely pour laFrance must therefore com e under scrutiny . One coul d plausibly arguethat th e maintenanc e o f an extensiv e and cohesive royal household,centred around th e public drama of the feast table, helped to forge thenecessary noble alliances and national unity that would eventually becomenecessary in expelling the English from France. But at what cost? I havementioned above how France several times from the 1350s onwards veeredtowards civil wars exacerbated b y deep class divisions. Le Grand d'Aussy,obviously with an eye to praising the sobriety of his own monarch, can-not hide his uncharitable attitud e towards the Valois court: he calls theValois table unfaste inutile (a useless ostentation) and observes that 'CharlesVwas the first to introduce more pomp into his house. The same spiritof ostentation whic h inspired him to accumulate a large collectio n o ftableware, als o drew him t o maintai n a numerous household'. 39 I t isinteresting tha t i n both Christin e d e Pisan' s an d L e Grand d'Aussy' sassessments of the period sobriet y and temperance in eating and drink-ing are synonymous with wise government, a reference t o the classicalmetaphor o f the body politic which required prope r balanc e in orde rto ensure good health. The various versions of Taillevent's L e viandier,many appearin g afte r hi s death , reflec t a n expensiv e an d Epicurea ncuisine i n its increased employment o f foreign colourin g agents , rareimported spice s and foo d sculptures . As Liliane Plouvier point s ou tconcerning th e Vatican manuscript o f Le viandier (c. 1450): 'the arrivalof a class of nouveaux riche s introduce d anothe r ar t o f livin g whichexpressed itsel f i n a taste for eccentricit y an d ostentation . Food , lik eclothing, was the most striking manifestation of this trend'.40

In our investigation of Taillevent and his times, we have seen how thehistory of cuisine at the Valois court, in which Taillevent played such acentral role, must be taken into account in any historical interpretation

38 Gottschalk, Histoire d 'alimentation, p. 326.39 Le Grand d'Aussy, Historic de la vieprivee, iii, pp. 222, 298: 'Charles V fut le premier

qui mil plus de faste dans sa Maison. Le meme esprit d'ostentation qui 1'avait porte a sedonner une vaisselle immense, le porta auss i a se donner une Maison nombreuse'.

40 Liliane Plouvier, 'La gastronomic dans Le viandier de Taillevent et Le menagier deParis', in Manger et boire au moyen age, ed. Menjot, ii, p. 151: 'L'avenement d'une classede "nouveaux riches" a introduit un autre art de vivre qui s'exprime dans un gout pour1'excentricite et 1'ostentation. La nourriture comme le costume en est la manifestationla plus evidente'.


of th e period . Taillevent' s caree r provide s a portrai t o f th e socia lstructure o f fourteenth-centur y France . Th e eatin g an d food -preparation habit s of a society can revea l some of the subtletie s an dintricacies of it s history, often obscure d b y propaganda, th e lac k ofwritten documentary sources and the imperfect critical faculty of boththe historian an d contemporary witness.

11Medieval and Renaissance Wedding Banquets

and Other Feasts

Susan F. Weiss

Feasting and making music have almost always, since ancient times, gonehand in hand. The feas t o r banquet is seen as a locus of pleasure an dplenitude, a kind of hedonism, away of liberating the senses and deriv-ing enjoyment of a rather sensual nature.1 According to Tinctoris, in histreatise Complexus effectuum musices, 'Music increases th e joyfulness o fbanquets'.2 'Graciou s living i n th e fifteent h an d sixteent h centurie srequired music afte r dinner , and s o [too] after a staged banquet, th eactors often sang'. 3

Music was a very important part of a real-life Bolognese feast celebrat-ing the wedding of Annibale Bentivoglio and Lucrezia d'Este in 1487,an event , documente d i n som e detail , tha t gav e ris e t o extravagan tentertainment beginning about five days before th e actual ceremony.Eight hundred casks of wine and 30,000 pounds of meat were providedfor an unspecified number of guests and an additional 3000 spectators.4

1 In the short allegorical tale Fabula de homine (1518), the Spanish philosopher Vives,taking up a favourite theme o f the Italia n humanists, praises the dignit y of man. H edescribes a birthday banquet celebrated by Juno and the gods of Olympus. A setting hasto be provided, and so Vives seats his hero at the table of the gods. Michel Jeanneret, AFeast o f Words: Banquets and Table Talk i n th e Renaissance (Chicago, 1991), pp. 14ff .

2 Alberto Gallo , Music o f the Middle Ages (Cambridge , 1985) , ii , p . 106 ; quoting J.Tinctoris, Theoretical Works, ed. Albert Seay (Rome, 1975) ii , pp. 159-77 .

3 Howard M . Brown, Music i n the French Secular Theatre (Cambridge , Massachusetts ,1963) p . 84. See also Bridget Ann Henisch, Fast andFeast (Universit y Park, Pennsylvania,1976), pp. 209ff . Henisc h state s that music had thre e principal parts to play at a feast :to punctuate, b y announcing th e ceremonia l hig h point s of the meal ; to delight th ediners; and to charm away the pangs of indigestion. Henisch also discusses the importanceof carol singing during certain importan t annua l feasts , such as Christmas and TwelfthNight. See also Madeleine Pelner Cosman, Fabulous Feasts (Ne w York, 1995) , p . 18 , formore on banquet musi c during the middle ages and Renaissance.

4 See Susan F. Weiss, 'Musical Patronage of the Bentivogli o Signoria', in Atti delXTVcongresso della societd internazionale de musicologia (Bologna, 1990), iii, pp. 703-15; Sabadi-no's 'Hymeneo' and Salimbeni's 'Epithalamium' includ e extensive descriptions of food,music, guests, costumes, etc. The painting s of the Mannerists , first in Italy, and later innorthern Europe , reserved a special place for the mythological banquet that depicte d


The highpoin t o f the day s of celebration cam e in th e form of a hugespectacle, a masque in four acts, symbolizing the triump h o f Marriageover Chastity , combining mythological and allegorica l characters typi -cal of most courtly entertainment a t the time . Following the perform-ance, n o doub t a s a quid pro quo for al l tha t meat , couple s fro m th ebutchers' guild were invited to dance until the small hours of the morn-ing. We even kno w the title s o f some o f the musi c and hav e locatedcompositions in contemporary sources.5

Another importan t foun t of information regardin g foo d i n Bolog -nese lif e comes from a rustic eclogue tha t describes a peasant countrypicnic wit h feasting an d dancing , writte n i n 1508 . It s author , Cesar eNappi, gives names of dishes and beverages, many from the more rusticcuisine, includin g charcoa l meats , wines , cheeses , frittat a an d brus -chetta. H e als o uses typica l peasant name s fo r th e characters , instru -ments, dances an d song s popular i n th e earl y sixteenth century . Thecharacters take an active role in preparing the feast, in eating it, in practis-ing thei r musica l instrument s - suc h a s th e sordetta (modern-da yharmonica), rebec ( a modern-day fiddl e o r mandolin) , piva, zampognaand cornemusa (peasant varieties of bagpipes), flutes, drums and castanets- an d their dances, among them, country dances , suc h as the saltarelloand 'L a Pigna' (Th e Pin e Cone') , and dance s with titles taken fro mpopular tunes such as 'Fortuna d'un gran tempo' and 'Levata la strenga',

continued

the gods arranged aroun d a table laden with fruits and flowers . Often there are musi-cal instruments intended t o accompany the dancing . Into thi s atmosphere o f beauty,luxury and abundan t happiness com e th e characters : Hebe pour s th e ambrosi a andnectar (cocktail s in the modern sense) , Bacchus or Fauns fill goblets, Apollo plays hislyre, Pan his pipes, the Muses sing, the Graces dance, etc.

5 Another well-documented event was the marriage o f Cosimo I, duke of Florence,and Eleanore of Toledo in 1539. In 1968 Andrew Minor and Bonner Mitchell publishedan edition of the music, poetry, comedy and a descriptive accoun t o f the festivities sur-rounding tha t wedding. Eight madrigals were performed, newly written for the occa-sion b y Corteccia, Costanz o Festa , Giovann i Masconi , Bacci o Moschin i an d Matte oRampolini. At the conclusion of the comedy the bacchantes assemble on stage, dancing,singing, drinking and eating. Some carry drinking vessels, others, quarters of raw meat,all singing 'Bacco, Bacco euoe' (Minor , p. 35). Needless to say all were very drunk andperformed accordingly. The spectators were then treated to cool wines and sweetmeats.Throughout th e comedy , a variety of foods are mentioned, such as apples, corn, goatcheeses and th e ubiquitous olive. Hymns are sung to Flora, the goddess o f agricultureand of the harvest, whence the name Florence. Most of the references to food are madein the context of the costumes of the various characters.

Medieval an d Renaissance Wedding Banquets and Other Feasts 16 1

whose firs t line o f tex t reads 'Loos e tha t piece o f ribbon lacin g you rbosom and let me admire those violets of yours'.6

Music was indeed a part of the entertainment connecte d with feasts, andpart of this essay will examine the ways in which musicians and instrument scontributed t o the pleasure of the events . There also exists a repertory ofpieces (bot h courtly and popular ) tha t contained description s of feasting,or even mention o f food. Difference s emerge that distinguish courtl y an dpeasant event s in the differing cuisines, the types of instruments used , th eroles of the musicians, the musical material itsel f and the metaphoric refer-ences to food in the text, general and somewhat cloaked o n the one hand,specific and more overt on the other. One part of this essay will examine th eentertainments-both real-life and staged; another will look at actual composi -tions that contain specifi c reference t o food or feasting.

Adam d e l a Halle's Jeu d e Robin e Marion, a pastourelle with th e rar einclusion o f melodies for al l of its songs, i s thought to have been writ-ten for the entertainment of homesick troops in c. 1282 when the composerwas in Italy in the service o f Robert II , count of Artois.7 The second half

6 Cesare Nappi, 'Egloga villereccia', in MSS Cesare Nappi, Biblioteca Universitaria, Bologna1508. Speaking of symbolism, throughout history it seems as though food or food substancescould be used as metaphors fo r sex. In an ancient Greek flower song of unknown author-ship, the leader of a group of dancing girls sang the first line and the chorus repeated withthe second of a text whose translation is: 'Where are my roses, where are my violets, whereis my beautiful parsley?', or 'Here are the roses, here are the violets, here is the beautifulparsley', noting tha t 'parsley ' was plural. See James Turne y Allen, The First Year of Greek(New York , 1932) , pp. 4-5 . My thanks to Professor Constance B . Hieatt, for sharing thi sinformation with me. In the middle ages, women were obliged t o stay in the kitchen an dmen believed that women were capable of increasing or decreasing thei r sexual ardour byadding to food such things as nail parings, menstrual blood, semen or dough kneaded witha woman's buttocks. A source o f information regarding the effec t o f food o n th e sexua lappetite is the medical literature, such as Avicenna's Liber canonis, which contains a text forthe cure of priapismus. Many accusations were levied against women who tried t o makemen fall in love with them, and the literature on witchcraft contains information about th erecipes used by these 'witches'. One source is the Malleus maleficarum, anothe r is EmmanuelLe Roy Ladurie's Montaillou: Th e Promised Land o f Error (New York, 1979). I am gratefu l toProfessor Helen R. Lemay for providing me with the names of these sources .

One o f the numbers in a revival of Cole Porter's musical Out of This World, which openedin Apri l 1995 i n Ne w York, a licentious spoof o f the Amphityron legend , i s 'Cherry PiesOught t o be Fun', a duet betwee n the character s Mercur y and Chlo e who regale eac hother with superlatives as they bask in the glow of their recent encounter .

7 Adam d e l a Halle, Jeu de Robin e Marion, edite d an d translate d Shir a I . Schwam-Baird; music edited b y Milton G. Scheuermannjr (Ne w York , 1994). The medieva l epicpoem, th e Roman de la rose, contains several references to feasting and t o wine, almostalways accompanied b y some sort of musical entertainment, but the music itself has notsurvived, as is so often th e case .


of the play is a dramatized ' bergerie\ in which a group of rustic charactersprepare meal s and picnic s consisting o f capons, meat , cheese, bread ,pies, apples, roasted peas, bacon, watercress, peeled garlic, curdled milkand wine; they play games and musica l instruments , suc h a s bagpipes,utter vulgarities, ente r int o verba l disputes , mak e love and conclud etheir celebrations by dancing a farandole.8 It is thought that this danceformed part of the entertainment at the marriage of Robin and Marion,and there is even an entry in an early manuscript of the work which callsit 'Mariage de Robin e de Marion'. The play is filled with elements of thecarnival (as in the election of a shepherd as king, as well as in the dancesand meals) ; the numerous references t o food and drink, so often con-noting parts of the body, make for ribaldry and obscenity typical of peas-ant farce . One exampl e i s the eroti c wor d pla y on th e bodic e wher eMarion and her shepherdess friend store their two loaves of bread. Worseyet is one of the character's ideas of a ' bonne chanson , when he proceed sto sing a song that is actually a scatalogical line from a mock epic poem.9At least one of the songs in the play contains items of food in its poetry.The reference s t o pies, capons with nice fat rumps, and eating mout hto mouth nee d n o furthe r comment. 10 The singin g and dancin g ar e

continued

See also Kate van Orden, 'Sexua l Discourse in th e Parisia n Chanson: A LibidinousAviary', Journal o f the American Musicological Society (1995) , pp. 1—41 . In her discussio n ofbirds as central carnivalesque subjects, she refers to a chanson that associates the birdwith male genitalia and states in a footnote that this chanson 'plays off the "Robi n andMarion" story familiar t o musicologists from Adam de l a Halles's/<?u de Robin e Marionin which the sexua l subtext turns around a knight-errant's falcon'. What she neglectsto mention are all of those subtexts where food and food substances are substitutes forparts of the body , such as genitalia.

8 The farandole may have its origins in ancient times in Provence as a dance in triple timeaccompanied b y pipe an d tabo r tha t involved a chain of men and women who follow aleader in a variety of winding patterns passing under the raised arms of couples from th echain. Schwam-Baird (Robin et Marion, p. 68) includes a description from Ernest Langlois'1895 article 'Interpolations dujeu de Robin et Marion'. In it he explained how the dance wasdone: 'Robin tient de la main droite l e gant que Marion vient de lui donner; de sa maingauche i l prend l a main gauche de Marion, qui a sa main droite dans celle de Gautier .Apres Gautier vient Perrette, puis Baudon. La farandole fai t deux ou trois fois le tour dela scene, pendant que Huart et les corneursjouent; puis elle disparait, ainsi que les musitiens'.

9 Schwam-Baird, Robin et Marion, line 728 and p . xix.10 'I still have one of those pies/ with nothing about it/ That we shall eat, my Marion/

mouth to mouth, both me and you; Wait for me here, my Marion/ here I will come to talkto you/ Marion, do you want more from me? ' And afte r Marion' s affirmative response ,Robin continues : 'Then , I tel l you - Tha t I have one of those capons/ With a nice fatrump/ that we shall eat, my Marion/ mouth to mouth, both me and you; Wait for me here,my Marion/ here I will come to talk to you.' Schwann-Baird, Robin et Marion, lines 657-70.

Medieval an d Renaissance Wedding Banquets an d Other Feasts 16 3

interspersed throughout , ofte n accompanied b y the instrument o f thepeasant, a bagpipe; th e openin g son g 'Robin s m'aime' ('Robi n lovesme') became s o popular it later found its way into the motet repertor yhidden betwee n serious and sometimes even sacred texts.

The so-called genre of motet-ente combines aspects of proper courtlybehaviour, o r eve n references to something liturgical , with th e newlyemerging secular , an d perhap s eve n slightl y off-colour , poetry an daccompanying popular tunes. An anonymous thirteenth-century motetfrom the Montpellier codex, 'On parole -A Paris - Frese nouvele', containsa top voice that speaks of the good lif e complete with wine and capons ,a middle voic e that mentions finding , in Paris , good bread an d goodclear wine, meat and fish, and a tenor tha t chants a Parisian street cry'Fresh strawberries, wild blackberries'.] 1 Street cries form a large untappedsource o f information on food and o n market life in the medieval andearly modern periods . Many can be found embedded in the polyphonicliterature, particularly in the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century motet,as well as in music associated with the Frenc h theatre , and i n the Ger -man, French and Italian popular repertories. Som e of these works aredescriptive of market scenes, while others include melodic snippets of thecalls that vendors and hawkers would make while advertising and sellingtheir wares, everything from berries and honey cakes to butter, oil, mustard,vinegar, buttermilk, lard, fish, sweetmeats, spoons, ladles and services suchas chimney-sweeping, singing, playing instruments and recitin g poetry.Some o f these crie s have ribal d texts , others became th e basi s for bassedanses, and stil l others found their way into the artistic repertories of theFrench chanso n (suc h as those by Janequin an d Servi n in the sixteent hcentury) and into the Italian caccia, carnival song and frottola. 12

1 * Archibald T. Davison and Will i Apel, Historical Anthology o f Music (Cambridge , Mas -sachusetts, 1964) , no. 33b. The tex t reads: 'On parole: They speak of beating and winnow-ing and of digging an d of ploughing, but these pastimes displease me . For there is no lif eas good as being at ease, with good clear wines and capons, and to be with good companions ,gay and joyous, singing , cheating an d amorous ; an d t o have, when one needs them , fai rladies to solace us as we wish; and all this one finds at Paris. A Paris: At Paris, morning andnight, one finds good bread and good clear wine, good meat and good fish, companionsof all sorts, cleve r wit , great joy, ladies of honour; and als o ther e are , at good occasion ,means to live for poverty-stricken men. Frese: Fresh strawberries, wild blackberries!'

12 See Susa n F . Weiss, 'Quodlibets an d Centone : A Sharing o f Folk Repertories' ,forthcoming in Proceedings: Austria 996-1996, Music in a Changing Society, InternationalConference, Ottawa , Canada, 6 January 1996 . Fo r more on street crie s see Maria Mani-ates' article in The New Grove Dictionary o f Music and Musicians (London , 1980) , xviii, pp .265-66, as well as Howard M. Brown, Music in the French Secular Theatre (Cambridge,Massachusetts, 1963) .


Lucretius, i n the second chapter of his De rerum natura, describes afeast in honour of the goddess Cybele: 'the taut drums throb to the beatof the palms, the hollow cymbals crash around them, the trumpets soundtheir harsh threat and the Phrygian rhythm of the tibia stirs the soul'.13

Feasting in the middle ages and in the Renaissance was often accompaniedby a wide variety of musical instruments but, in almos t every case, th emusicians were clearl y the hire d help . I n a detai l fro m a thirteenth -century French Bible , th e instrumentalists , playin g fiddle, harp, sym -phonia ( a medieval stringed keyboard instrument) and psaltery, the lastappearing to conduct with his hand, appear below the toasting banquet-ers. Occasionally the musicia n is a young boy placed i n an aristocratichousehold t o perform small services, such as learning to play a musicalinstrument, stablecraft, swordplay or other skills. A young boy is picturedon the bottom right of a thirteenth-century illuminatio n of the corona-tion and celebratory banquet for Henry, son of Henry II of England; hehas secure d a harp o n hi s la p b y wrapping the bas e i n it s bag.14 Afourteenth-century satire with music, the Roman de Fauvel, was writtenjointly by several members o f the Frenc h cour t and depicte d th e evilsthat flourished there, including corruption in the church and the sinful-ness of knights who had take n an oath t o do only good deeds. 15 It was

13 This passage serves to validate the notion that in Ancient Greece and Rome, whilethe kithara and lyre, associated with the god Apollo, often accompanied the voice, winds,such as the aulos and percussio n instrument s were associated mor e with dancing andpagan rites , such as those practised b y Dionysus and th e Bacchantes . Mary Remnant,Musical Instruments: An Illustrated History from Antiquity t o the Present (London, 1989) , p .191.

14 Christopher Page, The Owl and the Nightingale: Musical Life an d Ideas in France, 1100-1300 (London , 1989), pp. 94-97; the musical instrument might be a fiddle or harp .

15 Seejeanneret, A Feast of Words, p . 132, on the Latin etymology for satire: a dish ofmixed ingredients, a salad, a macedoine, a salmagundy o r a pot-pourri: a composite genrederived from other forms (see chapter 6 on satire and its cooking). An author may thinkof himself as a cook, as for example , Montaigne: 'all this medley [fricassee] whic h I amscribbling here' (Essays, Hi, 13, p. 361). The analogy gives the work of writing a festiveand often burlesque character; the text is ordered like a menu, the elements of style aremeasured ou t as in a sauce, and the tale contains a variety of ingredients, lik e a stew.'Jeanneret, A Feast o f Words, p . 132 ; see also p. 214 , on Folengo an d th e ar s macaronica;food i s the focus and Foleng o provides the mode l for Rabelais . Substituting pasta forambrosia take s the tex t t o mor e vulga r registers. 'Foleng o replace s th e topoi o f epicgrandeur with the buffoonery of Baldus and his companion, in the realistic . .. settingof Mantuan peasantry. ' H e allude s to writings of his contemporaries , Pulc i (hi s Mor-gante) and Ariosto (Orlandofurioso), among others. 'He prefers a comic fairy tale, whichdispels fear, t o the serious and threatenin g representation o f Hell in his reference toDante'. Jeanneret, A Feast o f Words, pp . 220-21 .


written i n the tradition of animal fables , popular in French literatureof the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. 16 Fauvel, the central character ,is a donkey whose name i s an acrostic : Flattery, Avarice, Untruthful-ness, Variability, Envy, Laziness. While the donkey and his guests partakeof the wedding feast, the musicians , in this case revellers banging o npots and pans, creating a kind of charivari, serenade first the banquet-ers and later on Fauvel as he makes his way to the marriage bed . Th emusic i s far mor e sophisticate d tha n th e rathe r crud e instrument smight suggest. The mos t current forms and styles of the so-called ArsNova are represented in a complex polytextual isorhythmic motet 'Garritgallus/ In nova fert/ Neuma' by the composer Phillipe de Vitry (whosetreatise gav e thi s period o f fourteenth-century musi c it s name, an dmany of whose works are included in the Fauve l MS). The teno r is amelody borrowe d fro m liturgica l chant . Th e duplum 'I n nov a fert 'borrows passages from Ovid' s Metamorphoses an d sing s of a fox (mostlikely th e chie f councillo r o f th e Frenc h king ) whos e tai l th e lio n(undoubtedly Phili p I V the Fair) , deprive d o f sight , obeys , whil ecomplaining that this fox does not abstain from meats at the weddingfeast.17

Visual representations o f feasts - ofte n connected to nuptials - withmusical entertainment share a number of features in common. A recentreconstruction of the Feast of the Pheasant as it was supposedly celebratedby Philip the Good and his knights in Lille in 1454 includes the perform-ance with musical entremets, based largely on the memoirs of one of theevent's organizers, Olivier de la Marche.18 In his attempt to mount anotherCrusade against the Turks, Philip invited knights to a banquet character-ized by an enormous amoun t o f pomp and ceremon y in which musicplayed no small part. In the hall were three tables of varying sizes wherethe entertainment was staged, as in a three-ring circus. On the medium-sized on e wa s a model o f a church with singers inside who san g an dplayed on an organ when their turn came. On the large table was a hugepie or pastry in which there were twenty-eight musicians playing on diverse

16 Jeremy Yudkin, Music in Medieval Europe (Englewood Cliffs , Ne w Jersey, 1989), p.460.

17 This motet has been transcribed in a number o f modern editions, suc h as NortonAnthology of Western Music, 2nd edn , ed . Claud e Palisc a (Ne w York, 1988), no. 21 .

18 Christopher Hogwood, Music at Court (London, 1977) , pp. 20ff . See also Reinhar dStrohm, Music in Late Medieval Bruges (Oxford, 1985) , p. 98. This banquet is an exampleof the blurrin g of sacred and secular, o r what Strohm call s a 'conflation ' o f element sthat he says was typical at these feasts . We will return to this concept of 'sacred' feast atthe en d o f this essay, very briefly.


instruments.19 Instrumentalists included a bagpiper and two blind musi-cians playin g hurdy-gurdies . Depiction s of thi s feas t and othe rcontemporaneous one s contain some familiar items: the sparsely settables, requisite dog (or horse), servers, pourers and musicians - threeshawm players - isolated , perhaps a s much for noise as for low socialstatus. In almost every instance the instrumentalists are set apart fromthe banqueters. Music was appreciated b y the nobility, spectacles wereapplauded, bu t there was rarely involvement. The instrumentalists -varying in numbers and in the type of instrument-were placed eithe rabove the spectators and dancers or off to the side or below, in outdoorcelebrations, in semi-eroti c o r mythologica l scenes . Fro m th e man yimages, it appears as if dancers, animals, food servers and most certainlythe spectator s ha d highe r statu s a t banquet s tha n instrumentalist sloud or soft. 20

One of the chansons performed a t the Feast of the Pheasant a t Lillewas sung by a child o f twelve, accompanied b y the hug e an d beauti -ful sta g upon which he was mounted. According to de la Marche, thestag sang the tenor of'Je ne vis oncque', thought to have been composedby Gilles de Binchois , a composer o f great renown . This i s the onl ycomposition mentioned by name in de la Marche's memoirs. PerhapsBinchois and the even better-known Guillaume Dufay were responsiblefor a number o f pieces in the feast , as both were said to have been inattendance..

Dufay was the composer of a courtly rondeau (dated 1426) that containedreferences to food and wine within the poetry itself.21 The text describes

19 Perhaps the origin o f Tour and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie'.20 In the mural painting of the Renaissance wedding feast of Sir Henry Unton, th e

musicians - playing the flute, treble lute, pandora, cittern, bass viol and treble viol - areseated downstairs while the masquers are making their way up the stairs to entertain th ewedding part y (see Hogwood, Music at Court}.

21 Adie u ces bons vins de Lannoys, Farewell , these good wines of Lannoy.Adieu dames, adieu borgois , Farewell , ladies, farewell, townsfolk.Adieu celle que tan t amoye, Farewel l to her whom I loved so well.Adieu toute playsante joye Farewl l all pleasurable joy.Adieu tous compaignons galois . Farewel l all my Welsh companions .Je me'en vois tout arquant des nois, I find myself searching for nuts,Car je n e truis feves ne pois, Becaus e I cannot find beans or peas ,Dont bien souven t [ . ..] ier mennoye. Whic h very often makes me annoyed .Adieu ces bons vins de Lannoys. Farewell , these good wines of LannoyAdieu dames, adieu borgois, Farewel l ladies, farewell townsfolkAdieu celle que tant amoye Farewel l to her whom I loved so well.De moy seres, par plusier s fois B y me you will be ofte nRegretes par dedans les bois, Missed , deep in the woods


Dufay's longings for more than just the good wines of Lannoy and alsorefers to symbolic nuts, beans and peas. In keeping with the spirit of thechivalric code as recaptured during the earlier reign of Philip the Good'spredecessor Philip the Bold, the object was to protect and honour thefemale sex , so there i s no explici t reference to sexualit y such a s thatfound in Adam de la Halle's/^w de Robin e Marion. The mor e the musi-cians and poets of the late middle ages attempted to reinstate an archaiccode o f chivalry, the mor e they seemed t o search fo r artificia l devices,anagrams, riddle s an d metaphors . Thi s i s evident t o some degree i nDufay's rondeau, but was to be seen to a far greater extent in the latefifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.

It seems as though the songs written during the middle ages and Renais-sance that contain references to food, to drinking and to eating fall intoat least three categories: those from th e courtly repertoire that containgeneral reference - althoug h possibly with hidden meaning - to foodand drink; those from the newly emerging popular genres where specificfoods ar e mentione d i n a less concealed manner ; and a hybrid formthat borrows and sprinkles in a bit of rustic flavour here and there.22 Yetanother category existed for love potions, probably more a branch ofmagic and alchemy.23 In the courtly category there existed an anonymousrondeau, 'A party that no one forgets' , dating from th e 1460 s or 1470s,which actually describes th e party , its location, Cambrai , its illustriousguests, the composers Robert Morton and Hayne (van Ghizeghem) andthe fac t tha t fine dishe s were served in fine sets , and tha t duets andquartets were performed b y 'low' instruments so loud one could hea r

Ou i l n'y a sentier n e voye: Wher e ther e is no path or way:Puis ne scaray que faire doye, The n I shall no t know what I should d oSe je n e crie a haute vois. Unles s I shout in a loud voice.Adieu ces bons vins de Lannoy, etc. Farewell , these good wines of Lannoy, etc.

The musica l and gastronomic influenc e of the Burgundian cour t was not limited tothat geographic region. The Emperor Maximilian, who knew the ways of the court fromhis marriage to Mary of Burgundy, brought musicians from the Low Countries to Innsbruck.We also know from his letters that he sent one of his cooks to Burgundy to learn to makepates in the Lo w Country manner. Hogwood, Music at Court, p. 25.

22 There is a line about hunge r i n Oswald Wolkenstein's programmatic fourteenth -century song DerMay and one has to question whether this is a case of hunger from lackof eating alone , o r for something o f a more carna l nature . 'De r hunger mach t lunger,Mir den Mage n schier' , Historical Anthology o f Music, no. 60 .

23 Potions figure in the recipe for love in the chanson by the Franco-Flemish composerAlexander Agricola , C'est trop sus amours entrepis ('T o undertake th e alchem y of love'):Howard M . Brown, A Florentine Chansonnier (Chicago, 1983) , no. 63; no. 10 0 is anotherexample.

CONTINUES

168 /"bo d and Eating in Medieval Europe

them in Metz.24 By stating that low or 'has 'instruments are 'so loud' thepoet was betraying his ignorance. 'Bas 'as opposed to 'haut 'actually referredto softe r soundin g instruments , such a s lutes and harps. 25 Or , a s hasbeen suggested , was the poet making another pun (th e rondeau is filledwith them) o n the 'has' socia l status of those 'hauf musicians? 26

Another example comes from the Spanish repertory, but one that fellunder th e influence of the norther n traditions . Luys de Narvae z mayhave been i n th e servic e of Charles V and was , in th e 1540s , a musicteacher to the children i n the chapel o f Prince Philip . His romance orballad for voice and vihuela accompaniment, 'Ya se siente el rey Ramiro',describes a story told at a meal shared by King Ramiro and three of hiscommanders. The tex t include s the followin g account: 'W e rode forseven days , and never at e bread, nor di d the horses ea t barley, whichweighed on us much more . . .' In thi s case the characters are sharin gone meal , while discussing the foods they did not ea t en route to bat-tle.27

After a period of Franco-Flemish hegemon y i n the first half o f th ecentury, the Italians, around the third quarter of the Quattrocento, werebeginning to establish themselves as composers of polyphony. One genrein which they excelled, particularl y in Florence, was the carnival song .The carnivals were held befor e Len t and between 1 May and 24 June,and a regular part of the festivities was merrymaking and singing in thestreets, with grand torchlight processions featuring magnificent pageant

24 Howard M. Brown, A Florentine Chansonnier, no. 72, (rondeau title d 'Se je fay ' o r'La plus grant chiere dejamais'); cf. p. 116. The distance from Cambrai to Metz (Mezier)is about seventy-five kilometres.

25 John Lydgate (c . 1373-c. 1450) , i n Reson and Sensuallyte, wrote o f 'Instrumenty shigh and lowe/ wel mo than I koude knowe' and of 'lowde' instruments being used fordancing. French authors cited the words haut and has referring to volume, not pitch, thelatter used on festive occasions an d in smaller ensembles for dancing. K.M. Stolba, TheDevelopment o f Western Music (2n d edn, Madison, Wisconsin, 1994), p. 133 .

26 Another example from thi s period that contains reference to food in the text is afour-voice chanson by Loyset Compere, one of the compositions included in Petrucci'sfirst printed source of polyphonic music, the Odhecaton (Venice, 1501). The melod y of'Un franc archier' is taken from a popular song and the text is a description of the 'fre earchers' or French soldiers who were often mocke d for their cowardice. In one versionthe soldier is given onion soup to cool his heat, and in another he cooks himself a tastydejeunerof well-seasoned tripe and onion soup, and a supper of fancy fricasee. The imageof the yokel soldier crossing the mountains into Italy is heightened by the refrain whichis made u p o f nonsense syllable s 'la l a too too , l a la tweet tweet ' i n on e versio n an d'Vidagon vignett e sur vignon' in another. Brown , A Florentine Chansonnier, no. 168 .

27 Spanish Romances o f the Sixteenth Century, ed . Thoma s Binkle y and Margi t Frenk(Bloomington and Indianapolis, Indiana, 1995) , pp. 116ff .


carts and costumed masqueraders. Man y canti carnascialeschiwere basedon popular tune s of the day. In fact, the tunes were so popular that , fol-lowing Lorenz o de ' Medici' s death , a numbe r o f the m becam e th emelodies fo r th e lauda o f th e follower s of Savonarola. 28 Severa l dea lquite directl y with the matte r o f food. One tha t comes to mind i s the'Canto de' cardoni' whose poet refers to the growers of artichokes, an dhow one plants, cultivates and properly eats the vegetable. The 'moral 'states tha t 'an artichoke eate n withou t salt is as unexciting a s a womanwho goes to the carnival with her ow n husband'.29

It is the metaphoric musical salad, or some of the culinary terms usedto describ e thi s form, such a s the ensalada, fricassee, rotibouilli, o r th emesticanza, centoneand other forms of the generic quodlibet, that providesmaterial regarding the foods eaten in more rustic settings. 30 Heinric hIsaac's 'Donn a di dentro / Dammen e un pocho / Fortun a d'u n gra ntempo', like the polytextual mote t described earlier, has a different textin each voice. Melodies and text s from som e of the most popular tune sof the late fifteenth centur y are cobbled together, such as 'Fortuna d'un

28 Florentine Festival Music, 1480-1520, ed.JJ. Galluccijr (Madison , Wisconsin, 1981),pp. vii-xi; cf. Patrick Macey, 'The Lauda and the Cult of Savonarola' in Renaissance Quarterly,45, (1992) , pp. 439-83.

29 The poe t is Lorenzo d e Filippo Strozzi ; Gallucci, Florentine Festival Music, no. 6 .'Canto d i donn e maestr e d i fa r cacio ' i s a song that describes how women becomeexpert at making cheese, with a step-by-step explanation of the manufacturing process.The poet, Jacopo da Bientina, lists other attributes required to achieve a good product,such as patience, great care, good eyesight and cleanliness . Ibid, no. 21.

30 J. Tinctoris, Proportionate musices, 1472, uses a quodlibet for illustration; cf. Reese,Music i n th e Renaissance (New York, 1959) , p. 146 ; see above, n. 15 . These pot-pourr iwere also used by Glareanus and Zarlino , but i t was Praetorius, in his Syntagma musicum(1618), who provided the first systematic definition: a mixture of diverse elements quotedfrom sacred and secula r compositions. He presented three categories: 1. Each voice isan independent cantus prius factus; 2 . Each voice is a patchwork of quoted fragments; 3.One voic e is a patchwork of quotations whose text is shared by other voices (cf. Mani-ates et al., New Grove Dictionary o f Music and Musicians, xv, pp. 515ff) . Generall y the quod-libet served no higher purpose tha n that of humour or technical virtuosity, unlike seriousworks that use preexisting material as a structural or symbolic device. Praetorius refersto messanza (or mistichanza) a s the Italian form o f the quodlibet, but, in fact, there ar eseveral other terms that can apply to the Italian combinative compositions, such as cen-tone and incatenature. Sometimes popular tune s are found quoted in the refrains offrot-tole. Howard M. Brown, in Music in theFrench Secular Theatre, p. 85, cites ClementJanequin's'Les cri s de Paris ' an d Jean Servin' s 'L a fricassee des cris de Paris ' a s two chansonscomposed almost entirely of advertising slogans that enable one to reconstruct the melodicformulas fo r a number of street cries that constitute a special category of stage musicintended to imitate everyday life. See also above, pp. 29, 31-32, 51, 163, on street cries;also see above, p. 16 4 n. 15 , for reference from Jeanneret on Folengo.


gran tempo ' an d 'Dammen e u n poch o d i quella mazacrocha' , bot hmentioned a s dances by Cesare Napp i in his rustic eclogue o f 1508.31

The wor d mazzacrocha may have several meanings, from a small bunchof crocuses, t o a kind of unleavened brea d (matzoh) , to a long pastryor cake in the shape o f a stick with a knob at one end , to a shepherd' sstaff, to a dance popular in the sixteenth century, or finally to an unprint-able obscenity.32

Isaac, an international composer from the Low Countries, als o workedin a number o f northern Italia n cities , as well as at Innsbruck for th eEmperor Maximilian . He arrived i n Florence i n about 1484, where h eworked a s organist a t several churches an d serve d Lorenzo , teachin gthe Medici children as well as composing music for the carnivals. Althoughnone of Isaac's canti carnascialeschi survive intact, the quodlibet 'Donnadi dentro' belongs t o the same genre . Th e popular tun e 'Famen e u npocho de quell a mazachroca ' i s also found in the riprese of 'A che sonhormai' b y the Bolognes e compose r Alessandr o Demophon . Demo -phon must have liked the idea of using slightly off-colour tunes as refrainsin his music; he did the same thing with the piece about unlacin g rib-

31 Cesare Nappi, 'Eglogavillereccia'.32 Donna , di dentro della tua casa Lady , within your house

There are roses, lilies and flowersDammene un pocho di maza chroca; Giv e me a small bunch of crocuses;Ne sente ghusto alcuno Fo r a long timeFortuna d'un gran tempo Fortun e has had the scent of itO gloriosa donna mis bella, O my proud, fine lady,Dammene un poch' di quella maza chroca Giv e me a small bunch of crocusesDammene un poch' di quella maza chroca Giv e me a small bunch of crocusesEt mene dar troppo. An d give me much.

Brown, A Florentine Chansonnier, no. 150 , p. 130 , mentions that Pannella (the authorof the most complete study of this text) favours the bawdy definition, coming from th eArabic, by way of the Spanish mazorca or Portuguese macaroca, meaning the breadstick.Torrefranca, Ilsegreto del Quattrocento (Milan, 1939), p. 140n. , favours the definitio n asfocaccia. Cattin , Prizer, andjeppesen (LaFrottola, iii , p. 25) believe that the word comesfrom the Yiddish' matzechuchen'. Several other definitions have been put forward, includ-ing one by Sir John Florio in 1611 who defined 'maza' as a kind of 'meate, grewell, orhastie pudding tha t countri e people were wont to eate , mad e o f milke, water , oyle,meale and salt ' (Queen Anna's New World o f Words, London, 1611 ; rpt 1968, p . 304) . Inhis article, 'Games of Venus: Secular Vocal Music in th e Lat e Quattrocento an d Earl yCinquecento', in Journal ofMusicology, 9 (1991), pp. 3-56, William Prizer mentions thatPadua was a city well-disposed to the poetry and music that accompanied this movementfrom 'palace to barnyard'. Villotteare popular polyphonic pieces that contain dialogue,dialect, characters from th e lowe r echelons (such as the womanize r from Bergamo) ,and the requisite corpus of popular tunes. Although they are generally from the Veneto,a number o f them appear in the repertories of Lombardy, Tuscany and Rome.

Sonrose,giglietfiori


bons and admirin g violet s mentione d earlie r i n connectio n wit h th eBolognese eclogue. Both compositions were written in the courtly genreknown as thefrottola. William Prizer, in his article 'Games of Venus: SecularVocal Music in the Late Quattrocento and Early Cinquecento', believesthat the nonsense insertion of the popular song into the essentially courtlypoem functions as a parody o f the courtly repertory, sinc e the populartune is textually dissonant wit h the courtly stanza tha t precedes it.33 Inthis and man y other cases, it is clear tha t the urbanization o r rusticiza-tion of the courtl y tradition wa s at work.34

33 See above, n. 32. Another example , 'Vilana, che sa ' t u far?' , tha t contains refer-ences to herbs, flou r and baking, begins as a dialogue betwee n a peasant gir l and he rsuitor who asks her a leading question, but proceeds with nonsense syllables and discon-nected fragments including the litany 'Exaudi nos' and a quotation from the text of theMass (Howar d M. Brown, A Florentine Chansonnier, no . 180 , p . 131) . Element s of th epopular ar e found in pieces unique t o a manuscript o f c . 1500 that clearly belongs tothe cour t o f the Gonzag a at Mantua. These includ e two settings of the popula r tun e'Tente allora', a work by Tromboncino that includes the nonsensical ripresa, one by Carathat quotes the dance tune 'Rostiboli gioioso' in its cantus (known in France as the 'Rotibouilli' or the roasts and boiled meats), and some works that were most probably for theMantuan cour t theatre . Guglielmo Ebreo o f Pesaro, ed . Barbar a Spart i (Oxford , 1993) ,p. 147 . Prizer , 'Paris 676 and Musica l Life a t Mantua Around 1500' , typescript of un-published paper (1988) , includes a piece, 'Anguilles, anguilles, anguillions' and'Iosommaistro Barileto' that employs a popular street cry about the procession o f the eels (infractured Italian and French), and another about the rantings of a drunken court cookwhose name translates as 'little keg'. Prizer believes that the piece about the drunkencook was probably included in an intermedia of a comedy performed at court. A bit laterone finds true villotte, or pieces that rely exclusively on popular tunes, use dialect, dialogueand sometimes a dancelike refrain and a series of nonsense syllables. One such exampleis Marchetto Cara's 'L e son tre fantinelle' , which tells of three littl e maids who are t obe married , and ho w they would make garlands of flowers t o wear at their importan tfeasts, with the dancelike nonsense refrain Tandan dan dan daritondella Tan daridun-della'. See W . Prizer, ed., Libra primo del la Croce: Rome, Pasoti and Dorico, 1526, canzoni,frottoleand capitoli (Madison, Wisconsin, 1978), no. 14.

34 Musical parody has its literary counterpart in the centone being written during thisperiod. My thanks to Deanna Shemek for sharing with me a draft of chapter 4 from he rnew book , Ladies Errant: Wayward Women and Social Order in Early Modern Italy (Durham,North Carolina, and London, 1998). It analyses poetry of Laura Terracina and its relation-ship to Ariosto's epic, as a miniature version devoid of plot. She resorts to the traditionof the Italia n centone, stemming from th e cento of Antiquity, which a s first adopted b yGreek and Latin Homerists, rearranges the verses of one author into new, occasionallysubversive 'patchwork poetics'. There ar e examples in Christine de Pisan's writings, aswell as in the earlier works of a feminist poet of the fourth century, Petronia Proba, thelatter a rearrange r o f Virgil and th e forme r of Boccaccio. Terracina ma y have beeninspired b y Petrarch's Rime sparse, numbe r 70 , which borrows line s from Dant e an dCavalcanti, among others (Shemek , pp. 296ff) .


The thirteenth-centur y pla y about Robi n an d Mario n mad e us e ofthe food , musi c an d musica l instrument s o f a peasan t tradition ; th ethirteenth- an d fourteenth-century motet s occasionall y revealed som ecombination o f courtly and peasant fare. The late fourteenth an d earlyfifteenth centurie s sa w an attemp t a t reviva l of th e chivalri c code , a sseen in the works of the Mannerist composers at the court of Philip theBold and i n the chansons of the composer s associate d with the court sof Philip the Good and Charles the Bold. This was followed by a renewedeffort to wed the courtly and popular tradition s in the late fifteenth an dearly sixteenth centuries . Prizer describes a 'movement away from th ePetrarchan amour courtois to the more popular notions of love that trea tboth th e lover and the woman as solid flesh an d blood'.35 The replace -ment o f the courtie r b y the villager, as in the Nappi eclogue describe dearlier, or in an entire repertory of theatrical works stemming from Sienaand Padua , allow , according to Prizer, 'the courtier t o escape fro m th econfinements of the amour courtois ?& One very clear example is foundin th e diar y o f the Estens i family stewar d Cristofor o Messibugo , wh odetailed no t only the entertainments betwee n each of the many courses,but als o gav e recipes fo r th e mouth-waterin g Epicurea n delight s tha twere serve d t o th e aristocrat s i n attendanc e a t thes e earl y sixteenth -century banquets.37 During one of the courses the guests were entertained

35 Prizer, 'Games of Venus', p. 17.36 Ibid, p. 17.37 Howard M. Brown, 'A Cook's Tour of Ferrara in 1529' , Rivista italiana di musicolo-

gia, 10 (1975), p. 217. Messibugo's cookbook was entitled Banchetti, composizionidivivandee apparecchio generate (Ferrara, 1549). A modern edition has been made by FernandoBandini (Venice, 1960). See also Angelo Solerti, 'Tavola e cucina nel secolo XVI', Gazzettaletteraria, 14 (1890) , pp. 27-30 ; see als o Prizer , 'Game s of Venus', p. 35 . Messibugo'sdescription i s of a banquet on Sunday, 24 January 1529 , given by Ercole II d'Este for hisfather Ercole I d'Este, duke of Ferrara, his aunt, Isabella d'Este Gonzaga, marchionessof Mantua, his wife, Renee of France, his brother Ippolito II d'Este, archbishop of Milan,and a number of ambassadors and noble men and women. See also, W. Gundersheimer,ed., Ar t an d Life a t the Court o f Ercole I (Geneva, 1972).

Following a performance of Ariosto's comedy La cassaria, the guests left the great hallso it coul d b e prepare d fo r th e banquet . The y repaire d t o room s wher e the y wereentertained b y instrumental music. When the trumpets sounded the y returned t o thegreat hal l to wash their hands in perfumed water and eat the first course, a salad. Thisincluded endive, radicchio, small radishes (ravenelli) anchovies, tomatoes, truffles, eggs,mortadella, pastel-coloured pasta, croquette of wild boar, liver etc. During this first coursea composition b y Alfonso dell a Viola was sung by Madonna Dalida (Puti ; the mistres sof Ippolito II' s uncle) and four others, as well as other vocal and instrumental music.

During the second course, which included capons, roasted and studded with orange,bread crumbs , quail , trout , eel , more past a an d o f course th e require d wine s from a

Medieval an d Renaissance Wedding Banquets an d Other Feasts 17 3

by a visitor from outside th e Ferrarese duca l establishment, th e famousPaduan playwright , actor an d musician , Angelo Beolco , known by hisstage name , Ruzzante. 38 While they were being serve d a variety of lus-cious pears, apples , ice creams and cheeses in the shapes of towers andcastles, Ruzzante, with five male and two female companions, sang 'can -zoni e madrigali alia pavana', and they went around the table debatingin dialect abou t rusti c things. 39 They may have been making a case forthe benefit s of peasant foo d ove r the delicacies of the nobilit y as Ruz-zante himself did in his eclogue 'L a Moschetta' :

Still it would be better i f you were to follow our example: eat good bread andgood salted cheese, and drink good wine, a little dry, rather than eat so manydelicacies and s o many different kinds of foods.40

Although th e stewar d faile d t o giv e title s o f music performe d a t th ebanquet, Ruzzante , who improvised muc h o f his repertoire o f dialec t

cimtinued

variety of vineyards, four people sang diverse madrigals. This continued for nine coursesfollowed by a pasty from which the names of the guests would be drawn for party favours.Even for this 'postlude' th e guests were serenaded b y four flutes. Then, as if all this werenot enough , trumpet s sounde d th e signa l to th e guest s t o leav e the grea t hal l onc emore, so that this time it could be prepared for the ball. At 8.30 pm the shawms welcomedthe guests to dance and all - except for the duke, duchess and marchioness, who retiredto their rooms - partied , bein g fed one last time ( a 'light' supper) befor e going homeat dawn.

Most of the nine courses were provided with musical entertainment supplie d b y thecourt composer Alfons o della Viola, and the duke's singers and instrumentalists, someof whose names are mentioned . Th e wid e variety of instruments included lutes , viols,flutes, trombones, dolzaina, crumhorn senza bussola (without cap), recorders, an organwith various stops, a mute cornett, a lira, a quilled keyboard instrument, a harpsichor dand shawms.

38 Brown, 'A Cook's Tour', p. 224.39 Ibid., p. 240; Prizer, 'Games of Venus', p. 35, suggests that the works sung by this

group were most likely villotte. Brown, 'A Cook's Tour', p. 224, considers this shift awayfrom the more courtly entertainment akin to going from th e sublime to the ridiculous.During th e sevent h course, whic h included oysters , oranges, meringue s an d whippe dcream, the guests were entertained by jesters ('buffoni') 'alia veneziana e alia berga-masca', and rustics (' contadini} 'ali a pavana' who went around th e table clowning. Ruz-zante had contact with peasants in his early life, exposing him to their cuisine, clothing,music and dance . His family's university associations gave him a certain amount of liter-ary sophistication. Ruzzante' s early work confirms his familiarity with the earl y majorItalian writers , Dant e an d Petrarch , a s well as with th e contemporar y Poliziano an dSannazaro. Hi s patron Alvis e Cornaro, a rich Venetian aristocrat livin g in Padua whowas denied noble status in the Republic, built a theatre for Ruzzante. Cornaro, too, wasan exponent o f healthy living.

40 Ruzzante, La moschetta, ed. A Franceschetti and K.R . Bartlett (Ottawa, 1993).


songs, mentioned titles within the texts of his own plays. Curiously, manyof these songs, thought by some musicologists to be of Venetian origin,were also mentioned in that rustic Bolognese eclogue written years earlierby Cesare Nappi.41 The musical and culinary lines are blurred - courtlyand popular , a s well as secular and sacred - an d the category o f thesacred feast, accompanied b y minstrels and mummers, often i n venera-tion of the Blessed Virgin, in the interest of time, will have to be savouredin another essay. 42

41 Knud Jeppesen, 'Venetia n Folk-Song s o f th e Renaissance' , Papers Read a t theInternational Congress ofMusicology (New York, 1939), pp. 62-75.

42 The blurring of sacred and secular has already been alluded to in the discussionof the Feas t of the Pheasant in Lille in 1454 . 'The religious purpose o r pretext of thefeast wa s a crusad e agains t th e Turks , calle d fo r b y several lament s o n th e fal l o fConstantinople (May 1453) whic h seem t o have been recited. ' Strohm, Music i n LateMedieval Bruges (Oxford, 1985), p. 98. Dufay's 'Lamentatio Sancte Matris Ecclesie Con-stantinopolitane' may have been performed a t the feast. Guests included court chaplains,minstrels, church musicians from St Peter's in Lille, a veritable mix of secular and cleri-cal. Guillaume Dufay, Opera omnia, ed. Heinrich Besseler, vi (Rome , 1964), pp. 19-21 .Looking a t an eve n earlie r repertoire , tha t of Hildegard o f Bingen's Sequences andHymns (ed. Christopher Page, 1982), there are more examples of secular, erotic imagery- ofte n making references t o food and flowers, the harvest, animals - alongside divinegrace and biblical devotion. Marriage both heavenly and earthly and music of the heavensand of the earth are among the subjects of Hildegard's poetry.

Pea pods in the borders o f a page in a fifteenth-century Book of Hours are symbolicof the Virgin Mary, as mother of Jesus. The praye r on tha t page is concerned with th esubject o f wisdom. Mary is carrying th e see d o f eternal wisdom. The 'Ow l an d th eNightingale', a medieval allegorical tale, which is a debate in verse between a religiousmonkish owl and a free-spirited livel y nightingale, is an expression o f the difficult y inseparating elements of sacred and secular . Christopher Page, The Owl and the Nightingale:Musical Life an d Ideas in France, 1100-1300 (London, 1989) .

Index

Acton (Aketon), Suffolk , 68 , 133, 142Adam and Ev e (biblical figures), 21, 22, 26Adaptation o f recipes, 102, 113Advent, 11, 12Advertising, 90Aelfric, Colloquy, 1 2^Ethelred I, king of Northumbria, 11^thelred II, king of England, 28Agricola, Alexander, C'est trap sus amours,

167Agricultural zones, 87-88Agriculture, demesne, 8 7Alcoholic beverages, 87, 91, 95Alcuin of York, 11Aldenham, Hertfordshire, 9 9Ale, 3, 6, 7, 12, 22, 26, 28, 32, 34-38, 41, 44,

47, 57-59, 63, 67, 69, 91, 93-94, 95, 98,100, 121, 135-36; consumption of ,87-89, 94, 100, 135; of barley, 56; ofoats, 56

Alehouses and taverns , 68, 90-91, 95-96Ale-stakes, 90Ale wives, 63; see also BrewersAllegory and myth, 159-60, 166Almond milk , 20, 113Almonds, 33, 35, 37, 105-6, 112, 114, 139Alms, see CharityAlmshouses, see CharityAmbrosia, 164American culinary heritage, 104Amiczo, Chiquart, cook of duke o f Savoy,

150, 152Amphitryron, legend of , 161Anchovies, 172Andreas Capellanus, Th e Art o f Courtly Love,

21Animals, at feasts and banquets , 165-66 ; in

fables, 164-66Annales Londonienses, 90Annuities, see Peasants, retired'Anonimo meridionale', Du e Him di cucina,

116

Aphrodisiacs, 161Appetizers and hor s d'oeuvres, 110Apples, 34, 37, 41, 160, 162, 17 3Apprentices, 99Arable husbandry, 59, 68, 125, 127; see also

HarvestArchaeological excavations, 57-58, 63;

evidence of brewing from, 89Ariosto, 164, 171-72Aristocratic households, 91 , 94;

consumption in , 101, 119Aristode, 151Ars nova, 165Artichokes, 169Artisans, 64, 67; see also Carpenters; Mason sArtois, 45Assarting, 65Assize of bread, 6 8Astrology, 77Augsburg, 45Averroes, 151Avicenna, 151, 161

Babwell, Suffolk, Franciscans at, 142Bacon, 141, 162;see also YorkBailie, Pierre (treasure r of Normandy),

146-47Bake mete, 19Baked goods, se e Bread; Bruschetta; Cakes;

Crepes; Flans; Oatcakes; Pancakes ;Pasties; Pastry; Simnels; Tarts; Wafers;Waffles

Bakehouse, retirement house converte dfrom, 55

Baker (Pistor), Peter, 45; William, deSchrebstrate (Colchester) , 45;Germanus, 45

Bakers, 31, 34, 45-46, 49-51, 68Baking, 92, 121, 135, 171Banquets, see Feasts and feastin gBark of trees, as food, 74


Barley, 35, 44, 55-56, 94, 96-99, 168; forale, 88-89; price of , 93; see also Bread,barley; Dredge; Pottage , barley

Barnet, Hertfordshire , 99Barter, 142Bartholomaeus Anglicus, De proprietatibus

rerum, 23Basel, 45Beans, 28-29, 35, 41, 43, 44, 46, 69, 167;

picked by poor villagers, 60; see alsoBread, of peas and beans; Pottage, bean

Bede, the Venerable, 2, 4-5, 12Bedfordshire, 9 8Beef, 22, 23, 29, 35, 37, 67, 112, 141-42;

broth, 113; in pasties, 40, 49; ribs(cooked), 32, 47; see also Marrow bones;Tripe; Veal

Beer, 91-92; Anglo-Saxon, 3, 5-7, 1 0Benedictine Rule , 12, 16Bentivoglio, Annibale, wedding of, 160Beolo, Angelo (Ruzzante) , 173-74Beowulf, 1,4-10 , 13Berkeley, Elizabeth, countess of Warwick,

134Berkshire, se e WindsorBermondsey, Surrey, monastery of, annals

of, 74 , 80-85Berries, 163Beverages, see DrinkBewdley, Worcestershire, 68Binchois, Gilles de, 166Birds, 162Bitterns, 38Black Death, 87, 90, 94-95, 98, 100 , 118,

145, 149Blancmanger of fish o r poultry, 10 9Blindman, Adam, 142Boar, wild, croquette of , 172Board (meals ) and room , cost s of, 48Boccaccio, Giovanni , 17 1Bockenheim.Jean de, 11 6Bologna, marriag e feas t at in 1487, 159-60Bones, 102 ; see also Archaeological

excavations; Marrow bonesBorde, Andrew, 152Boteler, Sir Andrew, 139Brabant, 45Brandy, 101Brawn, of capon, 112 ; of pork, 22Braziers (for cooking), 28Bread, 2, 10-13, 20, 22, 28, 32, 33-38, 41,

44-45, 47, 50, 57, 59, 67-68, 95, 97,100,108, 139 , 162-63 , 173; barley, 42, 56, 59,

67; black, 31; brown, 16 , 22, 41-42;'cokett', 68 ; consumption of , 94, 142;oat, 42; of peas and beans , 41; Roman,28; rye, 56, 67; sexual allusions to, 162 ,168; sops in wine, 20; 'treat', 68;unleavened, 168 ; wastel, 36-37, 68, 113;wheat, 56, 67; wheat and rye , 89; white,31, 67-69; see also Baked goods; Bakers

Breadcrumbs, 103-4, 113Breakfasts, 47Bream, 19Brewers and brewing , 31, 68, 87, 89-90, 92,

121, 135; of London, 95 ; seealsoAle; Alewives; Beer

Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, manor of , 59Brouet houssie (also called hauseleamye,

hauceleamye, and hochee), 107- 9Bruschetta, 160Bruce, Robert, 78Brut, 82Bryan chapel, Slapton, Devonshire, 140Bryan family and estates , 135 ; Lady

Elizabeth, 140 ; Lord Guy and his sonGuy, 13 5

Bryene, Alice de, 133-44; brewing inhousehold of , 91; employees andservants of, 138-39; family an dgenealogy of, 135; guests of, 68, 134-43;meals served by, 68, 133-34, 136-37

Buckinghamshire, 99Bures, Sir Ralph de, father of Alice de

Bryene, 135Burgunday, court and ruling family of, 167Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk , monaster y of,

chronicle of, 74Butchers, 30-31,41,67, 130Butter, 28-29, 102, 140, 163; and bread, 143Buttermilk, 163Butter sellers, 30

Cabbage, 15 , 36, 67Caccia (carniva l song), 63Caedmon, 4 , 5Cakes, 29, 32; see also Gingerbread; Hone y

cakesCalais, 35, 91Caloric content of food, s^Food and drink,

caloric content ofCambrai, 16 7Cambridge, Cambridgeshire , 48Cambridgeshire, 99; see also Cambridge;

Elsworth; OakingtonCandlemas, 143

Index 177

Candles, 14 3Candy, 104Cannibalism, 54, 73-84Canterbury, Kent , 19, 35, 38Canvas ad coquinam, 35Capons, 15, 22, 29, 31, 35-41, 112-14, 141,

162-63, 172; double-entendres inreferences to , 162

Cara, Marchetto , 171Careme, Marie-Antoine, 145Carnival and play , 162, 168Carols, 159Carpenters, wage s of, 93, 136-37Cat meat, as food, 80Catalan cookbook , 10 5Caterers, see Cooks and cookshopsCattle, 44 , 57, 143; see also Dung; LivestockCaxton, William, Book ofCurtesye, 150Centre for Metropolitan History , University

of London, 'Feeding the City ' researchproject, 96, 118, 120, 123, 127, 13 1

Cereals, se e GrainCeremony, se e RitualChalices, 2, 3; see also Cups and goblet sChampagne (drink) , 102Chancery, 99Chanson, 16 3Charcoal, 121 , 127Charity, 46-48, 66, 70, 120, 136, 142Charivari, 165Charles V, emperor, 16 8Charles V, king of France, 146-50 , 153,

155-56Charles VI, king of France, 146-47 , 150,

153, 15 6Charles th e Bold , duke of Burgundy, 172Chaucer, Geoffrey, Canterbury Tales, 15-26,

38, 40, 103-4Cheddar, Somerset, 1Cheese, 28-29, 37, 42, 59, 67, 102, 109,

113-14, 160, 162, 173; of Brie, 29; ofChampagne, 29 ; see also Curds

Cheesecakes, se e FlansCheesemaking, 169Cheesemongers, 30-3 1Cherries, 32Chickens, 35, 38, 103; 'garbage' of, 40;

meat of, 29, 107, 109, 114; price of , 17;see also Capons; Hens; Pullets

Chiquart, i^AmiczoChivalry, 167Christ and Satan, 10Christ I (Advent lyric), 11

Christine de Pisan, j^PisanChristmas, Edward, 137Christmas meals, 68Chronicles, English, 54, 73-86, 90Cider, 57, 67, 88Cinnamon, 20 , 35Cistercians, 25Clare, Suffolk, Austi n Friars at, 142Class and socia l status, see Diet; Noble;

Tirel; WineClimate, see WeatherCloth, 122;5<*afcoWoo lCloth workers , 67Cloves, 20, 35, 112-13Coal, 121-22Cocus, see CookCod, 59, 67Codling, 37Colchester, Essex, 42, 44-46, 50, 90;

suburbs of, 44Commercialization of medieval England ,

64-66Common Pleas , roll of 1371, 92Communion, se e EucharistCompere, Loyset, 168Condiments, 152 ; see also Galantine; Garlic;

Sauces; Spices; Verjuice; VinegarConfections, 11 0Conies, see RabbitsConstantinople, fal l of , 174Convenience foods, se e Food, fas tCook ( Cocus; Coquus), Dyke, 45; Thomas ,

45Cookery, books, 20, 33, 40-41, 109-11;

symbolism of, xi; types of, x, 29, 31-33,36-42, 49-50, 57, 69; see also Braziers;Fireplaces; Hearths; Kitchens ; Ovens;Recipes; Wafer iron s

Cooking, methods of , 111; utensils andcookware, 28, 32-33, 42-45, 48-49, 51,57-58, 109, 163; see also Canvas adcoquinam; Inventories ; Knives; Ladles;Recipes; Spoons; Wafe r iron s

Cooks, as physician to society, 152;household, x , 17, 24, 32, 40; master, 154;social role of , 150

Cooks and cookshops, commercial, 28-35,38-41, 44-45, 49-51, 68; see alsoLondon, cookshops ; Occupation s

Coquus, see CookCorbet, Si r Robert, 139Corn, 142, 16 0Cornmongers, se e London, companies


Cornwall, consumption o f grains in, 57Corteccia, a composer, 160Costrels, 43Costumes, 160Court rolls , 89Courtly culture, 161, 167, 173; as object of

parody, 171Coventry, Warwickshire, 40, 46, 48-49Cows, see CattleCraft workers, see ArtisansCream, 42, 140; seealsolce creamCrepes, 33Crime, in time of famine, 66, 73Cromwell, Lad y Margaret, 13 4Crop yields, see Harvest yieldsCucumbers, 28Cuisines, courdy and peasant , 162Culinary manuscripts, 101-5, 108, 110-13,

116; editorial error s in, 102;paleography and, 105-6; provenance of,104, 116; repertory of , 101, 116;unedited, 105; see also Cookery books;Recipes

Cumin, 34, 104Cups and goblets , 1 , 7, 43, 69; see also

ChalicesCurds, 41-42Curlews, 38Curye on Inglysch, 11 6Cynewulf, 1 0

Dace, 37Dairy products and recipes, 57-60, 67, 109,

120, 126, 136; see also Butter; Buttermilk ;Cheese; Cream; Curds; Eggs; Ice cream;Milk

Dairying, 127Dance, 161-62, 173Daniel, 11Dante, 25, 171Darlington, co . Durham, 38Databases (computerized) , 96, 99, 106-7,

109, 124, 13 0Dearth, se e FamineDebt litigation, 99Demesne account rolls, 124, 126, 12 8Demophon, Alessandra , 170-71Derbyshire Peak, area north of, 57Deschamps, Eustache, 149-50D'Este family, 16 0Devonshire, oat consumption in , 57-58; see

also Exeter; Slapton

Diet, 16 , 18, 22-23; and dietar y science,151; as sign of social class, 120, 122;changes in, 87, 92; monastic, 11-12, 17;of aristocracy, 63, 68-69; of peasants, seePeasants; of poor in towns, 41—42, 51;seasonal, 19-20; strange, 73-74, 76-82

Dietary laws and legislation , see BenedictineRule; Food, kosher ; Food, legislation

Dijon, 45Dill, 15Dining, manuscript depictions of, 153;

modern misconception s abou tmedieval, 102; social function an dhierarchy of, 137, 152-54

Dinners, 15 , 33, 36, 39; for workmen, seeFood as part of wages

Dioscorides, 151Disease, 53, 62, 69, 73, see also Leprosy;

Murrain; Pestilence; Syphilis; TyphusDishes, see TablewareDistribution systems for food, 99-100, 119,

128, 130Dives and Lazarus , 11Dog meat, as food, 76, 80Domesday survey and book , 88, 133Doncaster, Yorkshire (West Riding), 38Doreward,John, 139Doves, 37; dung of, see DungDredge (mixtur e of barley and oats) , 88,

93-94, 97-99Drink and drinking , 5, 6, 8, 19, 20, 33; see

also Ale; Beer; Brandy; Champagne;Cider; Drunkenness; Ew ardaunt, Foodas part of wages; Gin; Malt; Mead; Milk;Water; Whiskey; Wine

Droitwich, Worcestershire, 53Droughts, se e WeatherDrunkenness, 6, 7, 9-12, 91-92, 95Duets and quartets , 167Dufay, Guillaume, 166-67Dung of doves, pigeons or cows, as food,

80-82Durham, co. Durham, 38, 47; county of, see

Darlington

East Anglia, 70Eating, x, xi; see also DiningEating houses, medieval, see Cooks an d

cookshops; Roman, 28Eddius Stephanus, Life o f Wilfrid, 1 2Edward I, king of England, 31Edward II, king of England, 2, 74-75, 78; see

also Vita Edwardi SecundiEels, 29, 37, 40, 172

Index 179

Egg sellers, 30Eggs, 22, 28, 29, 33-38, 41-42, 57, 108,113,

141,172; see also OmeletElderly persons, see Charity; Peasants,

retiredElizabeth I, queen o f England, 53Elizabeth de Burgh, lady of Clare, 134Elsworth, Cambridgeshire, 3 6Elyot, Sir Thomas, 152Emeles, see AlmondsEndive, 172Energy, inefficient us e of , 92; sources of, see

Charcoal; Coal ; Food an d drink, caloriccontent of ; Fuel

Enfield, Middlesex, 99Enseignements (c . 1300), 15 2Entertainment an d dining , 140 , 161, 173 ;

see also MusicEntremets, 110-1 1Epicureans, 1 9Epidemics, see DiseaseEscoffier, Auguste , 145Essex, consumption of grains in, 56-57; see

also Colchester; Littl e Horkesley;Maldon; Romford

Ethelred, j^^EthelredEtymology of food names, 107Eucharist and communion , xi , 13, 16, 20,

22,78Eusebius, 73Eve (biblical figure) , se e Adam and Ev eEwardaunt, 102Exeter, Devonshire, 48

Fables, 165Family, peasant, 59-61 , 65-67, 69Famine, ix, 15, 53-55, 61-62, 66, 69, 73-84,

148Farm workers, see Harvest and far m workersFarming in south eas t England, 96Fasts and fasting , xi, 10 , 12, 13, 16, 20; see

also Lenten fast ; Recipes for fas t daysFats, see Lard, Oi lFaversham, Kent, 100Feast days of the church , 137Feasts and feasting , xi, 1-13, 16 , 20, 26, 33,

35-36, 68,140, 159-74; depictions of ,165-66; guild feasts, 39; wedding feasts,39, 159-60, 165-66

'Feeding the City' , see Centre fo rMetropolitan Histor y

Festa, Costanzo, 160Figs, 139Finches, 38

Fines of brewers, 89-90Firewood, se e London, firewoo d

consumption inFish, 2, 19, 28-29, 33-37, 41-42, 58-59, 69,

109, 120 , 122, 135-36, 140, 163; fresh,19, 36, 50, 67; household o r commercia lstocks of, 44-45; in pasties, 31; pickled,28; salt, 50; seafish, 63 ; unwholesome,39; see also Anchovies; Bream; Cod;Codling; Dace ; Eel; Gurnard; Haddock ;Herring; Lamprey; Perch; Pike;Porpoise; Roach; Salmon; Shellfish;Shrimp; Stockfish; Trout

Fishlake, Yorkshire, 69Fishmongers, 31 , 33, 100Fishponds, 1 9Fitz Stephen, William , Description o f London,

29, 30, 32, 35, 51, 96Flan makers, 31Flans, 29, 31-33, 41-4 2Flesh, sgtfMea tFloods, see WeatherFlorence, 160 , 170 ; music of, 168Florio, Sir John, 170Flour, 33-34, 36-37, 109, 171Fodder, 88-89 , 92, 121Foix, Gaston de , 146Folengo, 164 , 169Folklore, 14 3Food, and drink , caloric content of , 87, 92,

94, 120-21, 124; and gender , xi, 12, 16,21, 22-26 (see also Widows); and health ,152; a s part of wages, 47, 58-59, 67, 138 ;as proportion o f income, 118;colouring, 112-13 ; consumptionpatterns, x, xi, 15-26, 66-70;distribution, x; doles of, 120; fast, 27-51 ;kosher, 8, 13; legislation concerning, 12 ,15, 20, 39-40, 49, 60, 67-68, 75, 79;medicinal effect s of , 15 ; military, 120;needed to supply London, 112-13 , 121;of nobility, 120; prepared, 29 , 35-37, 44,59, 68; prices, 17 , 31, 38-39, 47, 49, 54,73, 75-76, 80, 82 (see also Grain prices);proverbs concerning, 41 ; seasonality of,60; unwholesome, 39-41; see also Board(meals); Cookery; Eating houses;Famine; Fasts; Feasts; Foods; Sex

Foods, see Almond milk; Baked goods;Blancmanger, Condiments; Crepes; Dairyproducts; Drink; Entremets; Fats; Fish;Food; Fricasee; Frittata; Fritters; Frogs;


Fruit; Frumenty; Game; 'Garbage';Grain; Herbs; Lechemetes; Meat; Nuts;Pasta; Pasties; Porridge; Pottage ;Poultry; Salad; Sauces; Snails; Soups;Spices; Sweets; Vegetables

Forestallers and regrators , 31, 44Forme of Cury, 102 , 107-11, 15 1Fortescue, Sir John, 71Fouler, Margaret, 13 7Fraternities, se e Parish fraternitiesFree bench (fo r widows), 48Friars, 17, 22, 140, 142Fricasee, 16 8Frittata, 160Fritters, 37, 111; mistembecor nysebeck, 10 9Frogs (cooked) , 33Fruit, 28, 25-36, 42, 58, 63,109,120, 129,

139; see also Apples; Berries; Cherries;Figs; Grapes; Nuts ; Oranges; Pears;Raisins; Strawberries

Frumenty, 37, 42, 111Fuel, for cooking , 28 , 36, 42, 51; in

London, 118, 121-22 , 127, 130; see alsoCharcoal; Coal; Peat

Funeral meals , 39Furmenty, see FrumentyFurnishings, see Hall; Houses; Table linens;

Tableware

Gabette(salt tax), 148Galantine, 36-37, 113Galen, 151Galingale, 113Game (meat) , 2, 29, 31, 58, 63; birds, 136 ;

see also Bitterns; Boar; Curlews; Finches;Herons; Larks; Mallards; Partridges;Peacocks; Pheasants ; Quail; Rabbits;Snipe; Swans; Teals; Thrushes; Venison;Woodcocks

'Garbage' (offal) , 4 0Gardeners sellin g in London, 129Gardens, 55 , 57-58, 63, 69Garland, John de, 29Garlic, 18, 34, 36-37, 69,162; sauce, 29Garnishes, 109Geese, 22, 29, 31, 35, 37, 38-41,141Gelee, see JelliesGender, se e Food and gende rGenetic factors and intoxication , 92Genital organs, se e Ribald jokes; SexGenoa, 45Geographical location s theory, 126;

models, 131George, Alice, 53, 55

Geywood.John de, 45Gin, 102Ginger, 20, 35, 37-38, 102- 3Gingerbread, 23 , 33, 102- 3Glanvilla, Bartholomaeus de, 18Gleaning, see Beans, picked by poor; Peas,

green, picked by poorGloucestershire, see OxenhallGluttony, 11,12, 17, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26Goats, see KidsGoblets, see CupsGolden Legend, 7 3Gordon, Bernardu s de, 18Gough, Morgan, 138Gower.John, Mirour de I'omme, 19; Vox

clamantis, 18Grain, 22, 54, 60, 63, 66, 69, 88, 91-92, 96,

99,120-21, 124-25,142,160; annuitiesof, see Peasants, retired; bread corns ,56-57; brewing corns, 56-57; householdstocks of, 44-46, 70; merchants, 46;milling of, 57; prices, 45, 59-62, 67, 74,77-79, 92-93, 100; see also Barley; Bread;Dredge; Flour; Hops; Malt; Mancorn;Maslin; Oats; Oatmeal; Pasta; Rye; Rice;Wheat

Grand D'Aussy , Pierre Jean Baptiste le, 151 ,156

Grantham, Lincolnshire, 3 8Grapes, 87, 88,109Gregory XI, pope, 155Griddle cakes , 31Grossteste, Robert, 137Grye, Thomas, 142Grymysby, William de, 43Guesclin, Bertrand du, 153Guests, see HospitalityGuilds, 160; see also London, companies ;

ParishGurnards, 37

Haddock, 37Hainaut, 45Hall, Anglo-Saxon, and furnishings of, x,

1-13; monasti c (refectory) , 11Halle, Adam de \&,Jeu de Robin e Marion,

161-63, 167Ham, Surrey, 130Hampshire, consumptio n o f pulses in, 57;

see also WinchesterHarps and harpers , 1 , 5, 141-42Hartlebury, Worcestershire, 55, 68

Index 181

Harvest, 53-55, 59-60, 66, 73; and farmworkers, 58-59, 63, 67, 95, 142-43;celebrations, 142 ; yields, 59-61, 65, 124;see also Famine; Food a s part of wages

Hauceleamye or hauseleamye, see Brouet houssieHaute cuisine, 105Hayne (van Ghizeghem), 167Hearths, 28 , 42, 48-49Henley on Thames, Oxfordshire , 100 ,

129-30Henry II, king of England, coronation o f

Henry son of , 164Henry III, king of England, 120Henry IV, king of England, Thomas and

John sons of, 51Henry V, king of England, 13 9Hens, 28 , 36-38, 40-41, 113; see also

ChickensHerbs, 171 ; see alsoDill; Garlic; Leeks;

Onions; Parsley ; Savory; Sorrel;Vegetables

Herculaneum, 27Heriots, seeTax assessment sHerons, 3 8Herring, 34 , 36, 37, 59, 67Hertfordshire, 98-99 ; see also Aldenham;

Barnet; Royston; Therfield; Ware;Watford

Hildegard o f Bingen, 174Hingham, Norfolk, 68Hinterlands of cities, 122, 126; see also

London; ParisHippocrates, Regimen, 19, 151Hochee, see Brouet houssieHolland, 45Holywell, Oxford, 44Honey, 33 , 103Honey cakes, 163Hops, 88Horns (fo r drinking), 1Horsemeat, a s food, 74, 76Horses, 13 4Horticulture, se e GardensHospitality, xi, 3, 66, 68, 134-44Hospitals, se e CharityHousehold books and accounts, 94,

134-36; ordinances, o f French court,149; se e also Inventories

Households, ale-brewin g in, 89;ecclesiastical, 94; wealthy, 94, 99, 119

Houses, 42 , 48; furnishings of, 43, 48-49;rooms in , 32-33, 48; see also Hall;Kitchens

Howard, Sir John, 139Hucksters, 32, 44, 163Humanism, 159Humoural theory, xi, 19, 151-52Hundred Years ' War, 145-46, 149Hunger, ix, 11, 12, 41-42, 51, 53-71, 73-76,

79-80, 82, 167Hunting, 24Huntingdon, Huntingdonshire, 38Huntingdonshire, 99; see also Huntingdon ;

RamseyHusbandry, see Arable husbandry; Pastoral

husbandryHykyn, Bartholomew, 142

Ice cream, 173Ile-de-France, 45Indigo, to colour food, 112-13Ingoldisthorpe, Si r John, 139Inns, commercial , 36 ; see also Eating houses ;

Southwark, Tabard In nInnsbruck, 170Inquisitions post mortem, 123-24Intoxication, see DrunkennessInventories, household, 32-33, 42-45, 58,

69Ireland, Englis h campaigns in , 75Isaac, Heinrich, 169

Jacquerie, 145 , 14 7Jeanne d'Evreux, coronation feas t of, 147Jellies, 33, 111Jerusalem, 73 , 81Jesters, 17 3Joannitius, 18John (Jean) , king of France, 149Josephus Flavius , Jewish War, 73, 81Judith (biblica l figure) and Judith (poem) ,

8-10, 12-1 3Jugs, 69Julian o f Norwich, see NorwichJuliana, 10

Kent, wines and barle y from, 88, 98; see alsoCanterbury; Faversham; Wihtred

Kids (goats) , 29Kingston, Surrey, 129Kitchen utensils, see Cooking utensilsKitchens, 24, 28, 32, 36, 39, 42-43, 48-49,

51; in large households, 146-47 , 150; seealso Braziers; Hearths; Oven s


Knives, 43; see also Cooking utensils ;Tableware

Kosher food, se e Food, koshe r

Labourers an d landles s workers, 58, 63, 67,69; see also Harvest and far m workers

Ladles, 163Lamb (Chris t as), 24-26Lambs, 29, 38; see also MuttonLampreys, 36-37Lancaster, Thomas , ear l of, 78Land use, patterns an d analysi s of, 124-27Langland, William , Piers Plowman, 31, 41,

51, 67, 91, 96, 136-37Lard, 12 , 44, 163Larks, 37-38Last Supper, 10-11,25Lavender, Agnes, 141Lazarus, see Dives and Lazaru sLechemetes, 111Leeks, 18, 42, 69Legumes, 120 ; see also Beans; PeasLeicester, Leicestershire, 3 1Lent, 155 , 168Lenten fast , 10 , 12, 20, 60Leprosy, 18Lettuce, 28Leyburn, Sir Roger, 35Licensing and fines, 89Lincoln, countes s of, 137; earl of, 88Lincolnshire, se e Grantham; StamfordLindisfarne, Northumberland, monaster y

at, 1 1Liquorice, 23, 104Litde Horkesley, Essex, 141Liver (a s food), 15,22,17 2Livestock, 76, 96, 124Locke, John, 53-54London, x , 37, 43

annals of, 90Assize of Building in, 30centre o f consumption, 92companies of , brewers, 39, cornmongers ,

99-100, 130; goldsmiths, 39;pastelers (pi e bakers), 49; victuallingcompanies, 39-40; woodmongers ,130

cooks and cookshops in , 29-35, 38-40,49,51

fire of(1212), 30firewood consumption in , 118, 121-22,

127, 130food and eating in, 29-34, 36, 38-40, 47,

118

'free bench' of widows in, 48gardeners sellin g in, 129parishes in, St Benet Fink, 43; St James

Garlickhithe, 30; St Martin Vintry,30; St Mary-at-Hill, 47-48

people of, see Grymysby, William de;Lyons, Richard; Mockyng, Thomas ;Walmesford, Henry de

places and houses in, Abchurch Lane, 42;Bread Street, 34, 40; CandlewickStreet, 32 ; Cheapside, 32, 96;Dowgate, 30; Eastcheap, 32, 34, 51;Friday Street, 33 ; Guildhall, 90;Holborn, 88; Ironmonger Lane, 34;London Bridge, 34; Queenhithe, 30;Ramsey, town house of abbot of , 36;Shrewsbury, town house of abbot of,37; Tyburn, 96; Vintry, 29-30, 33

poor of, 32, 41, 43, 48-49, 51, 95-96,119-20

population of , 90, 93, 118-19, 121region an d hinterland of , 87, 89, 96-99,

117-31street-cries in, 31, 32, 51suburbs of, see Southwark; Westminstersupply of food and fue l to , 112-13,

117-31taverns in, 51, 90tolls in, 28travellers to , se e Travel and traveller swidows in, 48-49wills in, 48-49workmen in , 47

London Lyckpenny, 31-32 , 51Louis XV, king of France, 156Love potions, 161 , 167Lovell, Robert (Alic e de Bryene's

son-in-law), 139Lubeck, 45Luce, see PikeLucretius, 164Lydgate,John, 168Lyons, Richard, 32-33Lydeton.John, 138

Macaroni ('macrows') , 102Mace, 20Madrigals, 160, 173Maintenance contracts , se e Peasants, retiredMalcher, Thomas, 14 3Maldon, Essex, battle of, se e The Battle of

MaldonMallards, 38Malleus maleficarum, 16 1

Index 183

Malt and malting, 44, 56-57, 89, 93-94,97-100, 121; malt prices, 92-93

Ma'muntya, 11 4Mancorn, 97, 125Manna, 20Manors and manorial system, 96-98, 124,

134, 138, 143; estate accounts, 88 ;servants and labourers , 97 , 142

Mantua, Gonzaga court of, 171Manuscripts, see Culinary; Dining; MedicalMarcel, Etienne, 147March, earls of, see MortimerMarche, Olivier de la, 151, 165-66Market gardening, 127, 129Markets, 64, 69, 129, 163' Marmousets', 146Marriage, se e Feasts; Peasants , marriage s ofMarrow bones, 24 , 38Masconi, Giovanni, 160Maslin (rye and wheat mixture), 57, 97, 125Masons, 47Masque at wedding feast , 161Mass, 20Maundy Thursday, 14 2Mawmenny, recipes for , 112-14Maximilian, emperor, 167, 170Mayhew, Henry, London Labour and the

London Poor, 32Mazers, 43; see also TablewareMead, 3-7, 9, 88, 104Mead, William Edward, English Medieval

Feast, errors in, 101- 3Meals and dining , 109-10 , 133-34, 143; as

social occasions, 138-40, 144; see alsoBoard; Breakfasts ; Dinners; Feasts;Food; Suppers; Tabl e

Meat, 2, 12, 16, 19, 22, 26, 29, 31-32, 34-37,39, 41, 44, 46, 50, 58-59, 68-69, 100-1,109, 120 , 122, 135, 159-60, 172-73; dailyportion of , 135; fresh, 67; omitted o nfast days, 109; recipes for, 109; see alsoBake mete; Beef; Cat; Dog; Frogs; Game ;'Garbage'; Horsemeat; Lechemetes; Liver;Pasties; Pate; Pork ; Poultry ; Tripe

Medical manuscripts, 102 ; views of diet, 152Medici family, 169-70Medicine, 53Menagier d e Paris, see Paris, 'Menagier' o fMenus (medieval) , 33, 111Meringues, 173Messibugo, Cristoforo, 17 2Middlesex, 99; see also Enfield; Uxbridge;

Westminster

Migration and mobility , 120Milk, 16 , 22, 34, 36, 41,114, 142, 162-63Mills and milling , 121 ; see also Grain,

milling ofMistembec, se e FrittersMockyng, Thomas, 3 3Model of farming systems, 127Monastic diet, 95Montaigne, Miche l de, 164Mortality, see Disease; FamineMortimer, Edmund, ear l of March, 38Morton, Robert , 16 7Moschini, Baccio, 160Motekyn, Walter, 45Motets, 163, 165, 172Murrain, 73, 75-76, 79-80Music at feasts, x-xi, 160-75; style of,

167-68Musical instruments, 161-62 , 164-66, 173Musicians, 164, 166Mustard, 33-37, 44, 163Mustard sellers , 30 , 31, 44Mustarder, Robert le , 44Mutton, 29 , 35-37, 47, 141; see also Lambs;

Sheep's fee tMyth and allegory , mythology , 159-61 , 164

Nappi, Cesare, 160 , 170, 174Narvaez, Luys de, 16 8National wealth, 119New Year's feast, 141Newark, Northamptonshire, 3 8Newcastle-on-Tyne, Northumberland, 3 8Noble status and nobles , 120 , 14 6Nonsiens (nuncheons) o r none mete, see

Dinners, for workmenNorfolk, consumption o f grains and pulse s

in, 56-57, 68; harvests an d harvestworkers of, 65 , 67 ; see also East Anglia;Hingham; Norwich ; Sprowston

Northamptonshire, 99 ; see also NewarkNorthumberland, se e Lindisfarne;

Newcastle-on-Tyne; YeaveringNorthumbria, 76Norton, Margaret , 55Norwich, Dame Katherine de, 35-36; Julian

of, Relations o f Divine Love, 25Norwich, Norfolk, 30, 35-36, 38-39, 42, 46,

90; cathedral priory , manors of , 59Note, William son of , 45Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, 37 , 40Nuns, 136Nuts, 114, 167; see also Almonds; PistachiosNysebek, se e Fritters


Oakington, Cambridgeshire , 55Oatcakes, 41, 57Oatmeal, 35, 37, 41, 44, 57Oats, 35 , 44-46, 54, 88, 94, 97-98, 128;

cultivation of, 57, 66; for malting, 56-57;see also Bread, oat; Dredge; Pottage ,oatmeal

Oat sellers , 30Obits and anniversaries , 140 , 14 2Obscene humor , se e Ribald jokes; SexOccupations, se e Ale wives; Artisans; Bakers;

Brewers; Butchers; Butter sellers;Carpenters; Cheesemongers ; Clot hworkers; Cooks; Cornmongers; Eg gsellers; Fishmongers; Flan makers ;Forestallers; Gardeners; Grai nmerchants; Harves t and farm workers;Hucksters; Jesters; Labourers ; London ,companies of ; Masons; Mustard sellers;Oat sellers; Pastelers; Poulterers ;Pudding sellers ; Sauce makers; Sausagesellers; Servants; Spicers; Taverners;Traders; Vintners ; Waferers;Woodmongers

Offal, se e 'Garbage'; Liver; TripeOil, 35, 163Olives, 28, 160Omelet, 10 5Onions, 12 , 18, 28, 34, 36-37, 42, 69Onion soup, 168Oranges, 17 3Orchards, 57 , 69Ordinance of Pottage, 116Original Sin, 21Ostia, 27Ovens, 28, 31, 42, 50Ovid, 165Owl and th e Nightingale, 174Oxenhall Manor , Gloucestershire, 138Oxford English Dictionary, culinary terms in ,

102-3Oxford, Oxfordshire , 43-44, 48, 53Oxfordshire, 99; see also Henley on Thames;

OxfordOysters, 36-37, 173

Padua, 172Pancakes, 29, 32Paris, 117 , 126, 130, 148-49, 163; food in ,

28-29, 32, 33, 41, 51; hinterland of , 126;street-cries of, 32, 51, 163, 169

Paris, Matthew, Chronica majora, 79 ;'Menagier' of, 33, 41, 151

Parish governance an d fraternities , 68, 70

Parliament, 99Parody, 171Parsley, 107, 109; garnishes, 41Partridges, 19 , 37Pasta, 102, 164, 172Pastelers (past y or pie bakers), 31, 34,

39-40, 49, 51; see also Occupations;Pasties

Pasties and pies, x, 29, 31-33, 35-41, 49-50,59, 162, 165, 173; see also Pastelers

Pastoral husbandry, 58-59, 68, 126Pastry, 102; see also Baked goodsPate, 167Paulus Aegenita, 18Peacock, 35Pears, 37, 173Peas, 28-29, 32, 34, 41, 44, 46, 69, 162,

167, 174 ; annuity allowances of, 55;green, picked by poor villagers, 60; seealso Bread, o f beans and peas ; Pottage,pease

Peasants, culture of, 161-62, 164; diet an dfood of , 41, 53-71; goods purchased by,59-60, 64, 66, 68; living standards of , 45,53-71, 92; marriages of, 65; retired,maintenance agreement s of , 55-57,60-61, 66; see also Villages, poverty in

Peat, 63Pecock, Reginald, Reule ofCrysten Religioun,

18Peddlers, se e HuckstersPepper, 28 , 34, 38Perch, 37Pershore, Worcestershire , 68Perth, Scotland, 42Pestilence, 76; see also Black Death; DiseasePeter Lombard , Sententiae, 21, 25Petrarch, 171-72Petronia Proba, 171Petrucci, and Odhecaton, 168Pheasants, 38Philip IV, king of France, 154,16 5Philip VI, king of France, 146-48 , 153Philip the Bold , duke of Burgundy, 167Philip the Good , duk e of Burgundy, 165,

167Pichon, Jerome, editor of Tirel, 145Piers Plowman, see LanglandPies, see Pasties, PastelersPig's head, roasted , 22Pigeons, 29, 38, 143; dung of, see DungPiglets, 31,45

Index 185

Pigs, 35, 39, 43-44, 57, 126, 141-42; see alsoPork

Pike (luce) , 19,23,40Pilgrims and pilgrimage, 15-26, 28Pisan, Christine de, 148, 155-56, 171Pistachios, 114Pistor, see BakerPlague, se e Black DeathPoetry, see Beowulf, Boccaccio ; Chaucer;

Christ I; Christ and Satan; Daniel; Dante;Gower; Judith, Juliana; Langland; LondonLyckpenny, Roman de la Rose; The Battle ofBrunanburh; The Battle of Maldon; TheDream of the Rood; The Exeter Book, TheFight at Finnsburgh; The Fortunes of Men;The Husband's Message; The Owl and theNightingale, The Ruin; The Siege ofJerusalem; The Wanderer

Poison, 148 , 155Poll tax, j£«Tax assessmentsPolyphony, 16 8Pompeii, 27Population, an d Blac k Death, 92, 121; of

England, 27, 45, 50-51, 61, 64-67; seealso Acton; London; Towns

Pork, bacon an d ham, 22, 24, 29, 35-38, 41,46, 57-59, 67; brawn, 22; see also Piglets;Pigs; Puddings; Sausag e

Porpoise, 3 5Porridge, 114Portents, se e Prophecies and portent sPosnets, 43Pots and pans , see Cooking utensilsPottage, 34, 36-37, 56-57, 59, 110-11;

barley or bean , 56-58; see also Brouethoussie; Soups and stew s

Poulterers, 30-31Poultry, 29, 31-32, 34-37, 44, 57, 109, 120;

see also Capons; Chickens; Doves; Game;Geese; Hens ; Pigeons; Pullets; Rabbits

Poverty, see London; Towns; VillagesPraetorius and th e Syntagma musicum, 169Preaching agains t heavy drinking, 95Preserves, 33Prices, see Food prices; Grain prices; Malt

prices; Towns, rents inPrisons, 34Prodigies, see Prophecies and portentsProphecies an d portents , 77 , 79, 81Provence, dances of , 162Puddings and pudding sellers , 30, 39, 41,

59; se e also SausagesPulci (author-composer) , 164

Pullets, 37-38Pulses, see Beans; Peas

Quail, 172Quodlibet, 169

Rabanus Maurus, 17Rabbits (conies), 31, 38-40, 141, 14 2Rabelais, 164Radicchio, 172Radishes, 172Raisins, 139Rampolini, Matteo, 160Ramsey, Huntingdonshire, abbo t of, 36Recipes, 101-16; for fast days, 109; modern

and confused with medieval, 101-2 ;published and unpublished , 105;reconstruction of , 112-14; see alsoCookery; Cooking; Culinary

Records of cooking, 101, 104Recueil de Riom, 116Refectory, j^Hall, monasticRegimen, see Diet; TemperenceRegional studies, 117Regratere, Agnes la, 44Regrators, see ForestallersReims, 45-46Rents, see Towns, rents inRepertoire des manuscrits medievaux contenant

des recettes culinaires, 101, 116Restaurants, see Eating housesRibald jokes and allusions, 160-64, 170-71;

see also Se xRice, 35, 37, 42, 113-14Richard II, king of England, 139, 151Rissoles, 29Ritual, xRoach, 37Robert II of Artois, 161Rokewood, William, 139Roman de la Rose, 21, 16 1Roman de Fauvel, 164-65Rome, 27-28Romford, Essex, 48Rondeau,166-67Ross, earl of (1303) , 37Royal households, j^TirelRoyston, Hertfordshire, 38Rushes, 63Ruzzante (composer) , 173Rye and rye bread, 44-46, 89, 93, 97-98,

125, 128; rye, annuity allowances of, 55,57; see also Bread, rye; Maslin


Sabadino (composer) , 15 9Sacraments, see EucharistSaffron, 20 , 34, 36, 38, 113St^theldryd, 12St Ambrose, bishop of Milan, 12-1 3St Anselm of Canterbury, 25St Augustine o f Hippo, 21, 80St Benedict, see Benedictine RuleStCuthbert, 12St Edmund th e Martyr, 13St Gregory the Great , 21Stjohn Cassian , 21Stjohn o f Bridlington, 140St Julian, 20St Juliana, 10St Petronella, 140St Thomas Becket , 29StWalstan, 143St Wilfrid o f Ripon, 12Salad, 164Salesbury, Sir Thomas, son of, 48Salimbeni (composer) , 159Salmon, 37Salt, 33-34, 36-37Saltwich, Worcestershire, 53Sampson, Margaret , 140Sauce makers (saucers) , 31Sauces, 33, 35, 37-38, 42, 140 ; see also

CondimentsSausages and sausag e sellers, 28, 30, 33, 39,

41; see also PuddingsSavonarola, 169Savory (herb), 34Scarecrows, human, 137Scola, Roger, 117Scop, 4, 7Scotland, English wars with, 75-76; travel

to, 37-38; see also PerthScott, Michael, Mensa philosophica, 151Scrivener, Richard, 141Secreta secretorum, 19Servants, 1, 2, 32, 36, 39, 56, 60, 64, 67, 94,

138Servin (composer) , 163Sex and sexua l references and food ,

161-62, 167, 174; see also Ribald jokesSheep, 37, 44, 75; see also Lambs; Mutto nSheep's feet (cooked) , 32Shellfish, 35 , 135; see also OystersShepherd, Agnes, 142Shepherds, a s kings of carnival, 162Shrewsbury, Shropshire, abbo t of, 37Shrimps, 37

Shropshire, see ShrewsburySiena, 172Simnels, 29Sin, 11, 12, 17, 21, 24; and hypocricy ,

164-65; see also Gluttony; Original Si nSkeat, W. W, 10 3Skirrets (water-parsnips), 37Slapton, Devonshire, 140Snails (cooked), 33Snipe, 38Sobriety, j^TemperenceSocial class, see ClassSomerset, consumptio n o f grains in, 56-57;

see also Cheddar; Taunton; WellsSorrel, 10 9Soups and stews, 33, 42, 168; see also Brouet

houssie, PottageSouth eas t of England, 89-9 1Southwark, Surrey, 27, 34, 50-51; Tabard

Inn in , 15, 40-41Spicers, 69Spices, 44, 69 , 101 , 136 , 142 ; see also

Cinnamon; Cloves ; Cumin; Galingale ;Ginger; Gingerbread; Liquorice; Mace ;Pepper; Saffron ; Salt ; Sugar

Spoons, 143, 163Sprowston, Norfolk , 39Stamford, Lincolnshire, 38Standards of living, see Peasants, living

standards of; Towns, standards o f livingin

Starvation, see FamineStatute of Labourers, 19 4Stawberries, 32Stews (culinary) , see SoupsStews (ponds) , se e FishpondsStockfish, 3 6Stow, John, Survey o f London, 29-30Street-cries, 31, 32, 51, 163, 169 , 171Sudbury, Suffolk, Dominica n house in, 142Suffolk, consumption o f grains in, 56; see

also Acton; Babwell; Bury St Edmunds;Clare; East Anglia; Sudbury; Sutton Ho o

Sugar, 20, 34, 91, 112, 136Sumptuary laws, see Food legislatio nSuppers, 15 , 19, 33, 39Supply zones for food and grain, 117-18,

120Surrey, consumption o f grains and pulse s

in, 56-57; see also Bermondsey; Ham;Kingston; Southwark

Sussex, 88; cider and al e in, 67Sutton Hoo , Suffolk , 1

Index 187

Swans, 15-17,137, 141Sweets, 160, 163; see also Candy;

Confections; Fruit ; Honey; Jellies;Meringues; Preserves; Spices; Sugar;Toffee

Swinburne family, 140-41Sybily, John, John son of, 55-56Syphilis, 18

Table linens, 69, 153Table manners, 17, 69,137Tableware, 43, 48-49, 69; see also Costrels;

Cups and goblets; Jugs; Knives; Mazers;Posnets; Spoons

Tacuinum o f Rouen, 15Tacuinum o f Vienna, 15, 1 8Tacuinum sanitatis, 151Taillevent, seeTirel, GuillaumeTalmache.John, 138Tarts, 29, 32, 42Taste and culture, 101Taunton, Somerset, mills and tol l corns of,

57Taverners, 31Tax assessments and heriots , 42, 44, 58,

61-62, 64; poll tax, 34, 50-51Teals, 38Temperence, 12 , 19, 156Thames, 100,125,130Thatching, 13 7The Battle of Brunanburh, 13The Battle ofMaldon, 5-6The Dream of the Rood, 11The Exeter Book, 2, 3The Fight at Finnsburgh, 7The Fortunes of Men, 6The Husband's Message, 3The Ruin, 2The Siege of Jerusalem, 7 3The Wanderer, 2 , 6Theatre, 163Therfield, Hertfordshire, 3 6Thickener in a recipe, 108Thirst, 12Thrushes, 38Thunen, Johann Heinric h von, Der isotierte

Stoat, 127Tinctoris.J., 159, 169Tirel, Guillaume (calle d Taillevent') ,

145-57; bourgeois background, 146-47;coat of arms, 146; courtly status andsocial mobility, 145-51,153-55;presiding over royal kitchen, 155-56;

sources for life , 145-46; Viandier, 111 ,116,145,152,156

Toffee, 10 4Tolls on foodstuffs , 2 8Tolmache,John, j««TalmacheTomatoes, 172Towns, current scholarship on, 117 ;

population of, 27-29, 45-46, 49-51, 64,90, 92-93,118-19,121-22; poverty in,27, 32, 41-51, 95-96,119,122; rents in,47, 138; standards of living in, 27-51, 92,100,121; see also Markets

Traders, 64; as middlemen, 129Transcription, problems of, 107Translation o f recipes, 107Transport, 98-100; by water, 126Travel and travellers, 27, 29-30, 32-39, 40,

47, 49, 58,136Tripe, 168Trokelowe, John de, chronicle of, 82Tromboncino (composer), 171Trout, 172Truffles, 17 2Tynnot, Thomas, 45Typhus, 62

Union, Sir Henry, 166Urban economic development, 93,117Utensils for cooking and eating , see

Cooking utensils; Knives; SpoonsUxbridge, Middlesex, 129

Vailotte, 17 0Valletus, Richard, 55-56Valois dynasty and court , 145, 147-49, 151 ,

156Veal, 23, 29, 37, 39, 109, 142Veere.John de, 94Vegetables, 12, 22-23, 28, 32-33, 36-37, 41,

58, 63,101,109,120,129,139; fresh, 69;Roman, 28; see also Artichokes; Beans;Cabbage; Cucumber ; Endive ; Leeks;Legumes; Lettuce; Olives; Onions; Peas;Radicchio; Radishes; Salad; Skirrets;Tomatoes; Truffles; Watercress

Vegetarians, 141Vendors and hawkers , see HuckstersVenice, and Venetian songs, 174; Doge's

Palace in, 21Venison, 40VerceUiBook, 1 1Verjuice, 33 , 37, 88Viandier de Taillevent, see Tirel


Vikings, 11Villages, population of, 61, 64-65; poverty

in, 45 , 60 , 62, 64—66 ; see also Markets;Peasants; Parish

Ville Neuve, Guillaume de la, Parisstreet-cries of, 29, 51

Villon, Francois, 41-42Vinegar, 28 , 33, 35-36, 44, 88, 163Vintners, 32Violla, Alfonso della, composer, 172-73Virgil, 150, 17 1Virgin Mar y and music , 174Virtues, 10VitaEdwardi Secundi, 74-78, 81, 83-85

Vitry, Jacques de, 41; Phillipe de, 165Vives, Juan Luis, 159

Wafer, 29, 32,142; irons, 31Wafer, John, 142Waferers, 31Waffles, 2 9Wages, 43, 47, 54, 60, 63, 67, 92-93, 137 ,

142; see also Food as part of wagesWaldegrave family, 135,137Wales, English campaigns in , 75Walmesford, Henry de , 39Walsingham, Thomas, Historia anglicana, 82Ware, Hertfordshire, 36 , 38, 40-41Warner, Richard, 102Warwick, countess of , see BerkeleyWarwickshire, see CoventryWashington, Martha , 104Water (a s drink), 12, 42, 95Watercress, 162Water-parsnips, see SkirretsWater transport, 128Watford, Hertfordshire , 9 9Wayfarers, se e TravelWeather, causing harvest failure , 62, 66,

73-75, 77-80Weddings, see FeastsWells, Somerset, 46-47Westminster, Middlesex, 31-32; Abbey,

94-95

Wheat, 35, 44-46, 68-69, 89, 93-94, 97-98,125; annuity allowances of , 55, 57;starch, 113; see also Bread; Grain prices;Maslin

Whiskey, 102Whytes, Agnes, 140Widows and widowers , 17, 22, 41, 47-48,

61, 136 , 13 9Wihtred, king of Kent, 12Wills, 48Wiltshire, Alice, countess of , 135Winchester, Hampshire , 28, 40, 42, 50;

estates of bishopric of, 57, 61-6 2Windsor, Berkshire, 34 ; Castle, vineyard at ,

88Wine, 3, 9-12, 20 , 22, 26, 28, 32, 34-38, 42,

44, 69, 88, 95, 99, 104,126, 135-36,162-63, 166-67, 173; and socia l status,135, 159-60 ; bars (Roman) , 28; ofAlsace, Gascony, the Rhine andRochelle, 31

Wissant, 35Withersfield, rector of, 140Wolkenstein, Oswald, composer, 167Women, and food, wBryene (Alice de);

Food and gender ; Widows ; as brewers,89

Woodcocks, 38Woodland, 12 7Woodmongers an d th e wood market, 130Wool and woollen cloth , 68 , 70, 76Worcester, Worcestershire, 46, 50-51, 53, 68Worcestershire, consumption of grains in,

56; see also Bewdley; Bromsgrove;Droitwich; Hartlebury; Pershore;Saltwich; Worcester

Worts, see Vegetables

Yeavering, Northumberland, 1York, Yorkshire, 31, 37-40, 42, 50; see also

AlcuinYorkshire, see Doncaster; Fishlake ; York

Zones of production,126

Viticulture, 88

Food and Eating in Medieval Europe

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