Моята библиотека: THE ENGLISH MEDIEVAL FEAST by WILLIAM EDWARD MEAD

 Илияна Бенина, Никола Бенин

"The English Medieval Feast" examines the act of feasting and food during the medieval period. The book provides a scholarly look at the human detail involved in the variety of medieval manners and customs which make up the medieval feast. The book introduces the scene of the feast and its service, providing explanations of the food, drink and preparation that comprised the act of the medieval feast. The book also describes in full, certain and notable feasts of the period. The book also includes some historical examination of medieval dietetics which will be of interest to the modern reader.

CONTENTS
PREFACE 7
I. SOME FEATURES OF ENGLISH MEDIEVAL LIFE 15
II. THE FOOD FOR THE FEAST AND THE COST 32
III. PREPARATION OF FOOD 42
IV. MEDIEVAL DRINKS 123
V. THE SCENE OF THE FEAST 129
VI. SERVING THE FEAST 137
VII. NOTABLE FEASTS 180
VIII. FOOD AND HEALTH 214
NOTES 225
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 261
INDEX AND GLOSSARY 267

THE ENGLISH MEDIEVAL FEAST CHAPTE R I SOME FEATURES OF ENGLISH MEDIEVAL LIFE THE Middle Ages have often been idealized by writers who have fixed their attention upon features that were attractive and have ignored the rest. We may freely admit that much in medieval life was poetic and fascinating. But daily life in the Middle Ages, except when viewed through the eyes of the romancers, was doubtless at times dull enough, though not necessarily because of lack of occupation. In the upper ranks of society the care of one's estate, perhaps scattered through half a dozen counties, required vigilant oversight, even though the actual labour was commonly entrusted to competent overseers. The outbreak of war might impose upon the head of a great house the obligation to go overseas, or at least to make a heavy contribution toward the expense of an expedition. Part of the routine of every day was attendance at one or two religious services. But the day was not wholly given to labour or to devotion. When the season permitted the active members of the household were more likely to be found coursing over the hills and through the forests on the chase than spending their time in quiet contemplation or study. Various sports, such as bear-baiting or cock fighting, helped to while away the time for those who cared little for higher forms of entertainment. 16 THE ENGLISH MEDIEVAL FEAST But a great feast, particularly when accompanied, as it often was, by a brilliant tournament, to say nothing of other diversions, was incomparably the greatest attraction of medieval life. At a widely proclaimed feast one was certain to meet the most notable representatives of one's social ^circle; and there a young knight might have the inestimable privilege of sharing the same dish and drinking from the same cup with his lady-love, as also of paying courtly compliments and of showing his prowess in the tournament. The Middle Ages eagerly seized upon any event that afforded a reasonable excuse for a banquet. But some occasions made a feast inevitable. A coronation, a great victory, a marriage in high life, the arrival of an ambassador, the enthronization of an archbishop, a birthday, especially the day on which the heir to an estate attained his majority, besides the Church festivals like Easter, Whitsunday, Christmas, and Twelfth Night,1 all afforded an opportunity and an excuse for a great entertainment and at the same time a welcome relief from the monotony of the daily round. The intimate connection between the Church and the social life of the Middle Ages is obvious at every turn; and although the religious element is in many cases far from obtrusive in the actual feasts, the mere fact that a day was set apart as a Church holiday often determined its selection as a fitting time for a banquet. Owing to the fact that a feast on a grand scale involved expenditure far beyond the means of the SOME FEATURES OF ENGLISH MEDIEVAL LIFE 17 ordinary citizen, it was mainly an affair of the court, the nobility, a great ecclesiastic, or an occasional favoured son of fortune. As social life grew more complex and luxury increased, the feast became more and more a favourite means of manifesting the wealth and social importance of the donor. Closer contact with other countries through commerce and travel, to say nothing of wars, naturally brought about modifications of various features. But, despite all change, many characteristics remained common to the feasts of the period closely following the Battle of Hastings and those of the fifteenth century. The five centuries from 1050 to 1550 include a series of transitions in English history from a period of highly organized feudalism to something like a modern state, though even in the sixteenth century many medieval features still survived. When we pause to enumerate merely a few of the most characteristic features of those centuries, feudalism, chivalry, the Crusades, the extension of monasticism, the building of cathedrals and the evolution of architectural styles, the flourishing of romance, the founding of universities, the development of town life, the spread of commerce, the revolution in military science, the Hundred Years' struggle with France, the Wars of the Roses, the progress of discovery, the Revival of Learning, the Reformation, we realize that, notwithstanding the persistent survival of many features of earlier times, we cannot regard the medieval period as a unit. It follows, then, that in so far as our immediate topic 18 THE ENGLISH MEDIEVAL FEAST is concerned we must give our attention in the main to a comparatively brief period during which social conditions, at least in the higher circles, with which alone we have here to do, had in a sense been standardized. This period, for our purpose, we may regard mainly as the whole of the fifteenth and the first half of the sixteenth century. The year 1500 brought no revolution in the food supplied at feasts or in the social usages to which feasters were supposed to conform, though increasing wealth naturally led to more and more lavish display. But, obviously, we cannot ignore the earlier centuries in which the social ideals of the English people were slowly taking shape and when the English and the Normans were gradually fusing together to form one people. The English have been notably conservative in making progress and, while cautiously introducing new features into their mode of living, they have retained to this day a multitude of quaint medieval usages and customs that in other countries have been long abandoned and forgotten. So was it also in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Notwithstanding the notable changes that we have enumerated, the general aspect of the country, the means of transportation, and in large measure the mode of living throughout the land up to the end of the fifteenth century, and even later, must have been strikingly similar to that in the two or three centuries that preceded. Differences in detail there were, of course, in plenty,2 but, speaking broadly, we may say that even in the fifteenth and SOME FEATURES OF ENGLISH MEDIEVAL LIFE 19 part of the sixteenth century the habits of thought of the mass of the population and the round of their daily life were essentially medieval. The Medieval Feast may well be regarded as the most characteristic expression of social life during the period we are studying, and hence we cannot do better than to glance at some of the more notable features of the life of that time, particularly those that are in marked contrast with the life of our own day. Certain aspects of the Middle Ages have been carefully studied and brilliantly depicted—the tournaments, the pilgrimages, the Crusades, and many other features of religious and secular life in times of war and of peace. But to know the life of some five hundred years ago as the people of that time saw it and lived it is a matter of the utmost difficulty, and it may be doubted whether any modern investigator has succeeded to the full in penetrating and divining the innermost soul of the Middle Ages. They are full of co-existing features strangely contradictory. In times when the lowest vice in high places went almost unrebuked we find examples of almost boundless self-denial and devotion to ascetic ideals. We meet also endless examples of what we should call childish wilfulness alongside of the prevailing medieval deference to conventionality. People in general were hedged about by traditional usages that almost had the force of laws and were violated at one's peril. Every man knew his place, and as a rule kept it. Class lines were rigidly drawn and, except in the Church, 20 THE ENGLISH MEDIEVAL FEAST only a man of very exceptional type could hope to rise above his original station. From all this and much more that might be adduced, the only safe conclusion appears to be that, although we may tabulate a variety of characteristic features, we cannot compress the long period vaguely known as the Middle Ages into a neat formula, and still less describe it in a single phrase. We must be content to consider it as a time when conventionality is the rule and also as a time when, as the French say, it is the unexpected that happens. Many of the most notable men of the Middle Ages often act like impulsive children. The fantastic exploits depicted in the medieval romances are hardly more unreasonable than, for example, the First Crusade, undertaken with no conception of the dangers involved and with no adequate preparation. Enthusiasm without weighing consequences is a marked characteristic of medieval life, and is abundantly illustrated in the life of St. Francis of Assisi and of multitudes of others less known to fame. What they believe they hold with an intensity that admits of no denial. Bigotry and intolerance are only one aspect of the lack of restraint common to all classes. If they give themselves to a life of devotion they know no limit. If they sit down to a feast they eat to excess. The dancing epidemic in Germany and Italy in the Middle Ages illustrates how a sudden mania can sweep through whole populations and cause them to act like unreasonable beings. The intolerance that rooted out the heresy of the Albigenses is simply SOME FEATURES OF ENGLISH MEDIEVAL LIFE 21 another illustration of the lack of balance and restraint that characterized the age. There was no lack of formal logic in those days, but the average man and woman was guided, not by reason, but by impulse. Our conception of medieval life as a whole is often distorted and thrown out of proportion by the dazzling accounts in chronicles and romances of the festivities in which the nobility and royalty participate. The glitter and splendour of the feast and the tournament tend to obscure the fact that everyday living in the Middle Ages might be quite as humdrum and monotonous as any in our own time. The entire period might with no exaggeration be termed an inconvenient age, the shortcomings of which appear at every turn. Broadly speaking, one of the most notable characteristics of medieval as compared with modern life is the extent to which men were isolated and thrown upon their own resources. In our own day we not only actually talk with men in the uttermost parts of the earth, but we pass from one country to another with a speed that three or four generations ago would have appeared miraculous. As a result of the difficulty of travel five hundred years ago multitudes of men lived all their lives in the same community without ever visiting any other. Their conceptions of foreign lands, and in general of other communities than their own, were often fantastic in the extreme. The adventurous spirits who went upon crusades, or, like Chaucer's Knight, sought military service 22 THE ENGLISH MEDIEVAL FEAST in foreign lands, belonged in a class quite apart from the vast majority of their fellow-countrymen. Those who remained at home in small towns or hamlets, in so far as they were not craftsmen or ordinary agricultural labourers, lived a life which at best must have been uniform in the extreme. The care of their estates naturally kept them occupied with a variety of humble tasks, and these, along with the ever-recurring religious festivals, to say nothing of rural sports, hunting, hawking, fishing, took up some of their too abundant leisure. But the occasions when the owner of a remote country estate could participate in a typical medieval feast on a grand scale must have been comparatively rare. Doubtless the people of the pre-Reformation period, like people of our own day, regarded themselves as ultra-modern, and assuredly they had no conception of the defects of their civilization. But when we attempt to enumerate what the Middle Ages lacked we hardly know where to begin or to end. Brief comment upon a few of the discomforts and inconveniences of medieval life will show how great these were, and at the same time dissipate some of the glamour thrown about daily life in the time when knights wore armour and were supposed to spend their days in making love or in riding about in search of adventures. In the romantic period of the early nineteenth century the popular impression was that during the Middle Ages the life depicted in the medieval romances substantially represented the normal state SOME FEATURES OF ENGLISH MEDIEVAL LIFE 23 of society, quite ignoring the fact that, as a rule, the romances practically disregard the existence of all except the privileged classes and ignore a large part even of their daily life. We do, indeed, find the descriptions of medieval feasts in the romances strikingly corroborated by the accounts in the old chronicles, and up to a certain point we may therefore accept their evidence as a valuable supplement to what we learn from other sources. But caution in generalizing is necessary. If we confine our study of medieval life to the old romances and chronicles, and especially if we dwell mainly upon the descriptions of feasts and other scenes of rejoicing, we may easily be led to suppose that in the Middle Ages luxury was carried to its highest pitch, and that modern life is sober and drab in comparison. From some points of view this is the case. Medieval life was picturesque and full of colour to an extent that we hardly realize. And even to-day, when we enter a great medieval hall or the nave of a vast Gothic cathedral, we feel the enchantments of the Middle Ages and almost envy the men and women who lived amid scenes so full of beauty and picturesqueness. Two occasions call forth to the utmost the descriptive powers of the romancers—the tournament and the feast. And especially the feast, for the splendour of the hall, with its tapestries, its many coloured windows, its richly clad guests, the glittering gold and silver vessels, the red and golden wines, the lights, the music, the pantomimes, the dancing, made a picture which to this day remains in 24 THE ENGLISH MEDIEVAL FEAST popular thought as the most typical feature of medieval life. Through contact with other countries, especially in the time of the Crusades, Western nations gradually became familiar with the amenities of life in the East. Some of the earlier Crusades, especially the march of the ill-equipped and undisciplined horde that swarmed eastward on the first expedition, seem almost like movements of madmen. A single battery of modern machine-guns could easily have routed the entire host. The later Crusades were more carefully organized and in some measure achieved their purpose. In particular, the taking of Constantinople in 1204 revealed splendours hitherto unrealized even in the palaces of kings in Western Europe. The successive Crusades brought the West into direct contact with the East—with the rich fabrics woven in the looms of Damascus and Bagdad, with the curiously inlaid vessels of gold and silver, with goblets of oriental glass, with weapons adorned with exquisitely carved ivory. Not unnaturally, after the long stay of the Crusader§ in the East, where in the cool, covered bazaars they had revelled in the sherberts, the spices, the dates, the figs, the almonds, and, above all, in the sweetmeats, they sought upon their return to their homes in the West to continue to enjoy in some measure the pleasures 6f oriental life. These in turn gradually became a necessity even for those who had never crossed the English Channel. The importance of these modifications in English life we can hardly overestimate, but we must guard SOME FEATURES OF ENGLISH MEDIEVAL LIFE 25 against conclusions that are too sweeping. We must not forget that the Middle Ages made up in splendour what they lacked in comfort. Magnificence in dress and in the adornment of the table at feasts was reserved in most households for special occasions, and was the more impressive owing to its comparative rarity. Houses that displayed almost boundless luxury at a great feast were strangely lacking in what are now regarded as the ordinary conveniences of life. And the guests who had been covered with jewels and silks and velvets at the feast commonly withdrew to bedrooms of the most cheerless type, furnished in a fashion that would now seem beggarly in a common artisan's dwelling.3 The ancient streets that now appear so picturesque when seen in brilliant sunlight were far from clean. The fronts of the houses were quaintly carved and decorated, but the rooms were usually low-studded and narrow, ill-ventilated, and shockingly lacking in sanitary conveniences. Nameless vessels were emptied from the upper windows into the street, and the resulting exhalations were not those of Araby the blest. The nostrils of fine ladies in the Middle Ages must very early have grown accustomed to odours that would now be intolerable, for what with open drains and filth in public places,4 rotting straw and other refuse on the floor of the hall, and meats on the table long overkept, there must have been so constant a stench that one might have felt the lack of it as a real deprivation. Obviously, then, if we with our standards of 26 THE ENGLISH MEDIEVAL FEAST living could be suddenly taken back into the Middle Ages we should realize at once in the most striking way the lack of modern comfort. When we enumerate the dozen or twenty things that contribute most to the amenities of modern life we find, with scarcely an exception, that these things were lacking in the Middle Ages. First and foremost, we note the almost entire lack of laboursaving machinery. Practically everything was accomplished by hand labour. This means, obviously, that much muscular energy was wasted that might have been more usefully employed. There were, indeed, certain simple devices, such as hand-looms, pulleys, water-wheels, and the blacksmith's bellows. But the use of steam was unknown, and, of course, the use of electricity. Hence manufacturing was literally manu-facturing, that is, hand work. Mass production, which in our time has brought hundreds of useful articles within the means of persons of modest incomes, was therefore unknown. But when we consider that hand labour, skilled by long experience, fashioned the dishes of the table, the furniture of the hall, the carved doors, the misereres, the choir stalls, and the exquisite porches of the vast medieval cathedrals, we are less inclined to regret that the Middle Ages lacked some of the mechanical devices that make life at present less strenuous than that of our ancestors. One of the most serious problems in the housekeeping of five hundred years ago was that of lighting and heating. With us, the matter of lighting is very simple whether by day or by night. Except SOME FEATURES OF ENGLISH MEDIEVAL LIFE 27 in large cities, where we must adapt ourselves to conditions imposed by adjoining buildings, we place our windows where we please and regulate their shape and size according to our needs and the length of our purse. In the Middle Ages, it must be noted, window glass was too rare and costly for ordinary use. At best, it was made in small pieces and carefully fitted together in such windows as have for centuries been the glory of the cathedrals of Chartres and Bourges and the shattered Rheims. Windows of this type were found in some of the finest of the medieval halls, but in so far as the ordinary private house had window glass, it was mostly of the coarse, greenish, translucent type, in thick, small pieces, where the blowpipe had left its mark. In general, during the fifteenth century glass was much too costly for large windows in private dwellings. The openings for air and light were closed, if ever, with heavy shutters that indeed kept out some of the cold and the snow, but also the light. To fill the chinks at the edges of the shutters or elsewhere, rags or straw were freely used. Where windows were diminutive a partial substitute for glass or for shutters appeared in the form of thin plates of horn, mica, or of bladders or oiled canvas.5 As for artificial lighting, most of the world fared badly. Indeed, the primitive conditions of the Middle Ages in illumination have disappeared only in our own time. Only a generation or more ago travellers throughout Europe were provided for the night with candles, duly charged in the 28 THE ENGLISH MEDIEVAL FEAST bill. And, of course, the Middle Ages had nothing better. Like so much of the other equipment of old English houses, most of the lights were of home manufacture. Wax candles were dear, and in most houses could be afforded only on great occasions. For ordinary use, tallow dips made from kitchen fat, with rushes for wicks, or torches made of rope, "steeped in pitch, tallow, oil, and rosin",6 were deemed quite sufficient.7 Doubtless wax candles burned with a clear and beautiful flame, but the ordinary tallow dip must have been ineffective for illumination and a source of filthy and noisome smoke. At best, the lighting could never have been brilliant, as compared with the electric lighting of our own time, but it was at all events picturesque. Incidentally, we note that the inadequate lighting was still more painfully felt in the streets. Throughout Europe the streets of the largest cities were entirely unlighted at night during the greater part of the year, though in some English towns householders were required to have a light before their doors from Christmas to the feast of Epiphany on January 6th. Anyone compelled to traverse the streets at night commonly carried a torch dipped in pitch. Old houses in London still retain the iron extinguishers where the eighteenth-century linkboys used to quench their flambeaux. Not less serious than the problem of lighting was that of heating. In this particular the old Romans were far ahead of the English. The Romans heated their villas in cold weather by means of terra-cotta SOME FEATURES OF ENGLISH MEDIEVAL LIFE 29 pipes or narrow passages under the floors and in the side walls that carried heat all over the house. But nothing of the sort was used in England during the Middle Ages. In the medieval kitchen warmth was purely incidental. The main purpose was to get sufficient heat for boiling, baking, and roasting. Deprived of the convenient coal fires and gas or electric ranges so common in our time, the cooks of centuries ago had mainly to rely upon open fires of wood and charcoal or, in favoured localities, upon sea-coal.8 But the fire itself was a constant problem. To anyone in our day nothing seems simpler than making a fire. Six hundred years ago it was more or less an achievement. In the hands of an expert, flint and steel, along with abundant tinder and light kindlings, rapidly brought the desired result. But in families ill-provided with the ordinary necessities of life the extinguishing of the hearth fire may have been a serious calamity. In any case, continuous, uniform heating in winter must have been almost impossible. If, as at Penshurst, the hall was heated by billets of wood piled on firedogs or a brazier in the middle of the floor, the smoke had to find its way out through the louvre in the roof. In the later medieval period fireplaces with chimneys were often found, and in the kitchen were employed for roasting the vast haunches that were turned on the spits before the fire. But for supplying warmth the fireplaces in the hall were not too satisfactory, since the greater part of the heat went up the throat of the chimney. It is difficult, therefore, to see how guests wearing 30 THE ENGLISH MEDIEVAL FEAST light clothing at a feast in the colder months could have been very comfortable. Draughts circulated everywhere in the great hall. To some extent the chilly currents might be guarded against by the use of high-backed settles, especially when placed near the fire. But another form of protection was common. Ordinarily in severe weather when a passing stranger of obvious social rank arrived at a castle he was hospitably received, and after he had bathed and made himself as presentable as possible he was provided with a fur-lined robe9 in which to envelop himself. A robe of this sort covered the entire person, and w r hen provided with a hood made one more or less indifferent to the temperature of a chilly room. But at the close of the day, when the spiced wine had been served and the gorgeous mantles were laid aside, the costume adopted for the night was simplicity itself. In these times of pyjamas and union suits it is something of a shock to learn that the only article of clothing for the night was the nightcap, and that night rail became general only late in the sixteenth century. In view of the conditions just described we may perhaps better understand the outbursts of joy in medieval poetry at the approach of spring. Such raptures may seem natural enough in any country where the fields, bare and desolate throughout the winter, begin again to deck themselves in green, where the trees once more stand luxuriant in their foliage, and the birds, long absent, return to their nests and make love amid the branches. But in the Middle Ages the reason for the poet's joy is possibly SOME FEATURES OF ENGLISH MEDIEVAL LIFE 31 not so sentimental. He is no longer confined to the house by severe weather. The bright sun has dried the roads and made them passable, and he can enjoy the mild air of spring without having to muffle himself in heavy clothing. And, lastly, he sees an end of the monotonous diet of salted meat and salted fish. At all events, whether such considerations moved the poets, the physical joys attending the approach of spring without doubt were uppermost in the mind of the average occupants of a medieval castle. But comfort is a relative term, and we shall do well not to exaggerate the sufferings of those who ate food that we should find repulsive, and in general lived under conditions that to us would be hardly tolerable. Men and women adapt themselves to their environment, and somehow the people of the Middle Ages appear to have enjoyed life very well. Indeed, they seem to have been quite as well satisfied with their lot and their achievements as we are with our own. And when we pause to consider what they accomplished in art, in architecture, in philosophy, in government, in literature, and in social life, we must admit their originality and in some respects their superiority. We must remember that we have built upon their foundations. And it is by no means certain that they would have admitted the advantages of many of our so-called modern improvements. Certainly, from a spectacular point of view, the men who organized the medieval banquets, the fame of which still endures, had little to learn from us in such matters.