Charlemagne's Capitulary De Villis includes a long list of salads, herbs and vegetables that are to be grown on his estates:lily, roses, fenugreek, costmary, sage, rue, southernwood, cucumbers, pumpkins, gourds, [some kind of bean], cumin, rosemary, caraway, chick-pea, squill, gladiolus, tarragon, anise, colocynth, chicory, ammi, sesili, lettuces, spider’s foot, rocket salad, garden cress, burdock, penny-royal, hemlock, parsley, celery, lovage, juniper, dill, sweet fennel, endive, dittany, white mustard, summer savory, water mint, garden mint, wild mint, tansy, catnip, centaury, garden poppy, beets, hazelwort, marshmallows, mallows, carrots, parsnip, orach, [amaranth], kohlrabi, cabbages, onions, chives, leeks, radishes, shallots, cibols, garlic, madder, teazles, broad beans, peas, coriander, chervil, capers, clary.
Extensive
as it, this
list (which
can be variously translated) includes only four
legumes: fasiolus
(sometimes translated as “kidney bean”), chick
peas, broad
beans and peas. (Note
that peas at this point were “field peas”; that is, white and
mature, not green and young.)
De
Villis was a theoretical document, but luckily a few inventories of
actual estates have survived. Legumes are listed for only two
of these. At Annapes, the king's agents found:
“one modius of
beans, 12 modii of
peas.” Strangely,
at Staffelsee, “one sextarius
of lentils” is inventoried, even though De Villis does not specify that item.
An
earlier document, from 716, confirms a previous one,
specifying what monks from Corbie (in Picardy) were to be given when
they traveled to Fos (near Marseille) to pick up various imported
goods. Along with various meats, chickens,
eggs, etc. they were allotted one legume; the pea. A
list of rents for several domains of the monastery at
Saint-Maur-des-Fosses
mainly lists various animals, wine and wheat etc. but the rent for
one domain includes another: the
broad
bean.
Mentions
of specific legumes are rare in early documents, but these mentions
of, above all, peas (Pisum sativum) and broad beans (Vicia
faba) echo what is found in archaeology – with the one wrinkle
that often, instead of true broad beans, what has actually been found
is its smaller cousin, the horse-bean (Vicia faba var. minor),
(raising the question of whether written references to the “broad bean” may sometimes actually be to the smaller bean). At a
Carolingian site in Auvergne, peas and horse beans were the only
legumes found. Both peas and broad beans (and possibly horse beans)
have been found at Dury, a site in Picardy, from between the IXth and
XIIth centuries. Marie-Pierre
Ruas highlights what is also apparent in written records: the
dominance of these two legumes (taking broad beans and horse beans as
variants of one type) grew under the Franks:
These two legumes are regularly identified in sites from the historic epoch. Their frequency clearly increases after the Gallo-Roman centuries. By the farinaceous nature of their grains and the possibility of storing them for a long time, they constitute along with cereals the populations' basic vegetable food.
Lentils
They were certainly not unknown before that. At a number of prehistoric sites, peas, broad beans and horse beans have been found and all three can be considered ancient in France. But already under the Gauls, another pulse was found: the lentil. At a Gallic
oppidum, for instance, lentils were found together with peas.
With
Roman domination, lentils became commonplace. Lentils, peas and broad
beans have all been found in a Gallo-Roman site in the north of
France. Says Ruas: "Lentil is the pulse of the Gallo-Roman
world (present in 83% of the sites)... it is often associated with
Pisum sativum.”
The three legumes were still found together
at the start of the Medieval period; Salic law addresses theft from
bean, pea or lentil fields. Writing in
the sixth century, Anthimus does not (in most copies) mention peas at all. He
does comment on broad beans: “Whole broad beans, well cooked,
either in gravy or in seasoned oil or salt, are more fit than these
beans crushed because they weigh on the stomach.” But he pays most
attention to lentils, for which he provides one of the few actual
recipes in his medical text:
But
as we have seen, lentils are absent from many digs for later
centuries. Ruas: “Lens culinaris appears to become of less
importance from the Early Middle Ages onwards, [but] the frequency of
Pisum increases up to the Late Middle Ages, both in rural and
urban sites." The same was true of the horse bean, of which she writes:Lentils are good washed and well boiled in pure water, so that their first hot water is poured out and a reasonable amount more of hot water put in, not too much, and so cook it slowly on the coals, so that when it has been almost cooked, add a little vinegar for flavor. And add the spice called Syrian sumac, a spoonful in powder, and sprinkle it on the lentils while on the fire and mix well. Take it off the fire and eat it. However, for flavor, you should add oleo gremiale while cooking in the second water; put in one good spoonful of coriander or two of its roots, not in pieces, but whole, and a little salt for taste.
Horse bean is moderately frequent during the Roman period, but its cultivation increases undeniably during the Middle Ages. Eventually, it becomes the principal pulse.... The success of this pulse could [in part] be derived from its more rigid stalks, which allow weeding, and a better adaptation to low temperatures than Lens. Vicia faba is also able to deal with a broader variety of soils.
The
German influence probably also played a part; in Germany itself,
writes Malcolm Todd, “barley, wheat, flax, peas and beans" were
the main crops. (In Southwestern Germany, the Alamanni did grow both
peas and lentils, but they already were in close relations with
Romans at the end of the Empire.) If early aristocratic Franks, like
Theuderic, might have retained some Roman taste for lentils, over
time they seem to have preferred what was culturally familiar; as we
have seen, Charlemagne (or his close advisers) did not even think to
include lentils in De Villis, even if one estate (apparently on its
own) grew them.
The
lentil did not completely disappear in France. Storehouses from the
start of the seventh century found in the Meuse had held lentils
along with peas and horse beans. At a Carolingian site in Calvados,
horse beans and lentils were the only pulses found. But such finds are
rare; and by the late Medieval period, when cookbooks start to appear, no
recipe appears for lentils.
Chick peas
In
the South, another legume co-existed with beans and peas: the chick
pea. “In
Mediterranean
France Pisum
is replaced by Cicer
arietinum,
though there are records of pea from Montaigut." In
looking at southern foods in the Middle Ages, Ruas
writes: “The bean dominates in the South-West context, the Pyrenees
included. While the pea is more frequent in this same area as also in
Provence-Corsica, the chick pea appears as much as the bean in
eastern Languedoc.” Overall:
“Chickpea is sporadically found during all the periods except the
High Middle Ages, but only in Southern France. This could mean that
there was no transport of Cicer to
the northern districts, as there had been during Roman times.” (One
documented exception, from the eighth century, is that of the cellerar of
Corbie, who took delivery of 150 pounds of cicer near Marseille to transport back to Picardy.)
They
were unlikely to have been grown as far north as Metz, where Anthimus
visited Theuderic. But they may still have been transported north at
this early point. Whether he saw them there or not, it is not
surprising that Anthimus, with his Graeco-Roman background, included
them in his review: “Chick peas are good if well-boiled until
completely liquified with oil and salt on them, and are also suitable
for the kidneys. However they strictly cannot be recommended for the
healthy to eat raw, because they can cause serious flatulence and bad
indigestion and corruption of the stomach.” Some versions of his
manuscript also contain this: “Softened black and white chick peas
promote urine and certainly nourish. That in them which is fleshy
when truly sweet promotes urine and voiding.”
Monks and cooks
Otherwise,
of the dominant pair, the broad bean was somewhat more successful, especially as Christian fasting became more restrictive.
When St. Bernard of Clairvaux founded the abbey of Cluny in the
twelfth centuries, broad beans were so central to his monks' diet
that he referenced them in several sermons. In one, he says that “greens,
broad beans, gruel, a coarse bread with water disgust those at rest,
but are delights to those who take great exercise”; in another, he mocks those who bellies were filled with beans looking down on more luxurious eaters, saying that it was better to use a little fat on one's food than
to stuff oneself with “windy beans”.
The rules for the order also include what may be the first detailed recipe since Anthimus: for broad beans.
The
monks are
told
to wash the beans carefully three times in
water, then soak
them overnight in a well-covered cauldron. The next morning they are
to wash them three times again and then put them on the fire. While
these cook, they are to skin off the froth which rises while boiling
(using a slotted spoon to avoid accidentally gathering any beans in
the process) and stir the beans to avoid their burning on the bottom.
The beans are ready when their skins begin to burst, at which point
the monks are to take them off the fire and cool them with three
rinses of cold water, then stir them again and put them in a tightly
covered pot. After their meeting, they are to reheat the beans,
cooking a bit of thick bacon with them and later squeezing the fat
from it to pour over the vegetables (an indulgence granted
monks because olive oil was hard to obtain in many parts of France).
No other food is singled out this way in the rule.
No other food is singled out this way in the rule.
Ecclesiastics were certainly not unaware of the side effects of eating beans.
When Hincmar of Reims was sick, his fellow bishop Pardulus of Laon
sent him medical advice, including the direction to “before rising
from the table, take a measure of well-purged broad beans cooked with
very pure fat.” This was intended to drive out Hincmar's phlegm and
stir up the foods he had previously eaten, “not without noise”.
In the late twelfth century, broad
beans were basic enough to be set as
part of the payment for the
carpenter at St. Germain des Près,
who,
on ordinary days, got
two
white and two
dark loaves,
a
half
sexter of wine, and a
generale
with broad beans. (The
“general” probably consisted only of the beans themselves, though it may also have included cheese or thick bacon.)
Recipes
Even
as food became frankly luxurious (for some), these two legumes
remained the main ones in France. In his Viandier, Taillevent offers
several recipes for both peas and beans, including one that can be made with either. In several recipes, he also recommends puréed
peas as a thickener.
The author of the Menagier de
Paris also offers several recipes for both. Intriguingly, he makes a
distinction between old and new peas, which in effect means he may
have been using green peas well before they become an Early Modern
innovation. Also intriguing is the fact that he emphasizes the
importance of the kind of water used: “usually peas do not cook
well in well water: and in some places they cook well in water from
fountains and river water, as in Paris, and in others, they only cook
in water from fountains.” This kind of distinction was very
important to Old Regime French bakers, but it is very rare to see it
applied to cooking food, and in fact the author here only mentions it
again in regard to... hazelnuts. He also provides a number of recipes
for beans, again distinguishing between old and new (a distinction
which did not have the same success as for peas). Strangely, though
peas and beans are treated similarly in a number of ways, he makes no
distinction in the water used for cooking beans.
The Latin Tractatus
de modo preparandi et condiendi omnia cibaria, a
lesser-known cookbook from the same century, also
includes several recipes for both.
Again,
none of these works mention lentils at all. By the eighteenth
century, these had long fallen into frank disrepute, as Diderot's Encyclopédie
noted: "Doctors have always regarded lentils as the worst of all
vegetables... More modern authors have not in truth said as much ill
of lentils, but they all agree in viewing them as a rather bad food."
Favism
As it turns out, broad beans may have offered more cause for worry. Daniel Gourevitch is only one of several authors to address the subject of favism, and its implications:
The broad bean... consumed in large quantities during a period of several months, can be dangerous, responsible for cases of favism...
This... illness puts into play "nature and nurture", genetics and culture, in a way too complex to examine here. One must say nonetheless that the broad bean.. constitutes an important source of protein.... [The research of Mirko Grmek has shown that] favism, induced by the ingestion of broad beans (or even, among the most sensitive subjects, by simply inhaling their pollen), particularly common in the Mediterranean region, is characterized by anemia, indicated by colorless urines, jaundice, nauseas, dizzy spells, vomiting... This predisposition goes together with an enzyme defect (G6PD). Well then the bean has on the affected individuals the same effect as an antimalarial: from which comes the hypothesis that the bean itself might have anti-malarial properties... an exemplary case of a relationship between culture and genetics.
Though the Romans did eat broad beans, they, like others from the Mediterranean region, had their doubts about doing so; says Pliny:
It is generally thought that they dull the senses, and cause sleepless nights attended with dreams. Hence it is that the bean has been condemned by Pythagoras; though, according to some, the reason for this denunciation was the belief which he entertained that the souls of the dead are enclosed in the bean: it is for this reason, too, that beans are used in the funereal banquets of the Parentalia. According to Varro, it is for a similar cause that the Flamen abstains from eating beans: in addition to which, on the blossom of the bean, there are certain letters of ill omen to be found.Albeit intuitively then, they and others from the Mediterranean region saw good reason to, if not avoid broad beans, not eat great quantities of them. Conversely, the Franks had no such vulnerability; seen in this light, the bean's later success makes all the more sense.
FOR FURTHER READING:
C. C. Bakels, The Western European Loess Belt: Agrarian History, 5300 BC - AD 1000 2009
The Capitulare de Villis (University of Leicester transcription)
Brevium Exempla (University of Leicester transcription)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_pea
(For an English version, see my own translation: Anthimus, How to Cook an Early French Peacock: De Observatione Ciborum - Roman Food for a Frankish King (Bilingual Second Edition) )
Guérard, Polyptyque de l'Abbé Irminon: ou Etat des terres, des revenus et des serfs de l'abbaye de Saint Germain-des-Prés sous Charlemagne, v2 1836
Pertz, Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Diplomatum V1 Diplomata Regum Francorum e Stirpe Merovingica 1872
Saint Bernard (of Clairvaux), Opera omnia, Volume 1, Issue 2, 1839
Migne, Victoris III, Romani pontificis, sancti Anselmi Lucensis Opera omnia … 1853
Jeffrey L. Forgeng, Daily Life in Medieval Europe 1999
Bakels, "Dury "Le Moulin". Étude des restes botaniques", Revue archéologique de Picardie, Vol 1, 1999
Erroux, Courtin, "Aperçu sur l'agriculture préhistorique dans le Sud-Est de la France". Bulletin de la Société préhistorique française. Études et travaux. Vol 71, 1974
Bouby, "Production et consommation végétales au Bronze final dans les sites littoraux languedociens", Bulletin de la Société préhistorique française, Vol 97 2000
Gruel et al, "L'oppidum, lieu de production et d'échanges", Gallia, vol 55 1998
Matterne , Lepetz, "Élevage et agriculture dans le Nord de la Gaule durant l'époque gallo-romaine : une confrontation des données archéologiques et carpologiques", Revue archéologique de Picardie, vol 1 2003
Todd, The Early Germans, 2009
Todd, Everyday life of the barbarians: Goths, Franks and Vandals 1988
Rosch, “New aspects of agriculture and diet of the early medieval period in central Europe: waterlogged plant material from sites in south-western Germany”, Vegetation History and Archaeobotany, vol 17 2008
Hessels , Lex Salica: The Ten Texts with the Glosses, and the Lex Emendata 1880
Carpentier, "Une occupation du haut Moyen Age dans le bocage normand à Saint-Ouen-des-Besaces (Calvados)", Revue archéologique de l'ouest, Vol 16 1999
Vermard, Wiethold et Gazenbeek, "Production agricole et stockage dans une ferme du début du VIIe s. à Aubréville (Meuse)", Revue Archéologique de l'Est, v57 2008
Ruas, "Les plantes consommées au Moyen Âge en France méridionale d'après les semences archéologiques", Archéologie du Midi médiéval, Vol 15 1997
Ruas, “Productions agricoles en Auvergne carolingienne d'après un dépotoir découvert à Saint-Germain-des-Fossés (Allier) / Farming productions in caroungian auvergne from a refuse pit recovered at Saint-Germain-des-Fossés (Allier)”, Revue archéologique du Centre de la France vol 39 2000
Ruas, “The archaeobotanical record of cultivated and collected plants of economic importance from medieval sites in France”, Review of Paleobotany and Polynology, 73 1992
(accessible to members of academia.edu)
Pardulus Laudunensis, Epistula ad Hincmarum Remensem
Wallis, Medieval Medicine: A Reader 2010
Lasteyrie, Cartulaire général de Paris ou recueil de documents relatifs à l'histoire et à la topographie de Paris vol 1 528-1180 1887
Pichon, Le viandier de Guillaume Tirel dit Taillevent 1892
Pichon, Le ménagier de Paris: Traité de morale et d'économie domestique 1846
Le ménagier de Paris, tr. Janet Hinson, additional notes by David Friedman and Elizabeth Cook
Tractatus de modo preparandi et condiendi omnia cibaria
Diderot, Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers Vol 19 1779
Gourevitch, “Le pain des Romains à l'apogée de l'Empire. Bilan entomo- et botano-archéologique”, Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres Vol 149 2005
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Favism
Pliny, The Natural History of Pliny, Vol 4 1856
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