- Introduction
- Preparations
- Spices and other flavorings
- Bread and other baked goods
- Common foods
- Uncommon/emerging foods
- Animals
- Drinks
- Fasting and abstinence
- Manners
- Equipment and infrastructure
- Summing up
IntroductionWhy the food of the High (or Central) Middle Ages?
Conventionally, the term “medieval food” applies to the food
of the Late Middle Ages (from the thirteenth to the fifteenth
century). In recent years, I have documented part of the medieval
food which precedes this – that is, early medieval food, going
approximately from the fifth to the start of the tenth century. But a
gap remains between these two eras – the food of the tenth through
the twelfth century. This corresponds approximately to the High
Middle Ages, less the thirteenth century, already counted, for food
history, within the Late Middle Ages.
If the Early Middle Ages are far less documented than the Late,
the High Middle Ages are all the less so. Still, enough data survives
to at least outline the differences in the food of this era with that
of those of the eras before and after it. Taken with what we know of
those, this information completes an overview of medieval food across
the entire millennium which makes up this era.
NOTE: Until
1066, this history is largely that of French/Continental food, the
history of Anglo-Saxon food being separate on several points.
All translations are my own except where otherwise noted.
It was precisely from the chaos of the tenth century that
the Western world in which we now live was born. The story of the
tenth century is the story of the emergence of our civilization into
the light of day.
Paul Collins, The Birth of the West
If the centuries which make up this period are very different,
across them one sees emerge elements which would come together in the
more structured years of the Late Middle Ages. (See Wikipedia
for a more comprehensive view of this complex period and specific
works on each century for deeper insight. These videos also offer
good overviews: Unit 7: The High and Late Middle Ages and 13-2 Europe in Transition: The High Middle Ages )
Very generally, across this period, Europe grew warmer and the
population expanded; a surplus of food became available.
Deforestation increased, as human needs for grain, for instance,
grew. Viking raids began to fade and peace in general became more
common. Cities began to revive or be established and long distance
trade expanded. With it, a monetary economy and a banking system
developed. The middle class – burghers – began to emerge and even
to exert power. Kings became more powerful and power more
centralized, with an increasing bureaucracy. Notably, Otto the Great
(r. 935-73) began to establish the Holy Roman Empire (unrelated, to
be clear, to the Roman Empire). Castles were increasingly built.
The following overviews of each century are hardly meant to
summarize them, but highlight key aspects, especially in relation to
food.
The tenth century was largely the end of the Frankish era,
with Capetian rule appearing just at the end. But it was also marked
by the Ottonian Renaissance, with expanded literary and artistic
life. Interest in the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music and
astronomy) grew.
The eleventh century, notable for many as reaching a millennium in Christian history, was marked by several extreme famines. By some accounts,
improved agriculture and productivity were a response to these. The
period included two major events – the Conquest, in 1066, of
England and the first Crusade (1096). The Conquest was highly
organized and quickly established French-speakers as the rulers in
England, with a corresponding connection, for centuries, with
continental France; but cultural changes would only take effect over
time. The effects of the Crusades would take time to become apparent
in Europe itself.
The first Western university, in
Bologna, was founded. A “Fish Event Horizon” begins to appear in
archaeology, showing increased use of fish, partially for
commercial, partially for religious reasons.
The twelfth century is sometimes referred to as a third
Renaissance (after the Carolingian and Ottonian) and in many ways
already resembles the thirteenth. The universities of Paris and
Oxford were founded. Work began on Notre Dame; the Gothic in general
began and numerous cathedrals were built, reflecting the increased
strength and centralization of the French monarchy. The herring
trade – which would greatly expand the availability of fish to the
less advantaged – began to grow; cod too became more available.
The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem was established, facilitating
increased trade with the East of items like spices.
Sources
Much of the information for this period is scattered in fragments
across various, mainly obscure, documents. However, a number of
sources offer more substantial information:
Udalric’s eleventh century customs
for the abbey of Cluny, which include not only hand signs for
various foods, but other detailed instructions. Similar instructions
from Hirschau are based on these, but typically more expansive.
Ekkehard’s table
blessings for the abbey of St. Gall, probably written towards
the start of the eleventh century, largely inventory foods of the
time in the process of listing blessings for each one.
The work of Hildegard
de Bingen (c. 1098 - 1179) which includes an extensive look
at herbs, though mainly for medical purposes.
Daniel of Beccles’ Urbanus
Magnus, a guide to manners probably (though not certainly)
written for Henry II (r.1154 – 1189) which includes extensive
information both on food and on table etiquette.
Alexander Neckam’s De
nominibus utensilium, which includes a look at some twelfth
century dishes and other useful details.
Preparations
No cookbooks or
recipes survive for this period, but we do have some idea of the main
preparations for the period.
The most complete list comes from Alexander
Neckam’s look at Paris in the twelfth century (here in Urban
Holmes’ translations, lightly corrected). He lists a number of
dishes with just enough detail that one could readily guess how to
prepare them; later medieval recipes also give useful ideas of how to
prepare such dishes.
His instruction for roast pork is simple enough: “A roast of
pork is prepared diligently on a grid, frequently basted, and laid on
the grid just as the hot coals cease to smoke. Let condiment be
avoided other than pure salt or a simple garlic sauce.” Note the
garlic sauce. Garlic appears far more in this period than earlier,
when it is not named in any preparations or even later, when it is
used, but to a lesser degree.
His recommendation to sprinkle a cut-up capon with pepper aligns
with a number of other mentions in the period of simply using pepper.
His basic instruction for a “domestic goose” is to turn it on
a long spit, leaving it “quite tender”. But he adds that it
requires a strong garlic sauce, infused in wine or verjuice (here
made from wild apples).
He recommends cumin for a hen which has been cleaned and cut up
into pieces, but only if it is boiled. If roasted, he suggests
copious drippings of fat; garlic sauce is also appropriate, though
simple salt (which is recommended in other sources) should be
tastiest.
Gutted fish are to be cooked in water and wine, then eaten with
green sauce, which is common in later medieval cookbooks. Here is it
is explicitly said to be made from sage, parsley, dittany, thyme,
costus, garlic and pepper, as well as salt. (Of these, dittany would
be avoided today.)
While these are minimal, they can be applied to a variety of foods
and suggest methods mentioned both earlier and later.
Later he suggests pickling small fish, which are to be cooked in
brine.
In general, pepper was certainly the most common flavoring. Peter
Damien (eleventh century) shows two men cutting up a rooster and flavoring it with
liquamen, which once would have referred to Roman fish sauce,
but here likely means simply a liquid, and pepper: “a rooster was
brought to the table. One of them took a knife, as is the custom, and
cut the morsel into pieces, and poured over it the sauce with ground
pepper.” He includes the interesting observation that one had to be
careful not to nick the gall bladder: “When this was done, the
other immediately said: Indeed, pity, you have opened the gall in
such a way that Saint Peter himself, even if he wanted to, could not
restore it.”
Rudolf of St Trond (c. 1070–1138) cites
“fresh salmon, boiled in water and peppered; a third dish of the
same kind, roasted and in no way peppered;” he also describes
a “carpeia, of dried fish of the Teisterbant [region in what is now the Netherlands], which was taken
in small pieces, and chopped up with eggs and pepper sprinkled over
each portion.” (Presumably the eggs were hard-boiled.) He also suggests a gravy of wine, eggs and fat.
The Urbanus
Magnus (which is probably from the end of the twelfth century,
but might be from the start of the thirteenth) mentions various ways
of preparing different foods, including with pepper sauce: “Put
peppered sauce on fresh lamb”; “Dine on wild geese with pepper
sauce”; “Eels are roasted with pepper, garlic, / Whatever you
choose; eat moray eels with pepper sauce”; “Herring ... boiled
with pepper sauce;” “Fresh salmon with pepper sauce or mustard”.
“Pepper sauce” is very likely to have been pepper and vinegar,
which seems to have been a standard sauce. Otloh of St Emmeram (c.
1010 – c. 1072), in a metaphor, speaks
of “luxurious food, which is first cooked in pure water, and
then is prepared more carefully with the addition of some vinegar or
even pepper.”
In 2013, Faith Wallis discovered a manuscript in England which
referenced sauces
from Poitou, from somewhere between c. 1150 and c. 1175. These
sauces, which seem to straddle medical and culinary purposes, reflect
a number of elements typical of this period. A sauce for lamb again
uses pepper in vinegar. The generous use of pepper and garlic echoes
other instructions from our era. On the other hand, the use of varied
greens is more typical of earlier combinations and is not found in
other (admittedly cursory) instructions for this period. Nor does one
typically see cilantro (coriander), which is mentioned in
earlier centuries (though Woolgar does say it appears more in archaeology at this point; p. 9). Culinary use of the juice of these various greens seems to
be particular to these recipes, though Hippocrates and some later medical writers do use the concept.
The list
of actual recipes (summary instructions) is fairly short (here in
my translation):
Mix the juice of parsley and sage with vinegar, with pepper
and garlic, well crushed, and eat sausage with these.
For small fish, cilantro and garlic juice mixed with pepper
and garlic.
For lambs: pepper mixed with vinegar.
For rams: juice of wild thyme, cilantro, parsley, costus,
sage, savory, southernwood,
hyssop, and two bay leaves, mixed with vinegar, and well strained,
mix in pepper and garlic.
To prepare the meat of cows, juice of savory mixed with vinegar, then pepper and garlic.
Also for the same strained grape juice: mix in garlic [and]
pepper.
To season chickens, combine the strained juice of savory with
vinegar.
Likewise for sausage: parsley juice and strained vinegar. Mix
with pepper.
For ducks: mix pepper and garlic with vinegar; [add] wild
caraway [and] cumin. [Uncertain reading]
For hen in winter: garlic, pepper [and] sage with warm water.
In whatever season you want pork and beef with mustard: mix vinegar with it.
In all the above, let pepper take precedence over garlic.
In a long
paper on this and related works, Wallis and Gasper cite other
sources which specifically name a Poitevin sauce. One is from
Johannes
Platearius: “Poitevin sauce… is made of parsley and a little
sage and pepper. And mix this with vinegar.” (Note that the recipe
which follows is a rare one before later centuries to use bread as a
thickener: “...sauce made with mustard seed crushed up with bread
crumb and mixed with vinegar.”) Another is from Matthaeus
Platearius: “Take sage, parsley, pepper, mint and crush and mix
with vinegar[;] such sauce is called Poitevin sauce.” (The paper
refers to other related sauces which might be of interest.)
This appears to be the first known named sauce (unless one counts
green sauce) in the Middle Ages.
These are followed by a medical recipe for preserved
ginger:
Place the whole ginger in very clean water and leave for
a long time until almost green. And then split it lengthwise into very fine
sections and mix it with honey boiled to a sticky consistency and
skimmed. Work the honey in well with the hands and leave it a whole
day and night. After which if any moisture remains, take out the
ginger and cook the honey to its previous thickness. Then mix it in
again and already warmed put it in pots. Then add spikenard [?],
galangal, clove, cinnamon, and zedoary and twice this quantity of
pepper.
A similar recipe is found elsewhere, as in Bartholomaeus Mini de
Senis’ Tractatus
de herbis:
Preserved ginger is also made to stimulate sexual
intercourse and to strengthen digestion. Take the roots and boil them
well, and once boiled, cut them into small pieces and squeeze out the
water, form small balls to which are added enough skimmed honey, and
cook them to consume the honey, stirring them continuously so that
they do not stick to the pot. In the middle of cooking, put in
almonds if you have them and at the end shelled pine nuts, then
aromatic spices: ginger, galangal, pepper, nutmeg and other aromatic
spices.
Today either recipe would produce something
like a spiced candy.
Wallis and Gasper also summarize
Petrus Musandinus’ very simple (twelfth century) “recipe for a
dipping sauce for meat or fish composed of cloves, pepper, fresh
mint, and toast crumbs steeped in vinegar”.
A monastic cartulaire from 1173 describes
a meal with "the flesh of pig and of cows with leeks and white
and red wine, and roasted chickens with pepper and vinegar
carefully [?] for both the roasts, and nieules [light wafers],
and piment [spiced wine]". This again shows a sauce with
pepper and vinegar, as well as serving pork and beef with leeks.
We have at least one suggestion (from 1183) on how
to make piment: “a spiced drink in which he should have three
hemina of pure wine and an ounce and a half of clove, and of honey
and oil, as much as was necessary..” (Note the addition of oil,
rarely mentioned in this period, in a spiced wine.)
The Urbanus Magnus recommends garlic
for several foods: “Put garlic on fresh cow meat or pork”; “Put
garlic on goose with salt and mustard”; “Garlic goes with fresh
mule (fish)”; For a number of dishes, the Urbanus simply
recommends salt: “Roast fresh minced meat [haggis or sausage?],
serve with salt;” “Serve wild birds with salt to lesser diners;”
“Eat.... small fish with salt;”
It
gives at least two instructions for elaborate sauces. One is
not specified as being for a particular dish; it includes three items
(dittany, pyrethum and rue) which would not be recommended today, but
would still be flavorful without them:
Dittany, pyrethrum, pepper, garlic, sage, rue;
Parsley
is added to these, celery and fennel
With bits of white bread;
grind these together
And a little salt, after complete with
vinegar
Or with cold water, if there is not enough vinegar.
Less celery and equal parts of rue and fennel;
Let the major herbs be given a greater part than the
others
The second – which might more precisely be considered a stuffing
- appears to be for hare, though it could easily be adapted to
chicken, for example:
Let the green leaves of the leek be finely chopped,
Mix
crumbs of white bread with modest amounts of pepper, salt,
Have
beer, and beat egg yolks with butter and milk
Together, boiled
on the fire; put inside a hare,
Let it be larded and roasted; so
this civet [sic]
Being finished, give to those who wish
to eat it.
Note again the use of bread crumbs as a thickener, rare in this
era, but more common later. The reference to civet is curious, since
early uses of this term typically apply to onion-based sauces (the
word derives from chive), even if later a common civet is indeed jugged hare. The document says elsewhere that small
sheep and hare are both to be made with civet.
Fat had long been a
flavoring and is already mentioned for monks in earlier centuries.
Otloh refers to cooking bacon
with vegetables. Peter Abelard says specifically not
to use fat as a condiment on Fridays.
The Roman de
Renart mentions a long list of foods, but most are familiar from
other sources. The one exception is andouille;
the two mentions there (with no description) may be the first we have
of this common sausage.
In discussing cumin, Hildegard of Bingen says to put
it on cooked or roasted cheese.
Today, recipes for broad beans may seem uninteresting, but not
only were these a key food for many monks in the period, they
remained a staple across all classes into the eighteenth century. And
so the detailed
instructions from the Hirschau abbey (based on but longer than
those for Cluny) hold special interest. (Note that the original
includes several interjections of prayers or hymns; most of those are
redacted here.)
Weekly cooking is usually sufficient... they go into the
kitchen to receive beans: having received them, they carefully wash
them with water with which they are then bathed; in which also they leave them
overnight in a well-covered caldron. ...
Their hands and
faces are washed and scrubbed, and, if possible, they light a fire, so
that when the litany is finished, they will be by no means
wanting, the same fire may be ready to put the beans on. Entering the
kitchen, they wash the beans with three waters, and so throw them on
the fire. When the water is boiling and the foam is bubbling up, they
regularly remove them with a spoon, so that they do not throw the
beans together with the floating foam. They also often separate those
from the bottom with the spoon itself, so that when they are eaten,
they do not taste of fire. When the pods of the beans begin to open,
do not leave them any longer over the fire. They are cooled again
with cold water, and again divided by the spoon here and there. They
are put into a vessel with a well-fitting lid. The cauldron in
which they were cooked is also washed inside until it is shiny. There
is also a board leaning against the wall, on which, when they have
been washed, they are placed; and the board itself is washed over
with water and wiped with brushes; first, however, with the usual
inclination, they say this verse three times again, which they said
in the chorus; After doing it again before and after, they finally
put the board back. They sing all the regular hours after the manner
of the canons. They say the Vespers for the faithful dead in their
place and at the end Verba Mea. Now the dishes are washed with
the water that has been poured out, and it is poured into them to be
heated, which happens when the vegetables are cooked, especially
during the main and summer holidays and the signal for the first one
must be struck earlier, then before they do anything else, the table
is laid out, and the hours are told. If anything remains, if they did
not sing before the first, it is not customary to sing after the
first in the manifesto. When this is finished, or if it is on private
days after the gospel mass, they put the morning vegetables into the
kettle, and after the second chapter repeat for other beans.
They
take the bacon, from which, after it has been cooked for a little while
with some greens, they squeeze out the fat and pour it over
the beans. Because of this, however, not all of them return to the
larger group, but only two, and especially if some of them are
unskilled, and not needed: excuse them from their comrades, so that
they can hear some private mass. These, as has been said, pour the
fat, and by means of them the beans are again heated. These, if they
see the need for a more refined cooking, that more water should be
poured over the vegetables, as much as they wish to pour, they first
heat it in the pan; for it is the nature of vegetables that they have
a worse taste in cold water. Care must also be taken when they are to
be put into the boiler, so that they are washed in no other water
than boiling water. Beans are not seasoned or sprinkled with fat,
except when they have been cooked, lest the flavor disappear after a
longer delay. And if one of the cooks wishes, it is not forbidden to
pour out a little of the water of the beans themselves, in order to
test whether they are well seasoned.
Spices and other flavorings
In the early Middle Ages, pepper was the main spice, followed by
cumin. A number of other spices, most still known, were recorded.
Pepper remained the dominant spice in this period. Aside from the
flavorings mentioned under Preparations, towards the end of
the eleventh century, poet Baudri de Bourgueil wrote
that “wild thyme, pepper, garlic, milk, honey, [and] vinegar”
would be “honored at the table of wise friends”; a list of
obligations from 1160 includes “a
bushel of pepper”; another from 1196 mentions “five
pounds of pepper” in two separate lists.
In a story from 1184, Geoffroy
de Vigeois tells how Aymar, viscount of Limoges responded to a
visitor’s request for (proverbially expensive) pepper by taking him
to a house where it was piled “like acorns for pigs” and, using a
shovel, “threw rather than gave him it.” When word spread of
this, “it brought honor to the court of the viscount of Limoges”.
But a number of texts also mention pepper and cumin together. A
cartulary from Chartres from sometime between 1119 and 1128
specifically says not to use such luxurious flavorings: “In
general, in assembly, we do not use pepper or cumin or similar
spices, but common herbs such as our country produces.” Rent set in
1175
specifies “a pound of pepper and a pound of cumin”. In 1177,
prices
are cited at three fairs for pepper and cumin. In the latter part
of the twelfth century, the Chronicles
of the Abington Monastery seem to cite pepper and cumin for
making a sauce from… beer. In 1194, when the King of Scotland
visited the King of England, the allowance
granted him included one pound of pepper and four of cumin.
Even in the East, this pair appears. Ships captured past Ascalon
in 1123 carried
“gold and silver, pepper and cumin, and different kinds of spices”.
Where other spices are mentioned, it is often in combination with
these two. A
document from between the eleventh and twelfth century refers to
a merchant bringing “pepper or cumin or alum or brazil”. Around
1119, Bernard de Clairvaux warned
that “pepper, ginger, cumin, sage, and a thousand kinds of such
spices” could please the palate, but inflame lust. Around the same
time, Hugo of Saint-Victor cited
pepper, garlic and cumin for making sauces and condiments. (Note
again, here and in Baudri, the increased use of garlic.) Accounts
from Catalonia from 1184 cite “pepper and onion and cumin”.
Pepper is cited less often with cinnamon, as for dues from 1055:
"on each day three pigs and a hundred loaves of bread, one pound
of pepper, and the other of cinnamon, and three pints of honey” and
in foods
for a festival in 1156: “honey, cinnamon, and pepper….”, or
with ginger, as when Henry II took a town in Normandy in 1123, and
Breton
soldiers found the occupants had buried things of value,
including “pepper, ginger, and other such things.”
Only occasionally are other spices, often well-known later, cited
separately. Most of those to be used in late medieval food, however,
were already known, however fitfully. See the brief mentions above of spikenard, costus (these holdovers from Roman practice) and zedoary (just appearing in records). Bruno Laurioux cites
a first mention of cubeb in the eleventh century and of nutmeg in the
second half of the twelfth. But it was probably also around then that
Peter of Blois wrote
of those who used “no sauces that are not seasoned with cinnamon
and cloves and nutmeg”. Hildegard too mentions nutmeg, probably
before this. Laurioux also references several mentions by Hildegard
of sugar (which was initially used as medicine and a spice), though
it is generally cited later.
The several mentions of sage above are almost superfluous – it is
known that some basic herbs, being native to Europe, were generally
available. One, mint, was certainly used in various mixtures. But
only Hildegard calls it (as spearmint) out for use
on its own: “Added moderately to meat, or fish, or dishes [?],
or stew [?], it gives the food a good flavor and a good condiment”.
Bread
and other baked goods
For most of the Early Middle Ages, bread in texts was simply
“bread”. Scattered images show several forms existed beyond the
classic “ball”, but texts do not reflect that. Moving into our
era, one begins to see more specific variations in references to
bread.
Notably, a number of documents cite pane monachorum – the
bread of monks: for example, one from 1065,
one from 1078,
one from 1124,
one from the
latter half of the twelfth century. This bread was probably finer
than, say, the bread for servants or those who received charity. It
may well have been the precursor to later breads such as pain de choine (canon’s
bread), pain de chapitre (bread of a monastic chapter), etc. Rents from near Chartres at the start of the twelfth century mention "pane qui dicitur domnarúm"; that is, "so-called master's bread", no doubt of good quality. In the twelfth century, the Abbey of Saint-Pierre and a local priest agreed to share Ascension bread and later "the usual breads" (panes consuetudinales) for Christmas, Easter and Ascension.
A very rare appearance of the Greek term paximates (for biscuit) appears in 1071. (This is most often found, and then rarely, in earlier records.)
Most other labels are more scattered and exceptional. Only some
can be confidently associated with later documented bread. Sometime
after 1120, Hugh of St. Victor wrote generally of different
kinds of bread, most familiar, some now obscure: “unleavened,
leavened, baked under ashes, reddish, spongey, cake, baked under a
bell, sweet, rye, barley, of starch, fine flour, and many other
kinds.”
In his glossary of Latin, Ducange dedicates several pages to various terms for bread, some of which probably date back to our era. Unfortunately, he only fitfully provides dates for the documents he cites. Three terms for which he does provide dates are panis ecclesiasticus, cited in 1106 and defined simply as bread necessary to ecclesiastics (and so probably of the same quality as the pane monachorum); panis natalitius (Christmas bread), for lords and tenants at Christmas, said to be made of finer flour, eggs and milk, with one reference from 1188; and panis medianus (average bread?), from 1196, very likely of good but not the finest quality.
Ekkehard’s “Table Blessings” and the “speaking signs”
used at Cluny to maintain silence both list a variety of breads.
Keller’s 1846 note on Ekkehard’s text interprets one line to
refer to boiled breads; a sign from Cluny referred to boiled bread
that was better than ordinary bread. Both of these appear to be
precursors to what would soon be known as an échaudé (“scalded”), for which the dough was boiled before being baked,
common in the late Middle Ages and soon regarded more as a pastry
than a bread. Both refer to rye bread,
which had become more common under the Franks, though as one of the
lesser status breads. The gloss for Cluny adds the detail that this
bread was divided into four parts and that it was commonly called a
turta.
Ekkehard also refers to a panis
tortam, but
separately from rye bread. Based on later images, the torta
appears to be a round but flat bread, different from the ball shown
in many medieval images. He also refers to a tortis, which some interpret as a twisted bread (though it could be a variant on torta, etc.). The Cluny signs also refer to a tortula,
a bread given “beyond the usual weight” on certain holidays.
Presumably this was heavier than normal and the diagonal crossing of
the fingers used to indicate it suggest it was divided. Elsewhere
the document from Cluny
refers
to it as being made with eggs and sprinkled with flour.
Ekkehard cites bread leavened
by sourdough and, in one reading, by yeast. The latter is surprising
if accurate, since yeast-leavened bread would rarely be mentioned
until centuries later. More surprisingly, one verse refers to bread
leavened with eggs; is the meaning more literally to lighten bread by
baking it with eggs? For a long time, references to making bread with
eggs would be glancing and lacking in details.
He also mentions bread made
of spelt, barley, and oats, none of which would be common in bread
going forward. He cites
bread made under the coals, a long-standing idea in France, but often
under other names, such as fouace.
Keller glosses his mention of
fried bread as referring to toasted slices of bread with butter and
salt; but the most one can securely say is that Ekkehard mentions
fried bread, a rare concept in itself over the centuries. Panis
lunatus - “moon
bread” – was almost certainly crescent-shaped and may conceivably
have been a precursor to the kipfel
(gipfel),
which, in its crescent form, would become the model for the
croissant. Whatever the case, this would be a rare mention for
centuries of a crescent-shaped loaf.
In a time when pepper was
ubiquitous as a spice, it should probably come as no surprise to see
Gervase of Canterbury mention “peppered
bread” in England in 1188, along with Christmas bread, which
would presumably have been of superior quality. Recall too the description under "Preparations" for making a peppered wafer.
Scattered mentions are now
hard to identify. Records from the Abingdon Abbey from the second
half of the twelfth century mention russoles,
made with wheat along with flans and wafers .
These might be ruissoles/rissoles, deep-fried pastries containing hashes of meat, fish, etc. In 1176, a cartulary
from Chartres mentioned “certain crafted breads which they call canistrellos”, referring
to the holders for wafers, though modern breads with a similar name have no such form.
An Italian document from around 1120 mentions “exchange loaves” both of
wheat and of rye (panes de cambio, panes de secale de cambio ).
Hildegard of Bingen’s nutmeg “cakes” are sold today with added ingredients that make them little more than modern spice cookies. Her own version is not in the least sweet and comes with some large claims, in her entry for
nutmeg:
Nutmeg
has great warmth and good temperament in its strength. And if a man
eats nutmeg, it opens his heart and purifies his senses, and gives
him a good character. Take anywhere nutmeg and an equal weight of
cinnamon and a little clove, that is, and powder it, and then make cakes with this powder and flour and a
little water, and eat it often, and it calms
all the bitterness of your heart and mind, and opens your heart and your dull senses, and makes your mind happy, and purifies your senses, and reduces all the harmful humors in you, and give good juice to your blood, and makes you strong.
She offers a slightly richer recipe for cumin in making a
cake as a cure for nausea:
He who suffers from nausea, let him take cumin, and add
to it a third of pepper and anise [saxifrage?], a quarter of
cumin [sic], and pulverize these and take pure flour, and add
that powder to this flour; and so let him make small cakes with the
yolk of an egg and a little water, either in a hot oven, or under hot
ashes, and eat these little cakes.
NOTE: Anyone making a modernized version of Hildegard’s
nutmeg cakes – using sugar, etc. – can also readily substitute
cumin, pepper and anise as spices and add eggs to make a similar
modern version of the second recipe.
Rudolph says of pastries: “they must contain five eggs and cheese”. This probably refers to a flan. The hand signs for Cluny use signs for cheese and bread – suggesting cheese in a crust – to denote a flan (which in earlier centuries was still a flatcake). An Italian item from 1149 cites turtellam de Lavezolo, which probably means a small pie from Lavezolo. Méril’s “Floire et Blanceflor”, probably composed before
1170, already describes
a familiar image:
...pies of living birds;
And when these pies were broken,
The birds flew everywhere.
Note that these references to food served in dough – paste – were early mentions of pastry, which, as meat pies, fruit tarts and flans, would be a key component of late medieval food. These are the first mentions of such food, which does not appear in the Early Middle Ages (nor even, for that matter, in Ekkehard's extensive inventory).
A document from Anjou in 1096 describes preparation of something like a wafer, but peppered:
one of those who, in the delights of a feast, are wont to prepare bread [sic] made of flour strewn with eggs and sprinkled with crushed pepper, to stimulate the appetite, was present, and he offered the service of making and baking these breads, which they call wafers. He had heated the iron instrument, as you have often seen, for baking bread of this kind, and had opened those open iron plates, which, chained together, are now opened and now relaxed, receiving what was to be cooked.
The making of Communion wafers was so central to Catholic practice
that it is not surprising we have detailed
instructions for doing so (here from Cluny). These are of
interest not only for the religious object, but because wafers in
general soon became a common treat. Note that these differ from later
instructions in treating the prepared dough much as for standard
bread, whereas later a slurry would be poured into the molds.
Of the Hosts how they are to be made.
What pertains to the Eucharist and the Body of God is
worthy of being treated with reverence and care; it is proper that
this manner of conduct should not be kept silent. First of all
whenever it is necessary to make the hosts, but they are especially
made before Christmas, or on the day of the Resurrection. For in
winter when the nights are long, it is permissible for the brothers
to work before dinner for it is not permitted to do this kind of work
after a meal. The wheat, of which the Hosts are made, however good it
may be naturally and pure, yet it is chosen grain by grain, and
washed carefully, by no one other than the brothers themselves. It is
then collected in a bag, not just any kind, but one reserved for this
alone and made of good cloth; which bound is commended to a servant
who is not frivolous; who, carrying it to the mill, washes both sides
of the mill, and covers it above and below with curtains, clothes
himself in white, and puts it on his head, and ties it over the
shoulders, that is, a cloak, so that nothing of the face but the eyes
may be seen. And so he grinds, so he sifts the flour, with the first
sieve which he washes carefully. The Major Custodian of the Church,
if there is no Priest or Deacon, seeks a substitute for him to
complete this work. He also seeks out two others of these orders
acquainted with this matter, having received permission from the
Prior, and a Lay Brother. These four selected, at night they put on
socks, wash their faces and hands, and cover their heads. Then they
retire to the Altar of St. Benedict, and there sing the morning
Laudes. The first also at the same time, and the seven psalms with
the litanies, expanding in the meantime on the rest of the psalms.
Then those three, of any order, clothe themselves in whites and
shoulder-cloths, as was said above of the servant, (for there are
some whites and cloaks assigned to this business only), one of whom
sprinkles the flour and stirs it vigorously on a board having a
different border all around, a little higher all around, so that the
water cannot escape. They sprinkle it with cold water, because from
it the Hosts become whiter; the remaining two shape Hosts; water is
not carried in any other vessel than that in which it is usually
carried to Masses. The lay brother holds the irons, in which they are
to be baked, stamped, in his gloved hand. One can put six Hosts in
the iron at the same time; whence between the bottom of the iron and
the forms for the Hosts a table is set and two stakes are driven over
this on which the wood is held transversely, on which are put the
irons for Hosts. Those which have not been baked are scraped with a
knife, and fall in a dish downwards on the board, and always covered
with a cloth, except when the Hosts are scraped.
They sing the remaining Psalms, and if they will, the
Hours of St. Mary. At all other hours they keep silence, and take
great care that neither their saliva nor their breath may in any way
touch the Hosts. Only the lay brother, if required, briefly informs
the servants, who make a fire only from dry wood, and industriously
made for this purpose. Now those who worked with the Hosts do not
themselves take refreshment with the Brethren, but rather with the
servants; and for the relief of so much labor they have from the
Sacristan for a meal a pittance and spiced wine.
Legislation
Early evidence of trades groups appears in this era, if indirectly. In Brittany, the Abbey of Redon required rents from various professions, implying that they were acting collectively at least enough to pay these as a group; in 1040, bakers were among those listed. (The earliest known collective requirement of this sort is from St. Riquier, in 831.)
The first legislation about baking appears in this era, starting
with the first
surviving statute, from Pontoise in 1162, to give bakers the
exclusive right to make bread for sale, here limited simply to light
and dark bread. Again, this implies a collective status for the bakers. In Le pain au moyen âge, Françoise
Desportes writes (p. 70) that from 1175-80 trades groups appeared in
a number of places, including a number for bakers, but gives no
further detail.
While it
is possible some trades groups arose before, these are some of the
first records we have of them.
In
1170,
the duke of Normandy was already appointing a grand panetier,
with authority over the bakers of Rouen.
An 1183
statute from the city of Roye may be the first to regulate
luxurious baked goods considered harmful: "If any one makes
gastels or flans, or the like, which harm the town, the mayor will be
able to stop them from doing this further." (Gastels, though a
kind of bread, could be made with eggs or butter; flans were
typically made with cheese.)
In 1190, bread was
regulated
among the Crusaders:
Moreover, it was established by the lord king of the
English and the constables and justices and marshals of the army. of
the king of England, that a merchant of whatever trade he may be
cannot buy bread to sell in the army, nor flour; unless some
foreigner brought it, and made bread of it; nor an ear of wheat
unless he similarly made bread from it, or retained it to carry over
with him. Dough is absolutely forbidden to be bought; and all goods
are forbidden in the town and below the town hall. But if a man buys
an ear of wheat and makes bread from it, he is bound to gain in salmo
[a seam or quarter of grain], only one tarenus [30
grains of gold] and the bran.
In some cities,
bakers still had to use communal ovens and mills, as shown in this 1195
statute from Montauban:
The oven of Montalba must bake, for the commune of
Montalba and for local people, the sexter of coarse bread for 1
denier of Caortz, and for the pestoressas [local female
bakers] for five deniers.
The mills must grind with
the sixth, and must bring the wheat to the mill and return the flour
in weight, take and return the wheat in weight.
A statute in Rouen from 1199 limited bakers to two "windows" (outlets, usually just openings allowing sales), one at their own place, the other at the forecourt (parvis) of Notre Dame. (Similar regulations would become common in other cities; more often the second outlet would be at the main market.)
Common
foods
A number of foods can be found for any era, in archaeology and
otherwise. But of course some foods are more common in each era. For
medieval foods, one way to identify these is to consult various lists
provided for specific purposes, as for rents, travelers’ rations,
etc. In this one a number of lists exist of rental obligations,
donations, commemorative meals, etc. (See Appendix A for more details on the following.) These show a pretty uniform,
even somewhat monotonous, picture: common animals like cows, pigs,
sheep, chickens, geese, ducks, or animal products (eggs and cheese); basic grains like wheat, rye,
oats, legumes (beans, peas, more rarely chick peas); for
fish, mainly salmon, herring, and eels; for drink, wine, beer, and
mead, with some spiced wines; for flavorings, honey, pepper, often
with cumin, more rarely clove, cinnamon or ginger. Some variations
stand out relative to earlier (Frankish) lists: rams are specifically
mentioned as opposed to simple sheep; though vinegar was used, it
does not appear in these lists and honey only rarely; oil (common
earlier) appears almost not at all, but butter, never previously
mentioned in rations, appears a number of times. Greens are not
mentioned either in supplies nor most preparations (except some sauces), whereas they
appeared specifically and generically in earlier centuries. Boar, not
typically mentioned in supplies or rents, appears several times.
Garlic does not appear in lists, despite being a common ingredient
in preparations. It may simply have been very available in gardens
without being required in supplies. Rye was mentioned often, barley
not at all; the oats were probably for animals. Flans are mentioned
several times.
Ekkehard’s table
blessings, probably written early in the eleventh century, are
essentially a catalog of foods, most supposedly available near St.
Gallen in Switzerland. Even where that was not precisely true, these
were foods known to the writer in the period. They include the wild
ox (auroch) mentioned in earlier texts, but long extinct today. While
the Franks ate horsemeat, it faded from standard use in later
centuries; there is a rare mention here of “the sweet meat of wild
horses”.
The text is often obscure or indirect and interpretations vary; in
addition to Keller’s translations
and glosses, Morgenblatt
offers similar but sometimes alternate readings. The list that
follows is my own reinterpretation of both and the original text.
The original begins with types of bread, which are discussed
above.
Fish - boiled fish, stock-fish or tuna, sturgeon,
varieties of salmon, varieties of eel, pike, rubulgra [chub]?,
lampreys and lamperns. varieties of trout, herring, perch, roach,
cray-fish, char, gudgeon, chub, small fry, beaver [as an aquatic
creature, suitable for fast days]
Birds - peacock, pheasant, swan, goose, crane, duck,
quail, pigeon, turtledove and other kinds of pigeons or doves, hen,
capon, chicken, ptarmigan; small birds
Butcher's meat - beef, veal, mutton, lamb, goat, kid,
pig, ham, suckling pig, bacon, sausage meat, domesticated boar
Game - bear, wild boar, deer and doe, bison, wild ox (auroch),
wild horse, fallow deer, roebuck and hind, fawn, wild goat, chamois,
hare, marmot
Dairy - milk, cheese, milk with honey, pepper, or wine,
goat’s cheese
Honey - honey, honey nectar [?], honey with spices [?]
Fruits and nuts - apples, olives, citrons, figs, dates,
grapes, pomegranates, pears, quinces, chestnuts, peaches, plums,
cherries, sour cherries, hazelnuts, walnuts, all kinds of nuts
Vegetables - roots, herbs, leeks, mushrooms, cabbage of
all kinds, melons, garlic, gourds, lettuce, salads
Flavorings – pepper and vinegar, other forms of
vinegar, mustard, beaten herbs, spices
Other - pastries, eggs
Legumes – beans, chick peas, vetch, lentils, red
lentils, millet, phaseolus [unidentified bean, often
mistranslated as the post-Columbian “kidney bean”]
Surviving texts do not necessarily correspond with finds in
archaeology, which can reflect local variations. In The Medieval
Woman, Edith Ennen cites (p. 90) items mainly absent from written
records:
From excavations of the stronghold of Haus Meer, north of
Neuss, inhabited from the tenth to the thirteenth century, we know
the animal and vegetable diet of the residents. The following
cultivated varieties of plants have been identified: sweet cherries,
plums, damsons, peaches, sloes, apples, walnuts, hazelnuts, vines,
black elder, blackberries, sweet chestnuts, medlars, pears. The
following cereals were eaten: seed oats, millet, yellow millet,
wheat, oats, rye. Strawberries, sloes, raspberries, rosehips and
cranberries were gathered, as was the medicinal herb dwarf elder
(Sambucus ebulus). Also cultivated were: amaranth (a salad plant),
dill, celery, hemp, carrots, flax, peas, corn salad. The most
commonly found bones were those of the domestic pig, followed by
cattle, sheep or goats. There was also wild or domestic duck, greylag
or domestic geese and domestic chickens, and the following wild
animals: rabbit, hare, red deer, wild boar.
Similar archaeological reports likely would vary and give us a good idea of what was available
locally, but not necessarily what was preferred overall in the era.
Uncommon/emerging
foods
Most often, foods which appeared (or sometimes reappeared) in
France in this era arrived via Islamic influence in the Iberian
peninsula. While dates were cited earlier, they are not generally
cited in this period. But Ruas
et al cite mentions of them in twelfth century records
from Iberia and Rousillon. They also cite textual mentions of citrus
fruit towards the end of the twelfth century; some are mentioned in
Spain in the seventh to the tenth and eleventh century, in Sicily in
the ninth. They cite tentative mentions of spinach in France in the
same period, though it does not become established until the
thirteenth; it probably appeared in the Iberian peninsula between the
tenth and eleventh century. Sorghum was well established in Aquitaine
by the eleventh century. Millet – which was common in earlier
centuries but is not often mentioned in this period – reappears in
the same century. Rice was grown in Iberia since the ninth
century, but it would only be an import (since Roman times) farther north
for centuries, though it was soon to prove important as an ingredient
in blancmange.
Some foods are necessarily exceptional in archaeology. Peacock,
for instance, being an elite food is rarely found, yet butchered
peacock bones have been found at elite
sites from the eleventh century. No doubt, as before and after
this era, the peacock remained a favored food of the elite. Pheasant,
another preferred bird of the elite, has also been found at high
status sites. The bones of sturgeon, also an elite food, have been
found at similar sites as well.
Animals
During this period, cattle
shrunk from an average height of 112 cm to 108.8 cm and did not
reach a height of 115.3 cm until the fourteenth century. Horses and
pigs also grew smaller for most of this period. In part, this was due
to human expansion, which reduced the available pasturage, often in
favor of growing grain. For consumption, “butcher’s meat”
(beef, pork, mutton and – probably to a far lesser degree – goat)
remained dominant through the thirteenth century; in the fourteenth
century game, which had never played a large part in diet, became
more important with aristocratic and urban demand. Very generally,
beef accounted for 60-72% of consumption, pork 20 to 34%, mutton 4 to
9. (Geographically, beef dominated in the north, often mutton in the
south. ) But from the eleventh century on, pork consumption declined,
from 40% of the remains found at the start of the period to 20% at
the end. Audoin associates this with increased deforestation (since
pigs were typically left to graze in the woods).
Note that several sources in this period continue to use variants of the Carolingian word friskinga. With rare exceptions, this denotes a pig young, but not young enough to be a suckling. It is only exceptionally applied to sheep, for instance.
Drinks
The basic drinks in Europe for a long time were wine and
(approximately) beer. Mead likely existed before these, but is
mentioned less in earlier Frankish records than in this period, where
it appears frequently beside the other two.
Honeyed beer, which appears in a number of Frankish records, is no
longer mentioned, perhaps because piment, later one of the
main medieval spiced drinks, already appears. Spiced wine had
lingered fitfully from Roman times among the Franks, but as it
reappeared in later versions, sweetened beer may have lost its charm.
Ekkehard mentions moretum (berry wine), which was known
both earlier and after, but otherwise is rarely mentioned in this
period. He also mentions must and cooked wine, more likely used for
flavorings (mustard, as a mixed sauce, is made with must) and
possibly sage-wine (an exceptional mention if so, despite Keller’s
claim that it was “a favorite drink in the middle ages”). He may
be the first to use the word sicera, which had long meant
strong drink, to mean apple cider. (The fact that cider is mentioned
at all is of interest, since it would take time to become a common
drink). Curiously, he does not mention perry (pear cider), which
appears in several Frankish mentions.
Neckam (in Holmes' translation) lists “pure wine, cider, beer,
unfermented wine, mixed wine, claret, nectar, mead... piment, pear
wine, red wine, wine from Auvergne, clove-spiced wine”. Claret,
nectar and piment were all spiced wines which would be better known
in the coming centuries. How these differ from “clove-spiced wine”
is not clear, but Gerald Cambrensis refers to "cloved [wine]" (gariofilato), in discussing alternate liquids for Communion; a sixteenth century recipe describes it specifically as wine and clove mixed with must. (Note that the recipe given under "Preparations" for piment uses only clove as a spice, so there may have been some confusion between the two.)
“Pear wine” is probably perry (pear cider),
mentioned more often in the Early Middle Ages than this period, but
never completely absent from France. One would think that
“unfermented wine” was simply grape juice, which is interesting
simply because straight fruit juice is so rarely mentioned in the
Middle Ages.
The fact that monks drank spiced wine seems to be confirmed by
Bernard of Clairvaux’s complaint
about “that which some monasteries are said to observe by custom on
the great feasts, to be sure, wine is drunk with honey, sprinkled
with powdered spices” on the pretext he says “of the uneasiness
of the stomach”. Gerald Cambrensis shows them drinking piment and
claret.
Taverns and cookshops
Taverns probably never completely disappeared after Roman times
(they are mentioned in the ninth century) but we have limited
mentions of those or other public venues even for this period. In an
English poem “Seasons for Fasting”, probably from the early
eleventh century, priests are shown
having oysters and wine at a “tapster”’s (here in Mary P. Richards' translation):
As soon as they sing Mass in the morning and have
consumed (the Eucharist), impelled by thirst, they roam through the
streets after the tapster. Alas! They deceitfully begin to lie and
urge the tapster repeatedly, say that he may, without sin, give
(them) oysters as food and fine wine at morning tide.
(Thanks to Martha
Bayless for this reference.)
This may be the earliest specific reference in this era to a venue
serving food and drink.
At one monastery, lay brothers of the Cistercian order were
specifically
forbidden (c. 1134) to sell their wine at a tavern.
52. Of taverns.
Neither through a monk, nor through a lay brother, nor
through any person, is it permissible to sell our wine at a tavern,
or, as it is called, "at a tapster’s" [ad brocam],
or, as the Teutonic language says, "on tap" [ad tappam],
in our own or in other people's houses, or anywhere else at all.
It seemed to have been understood that a tavern sold
wine, except, as in 1151,
in times of a bad grape harvest:
Last year the vintage was rare and very late; hence the
wine was very rare and of a hard taste. This year, however, the
vintage was seasonal; but the wine was more expensive than the year
before; therefore, even in France, beer and mead were generally made
in taverns, which to our memory was unheard of in recent times.
In twelfth century London, both ale-houses and cook-shops were
increasingly
regulated:
First, they advise that all ale-houses be forbidden,
except those which shall be licensed by the common council of the
city at Guildhall, excepting those belonging to persons willing to
build of stone, that the city may be secure. And that no baker bake,
or ale-wife brew, by night, either with reeds or straw or stubble,
but with wood only.
They advise also that all the cook-shops on the Thames be
whitewashed and plastered within and without, and that all inner
chambers and hostelries be wholly removed, so that there remain only
the house [hall] and bed-room.
These are some of the first mentions of public venues
specifically for selling cooked food (as opposed to taverns where it
was available) along with this late twelfth century
passage from William
Fitz-Stephen (here in the Douglas and Greenaway translation):
. . . Those engaged in business of various kinds, sellers
of merchandise, hirers of labour, are distributed every morning into
their several localities according to their trade. Besides, there is
in London on the river bank among the wines for sale in ships, and in
the cellars of the vintners a public cook-shop. There daily you may
find food according to the season, dishes of meat, roast, fried and
boiled, large and small fish, coarser meats for the poor and more
delicate for the rich, such as venison and big and small birds. If
any of the citizens should unexpectedly receive visitors, weary from
their journey, who would fain not wait until fresh food is bought
and cooked, or until the servants have brought bread or water for
washing, they hasten to the river bank and there find all they need.
While it is not
unlikely that similar facilities existed in Paris, no account
currently known records the fact.
Fasting
and abstinence
Fasting
and abstinence
have evolved since the earliest days of France. These remained in
flux through this period.
Originally, laypeople were held only to Lenten fasting. The
emergence of weekly fasting obligations is fitful and uncertain. In
the late ninth or early tenth century, Knotker the Stammerer wrote an
account
of Charlemagne arriving on a Friday, cited here as a fast day. While
this is almost certainly not a valid anecdote of Charlemagne and his
time, it does show that Knotker himself was aware of weekly fasting
for laypeople. However, the first actual Church canon to specify this
seems to have been issued at Coyoac
(in Spain) in 1050: “that Christians fast every Friday” (ut
Christiani per omnes sextas ferias jejunent). (Ruolfus Glaber
records a council in the year 1000, after devastating famines,
establishing abstinence
from meat on Saturdays; by all accounts however this was never
well-enforced.)
UPDATE 2024/8/12 Note from Marie Hilder:
"the Friday fast - this was established by law in England from 1008 onwards (Aethelred V, #17) “And a fast shall be observed every Friday, unless it is a festival”. The law was part of a penitential package in response to repeated attacks from Scandinavia during the reign of Ethelred the Unready, but was then reinforced by Canute, Ethelred’s successor on the throne"
The fact that the general population now had to fast every week
probably contributed to the increased consumption of fish that
appears in the “Fish Event Horizon”, though fish was not, for a
long time, particularly associated with fasting. The increased
availability of cheap fish, notably herring and cod, probably helped
make it more popular as a fast day option (to the degree that a fast
day would later be alternately known as a “fish day”).
Note that in the instructions for Cluny, bacon fat is added to the
beans, despite the fact that the monks likely abstained from meat. In
816, a council
at Aix-les-Bains, allowed the regular canons to use “bacon oil” ,
since olive oil was hard to obtain in the north. Either this specific
permission was extended in practice or monks in general bowed to
necessity; whatever the exact case, for a long time it was not
unusual for monks to add bacon fat to greens. But in 1149, Hugues de
Feuillet, having said that monks should live on
fruit and vegetables, adds that stews of these “should
be seasoned with butter, or oil, or milk, not with fat”.
Note however that having
rejected the fat used by some monks, he still recommends dairy
products, which later would be banned for those observing abstinence.
Limits
on consumption were not always religious in origin. William
of Malmesbury says that, at the start of the twelfth century,
Robert de
Beaumont introduced the habit among the English upper classes of only
dining once a day, primarily for reasons of health (though some
suspected him of doing it out of economy.)
The English poem “Seasons for Fasting”, probably from the early eleventh century, touches on another reason for limiting one's consumption - having just taken Communion (and so having the Body of Christ in one's stomach): "As soon as [priests] sing Mass in the morning and have consumed (the Eucharist), impelled by thirst, they roam through the streets after the tapster." Whom they then convince to serve them, even though it is still morning.
Nor did abstinence necessarily
equate to restraint.In a famous
satirical passage, Bernard of Clairvaux complains that the same
monks who avoided meat ate
double portions of fish:
In the meantime, dish is piled upon dish: and
instead of the meat from which he only abstains, large bodies of fish
are doubled. And when you are satiated with the former, if you touch
the latter, you will see that you have not yet tasted the former.
Indeed, the servings are prepared with such care and skill by the
cooks, that when four or five dishes are devoured, the first does
not spoil the last, nor does satiety diminish the appetite. For the
palate, while it is seduced by the novelties of the condiments,
learns to gradually become accustomed to these, and to strange
juices, and is eagerly renewed in desire, as if still fasting.
Indeed, the belly does not know it is full, but the variety removes
the disgust.
He then looks at the abuse of one food
in particular:
For who can say how many
ways… the eggs alone are turned and troubled, with how much effort
they are turned one way, then
another, melted, hardened,
reduced;
and now indeed they
are fried,
now roasted, now stuffed,
now
mixed, now put on one by one?
But what is all this for?
Only out of concern
for
lack of appetite. Then the very
quality of things appears to be such outwardly, that the sight is no
less delightful than the taste; ...while the eyes are colored,
the palate is flavored.
Regrettably, he does not give more precise information on these
preparations, but it is clear that eggs in this period could be
prepared in a wide variety of ways.
Gerald Cambrensis provides a similar
look at excess (at Canterbury) under the guise of fasting (here
in Coulton’s translation):
Of the dishes themselves and their
multitude what can I say but this, that I have oft-times heard him
relate how six courses or more were laid in order (or shall I not say
in disorder?) upon the table; and these of the most sumptuous kind.
At the very last, in the guise of principal course, masses of herbs
[greens] were brought to all the tables, but they were
scarcely touched, in face of so many kinds of fishes, roast and
boiled, stuffed and fried-so many dishes tricked out by the cook's
art with eggs and pepper-so many savouries and sauces composed by
that same art to stimulate gluttony, and to excite the appetite. Add
to this, that there was such abundance of wine and strong drink-of
piment and claree [claret], of new wine and mead and mulberry wine, and all
intoxicating liquors in so much abundance—that even beer, which the
English brew excellently (especially in Kent), found no place; but
rather beer stood as low in this matter as the pot-herbs among other
dishes. I say, ye might see so excessive and sumptuous a superfluity
here in meats [meaning foods in general] and dishes as might
weary not only the guest who partook thereof, but even the beholder.
What then would Paul the Hermit have said to this? or Anthony? or
Benedict, father and founder of monastic life? Nay, to seek examples
far nearer to our own times, what would our noble Jerome have said,
who, in his Lives of the Fathers, extols with such praise the
parsimony and abstinence and moderation of the early Church, saying
among other things that the Church, in proportion as she hath grown
in wealth, hath much decreased in the virtues? Moreover, Gerald would
sometimes say (as is not beside the mark to relate here) how the
monks of St Swithun at Winchester, with their Prior at their head,
grovelled in the dust before Henry II, King of England, and
complained to him with tears and wailing that their bishop, Richard,
who was in place of an abbot to them, had taken away three of their
daily dishes. Whereupon the King asked how many dishes remained, and
they answered, "Ten, for it is an ancient custom with us to have
thirteen.' 'How!' said the King, 'I and my court am content with
three dishes. Perish therefore your bishop unless he reduce your
dishes in the monastery to as few as my dishes at court!'
Rules on fasting then were clearly in flux at this point. Weekly fasting was now general for everyone, but eggs and dairy were still acceptable for those observing abstinence, as they would not be in the coming centuries. Some monks still poured bacon fat on their otherwise vegetarian meals, but the concept was apparently not universal across the period.
Manners
Comments on manners were still spotty by the twelfth century.
Around 1111, Peter Alphonus had a father in Disciplina
Clericalis tell his son that one should eat the same everywhere
as before a king: “When you wash your hands to eat, do not touch
anything until you have eaten your meal, do not choke; do not take a
cup until your mouth is empty; do not speak while holding something
in your mouth, so that nothing enters your throat.” In 1129 or
sometime after, Abelard berated
those in monasteries who wiped their hands and knives on
left-over bread set aside for the poor.
Urbanus Magnus is largely, if not only, a manual of
manners. In his 1867 Manners and meals in olden time, Furnivall
provides an approximate translation of the dietary and dining
portion as “Modus
Cenandi”. A 2019 translation of the entire work (The
Book of the Civilised Man) by Fiona Whelan, Olivia
Spenser, and Francesca Petrizzo is available in print.
Here is my own (also approximate) translation of the start of the
section on dining:
When you are ready and it is time to banquet,
First empty the bowels;
Next, present a napkin & water to the hands….
In winter, let the water be warmed.
Let the knives on the table be clean.
Let the napkin be white as snow, the water clear from the
stream.
Let the basins be cleaned both inside and out.
Let the salt be snow-white and clean, likewise the salt
cellar.
The top slice goes to the lord.
Cut it in the
middle, but not completely;
Half the bread is to be eaten at the
table.
Let plates, bowls, and cups be free from dirt.
The
dishes on the table should be not too many nor too deep.
Let
them have cups and goblets
Great, medium or small, at the master’s pleasure
No
hand presumes to pour water on the dishes.
If basins are
lacking, use cups to hold water.
Serve food and drink in order
to those feasting.
The rustic table is not yours, while you have
days before you.
Put a white tablecloth on the table,
White, though
worn [?], it can be used on the table.
Dirty or torn, it goes to
the washerwomen.
With salt knives, servants put bread and
drink.
Put out spoons when stew is served.
The maitre d’
smoothly manages the service.
First the dishes are given to the senior person.
Pork
with beef and lamb
Goose, chickens, fat capons,
Meat of
lamb, pork, veal..
Most of what follows
is an itemization of dishes, sometimes in regard to what is
appropriate to each person’s rank, interspersed with remarks on
etiquette:
At dinner, use fingers, not knives, to pick up salt
When salting fresh fish…
The meal done, be sure to break up
The bread on the table for the needy
For those who have it by right [?]. The maitre d’
Will not return sprinkled salt to the holders.
The napkins removed, hands are offered for the water.
Do it sparingly so that is does not flow from the hands.
Present the napkin under the hands…
While it is being carried, put the napkin on the
shoulder;
...Remember first to offer the flow to the priest
If he is a guest; as he washes his fingers,
Pour the water on his hands, then serve
Another
guest, as if at command.
In wiping his hands, he does not wipe his teeth with the
napkin.
Meanwhile, thanks are given to the ruler [the host?]…
(Note the extensive
interest in the use of salt and in washing.)
Point the knife handles towards the guest;
Do not honor the salt-cellar with the table knives…
Do not press cheese or butter onto bread with your thumb.
Whatever you eat, if soft, move it
With a knife or a crust of bread; take a napkin
To put the crust in hollowed bread.
Dining with bread, eat it, don’t wolf it down.,
Let not the host sit at his own table.
Do not lick the knife, nor wipe it in
Crushed eggs; broken bread replaces a knife.
At the table, do not soil the chest or the palms
Or
the napkin holding the spoons for the salt cellar.
If a vessel is wanting, let the ground be the vessel….
If bread, meat or fish falls from the table,
Put it back on the table, do not eat it.
Hard-boiled or fried eggs require no instructions.
Do not dig into the egg with your finger or thumb,
Wicker, straw, grass; move only a knife.
Guests do not divide an egg in half.
The hard white, pressed between palms,
Shorn of its shell, first you do not eat [sic],
Then the yolk...
Urbanus Magnus
is believed to have been written during Henry II’s reign. It of
course outlines an ideal. Around 1177, Peter of Blois gave a negative
account of actual conditions at Henry II’s court (here in
Coulton’s
1910 translation):
For (to return to the courtiers) they know neither order
nor reason nor measure in their meals, or in their ridings abroad, or
in their nightly watchings. Court chaplains and knights are served
with bread hastily made, without leaven, from the dregs of the
ale-tub-leaden bread, bread of tares, bread unbaken. The wine is
turned sour or mouldy; thick, greasy, stale, flat, and smacking of
pitch [from the cask]. I have sometimes seen even great lords served
with wine so muddy that a man must needs close his eyes and clench
his teeth, wry-mouthed and shuddering, and filtering the stuff rather
than drinking. The ale which men drink in that place is horrid to the
taste and abominable to the sight. There also, (such is the concourse
of people), sick and whole beasts are sold at random, with fishes
even four days old; yet shall not all this corruption and stench
abate one penny of the price; for the servants reck not whether an
unhappy guest fall sick or die, so that their lords' tables be served
with a multitude of dishes; we who sit at meat must needs fill our
bellies with carrion, and become graves (as it were) for sundry
corpses. Many more would die of such corrupt stuff, but that the
ravenous clamour of our maw, and the Scyllaean whirlpool of that dark
abyss, with the help of laborious exercise, consumeth all at last.
Yet even so, if the court dwell longer than usual in any town, some
courtiers are ever left behind to die. I cannot endure (to say
nothing of others) the vexations of the royal stewards-fawning
flatterers, wicked backbiters, unprincipled extortioners: wearisome
with their importunities for gifts, ungrateful for benefits received,
malignant to all such as are loth to give again and again. I have
known many who have dealt liberal largesse to such stewards; yet,
when with much labour they had sought their lodging after a long
day's journey, while their supper was yet half-cooked, or again while
they sat at meat-nay, even while they slept on their bed, these
stewards would come swelling with pride and contumely,..
In abbeys where
silence was enforced, it was not unusual to use signs, as at Cluny,
to communicate. But Gerald Cambrensis shows that these did not
prevent impropriety (here in Coulton’s translation):
Sitting then in that hall with the Prior and the greater
monks at the high table he noted there, as he was wont to relate, two
things; that is to say, the excessive superfluity of signs, and the
multitude of the dishes. For
the Prior sent so many gifts of meat to the monks who served him, and
they on their part to the lower tables, and the recipients gave so
many thanks and were so profuse in their gesticulations of fingers
and hands and arms and in the whisperings whereby they avoided open
speech, (wherein all showed a most unedifying levity and licence,)
that Gerald felt as if he were sitting at a stage play or among a
company of actors and buffoons; for it would be more appropriate to
their Order and to their honourable estate to speak modestly in plain
human speech than to use such a dumb garrulity of frivolous signs and
hissings.
(Gerald then describes the dietary excess reported under
“Fasting”.)
Equipment
and infrastructure
The list of equipment for the Hirschau abbey (based on those at Cluny) applies of
course to a monastery but gives insight into such equipment in other
large households as well:
Of kitchen utensils.
These are the utensils
which should never be missing in the kitchen. First, three cauldrons,
one for beans, one for vegetables, and the third together with an
iron tripod, so that if anyone wants to wash his feet, he can make
soap. Four vessels, one reserved for beans, when they are thus
half-cooked; the other into which the water-pipe spills, and in which
the vegetables are washed before they are thrown into the cauldron;
the third in which is a dish [sic], the fourth for this only,
so that hot water may be sent into the chamber for washing and
shaving, which the brothers use between shaving; and they must warm
those served in the previous week. Likewise, four spoons, one for the
beans, the other for the vegetables, and the third, not too large,
but moderately for the pressing out of fat; the fourth is iron, for
covering the hearth with ashes, there is also a forceps of the same
kind for which it is to be assembled or disassembled. Likewise, four
pairs of sleeves, lest the thread of the brothers’ sleeves be
soiled by the blackening of the household kitchen.
There
are also two pairs of palmaria, which are so called in
Romanesque, which protect the hands from the heat of the cauldron,
when it has been freshly removed from the fire, which must be moved
or tilted. The three hand-towels, which are changed every Thursday,
and the hands at least usually wipe the brothers' hand towels [?],
which hang in the cloister. One knife for cutting bacon, and at the
same time a knife for sharpening. One pan to heat the water, if
needed, and to pour the fat. The other, which is very small, has been
slightly pierced in the bottom, so that the fat itself can be
strained through it. One box in which the salt is stored, and one
chest, in which small things are stored. One pot, with which the
water is drawn, and two brushes, with which the kettles are swept
after cooking. Two cuttings of nets, used for washing dishes and
cauldrons. Two tables for dishes, one which is changed daily in the
evening; if, however, they are put after the meal, they may be
washed: the other in the early morning, which must be washed to
perfection. Two seats, which are commonly called benches; one
four-legged and low chair, on which is placed the vessel with the
vegetables, when they are to be put into the cauldron. One stone,
even larger than a millstone, on which the cauldron is again placed,
whether it be beans or vegetables that are being served; the other
over which the other vessel is placed, from which the bowl is washed
between refreshments. One of the bellows to blow while lighting the
fire. One small fan for the air. One pole for the undercarriage of
cauldrons; the other to extinguish the fire. One channel in which
there is always soap, because of the frequent washing of hands. Two
of the tigronis [?], each of the three trigonis,
are also included in the order. It is customary for the fire to be
made at odd angles, which can be turned this way and that in the
manner of doors. On these hang a chain, by which the kettles are
suspended, and when suspended, they are filled with water near the
water pipe, and thus they are brought down without effort as far as
the fire.
It should also be known that there is no need to
regulate anything else that is cooked in the kitchen, besides beans
and vegetables, and not even any other kind of legume. But if the
beans are missing, they do not omit to sing the aforesaid course and
psalmody there; because he does not allow them to occupy themselves
with another manifold service, such as feeding the fodder, heating
the water for the washing of kettles and dishes, cooking bacon with
vegetables, and afterwards pressing out the fat, and other similar
things which necessity itself teaches should not be left
undone.
Moreover, even when the beans are so young, and
for certain delicacies they are seasoned with pepper, they are not
cooked by the brothers but by the servants.
We have a curious, if incomplete, glimpse from around
1100 of supplies for a trip: “"By means of money is taken
that travel allowance, from which necessaries are bought. But cheese,
bread, pepper, candles, or the like are usually placed in the bag,
and therefore everything necessary on the road is received through
it. By these two things, then, all travel allowance is prohibited."
Sometime after 1129, Abelard wrote (here in Moncrieff’s
translation) of material concerns in founding a monastery:
In determining the place of the monastery itself, as
Saint Benedict also counselled, it is thus if possible to be provided
that within the precincts of the monastery there may be contained
those things especially which are necessary to monasteries; namely a
garden, water, a mill, a bakehouse with oven, and places wherein the
sisters may perform their daily tasks, that no occasion be furnished
for straying without..
... And so the brethren shall procure all things without,
and the sisters those things only that are proper to be done within
by women, to wit the putting together of the garments, those of the
brethren also, or the washing of them, the kneading of bread also,
and the handing of it to be baked, and taking of it when baked. To
them shall pertain also the charge of the milk, and of those things
that are made therefrom, and the feeding of hens or geese and what
things soever women can do more conveniently than men.…
The Cellaress shall have charge of all those things that
pertain to victuals, of the cellar, the refectory, the kitchen, the
mill, the bakehouse with the oven, the gardens also and the orchards,
and the whole cultivation of the fields; of all bees also, herds and
flocks; or of the necessary birds. Of her shall be required
whatsoever shall be necessary in the matter of food. ….
Also in the twelfth century, Neckam itemized kitchenware (here in
Holmes’ translation):
In a kitchen there should be a small table on which
cabbage may be minced, and also lentils, peas, shelled beans, beans
in the pod, millet, onions, and other vegetables of the kind that can
be cut up.
There should be also pots, tripods, a mortar, a hatchet,
a pestle, a stirring stick, a hook, a cauldron, a bronze vessel, a
small pan, a baking pan, a meathook, a griddle, small pitchers, a
trencher, a bowl, a platter, a pickling vat, and knives for cleaning
fish. In a vivarium let fish be kept, in which they can be caught by
net, fork, spear, or light hook, or with a basket. The chief cook
should have a cupboard in the kitchen where he may store away
aromatic spices, and bread flour sifted through a sieve-and used also
for feeding small fish-may be hidden away there. Let there be also a
cleaning place where the entrails and feathers of ducks and other
domestic fowl can be removed and the birds cleaned. Likewise there
should be a large spoon for removing foam and skimming. Also there
should be hot water for scalding fowl.
Have a pepper mill and a hand mill. Small fish for
cooking should be put into a pickling mixture, that is, water mixed
with salt… To be sure, pickling is not for all fish, for these are
of different kinds: mullets, soles, sea eels, lampreys, mackerel,
turbot, sperlings, gudgeons, sea bream, young tunnies, cod, plaice,
stargazers, anglers, herring, lobsters fried in half an egg,
bogues, sea mullets, and oysters. There should also be a garde-robe
pit through which the filth of the kitchen may be evacuated. In the
pantry let there be shaggy towels, tablecloth, and an ordinary hand
towel which shall hang from a pole to avoid mice. Knives should be
kept in the pantry, an engraved saucedish, a saltceller, a cheese
container, a candelabra, a lantern, a candlestick, and baskets.
In the cellar or storeroom should be casks, tuns,
wineskins, cups, cup cases, spoons, ewers, basins, baskets, pure
wine, cider, beer, unfermented wine, mixed wine, claret, nectar,
mead... piment, pear wine, red wine, wine from Auvergne, clove-spiced
wine for gluttons whose thirst is unquenchable…
Summing
up
While sparsely documented, the food of the High Middle Ages peeks
through surviving documents enough to show it as specific to the time
between the Early and Late Middle Ages. Pepper, which had been
important in the Early Middle Ages, now became dominant almost to the
point of exclusivity. Rather than being followed by cumin in use, it
now was often used with that spice. Garlic, not mentioned as a
flavoring in the Early Middle Ages, now became a major flavoring. While
it would remain important in some later recipes, this era appears to
have been its heyday. Vinegar and pepper stands out as a unique
sauce, where early medieval sauces often used richer mixtures
and late medieval sauces became very complex. Greens, a key component in early medieval recipes and supply lists, are almost completely absent from surviving descriptions of high medieval dishes. Hints of sauces
thickened with bread crumbs appear and would be more common later.
Specific sauces – green sauce and Poitevin sauce – are seen for
the first time. Several elements characteristic of late medieval food
now begin to peek through: verjuice, pastry (food in crusts), piment
and claret, échaudés and nieulles (light wafers). Fasting progressed to the point that weekly fasting was standard for
lay people, but eggs and dairy remained acceptable for abstinent
eating, as they would not be later. Trades groups began to appear,
along with the first statutes for municipal bread, which would soon
become common across France.
Overall, in terms of food, the era appears very much as the intermediate period it is, bridging the last years of Carolingian rule, when Roman influence had faded, but little specific had replaced it and the start of the era best known today for its medieval food, the Late Middle Ages.
