The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century by Mortimer Ian

Author:Mortimer, Ian [Mortimer, Ian]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781448103782
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2012-02-29T00:00:00+00:00

Noble Households

When it comes to good food, the nobleman’s table is the place to be. The very best cuisine, and the greatest variety, is served directly to the lord himself at dinner. Long after the grooms and valets have consumed their rations and left the hall, the nobleman will continue eating with his companions, seeing more courses placed before him. The same is the case at supper, even though that is a smaller, less ostentatious meal. At breakfast, the trestle tables will not even be set up for the servants. They have work to do, and there is a belief that too much food makes the worker indolent. Thus the nobleman’s hall represents a spectrum of food quality and quantity, from relatively small amounts of basic pottage at the lower end of the hall to the most expensive dishes and lavish use of colour and spices at the top table.

Food and drink in a lord’s residence is based on a series of rules and regulations far more complicated than seasonal availability and economic necessity. In addition to the non-meat rules set by the Church, late-fourteenth-century aristocratic households are expected to follow legislation restricting the quantities of food. From 1363 even a lord is limited by law to five dishes at any meal: this being part of the ageing Edward III’s attempts to control extravagance. By this same legislation, gentlemen are allowed only three dishes and grooms two. Of these two, one may be of meat or fish. Although this law is not always followed to the letter, it nevertheless gives you an idea of the level of protocol to expect. Do you rank as high as a gentleman? If you do, you can expect to be seated alongside the gentlemen of the household and fed accordingly.

Let us suppose you have been assigned a place at the top table, along the bench to the right of the nobleman – a position of high honour. Before actually taking your seat, you will have to wash your hands. One servant, the ewerer, will pour the water; it is caught in a bowl beneath your hands by another servant. There is no soap but a third servant will hand you a towel. Then grace is said by the lord’s chaplain, and the first course is brought in and placed before the lord. He will take a trencher and start to help himself from the dishes laid before him. Once he has had a chance to try them, they are passed around.

The first course normally consists of boiled and baked meats in sauces, perhaps ground-meat in a spiced wine sauce, or meat balls in jelly. An example of a daily first course of five dishes served to a lord is brawn with mustard, a meat pottage (containing beef or mutton, wine, herbs and spices), another meat pottage containing chicken or boiled pork, stewed pheasant or swan, and a meat fritter (normally made with the entrails of animals). ‘Leche Lombard’ is a popular first-course dish, consisting

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