Food, Eating and Identity in Early Medieval England by Frantzen Allen J.;

Author:Frantzen, Allen J.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781782043218
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Group Ltd
Published: 2014-05-25T16:00:00+00:00

Iron and texts

Food objects in iron are hardly more prominent in texts than they are in archaeological data. Texts refer to smiths and smithies in both practical and mythical contexts, with examples as different as the Chronicle of Evesham, with its account of recalcitrant smiths, and The Colloquy.91 Texts that refer to cooking objects made of iron are very rare. The most important is Be gesceadwisan gerefan (Concerning the Discriminating Reeve), discussed in relation to glosses (see Chapter 3). This text draws on glosses that name iron implements related to food production and consumption, and embeds them in lists. The tools include:

wagon-cover, plowing tackle, harrowing tackle, and many things… and also a measure, a fork (or hook), and, for the threshing floor, a flail, and many implements: a pot (bowl), a leaden cauldron, a kettle, a ladle, pans, a crock, a gridiron [a trivet supporting a kettle over fire], dishes, a handled vessel, a large jar for liquids, a tub, a churn, a cheese-vat, a pouch or basket, …

wængewædu, sulhgesidu, egeðgetigu & fela ðinga, … ge eac mete, awel & to odene fligel & andlamena fela: hwer, lead, cytel, hlædel, pannan, crocca, brandiren, dixas, stelmelas, cyfa, cyflas, cyrne, cysfæt, ceodan, …

One hint of the list’s literary heritage is the alliteration of the last words. A second list, which also has an academic origin, includes many implements of iron, including the auger, awl, adze, curry-comb, and others:

axe, adze, bill, awl, plane, saw, spoke-shave, tie hook, auger, mattock, crowbar, share, coulter, and also goad-iron, scythe, sickle, hoe, spade, shovel, woad-trowel, barrow, broom, mallet, rake, fork, ladder, curry-comb and shears, fire-tongs, steelyard.

æcse, adsan, bil, byrse, scafan, sage, cimbiren, tigehoc, næfebor, mattuc, ippingiren, scear, culter & eac gadiren, siðe, sicol, weodhoc, spade, scofle, wadspitel, bærwan, besman, bytel, race, geafle, hlædre, horscamb & sceara, fyrtange, wæipundern.92

Many of the tools in this list would have had agricultural uses, among them the coulter, hoe, spade, and shovel.

These are the only lists of food-related ironwork in Old English. Mark Gardiner associates only a few of these objects with the kitchen. Those likely to have been made of iron include hwer (small cauldron); lead (leaden vessel); cytel (large cauldron); hlædel (ladle); pannan (pans); and brandiren (gridiron). Two were probably made of wood: dixas (dishes) and stelmelas (scoop). The crocca was earthenware. Most of the containers are associated with the dairy, including cyfa, cyflas, cyrne, cysfæt, and ceodan, all of these likely to have been made of wood. Two of these items, cyfa and cyflas, might also have been found in the kitchen. Gardiner assigns other objects found in these two lists (not included in my excerpts above) to the pantry, known in Old English as the cellarium or meteclyf, or the lardarium or spichus, both words found only in glosses. It is not possible to tell if the pantry formed a recognized workspace in the Anglo-Saxon home or on estates (it would have been likely only in manor houses, in any case). Objects Gardiner assigns to the pantry might

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