The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century

by Ian Mortimer

  As a result of this dependence on the market, food is both better and worse in a town than in the country. There are specialist cooks, who will prepare meat pies and pasties and sell them in the street, either from their cookshops or by wandering around with their wares. Meat is brought into town to be sold, and as there is no particular reason to farm an animal once it has arrived, townsmen are readier to buy and eat young ones, especially lambs and kids, which are less chewy and better tasting. More and more white bread is eaten in the towns and cities over the course of the century. Old men and women in the 1390s will tell you how their grandfathers who grew up in the country used to eat nothing but rye bread, vegetables, and the odd bit of boiled pork; but now they eat lamb and beef and regularly enjoy the luxury of white bread. Nor do they go without fruit. Apples are plentiful in the markets, as are plums and cherries (in season). More exotic fruit, such as oranges, figs, and pomegranates, are imported in small quantities, although you will only find such luxury items at a fair or in the market of a major city.

  Victuallers’ Prices, London, 13638

  Item

  Price

  Item

  Price

  Best goose

  6d

  A woodcock

  3d

  Best suckling pig

  8d

  A partridge

  5d

  Best capon

  6d

  A pheasant

  2d

  A hen

  4d

  Leg of roast mutton

  2½d

  Best rabbit

  4d

  Baked capon in pastry

  7d

  A teal

  2½d

  Roast goose

  7d

  A mallard

  5d

  Best carcass of mutton

  24d

  Four larks

  1d

  Best loin of beef

  5d

  A snipe

  1½d

  Best leg of pork

  3d

  Herein lies the advantage of the town. If you have sufficient money you do not need to grow things for yourself; you can just buy what you need. Moreover, in the larger markets you can obtain many things which are unavailable anywhere else. If you want to buy sugar, wine, almonds, dates, aniseed, licorice, sweetmeats, nutmeg, cinnamon, pepper, coriander, currants, raisins, figs, cloves, ginger, salt, rice, treacle—you name it—the market is the place to go. All these things are available in London in 1390. The list above is from one single account of Henry of Lancaster, drawn up by his officers as they prepare for a sea voyage.9 The key issue is cost. One pound of licorice is only Id but a pound of green ginger costs 2s, a pound of cloves more than 4s, and a pound of saffron 10s. A pound of orange conserve (”citronade”) costs 3s, as much as a skilled laborer earns in nine days. Can you imagine working for nine days for one pound of orange marmalade, or that it should cost a third as much as saffron by weight? Small wonder that the poor skip breakfast.

  Not all spices are prohibitively expensive. In town you will discover that the better-off—and that includes the master craftsmen and prosperous officials, lawyers, and physicians as well as the merchants—have a range of spices in their cupboards, which they often keep locked away. Pepper is one of the most popular, costing 20d to 22d per pound. Nutmeg may be obtained for 18d per pound. A cheaper way of buying spices is to opt for a mixture made up by the spicerer. These are sorts of curry powder: powder forte (strong) which contains ginger, pepper, and mace; and powder douce (mild, also known as powder blanche), which contains ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and possibly sugar and cloves. Talking of sugar, you will be amazed by the number of forms in which it comes. At the spice shop you will find an array of unrefined brown loaves weighing several pounds each and delicate cakes of refined sugar (”caffetin,” 18d per pound in 1390), red and white flat sugars (cheaper, 12d per pound), Cyprus sugar (cheaper still, at 8d per pound), and then all the derivatives: pot sugar, sugar water, sugar syrup, rose sugar, violet sugar, and barley sugar. The level of refining makes the difference between the cheapest sugars and the most expensive. Interestingly they are all used as spices (not as sweeteners) in sauces to accompany meat and fish dishes, especially those using vinegar, or in fruit pottages.

  Although the foregoing makes the town sound appetizing, remember that town dwellers face at least two distinct food-related threats. The first arises from their lack of control of the food supply. If there is no grain, then there is no bread. If the price of grains escalates, and the town authorities try to insist on the prices established by the Assize of Bread, then the bakers are liable to go on strike. Without bread, the town quickly grinds to a halt and disorder breaks out. The second problem arises from having so many middlemen in the food chain. How can the town authorities police the sale of foodstuffs? It is very difficult. When a wild pig is seen dead in a street, and then suddenly disappears, people do not know whether it has been cleared up or cooked. Often they are right to suspect it has been disposed of in their take-away pies. London records are full of cases where a dead pig has been decomposing in the town ditch for a week or so and then ends up being scavenged by a pie-maker. Sometimes medieval people take recycling too far.

  A major difference between dining in the country and in a town is the access to different sorts of drink, especially wine. Even a small barrel from a vintner costs between 8s and 10s. This is beyond the reach of a modest yeoman’s income. However, proprietors of urban taverns buy wine in bulk and sell by the cup. In this way, at a cost of a ½d or Id, many people can afford to drink a small amount of wine. Of course the cost varies, depending on how sweet the wine is and where it comes from. Most red wine drunk in England is from Gascony the area around Bordeaux (although it is not yet called claret).10 This sells for between 3d and 4d per gallon to bulk purchasers—more if being purchased by the cup. Twice as expensive is Rhenish wine, from the Rhine, costing between 6d and 8d a gallon wholesale. The wines of Rochelle and Spain—such as Lepe, a strong Spanish white wine, or Osey another Spanish white—are comparable in price to that of Bordeaux. Sweet wines from Greece, Crete, and Cyprus sometimes called Romonye and Malvesey (or Malmesey) are about the same price. Cheapest of all is English wine, which is only ever white and normally half the price of Gascon wine. It is scarce, however. Most wine production in England is carried out by the nobility and clergy for their own use. It rarely appears in taverns.

  As taverns generally sell wine, not ale, they tend to be quite upmarket establishments. Given their numbers—there are 354 of them in London in 1309—it is not surprising that they vary in quality11 Their wine similarly varies. Establishments which sell poor wine tend to attract the rougher sort and are regularly closed down by the authorities. But there are some reputable establishments. An example of the latter will have mazers of silver-edged wood and clean linen cloths on the tables. It will serve professional people, such as clerks, merchants, officials, and the gentry. The taverner, mindful of the importance of a good reputation, will very probably show you the door with polite firmness at closing time (he is responsible for your actions after curfew). The wine itself is stored in a cellar, in its casks, and carried through to you at your table. In case you have any concerns about what you are drinking, ask to see the barrel. The taverner should keep his cellar door open at all times during opening hours and allow you to check the marks on the barrels. In London, prices are fixed by the authorities, so if you think you have been sold cheap wine in place of the best Rhenish vintages, you should be able to check and take the matter further. If guilty, the taverner will probably back down, knowing that if he is caught misselling his wine, he is liable to be fined or closed down, as well as being drawn to the stocks and having his own supply of wine poured over his head.

  If you do happen to wander past the stocks and see a chap with his head and clothes soaked in liquor, the chances are that he is—or was until recently—an alehouse keeper. On the whole these establishments
sell no wine, only ale and sometimes cider and mead. They also sell simple food, such as bread and cheese, and perhaps cheap meat pies. Dark and smelling of stale ale, with rushes strewn across the floor, they can be rowdy establishments, full of adventurers’ tales and bawdy song. Unlike inns (whose main purpose is to provide accommodation to wealthy travelers) they exist to provide entertainment, and consequently are a resort of every sort of interesting character, from carters and wagoners to builders, carpenters, bakers, pilgrims, mummers, cutpurses, prostitutes, fishwives, gongfermors, low-lifers, and roustabouts.

  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 color 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 nonmeat 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 aging Edward Ill’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 honor. 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 aspic. 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 of pork, eggs, pepper, cloves, currants, dates, and sugar all boiled together in a bladder—like haggis—then sliced and served with a rich sauce. Another is “mortrews”: chicken and pork with breadcrumbs, powder forte, sugar, saffron, and salt. Perhaps you would prefer boiled venison with almond milk, onions, rice flour, and wine, colored with alkanet (a dark-red root) and seasoned with powder douce?

  The food is actually prepared in “messes” of two or four portions, which are then shared at the table. Several dishes might be set before you. Do not feel you must empty a mess entirely onto your trencher; you are expected to leave a good proportion of it. Leftovers—including the trenchers—will be given to the poor after the meal. Besides, with five different meat dishes to choose from, you could quite easily stuff yourself sideways in just the first few minutes of the first course. Resist the temptation to do this: dinner will go on for about two hours. There will be three courses, each consisting of several dishes from which you should pick tasty morsels, and each course will be separated by a small, intervening course. As you can see, food in a nobleman’s household is not just about sustenance, it is a matter of honor.

  After the first course of boiled and stewed meats in piquant sauces, there will be a short interlude for the serving of fruit, nuts, a “subtlety” or intervening course. This is not always something to be eaten; sometimes it is just to be looked at, especially during a great feast. Perhaps you will see the real “four-and-twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.” Bird lovers need not worry: the pie is baked first and allowed to cool. The birds are placed inside alive afterward, so when the pie is opened they do begin to sing—and fly out and swoop around the hall.

  The second course consists of roast flesh. This is where the lord shows off, with exotic meats delicately carved. There will be meaty pottages and meats in aspic as well as a selection of roast venison, fawn, kid, baby rabbit (a coney under one year old), bustard, stork, crane, peacock, heron, partridge, woodcock, plover, egret, larks . . . This list could go on much longer. As the boys will tell you, every one of these animals has to be carved in its own particular way. A mallard is not carved but “unbraced.” To cut up a hen is to “spoil” it. Herons are “dismembered,” coneys “unlaced,” and so on. If you are young enough to be serving in a lord’s household, you will need to learn all these terms and how to wield a pair of carving knives (there are no forks). When the marshal of the hall directs you to “sauce that capon,” “break that deer,” or “display that crane” you need to know which are the tastiest morsels for presentation to the lord. This is not easy, especially with almost no light in winter except that shed by a rushlight and the kitchen fires.

  Remember when picking out the tasty morsels during the second course to save some room for the third. The smallest, most delicate animals are normally served at this point, such as roast curlew, sparrows, and martinets (a kind of swallow). Alongside these you might be served baked quinces, damsons in wine, apples and pears with sugar or syrup, fruit compotes, or a fruit pottage. The upper-class English are just as fond of their fruit as their underlings. Plums, damsons, cherries, and grapes are served before dinner, to whet the appetite. Pears, nuts, strawberries, whinberries, apples, and mixtures of fruit tend to be served afterwards, as the season allows. Spiced baked apples and pears are popular, especially in winter. At the end, there will be a cheese course, if you still have room. With a drink of hippocras—a spiced red wine—and wafers, the meal is finally over. Your trenchers and the uneaten remains are cleared away by the servants and boys, who then either surreptitiously eat the lord’s leftovers themselves or pass them to the almoner for division among the poor who may already be arriving at the manor gatehouse.

  The above menu is only for meat days. For the other 194 or 195 days of the year (Advent, Lent, and every Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday) the diet switches to fish. Does the food at the top table become modest and humble, reflecting the religious nature of this custom? Not a bit! On a fish day you might be served a first course of lampreys baked in vinegar, pepper, ginger, and cinnamon; minnows or eels in a pie; baked herrings with sugar; pike in “galantyne” (a very popular sauce made with cinnamon, galingale, ginger, salt, breadcrumbs, vinegar, and stock); or poached mulwell or gurnard. After that lot you will move up the fish ladder to taste more highly prized varieties. Options for the second course include conger eel, doree and salmon in syrup; or roasted turbot, halibut, sea bass, mullet, trout, bream, sole, eels, and lampreys. Henry IV has been known to spend as much as 7s on a single turbot.12 In the 1330s you will often find pike and bream on the menu in the royal household, these being specifically purchased by Edward III for special occasions.13 It is possible that towards the end of the century you will be offered a carp, although the taste for it is really something which belongs to the next century.14

  By the time
you get to the third course, you will have realized that the religious prohibition against eating meat is seen as no obstacle to culinary excess by the majority of England’s nobility and gentry. For it is at this point that the really special fish are served. Sturgeon comes top of the list: a fresh sturgeon is a rarity—normally it will be barreled and pickled, to preserve it—but if you can get hold of one, you can expect to pay in the region of 35s.15 Like salmon, bream, tench, and pike, it is deemed suitable to be given as a present from an earl or duke to a king. Salmon in rich sauces is the very favorite food of one of the great fighting heroes of the century, namely Henry, first duke of Lancaster. Accompanying dishes might include sea bream, perch in aspic, fried herring, and seafood (especially whelks, mussels, and shrimps). But even this list hardly does justice to the enormous range of the cooks. It is not so much that many fish have been left off this list—one could add whiting, plaice, ling, loach, luce, flounder, haddock, swordfish, dace, dogfish, hake, and perhaps two dozen other varieties—but that there is wide scope for including animals which you would never expect to eat. Whales are technically the property of the king, but generally they are eaten by everyone in the vicinity when they are beached. Seals, porpoises, dolphins, barnacle geese, puffins, and beavers are all classed as fish as their lives begin in the sea or in a river. Hence they are eaten gleefully, even on nonmeat days. Medieval knowledge of the fish at sea might be limited—the chronicler Thomas Walsingham believes that dolphins can fly over the sails of ships—but once landed, and brought to the kitchen, they are perfectly understood. You only need to hear the terms of carving—”sauce that plaice,” “barb that lobster,” “splat that pike,” “culpon that trout,” “tranche that sturgeon”—to know that these men are no amateurs.16