Now it is as certain as that God reigns in heaven, that if one desires
a wedding and a tournament, although the first thought must be of
raiment, the second must be of food and drink. When Conon bids Adela
make ready for the festivities, straightway that prudent dame sends
for the butler and the cellarer and takes account of everything stowed
away in the great vaults under the castle. Then she orders the chief
huntsman muster all his beaters and course the forests, not for sport,
but for victuals. At the same time nets are set out in the Claire;
purveyors with their carts are ordered up from Pontdebois, and a
messenger is even sent to Troyes to bring back a tun of rare Grecian
wine. All available maids from the village are requisitioned to make
great pasties, and a master cook is imported from Paris to prepare
special cakes and pastries. In short, it is no light thing even for
the huge St. Aliquis household to prepare to feed several thousands
without aid of those miracles which caused five loaves and two fishes
to suffice in the days of our Blessed Lord.
For the baron's feast the great fireplace in the bailey cookhouse is
insufficient. They build fires in the open out in the tilt yard or
garden and all day perspiring varlets stand feeding on great logs over
which roast long spits of chickens and geese, or boil caldrons of
meat. In the cookhouse, where the finer dishes must be prepared, the
master cook has a true arsenal of utensils--pots, trivets, mortar and
pestle, a table for mincing herbs, pothooks, caldrons, frying pans and
gridirons, saucepans, platters, a pepper mill, dressing board, scummer,
ladle, and many things else. There is no lack of help in the kitchen.
Half a dozen loutish boys gladly work there all day long (receiving,
incidentally, many of the cook's hard knocks) in return for being
allowed to lick the pans and gnaw the scraps, so cheap is human labor.
[Illustration: COOKS
From a manuscript in the Bodleian Library at Oxford (Wright).]
[Sidenote: Cookery and Mealtimes]
On ordinary days we would marvel at the quantity of boiled meat served
at St. Aliquis. About the only way to preserve meat is to salt it (the
vats of the castle are full of salted meat kept against winter or a
siege), and this flesh must ordinarily be boiled. The result is that a
great copper meat pot seems always in action, with a boy pumping the
bellows to make the caldron bubble. But fowls and fresh meat are often
boiled as well. Butcher's meat, however, is less welcome at feasts than
is game. An ideal dish is a stag, roasted whole in the great fireplace,
crisped and larded, then cut up into quarters and served on very large
plates. Upon such dishes is poured a hot, steaming pepper sauce.
Therefore a stag will be served at the wedding banquet besides many
other kinds of choice game.
[Illustration: PORK BUTCHERS (BOURGES)]
Since there are no iceboxes, unsalted meat must be eaten soon after
being killed, although your feudal epicure is not squeamish. Beef and
mutton are often killed, cut up, and cooked almost on the spot. There
is a story of a butcher who, coming late to a town, got a lodging at
the priest's house, and to pay for his quarters killed the sheep which
they ate for supper. But pork is probably the commonest meat. Conon has
great droves of hogs fattening out in his oak forests, which supply
abundant crops of acorns. Pigs seem to penetrate almost everywhere save
into messire's and madame's chamber. They are the general scavengers
and apparently replace plumbing and sewerage systems. They infest
castle courts and the streets of towns. In 1131 the Crown Prince of
France was killed in Paris by a pig which ran between the legs of his
horse as he rode from the Hotel de Ville to the Church of St. Gervais.
People will tell you that pork promotes leprosy, but, nevertheless,
they devour it. Pork, too, is the main substance of those great
sausages and black puddings in which everybody delights, especially
on Easter, when you break your Lenten fast with as much heavy food as
possible. Veal, too, is desirable, as is the flesh of kids; but lamb is
by no means so much in favor.
Almost all kinds of birds are counted edible. Herons, cranes, storks,
cormorants, and such fowl as can be taken by hawks are in preference,
but crows are considered very fair eating. The flock of stately
swans by the mouth of the Rapide has just been depleted, for these
elegant birds are kept for the kitchen rather than for ornament. As
for small fowl--thrushes, starlings, blackbirds, quail, partridges,
and cuckoos--the varlets can bring in as many as possible with their
crossbows and snares. Young rabbits, likewise, are welcome, but older
rabbits are too tough save for the diet of the least-considered
villeins. Everybody knows the saying, "An old hare and an old goose are
food for the devil!"
There is plenty of poultry around St. Aliquis. Most Christians hold
that birds are of aquatic origin, hence, like fish, can be eaten on
fast days, although the Church opposes this opinion, and is slowly
overcoming it. Chickens have been fattened for the feast by shutting
them up in dark coops and gorging them. Droves of geese have been
coming in from the fields, great honking armies, crowding the narrow
way, hissing and biting, but all propelled steadily ahead by the
cracking whips of the small goosegirls. Ducks are more commonly
preferred in their wild stage; but out in the exercise ground several
peacocks have been preening themselves, and at least two of these are
now sacrificed to make a gala dish to serve the highest seigneurs, for
peacocks are counted especial "food for the brave." Indeed, there is
the old proverb that "thieves have as much taste for falsehood as a
hungry man for a cooked peacock."[29]
Fish is hardly in great request. One is likely to have too much of it
on the numerous fast days. Still, out of the Claire they draw excellent
barbel and eels; there are carp in a near-by pond, and splendid trout
in the brooks that feed the Rapide. The lads bring in many. If you go
to Paris you can eat salt herring taken in the North Sea. All through
the spring, furthermore, the St. Aliquis folk have had their fill of
frogs' legs from the castle moat and the numerous bogs, and Conon has
a "snail bed" to provide snails for garnishings and salads during Lent
and on Fridays.
[Sidenote: Game Birds and Poultry]
One cannot stay at the castle long and not discover the vast importance
of soup. One partakes thereof at least twice per day: "dried peas and
bacon water," watercress soup, cabbage soup, cheese soup, and "poor
man's soup" (made up of odds and ends collected on short warning), and
fish soups for Lent. All the better soups are spiced with marjoram,
sage, and sweet basil, if not with the favorite condiment, pepper. But
what are soups compared with meat pies? Whenever the castle cook is in
doubt how to please their lordships he decides upon a noble pasty. Much
thought has been concentrated upon this subject. There are little poems
to be memorized by illiterate cooks explaining this triumph of their
mystery--_e.g._, that they should use "three young partridges large
and fat, not forgetting six quail put on their side"; add to these
thrushes, some bacon, some sour grapes, and a little salt. Then if all
is made aright, the crust nicely rolled of pure flour, and the "oven of
proper heat with the bottom quite free from ashes," when all is baked
enough "you will have a dish to feast on"! Other pasties can be made
of chickens, venison, salmon, eels, pigeons, geese, and other kinds of
meat. Probably, in fact, more energy goes into making the pasties than
into any other one form of culinary effort.
The St. Aliquis folk are not at all vegetarians, but they cannot
eat meat forever, and the poorer peasants seldom touch flesh save
on important feast days. The cooks have at their disposal onions
and garlic, cabbages and beets, carrots and artichokes, lentils and
both long and broad beans, peas, turnips, lettuce, parsley, water
cress--in short, nearly all the vegetables of a different age save the
all-important potato. Turnips are in favor, and figure in far more
dietaries than they will do later. Cabbages, too, are in request:
there are Roman white cabbages, huge Easter cabbages, and especially
the Senlis cabbages, renowned for their excellent odor. Cucumbers are
supposed to cause fever, but Herman raises some in the garden for the
salads.
As always, bread is the staff of life. Naturally, the villeins
have to use flour that is very coarse and made of barley, rye, or
oats--producing black bread, before which noble folk shudder. It
is one of the signs of messire's prosperity that all his household
are ordinarily fed on white bread. In the castle ovens they make a
great variety of loaves--huge "pope's" or "knight's" loaves, smaller
"squire's" loaves, and little "varlet's" loaves, or rolls. There is a
soft bread made of milk and butter, a dog bread, and two-color bread
of alternate layers of wheat and rye. Then there are the table loaves,
sizable pieces of bread to be spread around the tables, from which
courteous cavaliers will cut all the crust with their knives and pass
the remainder to the ladies, their companions, to soak up in their
soup. The servants have less select common bread, although it is still
wheaten. Finally, there are twice-baked breads, or crackers. These are
often used in monasteries, also in the provisioning of castles against
a siege.
[Sidenote: Breads, Pastries and Cheese]
Fancy jellies, pastries, and sweet dishes are coming into vogue,
although they have not reached the perfection to be attained by later
French cookery; but for the St. Aliquis feast they are able to prepare
great molded structures of lions and suns, made of white chicken and
pink jelly. The quantity of spices used is simply enormous. To enjoy
food thus charged, especially with pepper, is an acquired taste,
which developed following the First Crusade. The cooks, too, use a
liberal supply of mustard, and a favorite sauce is made from strong
garlic. Fresh and pickled olives are sent up from Provence, likewise
a good deal of olive oil; but the oil used in common cooking is often
extracted from walnuts or even from poppies. Another favorite flavoring
is with rose water. All through June you can see great basins of water
filled with rose petals steeping in the sun. The liquor thus obtained
will add zest to sauces for the next twelve months. There is also a
certain whitish substance known as "sugar." It comes from the Levant,
in small irregular lumps. Its flavoring qualities are delightful, but
it is too expensive to use in cookery. A small quantity is passed about
among Conon's higher guests, to be eaten as a confection. The ordinary
sweetening is still that of the Greeks and Romans, honey, supplied from
the well-kept hives of the bees belonging to the monastery.
Cheeses hardly figure in feasts, but for everyday diet they are
important. On feast days they often replace meat. Their varieties are
legion--white, green, large, small, etc. Some places produce famous
cheeses exported all over France, and in Paris one can hear the street
venders shrilly chanting:
"Buy my cheese from Champagne,
Or my cheese from Brie!"
As for eggs and butter, they are gifts of the kindly saints, to carry
men through Lent and fast days. Theologians have said that hens were
aquatic creatures, like other birds; that hence good Christians could
eat their eggs freely. But butter (by some unaccountable notion) if
eaten during times of abstinence, must be freshly churned. It must not
be salted, nor used for cooking purposes.
Passing next to beverages, be it said that the St. Aliquis denizens are
fairly abstemious folk. All of them sometimes get tipsy, even Adela
and Alienor, but only seldom. Conon's servants help him to bed once or
twice per year. Down in the villages there are disgraceful guzzlings
among the peasants, especially on saints' days. But the beverages are
not very alcoholic--one must absorb a great deal to be really upset.
The region grows its own wine for ordinary consumption, and a little
thereof is shipped to Paris and even to Flanders and England, along
with the more famous vintages of Gascony, Saintonge, Macon, Rheims,
the Marne, and the Orleanais. The most desirable French wine is that
of St. Pourcain, in Auvergne, and the baron has a carefully cherished
tun of the same in his cellars. Poems, indeed, exist in praise of this
St. Pourcain wine, "which you drink for the good of your health." On
occasions of great state, however, imported wines will be produced,
mainly because they are unusual and expensive. The St. Aliquis feasters
are consequently offered heady Cyprian and Lesbian from the Levant,
also Aquilian from Spain, and not a little Rhenish from the German
lands, less distant.
[Sidenote: Wine, Beer and Other Drinks]
In the autumn when the apples and pears are falling, the peasants will
make cider and perry, and get outrageously drunk when these beverages
grow hard; but outside of Normandy such drink seldom appeals to castle
folk. There are also in common use many substitute wines, really
infusions of wormwood, hyssop, and rosemary, and taken mostly to clear
the system; although "nectar" made of spices, Asiatic aromatics, and
honey is really in request.
The great competitor of wine is beer. In northern France we are in the
dividing zone between the land of the winepress and the land of the
brewhouse. Everybody drinks beer and makes beer. The castle has a great
brewhouse; likewise the monastery. Beer is made of barley, and only
late in the Middle Ages will hops be added to add to the zest. Really
fine beer is _god-ale_ (from the German "good" and "ale") or "double
beer." Common beer is "small beer." Since the Crusaders have returned
from the East, spiced beer has been growing in favor--charged with
juniper, resin, gentian, cinnamon, and the like, until the original
taste has been wholly destroyed.
The St. Aliquis folk do not, however disdain buttermilk. This they
like to ferment, boil up with onions and garlic, then cool in a closed
vessel. The product is _serat_, the enjoyment of which is surely
difficult for a stranger.
Another form of beverage is not quite unknown. Some physicians
prescribe water of gold and allege it "prolongs health, dissipates
superfluous matters, revives the spirits, and promotes youth." Also it
"greatly assists the cure of colic, dropsy, paralysis, and ague." Of
a surety, it aids the patient temporarily to forget his troubles. Yet
this is hardly more than a costly medicine. Many years later it will
become more common; but its name will be changed to "brandy."
The usages even of a great dinner depend largely on the customs of
everyday life. One cannot understand the splendors of the marriage
feast of Sire Olivier and Alienor without knowing what goes on
regularly in the hall of St. Aliquis.
When the day is started we have seen how everybody arises to a very
light breakfast of bread and wine, although sometimes, as in the epic
of Doon of Mayence, when the work promises to be arduous, the baron's
squire may bring him a favorite pasty because "eating early in the
morning brings health and gives one greater courage and spirit." Dinner
also, we have discovered, can begin as early as nine in the morning,
and a good part of the day's business comes after this heavy meal.
Sometimes when dinner is late you do not serve your guests any regular
supper, but when they go to bed have the attendants bring cakes and
fruits and wine. If you entertain guests, however, always it is proper
to try to make them eat and drink as much as possible. There is a story
of an overhospitable Count of Guines who not merely constrained any
knight passing through his dominions to a feast, but kept quantities of
white wine always on hand, so that if his visitors asked to have their
red wine diluted with water, they might be hoodwinked by seeing a white
liquid mixed in their goblets. In this way he once rendered the whole
suite of a bishop gloriously intoxicated!
The ingenious Bartolomes of Granvilla has laid down the following
requisites for an ideal banquet: (1) a suitable hour, not too early
nor too late; (2) a pleasant place; (3) a gracious and liberal host;
(4) plenty to eat, so one may choose one's dishes; (5) the same as
to things to drink; (6) willing servants; (7) agreeable company;
(8) pleasant music; (9) plenty of light; (10) good cooking; (11) a
seasonable conclusion; (12) quiet and repose afterward. A marriage
feast and a tourney can hardly provide this twelfth desideratum, but
they ought, with proper management, to supply everything else.
[Illustration: SERVANTS BRINGING THE FOOD TO THE TABLE
From a manuscript of the thirteenth century in the library of Munich
(Schultz).]
[Sidenote: Service at Table]
The tables for the notables are laid and served by two classes of
attendants; first by Conon's three squires, aided on this grand
occasion by several young nobles who have actually received knighthood;
second, by the older professional servitors of villein stock. The
first class of attendants are resplendent in bliauts of colored silk
with fur trimmings. Most of the dishes will be passed to them by the
soberly clad villeins, then to be presented on bended knee by noble
hands to noble guests. The whole process is under Sire Eustace, the old
seneschal, who orders about his platoons of attendants with as much
precision as he might command the men at arms for defense of the castle.
It is part of a squire's education to learn to wait on table. One
may have to do this for some superior all one's life, unless one be
king or emperor! Conon's squires have been taught to stand at perfect
ease; not to roll their eyes or stare blankly; not to laugh save when
guests are laughing; to keep their finger nails clean and hands well
washed. If they sit at table themselves they are models of propriety.
They do not gobble down their food, but put a little from every
plate into the basket of collected leavings for the poor; they do not
chatter, nor fill their mouths too full, nor chew on both sides of the
mouth at once, nor laugh or talk with a mouthful, nor make a noise by
overeating, nor handle cats or dogs during mealtime, nor wipe their
knives on the tablecloth, nor pick their teeth publicly, nor wipe their
noses with their fingers, nor (last but not least) spit across the
table or beyond it.[30]
The tables are nearly always long and narrow. In the great hall they
are fixed and of heavy oak planks, but there are plenty of light tables
of boards to be set on horses, if the seneschal suddenly says, "The
weather is fine; Messire will dine in the garden." The favored guests
are provided with cushions, and, of course, in the hall the baron
and his immediate friends and family sit on the long master-seat on
the dais, facing the company, and with the baron's own chair under a
canopy. This canopy is the sign of high seigneurial privilege. One
will be set for Conon even when he sits in the garden; and he will
never surrender his place save when he entertains a superior, like his
suzerain the duke, or when, as at present, all other claims fade before
those of a bridal couple.
Indoors or outdoors, it is no mean art to lay the tables. Enormous
tablecloths have to be spread out smoothly, and set with napkins neatly
doubled; also at each place a suitable drinking vessel, and a knife and
spoon. These articles, gold or silver, are carefully handed out by the
seneschal. They represent a good fraction of the portable wealth of the
castle and must be laboriously counted before and after use. The knives
are sharp steel for serious business. The drinking cups are often of
bizarre forms--lions, birds, and dragons, while for the humbler folk
there are huge cups of wood and also large "jacks" of leather. At every
place, too, there must be a good-sized cake of fine white flour, and
between every two places there is a large porringer (pewter or silver)
to be shared by each pair of guests.
[Sidenote: Entering the Dining Hall]
Feast day or fast day, it is the loud blast on trumpets which sends
the mighty and the humble bustling toward the garden or the hall.
Of course, at a wedding feast there is some little formality, but
ordinarily in the St. Aliquis household the good-natured jostling
and scampering is prodigious. Men and women live close to nature and
are always conscious of rousing appetites. On ordinary days when you
entered the baron's hall, you would take your turn at the lavatory
close to the entrance. Here would be several little washstands with
pitchers and basins, and everybody would fall in line in order of
precedence: first, any visiting clergy; then visiting knights; then
the seigneur's family, etc. The hand washing presents a great chance
for flirtation among the young: Olivier and Alienor had great delight
"passing the towel" to each other during their betrothal. But now at a
great festival, when you enter the special banqueting tent you are met
by two handsome varlets. The first holds a water jug and a small basin.
Water is dexterously poured over your fingers, and as promptly wiped
off by the second varlet, and each guest patiently waits until the
persons ahead have enjoyed this courtesy. So they enter the tent, and
the magnates make for the seats of honor.
The placing of the company has been a matter of serious deliberation
between Messire Conon and the sage Sire Eustace. Of course, to-day
the bride and groom take the canopy. At Olivier's right must be the
officiating bishop. At the bishop's right must be the suzerain Duke of
Quelqueparte, and at Olivier's left must be the bride and the Count
and Countess of Perseigne. All that is standardized. But how locate
the dozen other counts and barons who, with their dames, have honored
the bridal? Will the old rival Foretvert stomach it now if he is
seated farther from the canopy than the Count of Maric, who is richer
and of a more ancient house? Bloody feuds have started from failure
to seat guests properly. It is a matter for supreme diplomacy. So far
as possible, a lady is placed beside each cavalier. The two will use
the same dish and the same goblet during the entire feast--obviously
another case where one is compelled to test one's brains while
selecting partners.
[Illustration: YOUNG GIRLS OF THE NOBILITY SERVING AT THE TABLE
From a thirteenth-century manuscript of the library of Munich
(Schultz).]
[Sidenote: Serving the Banquet]
So the feast begins after grace by the bishop. An endless procession
commences between the cookhouse and the banqueting place--boys running
with great dishes which they commit to the more official servitors to
pass to the guests. It is a solemn moment, followed by cheering, when
into the bridal tent, with clash of cymbals and bray of trumpet, Sire
Eustace in a bright scarlet bliaut enters, waving his white wand and
followed by all the squires and upper servants, each carrying shoulder
high a huge dish of some viand. A great haunch of the stag is set on
the table. The baron's carver cuts ample slices, while two jongleurs
blow at their flutes. He holds the meat "by two fingers and a thumb"
(no fork), plying a great knife as a surgeon might his scalpel. Equal
skill is demanded of the cup-bearers when they fill the flagons, not
spilling a drop. Even the bride and groom are now hungry and ready for
the venison.
The banqueters have little need of plates. They take the loaves lying
ready, hack them into thick slices, place the pieces of meat upon
the same, then cut up the meat while it is resting on the bread.
These "trenchers" (_tranchoirs_) will not ordinarily be eaten at the
feast; they go into the great alms basket for the poor, along With
the meat scraps. However, the higher guests to-day enjoy a luxury.
Silver plates are placed under their bread trenchers. For most guests,
however, the bare tablecloth is bottom enough for these substitutes
for the porcelain of another day. Whatever does not go into the alms
basket will be devoured by the baron's dogs, who attend every meal by
prescriptive right. Indeed, early in the feast the Duke of Quelqueparte
benevolently tosses a slice of venison to a fine boarhound.
Time fails to repeat all the good things which Conon and Adela set
before their guests. The idea is to tempt the appetite to utter satiety
by forcing first one dish upon the feasters, and then another. There is
not really a good sequence of courses. Most of the dishes are heavy;
and inasmuch as vegetables are in great demand on common occasions,
the average banquet seems one succession of varieties of meat. The
noble folk in the bridal pavilion have at least a chance to eat their
fill of these comestibles:
[Sidenote: Typical Bills-of-Fare]
First course: Slices of stag, boar's head larded with herb sauce, beef,
mutton, legs of pork, swan, roasted rabbit, pastry tarts.
Second course: Pottage of "drope and rose" mallard, pheasant and roast
capon, pasties of small birds.
Third course: Rabbits in gravy heavily spiced with onion and saffron;
roasted teal, woodcock and snipe; patties filled with yolk of eggs,
cheese, and cinnamon, and pork pies.
No salads, no ices, no confectionery; nevertheless, some of the dishes
are superb--notably the swan, which is brought once more on with music,
prinked out as if he were alive and swimming, his beak gilt, his body
silvered, resting on a mass of green pastry to represent a grass field,
and with little banners around the dish, which is placed on a carpet
of silk when they lay it on the table. The cooks might also serve
a peacock with outspread plumage. Instead, toward the close of the
repast, two squires tug in an enormous pasty. Amid an expectant hush
Conon rises and slashes the pasty open with a dagger. Instantly out
flutter a score of little birds which begin to dash about the tent;
but immediately the baron's falconers stand grinning at the entrance.
They unhood a second score of hawks which in a twinkling pounce after
the wretched birds and kill them, to the shouts and delight of the
feasters, right above the tables. Inevitably there is confusion,
rustling by the ladies and merry scrambling, before the squawking hawks
can be caught, hooded, and taken away. In fact, from the beginning the
feast is extremely noisy. Everybody talks at once. The appearance of
the stag has started innumerable hunting stories. The duke has to
tell his loyal lieges how he slew a bear. Two of the baron's dogs get
to fighting and almost upset the chair of a countess. Everything is
very merry.
[Illustration: A FEAST OF CEREMONY IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY
It was the custom during the repast to bring in enormous pâtés which
held little live birds: these flew about the hall when the crust of the
pâté was broken; immediately the servants loosened falcons which gave
chase. This part of the feast is represented here.]
If an elaborate dinner had been required on a so-called fast day, the
cooks could still have met the occasion and yet have kept within the
commands of the Church; although not merely would there have been much
fish, but also more vegetables. The guests could have been served with
roast apples garnished with sorrel and rosemary; then might have come
a rich soup made of trout, herring, eels salted twenty-four hours,
and salt whiting soaked twelve hours, almonds, ginger, saffron, and
cinnamon powder. If possible to bring them up from the ocean, there
would have been soles, congers, turbots, and salmon--and in any case
these can be had salted--the rivers in turn supply pike (preferably
with roe), carp, and bream. For side dishes there can be lampreys,
porpoise, mackerel, and shad served with juice of crab apples, rice,
and fried almonds. Finally might come stewed or ripe fruits--figs,
dates, grapes, and filberts; the whole washed down with spiced wine
(hippocras). To the minds of men of a later age this fast-day dinner
might seem only a little less gorging than the orthodox feast upon
meats.
But elaborate as is this wedding banquet, at last everybody has had
his fill. The concluding baked pears, the peeled walnuts, dates, and
figs have been passed. The noble dames have chewed their unfamiliar
sugar plums. A last cup of spiced wine is handed around, but nobody has
drunk too much to become worse than merrily talkative. Before rising
the guests have all very properly "thought of the poor," called in the
servitors and piled all the loose food upon great platters to be kept
for the needy. To-day, in fact, all the indigent in the region are
eating voraciously at the outer tables, but on the morrow of a festival
day you will see a great collection of halt, sickly, and shiftless
hanging around the barbican in just expectation that Conon and Adela
will order a distribution.[31]
At last the bishop returns thanks; basins, pitchers, and towels are
again carried around. Then the guests rise, some to mingle with the
less exalted visitors outside, some to repose under the shade trees,
some to listen to the jongleurs who are now tuning their instruments,
and many (especially the younger) to get ready for the thing we have
seen they liked almost the best--extremely vigorous dancing.
Outside of the state pavilion the service has naturally been less
ceremonious and the fare less sumptuous, but all of the countryside
has been welcome to wander into the castle gardens and to partake.
Greasy, unkempt villeins have been elbowing up to the long tables,
snatching joints of meat, bawling to the servitors to refill their
leather flagons, and throwing bits of cheese and bread around in an
outrageously wasteful manner. Thousands of persons, apparently many of
whom will be happy if they can have black bread all through the winter,
are trying to-day to avenge past hunger by devouring and drinking just
as much as possible. Sire Eustace is continually calling; "Another tun
of wine! Another vat of beer! Another quarter of beer!" These viands
for the multitude are not select, but there are bread, flesh, and drink
without stinting. Fortunate it is that Conon has not _two_ marriageable
sisters, or there would be naught left to eat on the seigneury!
[Sidenote: Wholesale Hospitality]
As the shadows lengthen everybody seems satisfied. The villeins and
petty nobles lay down their flagons. Groups of friends, if sufficiently
sober, begin to sing songs in a round, each member improvising a
doggerel verse, and the group thundering out the chorus. But many of
the guests do not retain wits enough for recreations. While their
noble hosts are dancing, the others throw themselves on the grass in
companies to watch or listen to the jongleurs: then as the wedding
dances finish, Olivier and Alienor come out of the great tent to take
their seats on flower-wreathed chairs before the principal minstrels,
and by their presence give some decorum to what threatens to become a
disgracefully confused and coarse form of reveling.
For a great feast the jongleurs seem, in fact, almost as indispensable
as the cooks. We have now to ask the nature of North French
minstrelsy.[32]
FOOTNOTES:
[29] Peacocks, as especially desirable poultry, practically took the
place of the turkey of later days.
[30] The existence of many of these prohibitions in the etiquette
manuals shows that they were not unneeded.
[31] See p. 275.
[32] What actually was involved in the way of mere victuals for a
public feast in the Middle Ages is shown by the following record of the
hospitality dispensed by an archbishop of York, England, in 1466. There
is no reason for believing such lavish "feeding of the multitude" was
not fairly common also in France a little earlier.
This festival required, by formal record, "300 quarters of wheat, 300
tuns of ale, 100 tuns of wine, 104 oxen, 100 sheep, 304 calves, 304
swine, 400 swans, 2,000 geese, 1,000 capons, 2,000 pigs, 100 dozen
quails, 4,000 mallards and teal, 204 cranes, 204 kids, 2,000 ordinary
chickens, 4,000 pigeons, and over 500 stags, bucks, and roes." In
addition there were made up "4,000 cold venison pasties, 3,000 dishes
of jelly, 4,000 baked tarts, 1,500 hot venison pasties, 2,000 hot
custards" and proportionate quantities of spices, sweetened delicacies,
and wafer cakes.
Evidently the archbishop was deliberately planning to feast the entire
population of a considerable area of England. Conon's hospitality
herein depicted was, of course, nothing like this.