THE OLD ENGLISH HALL.--THE KITCHEN, AND ITS CIRCUMSTANCES.--THE
DINNER-TABLE.--MINSTRELSY.
As I have already stated, the hall continued to be the most important
part of the house; and in large mansions it was made of proportional
dimensions. It was a general place of rendezvous for the household,
especially for the retainers and followers, and in the evening it seems
usually to have been left entirely to them, and they made their beds
and passed the night in it. Strangers or visitors were brought into the
hall. In the curious old poem edited by Mr. Halliwell, entitled “The
Boke of Curtasye,” we find especial directions on this subject. When a
gentleman or yeoman came to the house of another, he was directed to
leave his weapons with the porter at the outward gate or wicket, before
he entered. It appears to have been the etiquette that if the person
thus presenting himself were of higher rank than the person he visited,
the latter should go out to receive him at the gate; if the contrary,
the visitor was admitted through the gate, and proceeded to the hall.
_Whanne thou comes to a lordis gate,_
_The porter thou shalle fynde therate;_
_Take_ (give) _hym thow shalt thy wepyn tho_ (then),
_And aske hym leve in to go._
* * * * *
... _yf he be of logh_ (low) _degré,_
_Than hym falles to come to the_.
At the hall door the visitor was to take off his hood and gloves--
_When thow come tho halle dor to,_
_Do of thy hode, thy gloves also._
If, when he entered the hall, the visitor found the family at meat, he
stood at the bottom of the apartment in a respectful attitude, till the
lord of the house sent a servant to lead him to a place where he was to
sit at table. As you descended lower in society, such ceremonies were
less observed; and the clergy in general seem to have been allowed a
much greater licence than the laity. In the Sompneres Tale, in Chaucer,
when the friar, who has received an insult from an inferior inhabitant,
goes “to the court” to complain to the lord of the village, he finds
the latter in his hall at the dinner table--
_This frere com, as he were in a rage,_
_Wher that this lord sat etyng at his bord._
--Chaucer’s Cant. Tales, l. 7748.
The lord, surprised at the agitation in the countenance of the friar,
who had come in without any sort of introduction, invites him to sit
down, and inquires into his business. There is a scene in the early
English metrical romance of Ipomydon, in which this hero and his
preceptor Tholoman go to the residence of the heiress of Calabria.
At the castle gate they were stopped by the porter, whom they ask to
announce them in the hall:--
_The porter to theyme they gan calle,_
_And prayd hym, ‘Go into the halle,_
_And say thy lady gent and fre,_
_That come ar men of ferre contré,_
_And, if it plese hyr, we wold hyr prey_
_That we myght ete with hyr to-day._’
--Weber, Metr. Rom. ii. 290.
The porter “courteously” undertook the message, and, at the immediate
order of the lady, who was sitting at her meat, he went back, took
charge of their horses and pages, and introduced them into the hall.
Then they asked to be taken into the lady’s service, who accepted their
offer, and invited them to take their place at the dinner:--
_He thankid the lady cortesly,_
_She comandyth hym to the mete;_
_But, or he satte in any sete,_
_He saluted theym grate and smalle,_
_As a gentille man shuld in halle._
--Weber, ii. 292.
Perhaps, before entering the mediæval hall, we shall do well to give a
glance at the kitchen. It is an opinion, which has not unfrequently
been entertained, that living in the middle ages was coarse and not
elaborate; and that old English fare consisted chiefly in roast beef
and plum-pudding. That nothing, however, could be more incorrect, is
fully proved by the rather numerous mediæval cookery books which are
still preserved, and which contain chiefly directions for made dishes,
many of them very complicated, and, to appearance, extremely delicate.
The office of cook, indeed, was one of great importance, and was well
paid; and the kitchens of the aristocracy were very extensive, and
were furnished with a considerable variety of implements of cookery.
On account, no doubt, of this importance, Alexander Neckam, although
an ecclesiastic, commences his vocabulary (or, as it is commonly
entitled, Liber de Utensilibus), compiled in the latter part of the
twelfth century, with an account of the kitchen and its furniture.
He enumerates, among other objects, a table for chopping and mincing
herbs and vegetables; pots, trivets or tripods, an axe, a mortar and
pestle, a mover, or pot-stick, for stirring, a crook or pot-hook
(_uncus_), a caldron, a frying-pan, a gridiron, a posnet or saucepan, a
dish, a platter, a saucer, or vessel for mixing sauce, a hand-mill, a
pepper-mill, a mier, or instrument for reducing bread to crumbs. John
de Garlande, in his “Dictionarius,” composed towards the middle of the
thirteenth century, gives a similar enumeration; and a comparison of
the vocabularies of the fifteenth century, shows that the arrangements
of the kitchen had undergone little change during the intervening
period. From these vocabularies the following list of kitchen utensils
is gathered:--a brandreth, or iron tripod, for supporting the caldron
over the fire; a caldron, a dressing-board and dressing-knife, a
brass-pot, a posnet, a frying-pan, a gridiron, or, as it is sometimes
called, a roasting-iron; a spit, a “gobard,” explained in the MS. by
_ipegurgium_; a mier, a flesh-hook, a scummer, a ladle, a pot-stick,
a slice for turning meat in the frying-pan, a pot-hook, a mortar and
pestle, a pepper-quern, a platter, a saucer.
[Illustration: _No. 98. Making the Pot boil._]
The older illuminated manuscripts are rarely so elaborate as to furnish
us with representations of all these kitchen implements; and, in fact,
it is not in the more elaborately illuminated manuscripts that kitchen
scenes are often found. But we meet with representations of some of
them in artistic sketches of a less elaborate character, though these
are generally connected with the less refined processes of cookery.
The mediæval landlords were obliged to consume the produce of the land
on their own estates, and, for this and other very cogent reasons, a
large proportion of the provisions in ordinary use consisted of salted
meat, which was laid up in store in vast quantities in the baronial
larders. Hence boiling was a much more common method of cooking meat
than roasting, for which, indeed, the mediæval fire, placed on the
ground, was much less convenient; it is, no doubt, for this reason
that the cook is most frequently represented in the mediæval drawings
with the caldron on the fire. In some instances, chiefly of the
fifteenth century, the caldron is supported from above by a pot-hook,
but more usually it stands over the fire upon three legs of its own,
or upon a three-legged frame. A manuscript in the British Museum of
the fourteenth century (MS. Reg. 10, E. iv.), belonging formerly to
the monastery of St. Bartholomew in Smithfield, contains a series of
such illustrations, from which the following are selected. In the
first of these (No. 98) it is evidently a three-legged caldron which
stands over the fire, to increase the heat of which the cook makes use
of a pair of bellows, which bears a remarkably close resemblance to
the similar articles made in modern times. Bellows were certainly in
common use in Anglo-Saxon times, for the name is Anglo-Saxon, _bælg_,
_bælig_, and _bylig_; but as the original meaning of this word was
merely a _bag_, it is probable that the early Anglo-Saxon bellows was
of very rude character: it was sometimes distinguished by the compound
name, _blast-bælg_, a blast-bag, or bellows. Our second example from
this MS. (cut No. 99) is one of a series of designs belonging to some
mediæval story or legend, with which I am not acquainted. A young man
carrying the vessel for the holy water, and the aspersoir with which
it was sprinkled over the people, and who may therefore be supposed to
be the holy-water clerc, is making acquaintance with the female cook.
The latter seems to have been interrupted in the act of taking some
object out of the caldron with a flesh-hook. The caldron here again is
three-legged. In the sequel, the acquaintance between the cook and the
holy-water clerc appears to have ripened into love; but we may presume
from the manner in which it was represented (No. 100), that this love
was not of a very disinterested character on the part of the clerc, for
he is taking advantage of her affection to steal the animal which she
is boiling in the caldron. The conventional manner in which the animal
seems to be drawn, renders it difficult to decide what that animal is.
The mediæval artists show a taste for playful delineations of this
kind, which occur not unfrequently in illuminated manuscripts, and
in carvings and sculptures. One of the stalls in Hereford cathedral,
copied in the accompanying cut (No. 101), represents a scene of this
description. A man is attempting to take liberties with the cook, who
has in return thrown a platter at his head. In our next cut (No. 102),
taken from another MS. in the British Museum, also of the fourteenth
century (MS. Reg. 16, E. viii.), the object cooked in the caldron is
a boar’s head, which the cook, an ill-favoured and hump-backed man,
is placing on a dish to be carried to the table. The caldron, in this
instance, appears to be intended to have been of more ornamental
character than the others.
[Illustration: _No. 99. The Holy-Water Clerc and the Cook._]
[Illustration: _No. 100. Interested Friendship._]
[Illustration: _No. 101. A Kitchen Scene._]
[Illustration: _No. 102. The Boar’s Head._]
It will have been remarked that in most of these pictures the process
of cookery appears to have been carried on in the open air, for, in one
instance, a tree stands not far from the caldron. This appears, indeed,
to have been frequently the case, and there can be no doubt that it
was intended to be so represented in our next cut (No. 103), taken
from the well-known manuscript of the romance of “Alexander,” in the
Bodleian Library, at Oxford. We have here the two processes of boiling
and roasting, but the latter is only employed for fowls (geese in this
case). While the cook is basting them, the _quistron_, or kitchen-boy,
is turning the spit, which is supported in a very curious manner on one
leg of the tripod or trivet, on which the caldron is here supported.
The building to the right is shown by the sign to be an inn, and we
are, probably, to suppose, that this out-of-door cooking is required by
some unusual festivity.
[Illustration: _No. 103. Boiling and Roasting._]
Although meat was, doubtless, sometimes roasted, this process seems
to have been much more commonly applied to poultry and game, and even
fresh meat was very usually boiled. One cause of this may, perhaps,
have been, that it seems to have been a common practice to eat the
meat, and even game, fresh killed--the beef or mutton seems to have
been often killed for the occasion on the day it was eaten. In the old
fabliau of the “Bouchier d’Abbeville” (Barbazan, tom. iv. p. 6), the
butcher, having come to Bailueil late in the evening, and obtained a
night’s lodging at the priest’s, kills his sheep for the supper. The
shoulders were to be roasted, the rest, as it appears, was recommended
to be boiled. The butchers, indeed, seem usually to have done their
work in the kitchen, and to have killed and cut up the animals for
the occasion. There is a curious story in the English Gesta Romanorum
(edited by Sir Frederic Madden), which illustrates this practice.
“Cæsar was emperor of Rome, that had a forest, in the which he had
planted vines and other divers trees many; and he ordained over his
forest a steward, whose name was Jonatas, bidding him, upon pain, to
keep the vines and the plants. It fell, after this ordinance of the
emperor, that Jonatas took the care of the forest; and upon a day a
swine came into the forest, the new plants he rooted up. When Jonatas
saw the swine enter, he cut off his tail, and the swine made a cry,
and went out. Nevertheless, he entered again, and did much harm in
the forest. When Jonatas saw that, he cut off his left ear; and the
hog made a great cry, and went out. Notwithstanding this, he entered
again the third day; and Jonatas saw him, and cut off his right ear,
and with a horrible cry he went out. Yet the fourth day the swine
re-entered the forest, and did much damage. When Jonatas saw that the
hog would not be warned, he smote him through with his spear, and slew
him, and delivered the body to the cook for to array the next day to
the emperor’s meat. But when the emperor was served of this swine, he
asked of his servants, ‘Where is the heart of this swine?’--because the
emperor loved the heart best of any beast, and more than all the beast.
The servants asked the cook where the heart of the swine was, for the
lord inquired after it. The cook, when he had arrayed the heart, saw
it was good and fat, and eat it; and he said to the servants, ‘Say to
the emperor that the hog had no heart.’ The emperor said, ‘It may not
be; and therefore say to him, upon pain of death, that he send me the
heart of the swine, for there is no beast in all the world without a
heart.’ The servants went to the cook with the emperor’s orders; and
he replied, ‘Say to my lord, but if I prove mightily by clear reasons
that the swine had no heart, I put me fully to his will, to do with me
as he likes.’ The emperor, when he heard this, assigned him a day to
answer. When the day was come, the cook, with a high voice, said before
all men, ‘My lord, this is the day of my answer. First I shall show you
that the swine had no heart; this is the reason. Every thought cometh
from the heart, therefore every man or beast feeleth good or evil; it
followeth of necessity that by this the heart thinketh.’ The emperor
said, ‘That is truth.’ ‘Then,’ said the cook, ‘now shall I show by
reasons that the swine had no heart. First he entered the forest, and
the steward cut off his tail; if he had had a heart, he should have
thought on his tail that was lost, but he thought not thereupon, for
afterwards he entered the forest, and the forester cut off his left
ear. If he had had a heart, he should have thought on his left ear, but
he thought not, for the third time he entered the forest. That saw the
forester, and cut off his right ear; where, if he had had a heart, he
should have thought that he had lost his tail and both his ears, and
never should have gone again where he had so many evils. But yet the
fourth time he entered the forest, and the steward saw that, and slew
him, and delivered him to me to array to your meat. Here may ye see,
my lord, that I have shown, by worthy reasons, that the swine had no
heart.’ And thus escaped the cook.”
The story which follows this in the Gesta, tells of an emperor named
“Alexaundre,” “who of great need ordained for a law, that no man should
turn the plaice in his dish, but that he should only eat the white
side, and in no wise the black side; and if any man did the contrary,
he should die!” It is hardly necessary to remark, that fish was a great
article of consumption in the middle ages, and especially among the
ecclesiastics and monks. The accompanying cut on the following page
(No. 104), from a manuscript of the fourteenth century in the British
Museum (MS. Harl. No. 1527), represents probably the steward of a
monastery receiving a present of fish.
[Illustration: _No. 104. A Present of Fish._]
[Illustration: _No. 105. A Pot and Platter._]
In large houses, and on great occasions, the various meats and dishes
were carried from the kitchen to the hall with extraordinary ceremony
by the servants of the kitchen, who delivered them at the entrance of
the hall to other attendants of a higher class, who alone were allowed
to approach the tables. Our cut No. 105, from MS. Reg. 10, E. iv.,
represents one of these servants carrying a pot and platter, or stand
for the pot, which, perhaps, contained gravy or soup. The roasts appear
to have been usually carried into the hall on the spits, which, among
people of great rank, were sometimes made of silver; and the guests
at table seem to have torn, or cut, from the spit what they wanted.
Several early illuminations represent this practice of people helping
themselves from the spits, and it is alluded to, not very unfrequently,
in the mediæval writers. In the romance of “Parise la Duchesse,” when
the servants enter the hall with the meats for the table, one is
described as carrying a roasted peacock on a spit:--
_Atant ez les serjanz qui portent le mangier;_
_Li uns porte .i. paon roti en un astier._
--Romans de Parise, p. 172.
In the romance of “Garin le Loherain,” on an occasion when a quarrel
began in the hall at the beginning of the dinner, the duke Begon, for
want of other weapons, snatched from the hands of one of the attendants
a long spit “full of plovers, which were hot and roasted:”--
_Li dus avoit un grant hastier saisi,_
_Plain de ploviers, qui chaut sunt et rosti._
--Romans de Garin, ii. 19.
But the most curious illustration of the universality of this practice
is found in a Latin story, probably of the thirteenth century, in which
we are told of a man who had a glutton for his wife. One day he roasted
for their dinner a fowl, and when they had sat down at the table, the
wife said, “Give me a wing?” The husband gave her the wing; and, at her
demand, all the other members in succession, until she had devoured the
whole fowl herself, at which, no longer able to contain his anger, he
said, “Lo, you have eaten the whole fowl yourself, and nothing remains
but the spit, which it is but right that you should taste also.” And
thereupon he took the spit, and beat her severely with it.
[Illustration: _No. 106. Bringing the Dinner into Hall._]
[Illustration: _No. 107. Serving in Hall._]
Our cut (No. 106), taken from a large illumination, given from a
manuscript of the fifteenth century by the late M. du Sommerard, in
his great work on mediæval art, represents the servants of the hall,
headed by the steward, or _maître d’hôtel_, with his rod of office,
bringing the dishes to the table in formal procession. Their approach
and arrival were usually announced by the sounding of trumpets and
music. The servants were often preceded by music, as we see in our
cut No. 107, taken from a very fine MS. of the early part of the
fourteenth century, in the British Museum (MS. Reg. 2, B. vii.). A
representation of a similar scene occurs at the foot of the large
Flemish brass of Robert Braunche and his two wives at St. Margaret’s
Church, Lynn, which is intended as a delineation of a feast given by
the corporation of Lynn to king Edward III. Servants from both sides of
the picture are bringing in that famous dish of chivalry, the peacock
with his tail displayed; and two bands of minstrels are ushering in
the banquet with their strains; the date of the brass is about 1364
A.D. Those who served at the table itself, whose business
was chiefly to carve and present the wine, were of still higher
rank--never less than esquires--and often, in the halls of princes
and great chiefs, nobles and barons. The meal itself was conducted
with the same degree of ceremony, of which a vivid picture may be
drawn from the directions given in the work called the “Ménagier de
Paris,” composed about the year 1393. When it was announced that the
dinner was ready, the guests advanced to the hall, led ceremoniously
by two _maîtres d’hôtel_, who showed them their places, and served
them with water to wash their hands before they began. They found the
tables spread with fine table-cloths, and covered with a profusion of
richly-ornamented plate, consisting of salt-cellars, goblets, pots or
cups for drinking, spoons, &c. At the high table, the meats were eaten
from slices of bread, called trenchers (_tranchoirs_), which, after the
meats were eaten, were thrown into vessels called _couloueres_. In a
conspicuous part of the hall stood the dresser or cupboard, which was
covered with vessels of plate, which two esquires carried thence to the
table, to replace those which were emptied. Two other esquires were
occupied in bringing wine to the dresser, from whence it was served
to the guests at the tables. The dishes, forming a number of courses,
varying according to the occasion, were brought in by valets, led by
two esquires. An _asséeur_, or placer, took the dishes from the hands
of the valets, and arranged them in their places on the table. After
these courses, fresh table-cloths were laid, and the _entremets_ were
brought, consisting of sweets, jellies, &c., many of them moulded
into elegant or fantastic forms; and, in the middle of the table,
raised above the rest, were placed a swan, peacocks, or pheasants,
dressed up in their feathers, with their beaks and feet gilt. In less
sumptuous entertainments the expensive course of _entremets_ was
usually omitted. Last of all came the dessert, consisting of cheese,
confectionaries, fruit, &c., concluded by what was called the _issue_
(departure from table), consisting usually of a draught of hypocras,
and the _boute-hors_ (turn out), wine and spices served round, which
terminated the repast. The guests then washed their hands, and repaired
into another room, where they were served with wine and sweetmeats,
and, after a short time, separated. The dinner, served slowly and
ceremoniously, must have occupied a considerable length of time. After
the guests had left the hall, the servers and attendants took their
places at the tables.
[Illustration: _No. 108. The Seat on the Dais._]
The furniture of the hall was simple, and consisted of but a few
articles. In large residences, the floor at the upper end of the hall
was raised, and was called the _dais_. On this the chief table was
placed, stretching lengthways across the hall. The subordinate tables
were arranged below, down each side of the hall. In the middle was
generally the fire, sometimes in an iron grate. At the upper end of
the hall there was often a cup-board or a dresser for the plate, &c.
The tables were still merely boards placed on tressels, though the
table dormant, or stationary table, began to be more common. Perhaps
the large table on the dais was generally a table dormant. The seats
were merely benches or forms, except the principal seat against the
wall on the dais, which was often in the form of a settle, with back
and elbows. Such a seat is represented in our cut No. 108, taken from
a manuscript of the romance of Meliadus, in the National Library at
Paris, No. 6961. On special occasions, the hall was hung round with
tapestry, or curtains, which were kept for that purpose, and one of
these curtains seems commonly to have been suspended against the wall
behind the dais. A carpet was sometimes laid on the floor, which,
however, was more usually spread with rushes. Sometimes, in the
illuminations, the floor appears to be paved with ornamental tiles,
without carpet or rushes. It was also not unusual to bring a chair
into the hall as a mark of particular respect. Thus, in the English
metrical romance of Sir Isumbras:--
_The riche qwene in haulle was sett,_
_Knyghttes hir serves to handes and fete,_
_Were clede in robis of palle;_
_In the floure a clothe was layde,_
_“This poore palmere,” the stewarde sayde,_
_“Salle sytte abowene yow alle.”_
_Mete and drynke was forthe broghte,_
_Sir Isambrace sett and ete noghte,_
_Bot luked abowte in the haulle._
* * * * *
_So lange he satt and ete noghte,_
_That the lady grete wondir thoghte,_
_And tille a knyghte gane saye,_
_“Bryng a chayere and a qwyschene_ (cushion),
_And sett yone poore palmere therin_.”
* * * * *
_A riche chayere than was ther fett,_
_This poore palmere therin was sett,_
_He tolde hir of his laye._
Until comparatively a very recent date, the hour of dinner, even among
the highest classes of society, was ten o’clock in the forenoon. There
was an old proverb which defined the divisions of the domestic day as
follows:--
_Lever à six, disner à dix,_
_Souper à six, coucher à dix._
Which is preserved in a still older and more complete form as follows:--
_Lever à cinq, diner à neuf,_
_Souper à cinq, coucher à neuf,_
_Fait vivre d’ans nonante et neuf._
Five o’clock was the well-known hour of the afternoon meal; and nine
seems formerly to have been an ordinary hour for dinner. In the time
of Chaucer, the hour of _prime_ appears to have been the usual dinner
hour, which perhaps meant nine o’clock. At least the monk, in the
Schipmannes Tale, calls for dinner at prime:--
“_Goth now your way,” quod he, “al stille and softe,_
_And let us dyne as sone as ye may,_
_For by my chilindre it is prime of day._”
And the lady to whom this is addressed, in reply, expresses impatience,
lest they should pass the hour. The dinner appears to have been usually
announced by the blowing of horns. In the romance of Richard Cœur de
Lion, on the arrival of visitors, the tables were laid out for dinner--
_They sette tresteles, and layde a borde_;
* * * * *
_Trumpet begonne for to blowe._
--Weber, ii. 7.
[Illustration: _No. 109. Washing before Dinner._]
Before the meal, each guest was served with water to wash. It was the
business of the ewer to serve the guests with water for this purpose,
which he did with a jug and basin, while another attendant stood by
with a towel. Our cut No. 109, represents this process; it is taken
from a fine manuscript of the “Livre de la Vie Humaine,” preserved
in the National Library in Paris, No. 6988. In the originals of this
group, the jug and basin are represented as of gold. In the copy of the
Seven Sages, printed by Weber (p. 148), the preparations for a dinner
are thus described:--
_Thai set trestes, and bordes on layd;_
_Thai spred clathes and salt on set,_
_And made redy unto the mete;_
_Thai set forth water and towelle._
The company, however, sometimes washed before going to the table, and
for this purpose there were lavours, or lavatories, in the hall itself,
or sometimes outside. The signal for washing was then given by the
blowing of trumpets, or by the music of the minstrels. Thus, in the
English metrical romance of Richard Cœur de Lion,
_At noon à laver the waytes blewe_,
meaning, of course, the canonical hour of _none_. Grace was also said
at the commencement, or at the end, of the meal, but this part of the
ceremony is but slightly alluded to in the old writers.
Having washed, the guests seated themselves at table. Then the
attendants spread the cloths over the tables; they then placed on them
the salt-cellars and the knives; and next the bread, and the wine in
drinking cups. All this is duly described in the following lines of an
old romance:--
_Quant lavé orent, si s’asistrent,_
_Et li serjant les napes mistrent,_
_Desus les dobliers blans et biax,_
_Les saliers et les coutiax,_
_Après lou pain, puis lo vin_
_Et copes d’argent et d’or fin._
Spoons were also usually placed on the table, but there were no forks,
the guests using their fingers instead, which was the reason they were
so particular in washing before and after meat. The tables being thus
arranged, it remained for the cooks to serve up the various prepared
dishes.
At table the guests were not only placed in couples, but they also
eat in couples, two being served with the same food and in the same
plate. This practice is frequently alluded to in the early romances
and fabliaux. In general the arrangement of the couples was not left
to mere chance, but individuals who were known to be attached to each
other, or who were near relatives, were placed together. In the poem
of La Mule sanz Frain, the lady of the castle makes Sir Gawain sit by
her side, and eat out of the same plate with her, as an act of friendly
courtesy. In the fabliau of Trubert, a woman, taken into the household
of a duke, is seated at table beside the duke’s daughter, and eats out
of the same plate with her, because the young lady had conceived an
affectionate feeling for the visitor. So, again, in the story of the
provost of Aquilée, the provost’s lady, receiving a visitor sent by her
husband (who was absent), placed him at table beside her, to eat with
her, and the rest of the party were similarly seated, “two and two:”--
_La dame première s’assist,_
_Son hoste lez lui seoir fist,_
_Car mengier voloit avec lui;_
_Li autre furent dui et dui._
--Méon Fabliaux, ii. 192.
In one of the stories in the early English Gesta Romanorum, an earl and
his son, who dine at the emperor’s table, are seated together, and are
served with one plate, a fish, between them. The practice was, indeed,
so general, that the phrase “to eat in the same dish” (_manger dans la
même écuelle_), became proverbial for intimate friendship between two
persons.
There was another practice relating to the table which must not be
overlooked. It must have been remarked that, in the illuminations of
contemporary manuscripts which represent dinner scenes, the guests
are rarely represented as eating on plates. In fact, only certain
articles were served in plates. Loaves were made of a secondary
quality of flour, and these were first pared, and then cut into thick
slices, which were called, in French, _tranchoirs_, and, in English,
_trenchers_, because they were to be carved upon. The portions of meat
were served to the guests on these _tranchoirs_, and they cut it upon
them as they eat it. The gravy, of course, went into the bread, which
the guest sometimes, perhaps always at an earlier period, eat after the
meat, but in later times, and at the tables of the great, it appears to
have been more frequently sent away to the alms-basket, from which the
leavings of the table were distributed to the poor at the gate. All the
bread used at table seems to have been pared, before it was cut, and
the parings were thrown into the alms-dish. Walter de Bibblesworth, in
the latter part of the thirteenth century, among other directions for
the laying out of the table, says, “Cut the bread which is pared, and
let the parings be given to the alms”--
_Tayllet le payn ke est parée,_
_Les biseaus à l’amoyne soyt doné._
The practice is alluded to in the romance of Sir Tristrem (fytte i. ft.
1.)--
_The kyng no seyd no more,_
_But wesche and yede_ (went) _to mete;_
_Bred thai pard and schare_ (cut),
_Ynough thai hadde at ete_.
It was the duty of the almoner to say grace. The following directions
are given in the Boke of Curtasye (p. 30):--
_The aumenere by this hathe sayde grace,_
_And the almes-dysshe hase sett in place;_
_Therin the karver a lofe schalle sette,_
_To serve God fyrst withouten lette;_
_These othere lofes be parys aboute,_
_Lays hit myd_ (with) _dysshe withouten doute_.
The use of the _tranchoir_, which Froissart calls a _tailloir_, is not
unfrequently alluded to in the older French writers. That writer tells
the story of a prince who, having received poison in a powder, and
suspecting it, put it on a _tailloir_ of bread, and thus gave it to a
dog to eat. One of the French poets of the fifteenth century, Martial
de Paris, speaking against the extravagant tables kept by the bishops
at that time, exclaims, “Alas! what have the poor? They have only the
tranchoirs of bread which remain on the table.” An ordinance of the
dauphin Humbert II., of the date of 1336, orders that there should
be served to him at table every day “loaves of white bread for the
mouth, and four small loaves to serve for tranchoirs” (_pro incisorio
faciendo_). For great people, a silver platter was often put under the
tranchoir, and it was probable from the extension of that practice that
the tranchoirs became ultimately abandoned, and the platters took their
place.
[Illustration: No. _110. A Dinner Scene._]
[Illustration: _No. 111. A King at Dinner._]
We give three examples of dinner-scenes, from manuscripts of the
fourteenth century. The first, cut No. 110 (on the last page), is
taken from a manuscript belonging to the National Library in Paris,
No. 7210, containing the “Pélerinage de la Vie Humaine.” The party
are eating fish, or rather have been eating them, for the bones and
remnants are strewed over the table. We have, in addition to these, the
bread, knives, salt-cellars, and cups; and on the ground a remarkable
collection of jugs for holding the liquors. Our second example, cut
No. 111, is taken from an illuminated manuscript of the romance of
Meliadus, preserved in the British Museum (Additional MS., No. 12,228).
We have here the curtain or tapestry hung behind the single table. The
man to the left is probably the steward, or the superior of the hall;
next to him is the cup-bearer serving the liquor; further to the right
we have the carver cutting the meat; and last of all the cook bringing
in another dish. The table is laid much in the same manner in our third
example, cut No. 112. We have again the cups and the bread, the latter
in round cakes; in our second example they are marked with crosses,
as in the Anglo-Saxon illuminations; but there are no forks, or even
spoons, which, of course, were used for pottage and soups, and were
perhaps brought on and taken off with them. All the guests seem to be
ready to use their fingers.
[Illustration: _No. 112. A Royal Feast._]
There was much formality and ceremony observed in filling and
presenting the cup, and it required long instruction to make the young
cup-bearer perfect in his duties. In our cut No. 111, it will be
observed that the carver holds the meat with his fingers while he cuts
it. This is in exact accordance with the rules given in the ancient
“Boke of Kervyng,” where this officer is told, “Set never on fyshe,
flesche, beest, ne fowle, more than two fyngers and a thombe.” It
will be observed also that in none of these pictures have the guests
any plates; they seem to have eaten with their hands, and thrown the
refuse on the table. We know also that they often threw the fragments
on the floor, where they were eaten up by cats and dogs, which were
admitted into the hall without restriction of number. In the “Boke of
Curtasye,” already mentioned, it is blamed as a mark of bad breeding to
play with the cats and dogs while seated at table--
_Whereso thou sitt at mete in borde_ (at table),
_Avoide the cat at on bare worde,_
_For yf thou stroke cat other dogge,_
_Thou art lyke an ape teyghed with a clogge_.
Some of these directions for behaviour are very droll, and show no
great refinement of manners. A guest at table is recommended to keep
his nails clean, for fear his fellow next him should be disgusted--
_Loke thy naylys ben clene in blythe,_
_Lest thy felaghe lothe therwyth._
He is cautioned against spitting on the table--
_If thou spit on the borde or elles opone,_
_Thou shalle be holden an uncurtayse mon._
When he blows his nose with his hand (handkerchiefs were not, it
appears, in use), he is told to wipe his hand on his skirt or on his
tippet--
_Yf thy nose thou clense, as may befalle,_
_Loke thy honde thou clense withalle,_
_Prively with skyrt do hit away,_
_Or ellis thurgh thi tepet that is so gay._
He is not to pick his teeth with his knife, or with a straw or stick,
nor to clean them with the table-cloth; and, if he sits by a gentleman,
he is to take care he does not put his knee under the other’s thigh!
The cleanliness of the white table-cloth seems to have been a matter
of pride; and to judge by the illuminations great care seems to have
been taken to place it neatly and smoothly on the table, and to arrange
tastefully the part which hung down at the sides. Generally speaking,
the service on the table in these illuminations appears to be very
simple, consisting of the cups, stands for the dishes of meat (messes,
as they were called) brought by the cook, the knives, sometimes spoons
for soup and liquids, and bread. Ostentatious ornament is not often
introduced, and it was perhaps only used at the tables of princes
and of the more powerful nobles. Of these ornaments, one of the most
remarkable was the nef, or ship--a vessel, generally of silver, which
contained the salt-cellar, towel, &c., of the prince, or great lord, on
whose table it was brought with great ceremony. It was in the form of a
ship, raised on a stand, and on one end it had some figure, such as a
serpent, or castle, perhaps an emblem or badge chosen by its possessor.
Our cut No. 113, taken from a manuscript in the French National
Library, represents the nef placed on the table. The badge or emblem at
the end appears to be a bird.
[Illustration: _No. 113. The Nef._]
[Illustration: _No. 114. Gluttony._]
Our forefathers seem to have remained a tolerably long time at table,
the pleasures of which were by no means despised. Indeed, to judge by
the sermons and satires of the middle ages, gluttony seems to have
been a very prevalent vice among the clergy as well as the laity; and
however miserably the lower classes lived, the tables of the rich
were loaded with every delicacy that could be procured. The monks
were proverbially _bons vivants_; and their failings in this respect
are not unfrequently satirised in the illuminated ornaments of the
mediæval manuscripts. We have an example in our cut No. 114, taken
from a manuscript of the fourteenth century in the Arundel Collection
in the British Museum (No. 91); a monk is regaling himself on the sly,
apparently upon dainty tarts or patties, while the dish is held up by
a little cloven-footed imp who seems to enjoy the spirit of the thing,
quite as much as the other enjoys the substance. Our next cut (No. 115)
is taken from another manuscript in the British Museum of the same
date (MS. Sloane, No. 2435), and forms an appropriate companion to
the other. The monk here holds the office of cellarer, and is taking
advantage of it to console himself on the sly.
[Illustration: _No. 115. Monastic Devotions._]
When the last course of the dinner had been served, the ewer and his
companion again carried round the water and towel, and each guest
washed. The tables were then cleared and the cloths withdrawn, but the
drinking continued. The minstrels were now introduced. To judge by the
illuminations, the most common musical attendant on such occasions
was a harper, who repeated romances and told stories, accompanying
them with his instrument. In one of our cuts of a dinner party (No.
112), given in a former page, we see the harper, apparently a blind
man, led by his dog, introduced into the hall while the guests are
still occupied with their repast. We frequently find a harper thus
introduced, who is sometimes represented as sitting upon the floor, as
in the accompanying illustration (No. 116) from the MS. Reg. 2 B. vii.
fol. 71, v^o. Another similar representation occurs at folio 203, v^o
of the same MS.
[Illustration: _No. 116. The Harper in the Hall._]
The barons and knights themselves, and their ladies, did not disdain
to learn the harper’s craft; and Gower, in his “Confessio Amantis,”
describes a scene in which a princess plays the harp at table.
Appolinus is dining in the hall of king Pentapolin, with the king and
queen and their fair daughter, and all his lords, when, reminded by the
scene of the royal estate from which he is fallen, he sorrowed and took
no meat; therefore the king, sympathising with him, bade his daughter
take her harp and do all that she could to enliven that “sorry man:”--
_And she to don her faderes heste,_
_Her harpe fette, and in the feste_
_Upon a chaire which thei fette,_
_Her selve next to this man she sette._
Appolinus in turn takes the harp, and proves himself a wonderful
proficient, and
_When he hath harped alle his fille,_
_The kingis hest to fulfille,_
_Awaie goth dishe, awaie goth cup,_
_Doun goth the borde, the cloth was up,_
_Thei risen and gone out of the halle._
[Illustration: _No. 117. A Harper._]
The minstrels, or jougleurs, formed a very important class of society
in the middle ages, and no festival was considered as complete without
their presence. They travelled singly or in parties, not only from
house to house, but from country to country, and they generally brought
with them, to amuse and please their hearers, the last new song, or the
last new tale. When any great festival was announced, there was sure
to be a general gathering of minstrels from all quarters, and as they
possessed many methods of entertaining, for they joined the profession
of mountebank, posture-master, and conjurer with that of music and
story-telling, they were always welcome. No sooner, therefore, was
the business of eating done, than the jougleur or jougleurs were
brought forward, and sometimes, when the guests were in a more serious
humour, they chanted the old romances of chivalry; at other times they
repeated satirical poems, or party songs, according to the feelings
or humour of those who were listening to them, or told love tales or
scandalous anecdotes, or drolleries, accompanying them with acting,
and intermingling them with performances of various kinds. The hall
was proverbially the place for mirth, and as merriment of a coarse
description suited the mediæval taste, the stories and performances of
the jougleurs were often of an obscene character, even in the presence
of the ladies. In the illuminated manuscripts, the minstrel is most
commonly a harper, perhaps because these illuminations are usually
found in the old romances of chivalry where the harper generally acts
an important part, for the minstrels were not unfrequently employed
in messages and intrigues. In general the harp is wrapped in some
sort of drapery, as represented in our cut No. 117, taken from a MS.
in the National Library of Paris, which was perhaps the bag in which
the minstrel carried it, and may have been attached to the bottom of
the instrument. The accompanying scene of minstrelsy is taken from a
manuscript of the romance of Guyron le Courtois in the French National
Library, No. 6976.
[Illustration: _No. 118. Minstrelsy._]
The dinner was always accompanied by music, and itinerant minstrels,
mountebanks, and performers of all descriptions, were allowed free
access to the hall to amuse the guests by their performances. These
were intermixed with dancing and tumbling, and often with exhibitions
of a very gross character, which, however, amid the looseness of
mediæval manners, appear to have excited no disgust. These practices
are curiously illustrated in some of the mediæval illuminations. In
the account of the death of John the Baptist, as given in the gospels
(Matthew xiv. 6, and Mark vi. 21), we are told, that at the feast
given by Herod on his birthday, his daughter Herodias came into the
feasting-hall, and (according to our English version) danced before
him and his guests. The Latin vulgate has _saltasset_, which is
equivalent to the English word but the mediæval writers took the lady’s
performances to be those of a regular wandering jougleur; and in two
illuminated manuscripts of the early part of the fourteenth century, in
the British Museum, she is pictured as performing tricks very similar
to those exhibited by the modern beggar-boys in our streets. In the
first of these (No. 119), taken from MS. Reg. 2 B. vii., the princess
is supporting herself upon her hands with her legs in the air, to the
evident admiration of the king, though the guests seem to be paying
less attention to her feats of activity. In the second (No. 120), from
the Harleian MS. No. 1527, she is represented in a similar position,
but more evidently making a somersault. She is here accompanied by a
female attendant, who expresses no less delight at her skill than the
king and his guests.
[Illustration: _No. 119. King Herod and his Daughter Herodias._]
[Illustration: _No. 120. Herod and Herodias._]
It would appear from various accounts that it was not, unless perhaps
at an early period, the custom in France to sit long after dinner at
table drinking wine, as it certainly was in England, where, no doubt,
the practice was derived from the Anglo-Saxons. Numerous allusions
might be pointed out, which show how much our Anglo-Saxon forefathers
were addicted to this practice of sitting in their halls and drinking
during the latter part of their day; and it was then that they listened
to the minstrel’s song, told stories of their own feats and adventures,
and made proof of their powers in hard drinking. From some of these
allusions, which we have quoted in an earlier chapter, it is equally
clear, that these drinking-bouts often ended in sanguinary, and not
unfrequently in fatal, brawls. Such scenes of discord in the hall occur
also in the early French metrical romances, but they take place usually
at the beginning of dinner, when the guests are taking their places, or
during the meal. In “Parise la Duchesse,” a scene of this description
occurs, in which the great feudal barons and knights fight with the
provisions which had been served at the tables: “There,” says the poet,
“you might see them throw cheeses, and quartern-loaves, and great
pieces of flesh, and great steel knives”--
_Là veissiez jeter fromages et cartiers,_
_Et granz pieces de char, et granz cotiauz d’acier_
--Roman de Parise, p. 173.
In “Garin le Loherain” (vol. ii. p. 17), at a feast at which the
emperor and his empress were present, a fight commences between the two
great baronial parties who were their guests, by a chief of one party
striking one of the other party with a goblet; the cooks are brought
out of the kitchen to take part in it, with their pestles, ladles, and
pot-hooks, led by duke Begon, who had seized a spit, full of birds, as
the weapon which came first to hand; and the contest is not appeased
until many are killed and wounded.
The preceding remarks, of course, apply chiefly to the tables of the
prince, the noble, and the wealthy gentleman, where alone this degree
of profusion and of ceremony reigned; and to those of the monastic
houses and of the higher clergy, where, if possible, the luxury even
of princes was overpassed. The examples of clerical and monastic
extravagance in feasting are so numerous, that I will not venture
on this occasion to enter upon them any further. All recorded facts
would lead us to conclude, that the ordinary course of living of the
monks was much more luxurious than that of the clerical lords of the
land, who, indeed, seem to have lived, on ordinary occasions, with
some degree of simplicity, except that the great number of people who
dined at their expense, required a very large quantity of provisions.
Even men of rank, when dining alone, or hastily, are described as
being satisfied with a very limited variety of food. In the romance of
“Garin,” when Rigaud, one of the barons of “Garin’s” party, arrives at
court with important news, and very hungry, the empress orders him to
be served with a large vessel of wine (explained by a various reading
to be equivalent to a pot), four loaves (the loaves appear usually to
have been small), and a roasted peacock--
_On li aporte plain un barris de vin,_
_Et quatre pains, et un paon rosti._
--Garin le Loherain, vol. ii. p. 257.
In a pane of painted glass in the possession of Dr. Henry Johnson,
of Shrewsbury, of Flemish workmanship of about the beginning of the
sixteenth century, and representing the story of the Prodigal Son, the
Prodigal is seated at table with a party of dissolute women, feasting
upon a pasty. It is reproduced in our cut No. 121. They appear to have
only one drinking-cup among them, but the wine is served from a very
rich goblet. We cannot, however, always judge the character of a feast
by the articles placed on the table by the mediæval illuminators, for
they were in the constant habit of drawing things conventionally, and
they seem to have found a difficulty--perhaps in consequence of their
ignorance of perspective--in representing a crowded table. Our cut No.
122, on the following page, taken from MS. Reg. 10 E. iv., in which
we recognize again our old friend the holy-water clerc, represents a
table which is certainly very sparingly furnished, although the persons
seated at it seem to belong to a respectable class in society. Some
cooked articles, perhaps meat, on a stand, bread, a single knife to cut
the provisions, and one pot, probably of ale, from which they seem to
have drunk without the intervention of a glass, form the whole service.
[Illustration: _No. 121. Feasting on a Pasty._]
We find allusions from time to time to the style of living of the class
in the country answering to our yeomanry, and of the _bourgeoisie_
in the towns, which appears to have been sufficiently plain. In the
romance of “Berte” (p. 78), when Berte finds shelter at the house of
the farmer Symon, they give her, for refreshment, a chicken and wine.
In the fabliau of the “_Vilain mire_” (Barbazan, vol. iii. p. 3), the
farmer, who had saved money, and become tolerably rich, had no such
luxuries as salmon or partridge, but his provisions consisted only of
bread and wine, and fried eggs, and cheese in abundance--
_N’orent pas saumon ne pertris,_
_Pain et vin orent, et oés fris,_
_Et du fromage à grant plenté._
[Illustration: _No. 122. A Dinner tête-à-tête._]
The franklin, in Chaucer, is put forward as an example of great
liberality in the articles of provisions:--
_An householdere, and that a gret, was he,_
_Seynt Julian he was in his countré,_
_His breed, his ale, was alway after oon;_
_A bettre envyned man was nowher noon._
_Withoute bake mete was never his hous,_
_Of fleissch and fissch, and that so plentyvous,_
_It snewed in his hous of mete and drynke,_
_Of alle deyntees that men cowde thynke._
_Aftur the sondry sesouns of the yeer,_
_He chaunged hem at mete and at soper._
_Ful many a fat partrich had he in mewe,_
_And many a brem and many a luce in stewe_ (fish pond),
_Woo was his cook, but if his sauce were_
_Poynant and scharp, and redy al his gere;_
_His table dormant in his halle alway_
_Stood redy covered al the longe day._
--Chaucer’s Cant. Tales, l. 341.
A story in the celebrated collection of the Cent. Nouvelles Nouvelles
(Nouv. 83), composed soon after the middle of the fifteenth century,
gives us some notion of the store of provisions in the house of an
ordinary burgher. A worthy and pious _demoiselle_--that is, a woman
of the respectable class of _bourgeoisie_, who was, in this case,
a widow--invited a monk to dine with her, out of charity. They
dined without other company, and were served by a _chambrière_ or
maid-servant, and a man-servant or valet. The course of meat, which was
first placed on the table, consisted of _porée_, or soup, bacon, pork
tripes, and a roasted ox’s tongue. But the demoiselle had miscalculated
the voracity of her guest, for, before she had made much progress in
her _porée_, he had devoured everything on the table, and left nothing
but empty dishes. On seeing this, his hostess ordered her servants to
put on the table a piece of good salt beef, and a large piece of choice
mutton; but he ate these also, to her no little astonishment, and she
was obliged to send for a fine ham, which had been cooked the day
before, and which appears to have been all the meat left in the house.
The monk devoured this, and left nothing but the bone. The course which
would have followed the first service was then laid on the table,
consisting of a “very fine fat cheese,” and a dish well furnished
with tarts, apples, and cheese, which also quickly followed the meat.
It appears from this story that the ordinary dinner of a respectable
burgher consisted of a soup, and two or three plain dishes of meat,
followed by cheese, pastry, and fruit. An illumination, illustrative of
another tale in this collection, in the unique manuscript preserved in
the Hunterian Library, at Glasgow, and copied in the annexed cut (No.
123), represents a dinner-table of an ordinary person of this class of
society, which is not over largely furnished. We see only bread in the
middle, what appears to be intended for a ham at one end, and at the
other a dish, perhaps of cakes or tarts. The lower classes lived, of
course, much more meanly than the others; but we have fewer allusions
to them in the earlier mediæval literature, as they were looked upon
as a class hardly worth describing. This class was, no doubt, much
more miserable in France than in England. A French moral poem of the
fourteenth century, entitled “_Le Chemin de Pauvreté et de Richesse_,”
represents the poor labourers as having no other food than bread,
garlic, and salt, with water to drink:--
_N’y ot si grant ne si petit_
_Qui ne preist grant appetit_
_En pain sec, en aux, et en sel,_
_Ne il ne mengoit riens en el,_
_Mouton, buef, oye, ne poucin;_
_Et puis prenoient le bacin,_
_A deux mains, plain d’eaue, et buvoient._
[Illustration: _No. 123. A Frugal Repast._]
As I have said, the dresser (_dressoir_) or cupboard was the only
important article of furniture in the hall, besides the tables and
benches. It was a mere cupboard for the plate, and had generally steps
to enable the servants to reach the articles that were placed high up
in it, but it is rarely represented in pictured manuscripts before the
fifteenth century, when the illuminators began to introduce more detail
into their works. The reader may form a notion of its contents, from
the list of the service of plate given by Edward I. of England to his
daughter Margaret, after her marriage with the duke of Brabant; it
consisted of forty-six silver cups with feet, for drinking; six wine
pitchers, four ewers for water, four basins with gilt escutcheons,
six great silver dishes for entremets; one hundred and twenty smaller
dishes; a hundred and twenty salts; one gilt salt, for her own use;
seventy-two spoons; and three silver spice-plates with a spice-spoon.
The dresser, as well as all the furniture of the hall, was in the care
of the groom; it was his business to lay them out, and to take them
away again. It appears to have been the usual custom to take away the
boards and tressels (forming the tables) at the same time as the cloth.
The company remained seated on the benches, and the drinking-cups were
handed round to them. So tells us the “Boke of Curtasye”--
_Whenne they have wasshen, and grace is sayde,_
_Away he takes at a brayde_ (at once),
_Avoydes the borde into the store,_
_Tase away the trestles that been so store_.