The tavern in the middle ages seems to have been the usual scene of a large portion of the ordinary life of the lower class of society, and even partially of the middle class, and its influence was certainly very injurious on the manners and character of the people. Even the women, as we learn from a number of contemporary songs and stories, spent much of their time drinking and gossiping in taverns, where great latitude was afforded for carrying on low intrigues. The tavern was, in fact, the general rendezvous of those who sought amusement, of whatever kind. In the “Milleres Tale,” in Chaucer, Absolon, “that joly was and gay,” and who excelled as a musician, frequented the taverns and “brewhouses,” meaning apparently the lesser public-houses where they only sold ale, to exhibit his skill— In al the toun nas brewhous ne taverne
That he ne visited with his solas,
Ther as that any gaylard tapster was.
—Cant. Tales, l. 3,334.
And Chaucer’s friar was well acquainted with all the taverns in the towns he visited— He knew wel the tavernes in every toun,
And every osteller or gay tapstere.
—Ibid., l. 240.
The tavern was especially the haunt of gamblers, who were encouraged by the “tapster,” because they brought him his most profitable customers. As I have said before, when his customers had no money, the taverner took their articles of dress for payment, and in doing this he added the profits of the money-lender to those of the taverner. In the fabliau of “Gautier d’Aupais,” the young prodigal Gautier, hungry and penniless, arrives towards evening at a tavern, where he finds a number of guests enjoying themselves. His horse is taken to the stable, and he joins the guests, but when the moment comes for paying, and the taverner demands three sols, he is induced in his desperation to try his luck at the dice. Instead, however, of retrieving his fortunes, he loses his horse and his robe, and is obliged to return to his father’s house on foot, and in his shirt—

The story of Cortois d’Arras, in the fabliau in “Barbazan” (i. 355), is somewhat similar. Young Cortois, also a prodigal, obtains from his father a large sum of money as a compensation for all his claims on the paternal property, and with this throws himself upon the world. As he proceeded, he heard the tavern-boy calling out from the door, “Here is good wine of Soissons, acceptable to everybody! here credit is given to everybody, and no pledges taken!” with much more in the same style. Cortois determined to stop at the tavern. “Host,” said he, “how much do you sell your wine the septier (a measure of two gallons)? and when was it tapped?” He was told that it had been fresh tapped that morning, and that the price was six deniers. The host then goes on to display his accommodations. “Within are all sorts of comforts; painted chambers, and soft beds, raised high with white straw, and made soft with feathers; here within is hostel for love affairs, and when bed-time comes you will have pillows of violets to hold your head more softly; and, finally, you will have electuaries and rose-water, to wash your mouth and your face.” Cortois orders a gallon of wine, and immediately afterwards a belle demoiselle makes her appearance, for such were in these times reckoned among the attractions of the tavern. It is soon arranged between the lady and the landlord that she is to be Cortois’ chamber-companion, and they all begin drinking together, the taverner persuading his guest that he owes this choice wine to the lady’s love. They then go to carouse in the garden, and they finish by plundering him of his money, and he is obliged to leave his clothes in pledge for the payment of his tavern expenses. The ale-wife was especially looked upon as a model of extortion and deceit, for she cheated unblushingly, both in money and measure, and she is pointed out in popular literature as an object of hatred and of satire. Our cut No. 226, also furnished by one of the carved misereres in Ludlow Church, represents a scene from Doomsday: a demon is bearing away the deceitful ale-wife, who carries nothing with her but her gay head-dress and her false measure; he is going to throw her into “hell-mouth,” while another demon is reading her offences as entered in his roll, and a third is playing on the bagpipes, by way of welcome.

CHAPTER XV.
EDUCATION.—LITERARY MEN AND SCRIBES.—PUNISHMENTS; THE STOCKS; THE GALLOWS.

I put together in a short chapter two parts of my subject which may at the first glance seem somewhat discordant, but which, I think, on further consideration, will be found to be rather closely related—they are, education and punishment for offences against the law. It can hardly be doubted, indeed, that, as education becomes more general and better regulated, if the necessity of punishment is not entirely taken away, its cruelty is greatly diminished.

During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, there was certainly a general feeling of the necessity of extending and improving education. It was during this period that our great universities rose into existence, and flourished, and these schools, which provided for the higher development of the mind, had their thousands of students, instead of the hundreds who frequent them at the present day. But the need of some provision for education was felt most in regard to that less elevated degree of instruction which was required for the more youthful mind,—in fact, it was long before the people of the middle ages could be persuaded that literary education was of any use at all, except for those who were to be made great scholars; the clergy itself, unfortunately, did not see the necessity of popular education, and although the schools in parish churches were long continued, they appear to have been conducted more and more with negligence. It was the mercantile class in the towns which made the first step in advance, by the establishment of those foundations which have continued to the present time under the name of grammar schools. These schools are traced back to the thirteenth century, when the merchant guilds, by whom they were founded, began to assume a greater degree of importance, and they were usually intended for the general benefit of the town, but were combined with an ecclesiastical establishment for performing services for the souls of the members of the guilds, in consequence of which, at the Reformation, they became involved in the superstitious uses, and were dissolved and refounded in the reign of Edward VI., so that they are now generally known as king Edward’s foundations. The great object of these schools was to give the instruction necessary for admission into the universities; and they were in some degree the answer to an appeal which came deeply from the mass of the people,—for there was at this time a great spontaneous eagerness for learning, both for the sake of the learning itself, and because it was a road to high distinction, which was not open to the masses in any other direction. It was a very common practice for poor youths to go about the country during vacation time, to beg money to keep them at school during term. In Piers Ploughman, among the objects of legitimate charity, the writer enumerates money given to— Sette scolers to scole,
Or to som othere craftes.
—Piers Ploughman, Vis., l. 4,525.
And in the popular complaints of the burden of taxation, involuntary and voluntary, the alms given to poor scholars are often enumerated.

Independent, however, of what may be considered more especially as scholarship, a considerable amount of instruction began now to be spread abroad. Reading and writing were becoming much more general accomplishments, especially among ladies. Among the amusements of leisure hours, indeed, reading began now to occupy a much larger place than had been given to it in former ages. Even still, popular literature—in the shape of tales, and ballads and songs—was, in a great measure, communicated orally. But much had been done during the fourteenth century towards spreading a taste for literature and knowledge; books were multiplied, and were extensively read; and wants were already arising which soon led the way to that most important of modern discoveries, the art of printing. Most gentlemen had now a few books, and men of wealth had considerable libraries. The wills of this period, still preserved, often enumerate the books possessed by the testator, and show the high value which was set upon them. Many of the illuminations of the fourteenth century present us with ingenious, and sometimes fantastic, forms of book-cases and book-stands. In our cut No. 227, from a manuscript of metrical relations of miracles of the Virgin Mary, now preserved in the library of the city of Soissons in France, we have a monk reading, seated before a book-stand, the table of which moves up and down on a screw. Upon this table is the inkstand, and below it apparently the inkbottle; and the table has in itself receptacles for books and paper or parchment. In the wall of the room are cupboards, also for the reception of books, as we see by one lying loose in them. The man is here seated on a stool; but in our cut No. 228, taken from a manuscript in the National Library in Paris (No. 6985), he is seated in a chair, with a writing-desk attached to it. The scribe holds in his hand a pen, with which he is writing, and a knife to scratch the parchment where anything may need erasion. The table here is also of a curious construction, and it is covered with books. Other examples are found, which show that considerable ingenuity was employed in varying the forms of such library tables.

The next cut (No. 229) is taken from one of the illuminations to a manuscript of the “Moralization of Chess,” by Jacques de Cessoles (MS. Reg. 19 C. xi.), and is intended as a sort of figurative representation of the industrial class of society. It is curious because the figure is made to carry some of the principal implements of the chief trades or manufactures, and thus gives us their ordinary forms. We need only repeat the enumeration of these from the text. It is, we are told, a man who holds in his right hand a pair of shears (unes forces); in his left hand he has a great knife (un grant coustel); “and he must have at his girdle an inkstand (une escriptoire), and on his ear a pen for writing (et sur l’oreille une penne à escripre).” Accordingly we see the ink-pot and the case for writing implements suspended at the girdle, but by accident the pen does not appear on the ear in our engraving. It is curious through how great a length of time the practice of placing the pen behind the ear has continued in use.

The punishments of the middle ages are remarkable, still more so in other countries than in England, for a mixture of a small amount of feeling of strict justice with a very large proportion of the mere feeling of vengeance. Savage ferocity in the commission of crime led to no less savage cruelty in retaliation. We have seen, in a former chapter, that this was not the sentiment of our Anglo-Saxon forefathers, but that their criminal laws were extremely mild; but after the Norman conquest, more barbarous feelings on this subject were brought over from the Continent. Imprisonment itself, even before trial, was made frightfully cruel; the dungeons into which the accused were thrown were often filthy holes, sometimes with water running through them, and, as a refinement in cruelty, loathsome reptiles were bred in them, and the prisoners were not only allowed insufficient food, but they were sometimes stripped naked, and thrown into prison in that condition. In the early English romance of the “Seven Sages” (the text printed by Weber), when the emperor was persuaded by his wife to order her step-son for execution, he commanded that he should be taken, stripped naked of his clothes, and then hanged aloft— Quik he het (commanded) his sone take,
And spoili him of clothes nake,
And beten him with scourges stronge,
And afterward him hegge (high) anhonge.
—Weber, iii. 21.
At the intercession of one of the wise men, the youth is respited and thrown into prison, but without his clothing; and when, on a subsequent occasion, he was brought out of prison for judgment, he remained still naked.

Our three cuts which follow illustrate the subject of mediæval punishments for crimes and offences. The first (No. 230) is taken from a well-known manuscript, in the British Museum, of the fourteenth century (MS. Reg. 10 E. iv.), and represents a monk and a lady, whose career has brought them into the stocks, an instrument of punishment which has figured in some of our former chapters. It is a very old mode of punishing offenders, and appears, under the Latin name of cippus, in early records of the middle ages. An old English poem, quoted by Mr. Halliwell in his Dictionary, from a manuscript at least as old as the fifteenth century, recounting the punishments to which some misdoers were condemned, says:— And twenty of thes oder ay in a pytt,
In stokkes and feturs for to sytt.
The stocks are frequently referred to in writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and they have not yet become entirely obsolete. The Leeds Mercury for April 14, 1860, informs us that, “A notorious character, named John Gambles, of Stanningley (Pudsey), having been convicted some months ago for Sunday gambling, and sentenced to sit in the stocks for six hours, left the locality, returned lately, and suffered his punishment by sitting in the stocks from two till eight o’clock on Thursday last.” They were formerly employed also, in place of fetters, in the inside of prisons—no doubt in order to cause suffering by irksome restraint; and this was so common that the Latin term cippus, and the French ceps, were commonly used to designate the prison itself. It may be remarked of these stocks, that they present a peculiarity which we may perhaps call a primitive character. They are not supported on posts, or fixed in any way to the spot, but evidently hold the people who are placed in them in confinement merely by their weight, and by the impossibility of walking with them on the legs, especially when more persons than one are confined in them. This is probably the way in which they were used in prisons.

A material part of the punishment of the stocks, when employed in the open air, consisted, of course, in the public disgrace to which the victim was exposed. We might suppose that the shame of such exposure was keenly felt in the middle ages, from the frequency with which it was employed. This exposure before the public was, we know, originally, the chief characteristic of the cucking-stool, for the process of ducking the victim in the water seems to have been only added to it at a later period. Our cut No. 231, taken from an illumination in the unique manuscript of the “Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles,” in the Hunterian Library, at Glasgow, represents a person thus exposed to the scorn and derision of the populace in the executioner’s cart, which is drawn through the streets of a town. To be carried about in a cart was always considered as especially disgraceful, probably because it was thus that malefactors were usually conducted to the gallows. In the early romances of the cycle of king Arthur we have an incident which forms an apt illustration of the prevalence of this feeling. Sir Lancelot, when hastening to rescue his lady, queen Guenever, has the misfortune to lose his horse, and, meeting with a carter, he seizes his cart as the only means of conveyance, for the weight of his armour prevented him from walking. Queen Guenever and her ladies, from a bay window of the castle of sir Meliagraunce, saw him approach, and one of the latter exclaimed, “See, madam, where as rideth in a cart a goodly armed knight! I suppose that he rideth to hanging.” Guenever, however, saw by his shield that it was sir Lancelot. “‘Ah, most noble knight,’ she said, when she saw him in this condition, ‘I see well that thou hast been hard bested, when thou ridest in a cart.’ Then she rebuked that lady that compared him to one riding in a cart to hanging. ‘It was foul mouthed,’ said the queen, ‘and evil compared, so to compare the most noble knight of the world in such a shameful death. Oh Jhesu! defend him and keep him,’ said the queen, ‘from all mischievous end.’”

Our next cut (No. 232) is taken from the same manuscript in the British Museum which furnished us with No. 230. The playful draughtsman has represented a scene from the world “upso-down,” in which the rabbits (or perhaps hares) are leading to execution their old enemy the dog.

The gallows and the wheel were instruments of execution of such common use in the middle ages that they were continually before people’s eyes. Every town, every abbey, and almost every large manorial lord, had the right of hanging, and a gallows or tree with a man hanging upon it was so frequent an object in the country that it seems to have been almost a natural ornament of a landscape, and it is thus introduced by no means uncommonly in mediæval manuscripts. The two examples given in our cut No. 233 are taken from the illuminations in the manuscript of the romance of the “Chevalereux comte d’Artois,” in the manuscript from which this romance was printed by M. Barrois.

CHAPTER XVI.
OLD ENGLISH COOKERY.—HISTORY OF “GOURMANDISE.”—ENGLISH COOKERY OF THE FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES.—BILLS OF FARE.—GREAT FEASTS.

I have spoken of the ceremonious forms of the service of the mediæval table, but we are just now arrived at the period when we begin to have full information on the composition of the culinary dishes in which our ancestors indulged, and it will perhaps be well to give a brief summary of that information as illustrative both of the period we have now been considering, and of that which follows.

There is a part of the human frame, not very noble in itself, which, nevertheless, many people are said to worship, and which has even exercised at times a considerable influence over man’s destinies. Gastrolatry, indeed, is a worship which, at one time or other, has prevailed in different forms over all parts of the world—its history takes an extensive range, and is not altogether without interest. One of the first objects of search in a man who has just risen from savage life to civilization is rather naturally refinement in his food, and this desire more than keeps pace with the advance of general refinement, until cookery becomes one of the most important of social institutions. During all periods of which we read in history, great public acts, of whatever kind, even to the consecration of a church, have been accompanied with feasting; and the same rule holds good throughout all the different phases of our social relations. The materials for the history of eating are, indeed, abundant, and the field is extensive.

William of Malmesbury, as we have seen before, tells us that the Anglo-Saxons indulged in great feasting, and lived in very mean houses; whereas the Normans eat with moderation, but built for themselves magnificent mansions. Various allusions in old writers leave little room for doubt that our Anglo-Saxon forefathers indulged in much eating; but, as far as we can gather, for our information is very imperfect, this indulgence consisted more in the quantity than in the quality of the food, for their cookery seems to have been in general what we call “plain.” Refinement in cookery appears to have come in with the Normans; and from the twelfth century to the sixteenth we can trace the love of the table continually increasing. The monks, whose institution had, to a certain degree, separated them from the rest of the world, and who usually, and from the circumstances perhaps naturally, sought sensual gratifications, fell soon into the sin of gluttony, and they seem to have led the way in refinement in the variety and elaborate character of their dishes. Giraldus Cambrensis, an ecclesiastic himself, complains in very indignant terms of the luxurious table kept by the monks of Canterbury in the latter half of the twelfth century; and he relates an anecdote which shows how far at that time the clergy were, in this respect, in advance of the laity. One day, when Henry II. paid a visit to Winchester, the prior and monks of St. Swithin met him, and fell on their knees before him to complain of the tyranny of their bishop. When the king asked what was their grievance, they said that their table had been curtailed of three dishes. The king, somewhat surprised at this complaint, and imagining, no doubt, that the bishop had not left them enough to eat, inquired how many dishes he had left them. They replied, ten; at which the king, in a fit of indignation, told them that he himself had no more than three dishes to his table, and uttered an imprecation against the bishop, unless he reduced them to the same number.

But although we have abundant evidence of the general fact that our Norman and English forefathers loved the table, we have but imperfect information on the character of their cookery until the latter half of the fourteenth century, when the rules and receipts for cooking appear to have been very generally committed to writing, and a certain number of cookery-books belonging to this period and to the following century remain in manuscript, forming very curious records of the domestic life of our forefathers. From these I will give a few illustrations of this subject. These cookery-books sometimes contain plans for dinners of different descriptions, or, as we should now say, bills of fare, which enable us, by comparing the names of the dishes with the receipts for making them, to form a tolerably distinct notion of the manner in which our forefathers fared at table from four to five hundred years ago. The first example we shall give is furnished by a manuscript of the beginning of the fifteenth century, and belongs to the latter part of the century preceding; that is, to the reign of Richard II., a period remarkable for the fashion for luxurious living: it gives us the following bill of fare for the ordinary table of a gentleman, which I will arrange in the form of a bill of fare of the present day, modernizing the language, except in the case of obsolete words.

It may be well to make the general remark, that the ordinary number of courses at dinner was three. To begin, then, with the first dish, boar’s-head was a favourite article at table, and needs no explanation. The pottage which follows, under the name of bruce, was made as follows, according to a receipt in the same cookery-book which has furnished the bill of fare:—

Take the umbles of a swine, and parboil them (boil them slowly), and cut them small, and put them in a pot, with some good broth; then take the whites of leeks, and slit them, and cut them small, and put them in, with minced onions, and let it all boil; next take bread steeped in broth, and “draw it up” with blood and vinegar, and put it into a pot, with pepper and cloves, and let it boil; and serve all this together.

In the second course, drope is probably an error for drore, a pottage, which, according to the same cookery-book, was made as follows:—

Take almonds, and blanch and grind them, and mix them with good meat broth, and seethe this in a pot; then mince onions, and fry them in fresh “grease,” and put them to the almonds; take small birds, and parboil them, and throw them into the pottage, with cinnamon and cloves and a little “fair grease,” and boil the whole.

Rose was made as follows:—

Take powdered rice, and boil it in almond-milk till it be thick, and take the brawn of capons and hens, beat it in a mortar, and mix it with the preceding, and put the whole into a pot, with powdered cinnamon and cloves, and whole mace, and colour it with saunders (sandal-wood).

It may be necessary to explain that almond-milk consisted simply of almonds ground and mixed with milk or broth. The farsure, or stuffing, for chickens was made thus:—

Take fresh pork, seethe it, chop it small, and grind it well; put to it hard yolks of eggs, well mixed together, with dried currants, powder of cinnamon and maces, cubebs, and cloves whole, and roast it.

I am unable to explain the meaning of malachis, the dish which concludes this course.

The first dish in the third course, coneys, or rabbits, in gravy, was made as follows:—

Take rabbits, and parboil them, and chop them in “gobbets,” and seethe them in a pot with good broth; then grind almonds, “dress them up” with beef broth, and boil this in a pot; and, after passing it through a strainer, put it to the rabbits, adding to the whole cloves, maces, pines (the kernels of the pine cone), and sugar; colour it with sandal-wood, saffron, bastard or other wine, and cinnamon powder mixed together, and add a little vinegar.

Not less complicated was the boar in brasé, or brasey:—

Take the ribs of a boar, while they are fresh, and parboil them till they are half boiled; then roast them, and, when they are roasted, chop them, and put them in a pot with good fresh beef broth and wine, and add cloves, maces, pines, currants, and powdered pepper; then put chopped onions in a pan, with fresh grease, fry them first and then boil them; next, take bread, steeped in broth, “draw it up” and put it to the onions, and colour it with sandal-wood and saffron, and as it settles, put a little vinegar mixed with powdered cinnamon to it; then take brawn, and cut it into slices two inches long, and throw it into the pot with the foregoing, and serve it all up together.

Raffyolys were a sort of patties, made as follows:—

Take swine’s flesh, seethe it, chop it small, add to it yolks of eggs, and mix them well together; put to this a little minced lard, grated cheese, powdered ginger, and cinnamon; make of this balls of the size of an apple, and wrap them up in the cawl of the swine, each ball by itself; make a raised crust of dough, and put the ball in it, and bake it; when they are baked, take yolks of eggs well beaten, with sugar and pepper, coloured with saffron, and pour this mixture over them.

Flampoyntes were made thus:—

Take good “interlarded” pork, seethe it, and chop it, and grind it small; put to it good fat cheese grated, and sugar and pepper; put this in raised paste like the preceding; then make a thin leaf of dough, out of which cut small “points,” fry these in grease, and then stick them in the foregoing mixture after it has been put in the crust, and bake it.

Such was a tolerably respectable dinner at the end of the fourteenth century; but the same treatise gives us the following bill of fare, for a larger dinner, though still arranged in three courses:—

The receipt for making farsed browet, or browet farsyn, is literally as follows:—

Take almonds and pound them, and mix with beef broth, so as to make it thick, and put it in a pot with cloves, maces, and figs, currants, and minced ginger, and let all this seethe; take bread, and steep it in sweet wine, and “draw it up,” and put it to the almonds with sugar; then take conyngs (rabbits), or rabbettes (young rabbits), or squirrels, and first parboil and then fry them, and partridges parboiled; fry them whole for a lord, but otherwise chop them into gobbets; and when they are almost fried, cast them in a pot, and let them boil altogether, and colour with sandal-wood and saffron; then add vinegar and powdered cinnamon strained with wine, and give it a boil; then take it from the fire, and see that the pottage is thin, and throw in a good quantity of powdered ginger.

It is repeated, at the end of this receipt, that, for a lord, a coney, rabbit, squirrel, or partridge, should be served whole in this manner. The other pottage in this course, charlet, was less complex, and was made thus:—

Take sweet cow’s milk, put it in a pan, throw into it the yolks and white of eggs, and boiled pork, pounded, and sage; let it boil till it curds, and colour it with saffron.

The following was the syrup for a capon:—

Take almonds, and pound them, and mix them with wine, till they make a thick “milk,” and colour it with saffron, and put it in a saucepan, and put into it a good quantity of figs and currants, and add ground ginger, cloves, galingale (a spice much used in the middle ages), and cinnamon; let all this boil; add sugar, and pour it over your capon or pheasant.

The leche in this first course was, perhaps, the dish which is called in the receipts a leche lumbarde, which was made thus:—

Take raw pork, and pull off the skin, and pick out the skin sinews, and pound the pork in a mortar with raw eggs; add to it sugar, salt, raisins, currants, minced dates, powdered pepper, and cloves; put it in a bladder, and let it seethe till it be done enough, and then cut it into slips of the form of peas-cods: grind raisins in a mortar, mix them with red wine, and put to them almond-milk, coloured with sandal-wood and saffron, and add pepper and cloves, and then boil the whole; when it is boiled, mix cinnamon and ginger with wine and pour on it, and so serve it.

Browet of Almayne, which comes in with the second course of this dinner, was a rather celebrated pottage. It was made in the following manner:—

Take coneys, and parboil them, and chop them in gobbets, and put them with ribs of pork or kid into a pot, and seethe it; then take ground almonds, and mix them with beef broth, and put this in a pot with cloves, maces, pines, minced ginger, and currants, and with onions, and boil it, and colour it with saffron, and when this is boiled, take the flesh out from the broth, and put it in it; and take “alkanet” (alkanet is explained in the dictionaries as the name of a plant, wild buglos; it appears to have been used in cookery to give colour), and fry it, and press it into the pot through a strainer, and finally add a little vinegar and ground ginger mixed together.

The composition of viande royale was as follows:—

Take Greek wine, or Rhenish wine, and clarified honey, and mix them well with ground rice, ginger, pepper, cinnamon, and cloves, saffron, sugar, mulberries, and sandal-wood; boil the mixture, and salt it, and take care that it be thick.

Pome de oringe was quite a different thing to what we should expect from the name. It was made as follows:—

Take pork liver, pound it well raw, and put to it ground pepper, cloves, cinnamon, saffron, and currants; make of this balls like apples, and wet them well in the white of eggs, and then put them in boiling water, and let them seethe, and when they have seethed a while, take them out, and put them on a spit, and roast them well; then take parsley, and grind it, and wring it up with eggs through a strainer, and put a little flour to it, and with this “endore” the balls while roasting, and, if you will, you may take saffron, sandal-wood, or indigo, to colour them.

Endore was the technical term of the kitchen for washing over an article of cookery with yolks of eggs, or any other liquid, to give a shiny appearance to its exterior when cooked.

Both the pottages in the third course are rather elaborate ones. The following was the process of making boar in egurdouce, or egredouce, a word which of course means “sour-sweet:”—

Take dates, washed clean, and currants, and boil them, and pound them together, and in pounding put cloves to them, and mix them up with vinegar, or clarey, or other sweet wine, and put it in a fair pot, and boil it well; and then put to it half a quartern of sugar, or else honey, and half an ounce of cinnamon in powder, and in the “setting down” take a little vinegar and mix with it, and half an ounce of ground ginger, and a little sandal-wood and saffron; and in the boiling put minced ginger to it; next, take fresh brawn, and seethe it, and then cut it in thin slices, and lay three in a dish, and then take half a pound of pines, and fry them in fresh grease, and throw the pines into it; and when they are thoroughly hot take them out with a skimmer, and let them dry, and cast them into the same pot; and then put the syrup above the brawn in the dishes, and serve it.

Mawmené was made according to the following receipt:—

Take almonds and blanch them and pound them, and mix them with water or wine, and take the brawn of capons or pheasants, and pound it small, and mix it with the other, and add ground rice, and put it in a pot and let it boil; and add powder of ginger and cloves, and cinnamon and sugar; and take rice, and parboil it and grind it, and add it to them, and colour it with sandal-wood, and pour it out in dishes; and take the grains of pomegranates and stick in it, or almonds or pines fried in grease, and strew sugar over it.

The following was the manner of making the crustade, mentioned in the third course of this bill of fare:—

Take chickens, and pigeons, and small birds, and make them clean, and chop them to pieces, and stew them altogether in a good broth made of fair grease and ground pepper and cloves, and add verjus to it, and colour it with saffron; then make raised crusts, and pinch them and lay the flesh therein, and put to it currants, and ground ginger, and cinnamon; and take raw eggs, and break them, and strain them through a strainer into the pottage of the stew, and stir it well together, and pour it into the raised crusts, above the flesh, and then place the covers on them and serve them.

The process of serving a peacock “with the skin” also requires some explanation. The skin was first stripped off, with the feathers, tail, and neck and head, and it was spread on a table and strewed with ground cummin; then the peacock was taken and roasted, and “endored” with raw yolks of eggs; and when roasted, and after it had been allowed to cool a little, it was sewn into the skin, and thus served on the table, always with the last course, when it looked as though the bird were alive. To make cokagrys, you must

Take an old cock and pull him, and wash him, and skin him all but the legs, and fill him full of the stuffing made for the pome de oringe; and also take a pig and skin him from the middle downwards, and fill him full of the same stuffing, and sew them fast together, and seethe them; and when they have seethed a good while, take them up and put them on a spit, and roast them well, and endore them with yolks of eggs mixed with saffron; and when they are roasted, before placing them on the table, lay gold and silver foil on them.

Flampoyntes have been already explained. Pears in syrup were merely boiled in wine, and seasoned with sugar and spices.

In these bills of fare, our readers who believe in the prevalence of “old English roast beef,” will find that belief singularly dissipated, for our ancestors seem to have indulged in all sorts of elaborately made dishes, in which immense quantities of spices were employed. The number of receipts in these early cookery-books is wonderfully great, and it is evident that people sought variety almost above all other things. Among the Sloane manuscripts in the library of the British Museum, there is a very complete cookery-book (MS. No. 1201) belonging to the latter part of the fifteenth century, which gives seven bills of fare of seven dinners, each to differ entirely in the dishes composing it from the other, with the object, of course, of giving a different dinner every day during seven consecutive days. In the foregoing bills of fare, we have seen that on flesh-days no fish was introduced on the table, but fish is introduced along with flesh in the seven dinners just alluded to, which are, moreover, curious for the number of articles, chiefly birds, introduced in them, which we are not now accustomed to eat. The first of these bills of fare, which are all limited to two courses, runs as follows:—

It appears that at this time it was considered more absolutely necessary than at an earlier period, that each course at table should be accompanied with a subtilty, or ornamental device in pastry, representing groups of various descriptions, as here a black boar and a castle. We have here the porpoise eaten among fishes, and the squirrel among animals; we have before seen hedgehogs served at table. In the “Ménagier de Paris,” a French compilation, made in the year 1393, a hedgehog is directed to have its throat cut, and to be skinned and emptied, and then to be arranged as a chicken, and pressed and well dried in a towel; after this it was to be roasted and eaten with “cameline,” a word the exact meaning of which seems not to be known; or in pastry, with duckling sauce. Squirrels were to be treated as rabbits. The same book gives directions for cooking magpies, rooks, and jackdaws. The second of the seven bills of fare given in the Sloane Manuscript contains turtles (the bird) and throstles, roasted; in the third we have roasted egrets (a species of heron), starlings, and linnets; in the fourth, “martinettes;” in the fifth, barnacles, “molette,” sparrows, and, among fishes, minnows; and in the sixth, roasted cormorants, heathcocks, sheldrakes, dotterels, and thrushes. The seventh bill of fare runs thus:—

The bills of fare I have thus given are intended for dinners of moderate size, but I might easily have given much larger ones, though we should have learnt nothing more by them than by the smaller ones, from which the reader will be able to form a very good judgment of the general style of eating among our forefathers, when they lived well. The fifteenth century, especially, was celebrated for its great feasts, at which the consumption of provisions was enormous. The bills of expenses of some of them have been preserved. In the sixth year of the reign of Edward IV. (A.D. 1466), George Nevile was made archbishop of York, and the account of the expenditure for the feast on that occasion contains the following articles:—Three hundred quarters of wheat, three hundred tuns of ale, one hundred tuns of wine, one pint of hypocras, a hundred and four oxen, six wild bulls, a thousand sheep, three hundred and four calves, the same number of swine, four hundred swans, two thousand geese, a thousand capons, two thousand pigs, four hundred plovers, a hundred dozen of quails, two hundred dozen of the birds called “rees,” a hundred and four peacocks, four thousand mallards and teals, two hundred and four cranes, two hundred and four kids, two thousand chickens, four thousand pigeons, four thousand crays, two hundred and four bitterns, four hundred herons, two hundred pheasants, five hundred partridges, four hundred woodcocks, one hundred curlews, a thousand egrettes, more than five hundred stags, bucks, and roes, four thousand cold venison pasties, a thousand “parted” dishes of jelly, three thousand plain dishes of jelly, four thousand cold baked tarts, fifteen hundred hot venison pasties, two thousand hot custards, six hundred and eight pikes and breams, twelve porpoises and seals, with a proportionate quantity of spices, sugared delicacies, and wafers or cakes.

On the inthronation of William Warham as archbishop of Canterbury in 1504, the twentieth year of the reign of Henry VII., a feast was given for which the following provisions were purchased:—Fifty-four quarters of wheat, twenty shillings’ worth of fine flour for making wafers, six tuns or pipes of red wine, four of claret wine, one of choice white wine, and one of white wine for the kitchen, one butt of malmsey, one pipe of wine of Osey, two tierces of Rhenish wine, four tuns of London ale, six of Kentish ale, and twenty of English beer, thirty-three pounds’ worth of spices, three hundred lings, six hundred codfish, seven barrels of salted salmon, forty fresh salmon, fourteen barrels of white herrings, twenty cades of red herrings (each cade containing six hundred herrings, which would make a total of twelve thousand), five barrels of salted sturgeons, two barrels of salted eels, six hundred fresh eels, eight thousand whelks, five hundred pikes, four hundred tenches, a hundred carps, eight hundred breams, two barrels of salted lampreys, eighty fresh lampreys, fourteen hundred fresh lamperns, a hundred and twenty-four salted congers, two hundred great roaches, a quantity of seals and porpoises, with a considerable quantity of other fish. It will be understood at once that this feast took place on a fish day.

This habit of profuse and luxurious living seems to have gradually declined during the sixteenth and first part of the seventeenth century, until it was extinguished in the great convulsion which produced the interregnum. After the Restoration, we find that the table, among all classes, was furnished more soberly, and with plainer and more substantial dishes.

CHAPTER XVII.
SLOW PROGRESS OF SOCIETY IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.—ENLARGEMENT OF THE HOUSES.—THE HALL AND ITS FURNITURE.—ARRANGEMENT OF THE TABLE FOR MEALS.—ABSENCE OF CLEANLINESS.—MANNERS AT TABLE.—THE PARLOUR.

The progress of society in the two countries which were most closely allied in this respect, England and France, was slow during the fifteenth century. Both countries were engaged either in mutual hostility or in desolating civil wars, which so utterly checked all spirit of improvement, that the aspect of society differed little between the beginning and the end of the century in anything but dress. At the close of the fourteenth century, the middle classes in England had made great advance in wealth and in independence, and the wars of the roses, which were so destructive to the nobility, as well as the tendency of the crown to set the gentry up as a balance to the power of the feudal barons, helped to make that advance more certain and rapid. This increase of wealth appears in the multiplication of furniture and of other household implements, especially those of a more valuable description. We are surprised, in running our eye through the wills and inventories during this period, at the quantity of plate which was usually possessed by country gentlemen and respectable burghers. There was also a great increase both in the number and magnitude of the houses which intervened between the castle and the cottage. Instead of having one or two bedrooms, and turning people into the hall to sleep at night, we now find whole suits of chambers; while, where before, the family lived chiefly in the hall, privacy was sought by the addition of parlours, of which there were often more than one in an ordinary sized house. The hall was in fact already beginning to diminish in importance in comparison with the rest of the house. Whether in town or country, houses of any magnitude were now generally built round an interior court, into which the rooms almost invariably looked, only small and unimportant windows looking towards the street or country. This arrangement of course originated in the necessity of studying security, a necessity which was never felt more than in the fifteenth century. We have less need to seek our illustrations from manuscripts during this period, on account of the numerous examples of buildings which still remain in a greater or less state of perfection, but still an illumination now and then presents us with an interesting picture of the architectural arrangements of a dwelling-house in the fifteenth century, which may be advantageously compared with the buildings that still exist. One of these is represented in our cut No. 234, taken from an illuminated copy of the French translation of Valerius Maximus (MS. No. 6984, in the National Library at Paris). The building to the left is probably the staircase turret of the gateway; that before us is the mass of the household apartments. We are supposed to be standing within the court. At the foot of the turret is the well, a very important object within the court, where it was always placed in houses of this description, as in the troubles of those days the household might be obliged to shut themselves up for a day or two and depend for their supply of water entirely on what they could get within their walls.