Chapter VIII

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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._

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.

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.

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.

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._

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._

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_.