Then pledge me sirs, and drink away,
For Christmas revels here to day
And sways without controul.
Now Wassel to you all! and merry may ye be!
But foul that wight befall, who Drinks not Health to me!"[200:A]
Manchet loaves, wastel-bread, and the stately pye, that is, a peacock or pheasant pye, were still common in the days of Shakspeare. During the prevalence of chivalry, it was usual for the knights to take their vows of enterprise, at a solemn feast, on the presentation to each knight, in turn, of a roasted peacock in a golden dish. For this was afterwards substituted, though only in a culinary light, and as the most magnificent dish which could be brought to table, a peacock in a pie, preserving as much as possible the form of the bird, with the head elevated above the crust, the beak richly gilt, and the beautiful tail spread out to its full extent. In allusion to these superb dishes a ludicrous oath was prevalent in Shakspeare's time, which he has, with much propriety, put into the mouth of Justice Shallow, who, soliciting the stay of the fat knight, exclaims,
"By cock and pye, sir, you shall not away to night."[201:A]
The use of the peacock, however, as one of the articles of a second course, continued to the close of the seventeenth century; for Gervase Markham, in the ninth edition of his English House-Wife, London 1683, enumerating the articles and ordering of a great feast, mentions this, among other birds, now seldom seen as objects of cookery; "then in the second course she shall first preferr the lesser wild-fowl, as &c. then the lesser land-fowl as &c. &c. then the great wild-fowl, as bittern, hearn, shoveler, crane, bustard, and such like. Then the greater land-fowl, as PEACOCKS, phesant, puets, gulls, &c."[201:B]
Numerous collections of Carols, or festal chansons, to be sung at the various feasts and ceremonies of the Christmas-holidays, were published during the sixteenth century. One of the earliest of these was printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1521, and entitled Christmasse carolles. It contains, among many very curious specimens of this species of popular poetry, one, which not only contributed to the hilarity of our ancestors in the reigns of Henry, Elizabeth, and James, but is still in use, though with many alterations, in Queen's College, Oxford; it is designated as a Carol bryngyng in the bores head, which was the first dish served up at the baron's high table in the great hall on Christmas-day, and was usually accompanied by a procession, with the sound of trumpets and other instruments.