The domestic comforts that graced the private life within these castle halls, formed striking contrasts to the magnificence of the knightly and military displays, although the walls often were hung with gorgeous tapestries, and the banqueting table groaned beneath the weight of gold and silver, the refinements essential to modern ideas of comfort were unknown. The fingers of the eater supplied the place of forks, and when withdrawn from rich dishes, were often employed in tearing the morsels of food
asunder. Straw and rushes were the substitutes for carpets, and clumsy wooden benches and tables supported the guests and viands at these entertainments; those who were unfortunate enough not to obtain a seat at the board were compelled to make use of the floor. Several English estates were held upon condition of furnishing straw for royal beds, and litter for the apartment floors of a palace; and the office of rush strewer remained in the list of the royal household to a very late period. Doubtless these deficiences were of slight importance to an active out-door people, whose happiness consisted in large retinues, rich armours, and splendid tournaments; even the ladies, with hunting, hawking, and the occasional amusement of displaying their skill in archery from the loop-holes or ramparts of their castles, when acting as viceroys for their sovereign lords, no doubt could well dispense with the minor occupations of refined civilization.
The bill of fare of a feudal banquet would possibly astonish and puzzle the gastronomic powers and digestive organs of the nineteenth century, although cookery was esteemed as a noble science even then, in the days when Soyer was not. The boar’s head, the peacock, occasionally served up in his feathers, the crane or young herons, might not have been altogether bad substitutes for turkeys and geese, but whether larded, roasted, and eaten with ginger, and
often served in their feathers, they might have been suited to our modern tastes is problematical; porpoises and seals that often appeared in the list of “goodly provisions” for special occasions, may scarcely be deemed more of dainties; and the compounds that figure in some of the recipes extant, of the more mystical entrées, present to the eye such medleys, that we feel certain of a preference for the plain “roast” or “boil,” in feudal times, at least, if not at all others. Force-meats, compounded of pork, figs, cheese, and ale, seasoned with pepper, saffron, and salt, baked in a crust, and garnished with powderings of sugar and comforts, may be quoted as a sample of their made dishes, while beef-tea, enriched with pork fat, beaten up with cream and sweetened with honey, as directed by their form, possibly was classed among the delicate soups, or ranged under the head of “sick cookery.”
The bread that formed the substitute for our best and “second households,” was of various kinds, the finest being a sort of spice-cake of superior quality; simnel and wastel cakes were the ordinary food for the aristocracy, while commoners were content with a coarse brown material manufactured from rye, oats, or barley, that would at this day cause a revolution in prisons, or pauper workhouses, were it to be found in the dietary table of either, much less on the dinner-table. The special wines, hippocras,
pigment, morat, and mead, were the temptations to inebriety among the rich; cider, perry, and ale, the form of alcoholic drinks common to the less affluent.
The record of Peter de Blois, in one of his letters from the Court of Henry II., may be estimated perhaps as a faithful, if not attractive, description of the ordinary fare on which many unfortunate knights and retainers were sometimes compelled to subsist. He tells us that a priest or soldier had bread put before him, “not kneaded, not leavened, made of the dregs of beer, like lead, full of bran, and unbaked, wine spoiled by being sour or mouldy, thick, greasy, rancied, tasting of pitch, and vapid, sometimes so full of dregs, that they were compelled rather to filter than drink it, with eyes shut and teeth closed; meat stale as often as fresh; fish often four days old.” The picture is heightened by sundry details of a pungent character, all tending to prove the truth of his assertion, that powerful exercise was an essential assistant to overcome the evils of such diet. Early hours possibly contributed to lessen its injurious effects; and these of course, at any rate as far as regarded the “early to bed,” were enforced by the curfew, which has so mistakenly been attributed to the Norman Conqueror’s despotism, whereas it had long prevailed as a custom here, as on the continent, prior to his era, and was, in fact, a necessary precaution against the dangers of fire,
when the dwelling-houses that formed a town or city were little more than bundles of faggots, well dried and bound up ready for burning.
Among the social amusements of that time, gambling seems to have prevailed to a great extent. The curious prohibitions that were enacted in the reign of Richard, would indicate that it had then grown into a formidable vice; kings were permitted to play with each other, and command their followers, but the nobles were restricted to losing twenty shillings in one night; priests and knights might, with permission, play to the same amount, but were to forfeit four times twenty shillings if they exceeded it; servants might also play to a limited extent, at the command of their master, but if they ventured without such permission, they subjected themselves to the penalty of being whipped three successive days; and mariners at sea, for a like transgression, were sentenced to be ducked three times for the offence. Chess, that infinite and insoluble intellectual problem, whose origin is lost in oriental obscurity, was introduced by the Crusaders on their return from their expeditions to the Holy Land, if, indeed, as some believe, it was not known in this country prior to that date; but if we may judge by inference, we may presume it to have been no favourite recreation in those spirit-stirring times, when crusades, tournaments, and military prowess
were the end and aim of men’s lives. The amusements and sports naturally partook of the character of the age, and hunting, hawking, tilting, and tournaments were at once the schools for gaining strength and dexterity, as well as safety-valves for the overflowing mobility engendered by the spirit of the times. These pursuits were elevated to the rank of perfect sciences, and the education of a youth was incomplete that did not embrace regular tuition in all of them. Nor were they, as we know, confined to the “lords of the creation.” In hunting, ladies not only often joined in the sport, but frequently formed parties by themselves, winding the horn, rousing the game, and pursuing it without assistance, the female Nimrods manifesting especial partiality to greyhounds—or hare-hounds, as they were then called. The objects of these hunts were somewhat more numerous and varied then than now, and were divided into three classes; first, the beasts for hunting, viz. the hare, the hart, the wolf, and the wild boar; secondly, the beasts of the chase, the buck and doe, the fox, the martin, and the roe; and a minor class, which were said to afford great disport in the pursuit, the grey, or badger, the wild cat, and the otter.