Life on a Mediaeval Barony / A Picture of a Typical Feudal Community in the Thirteenth Century

by William Stearns Davis

A FEAST OF CEREMONY IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY

It was the custom during the repast to bring in enormous pâtés which held little live birds: these flew about the hall when the crust of the pâté was broken; immediately the servants loosened falcons which gave chase. This part of the feast is represented here.

If an elaborate dinner had been required on a so-called fast day, the cooks could still have met the occasion and yet have kept within the commands of the Church; although not merely would there have been much fish, but also more vegetables. The guests could have been served with roast apples garnished with sorrel and rosemary; then might have come a rich soup made of trout, herring, eels salted twenty-four hours, and salt whiting soaked twelve hours, almonds, ginger, saffron, and cinnamon powder. If possible to bring them up from the ocean, there would have been soles, congers, turbots, and salmon—and in any case these can be had salted—the rivers in turn supply pike (preferably with roe), carp, and bream. For side dishes there can be lampreys, porpoise, mackerel, and shad served with juice of crab apples, rice, and fried almonds. Finally might come stewed or ripe fruits—figs, dates, grapes, and filberts; the whole washed down with spiced wine (hippocras). To the minds of men of a later age this fast-day dinner might seem only a little less gorging than the orthodox feast upon meats.

But elaborate as is this wedding banquet, at last everybody has had his fill. The concluding baked pears, the peeled walnuts, dates, and figs have been passed. The noble dames have chewed their unfamiliar sugar plums. A last cup of spiced wine is handed around, but nobody has drunk too much to become worse than merrily talkative. Before rising the guests have all very properly "thought of the poor," called in the servitors and piled all the loose food upon great platters to be kept for the needy. To-day, in fact, all the indigent in the region are eating voraciously at the outer tables, but on the morrow of a festival day you will see a great collection of halt, sickly, and shiftless hanging around the barbican in just expectation that Conon and Adela will order a distribution.[31]

At last the bishop returns thanks; basins, pitchers, and towels are again carried around. Then the guests rise, some to mingle with the less exalted visitors outside, some to repose under the shade trees, some to listen to the jongleurs who are now tuning their instruments, and many (especially the younger) to get ready for the thing we have seen they liked almost the best—extremely vigorous dancing.

Outside of the state pavilion the service has naturally been less ceremonious and the fare less sumptuous, but all of the countryside has been welcome to wander into the castle gardens and to partake. Greasy, unkempt villeins have been elbowing up to the long tables, snatching joints of meat, bawling to the servitors to refill their leather flagons, and throwing bits of cheese and bread around in an outrageously wasteful manner. Thousands of persons, apparently many of whom will be happy if they can have black bread all through the winter, are trying to-day to avenge past hunger by devouring and drinking just as much as possible. Sire Eustace is continually calling; "Another tun of wine! Another vat of beer! Another quarter of beer!" These viands for the multitude are not select, but there are bread, flesh, and drink without stinting. Fortunate it is that Conon has not two marriageable sisters, or there would be naught left to eat on the seigneury!

Wholesale Hospitality

As the shadows lengthen everybody seems satisfied. The villeins and petty nobles lay down their flagons. Groups of friends, if sufficiently sober, begin to sing songs in a round, each member improvising a doggerel verse, and the group thundering out the chorus. But many of the guests do not retain wits enough for recreations. While their noble hosts are dancing, the others throw themselves on the grass in companies to watch or listen to the jongleurs: then as the wedding dances finish, Olivier and Alienor come out of the great tent to take their seats on flower-wreathed chairs before the principal minstrels, and by their presence give some decorum to what threatens to become a disgracefully confused and coarse form of reveling.

For a great feast the jongleurs seem, in fact, almost as indispensable as the cooks. We have now to ask the nature of North French minstrelsy.[32]