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- Herausgeber: Marion Boyars
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
The book is an entertaining historical account of Anglo-Saxon cooking, covering the centuries from 400 to 1066 CE.The author gives us evidence based information from historical artefacts and plants, showing what our early ancestors had at their disposal.
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Fodder & Drincan
Anglo-Saxon Culinary History
Emma Kay
Contents
For my father John Clarke, who would have made one of the greatest archaeologists of our time, had he been given the opportunity.
Introduction
I wanted to begin this book with a quick examination of what is meant by ‘Anglo-Saxon’, a phrase which has become loaded with contemporary interpretations in recent years, most controversially as a way of defining white supremacy.
In its simplest, historic terms, the phrase Anglo-Saxon seems to have first emerged around the eighth century, when George, Bishop of Ostia, sent a missive back to the Pope after a visit to England that he had been to Angul Saxnia.1
Alfred the Great styled himself ‘King of the Anglo-Saxons’, as did subsequent kings. This was not a phrase that extolled ethnic superiority, in an early medieval world which was hugely diverse in England at that time – Scandinavian, Germanic, French, Flemish, lingering Celtic, Romano – a society influenced by Mediterranean culture, with a reputation that by the tenth century was defined as a land ‘of many different languages and customs’.2
There has to be some way of identifying this extraordinary period, other than christening it the early medieval era, or worse still the ‘dark ages’. When I ask people what they think ‘medieval’ means to them, the standard reply is often to mention Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. When I ask what ‘early medieval’ is, there is usually a pause for thought and some vague finger waving in the direction of 1066. Mention Anglo-Saxons and most people immediately respond with the Viking invasion, or ask ‘Is that like Game of Thrones?’. They would of course be partially 8 right. In the main, people find it difficult remembering which period of history equates with what event. But they appreciate that the Anglo-Saxon era is a specific time, which is different to that of ‘medievalism’. Much the same as most people would be able to determine that the Victorian age equates with the nineteenth century, in accordance with the reign of Queen Victoria, and that the Georgian age was during the reign of the four King Georges – incidentally some of the most controversial periods in British history.
Should we also be looking to eradicate the names of kings and queens who are most associated with exploitation, imperialism, and slavery? Schoolchildren are still taught Anglo-Saxon history as part of the National Curriculum, great institutions of learning in Britain, including the National Trust, English Heritage, the Ashmolean, the Museum of London, National Museums Liverpool, the British Museum, and far too many others to mention, not to mention major relevant universities, castles, churches, archaeological sites, and library, archive, and manuscript categories, all use the phrase to determine their collections and areas of study. It is a period of distinction, and that is why this book has adopted the phrase.
In a nutshell, Anglo-Saxon Britain after the fourth century consisted of post-Roman settlements of Britons and migrant communities, including large groups of Danish seafarers from across the North Sea. Kent was one of the fastest growing settlements, followed by East Anglia, Northumbria, Mercia (the Midlands) and Wessex (Wiltshire, Hampshire, Dorset, Berkshire, Somerset). Despite the departure of the Vikings from York in the mid 900s which led to the continuing rise of the ruling Saxon (Wessex) dynasty in England at this time, further Viking raids took place in the tenth and eleventh centuries, before the Normans invaded and occupied England in 1066. It is also clear that England’s relationship with the Franks was a complex political one, particularly in the earlier part of this era. Essentially, England was continuously raided, usurped, at war and fighting for control of its territories for centuries.
Angles were one tribe of invaders from Denmark, whereas Saxons 9 represented another tribe of Germanic people from the same geographical area. Hence the merging of Angles and Saxons in England. Vikings were also Germanic, but they were aggressive warriors, pagan and tribal. Saxons were largely peace-keeping and Christian, and came along much earlier than the Vikings. This book maintains a holistic approach to the generic Anglo-Saxon period, as one that is inclusive of Viking settlers, the two being entwined.
So, you may ask, who were Britain’s indigenous inhabitants before this small island got pulled apart? It was first occupied by the Celts, an ancient tribe of people from Central and Northern Europe who originally settled in Britain before they suffered the fate of being killed, evicted, or integrated into Roman society, following the Roman occupation. Many Celts were forced to move into Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, the North and across to France. There probably would have been few left in England by the time of the great Scandinavian and Germanic invasions. It is important to clarify that the British Isles were probably not at any one time just populated by an isolated community of ‘British’ people. Stone Age populations in Britain and Ireland could very easily have been networking with the rest of Europe. There is evidence of seafaring during this period and nothing to say that trade wasn’t being conducted and knowledge exchanged. Orkney, off the north coast of Scotland, yields evidence of a settlement there during the late Stone Age. To achieve this, settlers would have had to cross an almost impossibly treacherous stretch of water.3 Communities moved and migrated around wherever the necessary resources they needed could be accessed.
Many people living in Anglo-Saxon England would have worked the land. A significant percentage of the population were also slaves; the rest were freemen who fell into several categories, with some working their own land, and others who worked for the lord or thane. Ultimately everyone was beholden to royalty and the King was advised by his handful of law enforcing earls. Although it is important to emphasise here that early Anglo-Saxon ‘kings’ were more akin to tribal chiefs, rather than heads of state.4 Despite Anglo-Saxons not being the most 10 prolific of castle builders, some strongholds were constructed during this time that served as places where royalty and leaders resided, servicing and protecting the country’s separate kingdoms prior to unification. A number of these were originally Roman defence systems, which were re-occupied by Saxons. Examples include Bamburgh Castle in Northumbria, Cheddar Palace in Somerset, Daws Castle, Somerset, Yeavering (some 15 miles west of Bamburgh), Goltho, Lincolnshire and Porchester Castle, Fareham, although the latter may well have functioned more as a ‘burh’ or ‘burg’, a fortified settlement or fortification. Former Anglo-Saxon manor houses and other fortified settlements in England are evident at Sulgrave (Northamptonshire), Middleton Mount (Norfolk), Gainsborough Castle (Lincolnshire – now the present day Old Hall), Halton (Lancashire), Ewyas Harold Castle and Hereford Castle (Herefordshire), Richard’s Castle (Shropshire/Herefordshire), Warblington Castle, Hampshire, Clavering Castle, Essex, Stansted Mountfitchet Castle, Driffield Castle, Yorkshire, Wareham Castle, Dorset, Bampton Castle, Devon, Loddiswell, Devon, Duffield Castle, Derby, Hope, Derbyshire, Sedbergh Castle, Cumbria, Warrington, Cheshire, Castle Camps, Cambridgeshire, Flitwick Castle, Bedfordshire, Thurleigh Castle, Bedfordshire and Tilsworth Castle, Bedfordshire and sites across London (Lundenwic). There are countless other cemetery, burial, ship, earthwork, church, and monastery sites littered throughout the country, along with significant sites of interest like York, Sutton Hoo, Suffolk, West Stow village, Snape cemetery, Suffolk, Canterbury-St Martin’s, Mucking and Prittlewell Essex, Walkington, Yorkshire and the village of Hammerwich, Staffordshire.
Ireland wasn’t penetrated by the Saxons in the same way as England, although there was a significant raid by the kingdom of Northumbria in the seventh century. It was the Normans who finally conquered the country. The Anglo-Saxon kingdom known as Bernicia included parts of southern Scotland, yielding a scattering of Anglo-Saxon finds, including timber halls and burial sites at Doonhill, and a possible royal hall and other mortared buildings in Dunbar. There was less contact between the Welsh and Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.5 In Wales, the mighty Offa’s Dyke and Wat’s Dyke, which separated England from Wales, 11 remain physical reminders of the border between the two. The only Anglo-Saxon settlement to have been identified in South Wales at the time of writing is in Monmouth, which may have functioned as a burh.6
‘Burhs’ – not to be confused with burghs, which referred to a chartered town or borough – were designed to protect whole communities, a kind of national defence of fortified towns, including Lydford, Bridport, Oxford, Winchester and so on. A list of all these Anglo-Saxon burhs can be found in a collation of documents known as the Burghal Hidage which was probably compiled around 914. The documents also stipulate the number of hides belonging to each burh. Essentially, a hide was used to assess the amount of tax and food rents due in any one area. There were as many as 1500 hides belonging to Chichester alone, which is an indicator of how significant this system was.7
A figure ranging from anywhere between ten and thirty per cent has been quoted in terms of the number of slaves living in England at this time. Life was harsh for these people, with glimmers of their tragic circumstances appearing fleetingly in texts such as Ælfric’s Colloquy, and the chronicles of William of Malmesbury, the latter noting:
[They] would buy up people from all over England and sell them off to Ireland in the hope of profit, and put up for sale maidservants after toying with them in bed and making them pregnant. You would have groaned to see the files of the wretches of people roped together, young persons of both sexes whose beautiful appearance and youthful innocence might move barbarians to pity, being put up for sale every day.8
On reading the laws of Ine, King of Wessex from 689 to 726, you could be convinced that early Anglo-Saxon England was a very chaotic place indeed. The extensive list of laws and punishments detailed by Ine mirrors a society greatly afflicted by crime. There were fugitives, bands of thieves, abandoned children and animals roaming the countryside.9 The laws to combat crime can equally be interpreted as cautious; for example a stranger was expected to shout out or blow their horn if 12 they did not want to be mistaken for a thief – and you certainly didn’t want that, as the punishment for being caught in the act of thieving was death, unless you could afford to pay your victim compensation. Tradesmen were regarded with suspicion, acts of revenge were dragged into court and foreigners were distrusted. On the other hand, single mothers were provided with benefits amounting to six shillings a year, a cow every summer and an ox every winter.10
Was this a barbarous country or rather a vigilant one, concerned with the safety and welfare of its communities?
Both Christianity and Paganism were practiced in England by the seventh century. Two centuries later, the country was divided into Northern Danelaw, Wessex, or the kingdom of the West Saxons in the south and the kingdom of Mercia in the Midlands. What followed was a series of Danish kings who united England before the Norman king, William the Conqueror, defeated Harold II in 1066. The once predominant language of Latin, bestowed on Britain by the Romans, morphed into an amalgamation of other cultures, as Angles, Saxons, and Jutes (another powerful Nordic tribe) communed together, which would have made for a confusing, rich mix of vocabulary during this time. The largest collection of Anglo-Saxon books belonged to the ecclesiastical communities, held in monasteries and cathedrals. This was not a time of widespread literacy and learning, which was reserved for the higher echelons of society, and the trivialities of food were not broadly documented, other than in a legal or civil capacity. Most of our information on the eating habits of early English communities stems from monastic records, or medicinal tomes. Food was grown, alcohol brewed and herb gardens lovingly cultivated for medicinal and culinary purposes. Fasting was a significant aspect of monastic life. Bishop Cedd, who resided in a monastery given to him by King Ethelwald in the seventh century, ate the following daily throughout Lent: a small piece of bread, one egg and a little milk and water, which wasn’t consumed until the evening. Egbert, also a holy man of the seventh century, is recorded by Bede as consuming even less during Lent, surviving on one meal a day consisting of bread and ‘thin milk’.1113
The noted historian William of Malmesbury, writing in the 1100s, scripted a beautiful description of the monastery at Thorney, in Cambridgeshire, which was rebuilt as an abbey during Norman rule, destroyed during the dissolution, and rebuilt as the church of St Mary and St Botolph. You can almost taste the fruit on the trees and the grapes in the vineyard:
It is the image of paradise, and its loveliness gives an advance idea of heaven itself. For all the swamps surrounding it, it supports an abundance of trees, whose tall smooth trunks strain towards the stars. The flat countryside catches the eye with its green carpet of grass; those who hurry across the plain meet nothing that offends. No part of the land, however tiny, is uncultivated. In one place you come across tall fruit trees, in another fields bordered with vines, which creep along the earth or climb high on their props. Nature and art are in competition: what the one forgets the other brings forth […]. A vast solitude allows the monks a quiet life: the more limited their glimpses of mortal men, the more tenaciously they cleave to things heavenly.12
Old English medical texts, or ‘leechbooks’ as they were known, such as Bald’s Leechbook, and the collations of manuscripts subsequently compiled by the Victorian scholar Oswald Cockayne, provide excellent primary sources of research into Anglo-Saxon remedies and recipes, how foods were combined, basic cooking techniques, and the types of ingredients that were available at the time. In Bald’s Leechbook, for example, the following ingredients are prescribed in a variety of recipes intended to cure different ailments or energise the body:
In Leechbook III, the four most frequently prescribed substances were water (17 times), milk (21), ale (27) and butter (28). In Book I of Bald’s Leechbook and in Leechbook III, the following plants or plant products appear a total of twelve or more times; Ivy (12), coriander (12), smallage (13), pennyroyal (15), hindheal (16), centaury (18), radish (20), barley (20), oat (20), carline thistle (20), attorlothe (corydalis/fumitory) (21), cockle (21), celandine (22), 14 yarrow (27), horehound (30), onions and garlic (31), fennel (31), rue (33), lupin (34), plantain (35), elecampane (36), pepper (37), oil (38), wormwood (40), vinegar (45), bishopswort (46), betony (61), wine (66), ale (83), honey (92). In the same collections the most frequently used animal products were: urines of goat, cattle, hound, child (8 in all), dungs of dove, goat, sheep, horse, cattle, swine, human (20 in all), galls of crab, salmon, cattle, goat, swine, bear, hare (30 in all), eggs (28 in all), milks of goat, sheep, cow, human (42 in all), fats of sheep, cattle, goat, swine, horse, bear, fish, hen, goose, deer (49 in all), butter (94). Pigeon, starling and swallow supplied a few medicines, as did dung beetles, mealworms, ants, snails and earthworms.13
J. Falcand de Luca is thought to have been the first officially recorded apothecary granted permission to sell medicines in England in 1357. There were clearly earlier traders as the archives mention shops like that of Master Otto of Germany, ‘a physician of repute’, who sold medicinal compounds from his shop in York in 1292.14
Apothecaries emerged from the Guild of Pepperers, a company of merchant traders who imported a range of medicinal wares and culinary spices, first mentioned around the twelfth century, but with a legacy greater than that. By the fourteenth century the rather long-winded fraternity known as the Pepperers or Easterlings of Sopers Lane, and the Spicers of the Ward of Chepe formed. They conducted their business across shops and stalls selling spices, medicinal drugs and perfumes. Many of these men were Italian or German in origin. By 1428, this rich mix of pepperers, spicers and apothecaries had merged into the Company of Grocers, officially granted charter by King Henry VI.15 The foundations of trading spice and luxury goods started much earlier, and this book aims to outline the impact of overseas relations in England during the Anglo-Saxon era.
Kitchens as we know them did not really exist in Anglo-Saxon times. Cooking was usually outdoors or in the centre of the main room of the house, with a firepit and a cauldron. There would undoubtedly have 15 been designated places for cooking in monasteries or houses of nobility, but these were unlikely to have been anything like the later medieval kitchens that we are most familiar with in terms of early cooking methods and techniques. There was no running water, no knowledge of germ theory or basic hygiene. Disease was rife and sustaining food and water supplies was a daily responsibility. Generally, houses were modest, defenceless, low and dark, constructed of timber with roofs of straw.
Seven firepits, rectangular in shape, were excavated in Gravesend, Kent. Two of these were dated at anywhere between 485-530 and it has been determined that they were originally used for smoking large quantities of meat, including cod fish and pork. Other Anglo-Saxon pits such as the one discovered in Bishopstone, measuring one and a half metres across, contained the remains of an almost complete pot, with large quantities of animal bone. A firepit at Nettleton Top (Lincolnshire) was discovered, it was shallow and oblong in shape and lined with many small pieces of ironstone, coloured from the heat, and at Eye Kettleby, Leicestershire, over sixty pits were excavated, with twelve of these being identified as cooking facilities.16
The Anglo-Normans sometimes ‘cooked’ food in clay pots submerged in quick lime. This method is outlined by Constance Hieatt and Robin Jones in their translation of two Anglo-Norman culinary texts, representative of some of the earliest English recipes:
Take a small earthenware pot, with an earthenware lid which must be as wide as the pot; then take another pot of the same earthenware, with a lid like that of the first; this pot is to be deeper than the first by five fingers, and wider in circumference by three; then take pork and hens and cut into fair-sized pieces, and take fine spices and add them, and salt; take the small pot with the meat in it and place it upright in the large pot; cover it with the lid and stop it with moist clayey earth, so that nothing may escape; then take unslaked lime, and fill the larger pot with water, ensuring that no water enters the smaller pot; let it stand for the time it takes to walk between five and seven leagues, and 16 then open your pots, and you will find your food indeed cooked.17
Basically, by mixing quicklime with water, in between the two pots, a chemical reaction occurred, which was considerable enough to heat the food.
The Romans used lime-based mortars a great deal, for all manner of building projects. I have read that some high-status buildings were whitewashed in lime during the Anglo-Saxon period and quicklime was also used in the production of leather to loosen the hair on animal hides, but other than that its use is not really documented. That doesn’t mean to say that this cooking technique was not used by some Anglo-Saxon communities and perhaps we shouldn’t rule it out. Certainly, the Anglo-Saxon leechdoms – medical formulas or remedies – as noted by Cockayne, contain a treatment to cure ‘every wound’ that incorporates quicklime:
[…] collect cow dung, cow stale, work up a large kettle full into a batter as a man worketh soap, then take appletree rind, and ash rind, and withy rind, sloethorn rind, and myrtle rind, and elm rind, and holly rind, and withy rind, and the rind of a young oak, sallow rind, put them all in a mickle kettle, pour the batter upon them, boil very long then remove the rinds, boil the batter so that it be thick, put it ever into a less kettle as it growth less, pour it, when it is thick enough, into a vessel, heat then a calcareous stone thoroughly, and collect some soot, and sift it through a cloth with the quicklime also into the batter, smear the wound therewith.18
Writing in the 1100s, the theologian, Hugh of Saint Victor was one of the most prolific authors of his age. His origins were either Flemish or Saxon, and born as he was towards the end of the eleventh century his experiences contribute to the general early medieval discourse on the food and drink of Northern and Western Europe. His Didascalicon, which was intended to serve as a compendium of knowledge for his theological students, provides the following details:
Of meats, some are roasted, others fried, others boiled, some fresh, 17 some salted. Some are called loins, flitches also or sides, haunches or hams, grease, lard, fat. The varieties of meat dishes are likewise numerous – Italian sausage, minced meat, patties, Galatian tarts, and all other such things that a very prince of cooks has been able to concoct. Porridges contain milk, colostrum, butter, cheese, whey. And who can enumerate the names of vegetables and fruits? Of seasonings some are hot, some cold, some bitter, some sweet, some dry, some moist. Of drink, some is merely that: it moistens without nourishing, like water; other is both drink and food, for it both moistens and nourishes, like wine. Of the nutritious drinks, furthermore, some are naturally so, like wine or any other liquor, others accidentally so, like beer and various kinds of mead.19
Cooking equipment during the Anglo-Saxon era was basic, with large pots for boiling, hooks and roasting spits, the occasional oven, frying pans and griddles. Eating utensils consisted of spoons and knives.
The eleventh-century literary manuscript known as Gerefa was intended to provide advice to a reeve, or local official, on the efficient running of a lord’s farm. Offering guidance on the management of an estate’s labourers, it also includes lists of tools and implements required for the lord’s farmstead. The contents of the kitchen were minimal and included:
Small cauldron, leaden vessel, large cauldron, ladle, pans, earthenware pot, grid iron, dishes, scoop.20
Wealthier Saxons did have some vessels made of glass, and they imported wine, luxury oils and spices such as pepper, ginger, and cinnamon. A cone shaped glass beaker was unearthed in Mitcham, London, dating somewhere in the region of the fifth to early sixth century and is thought to have been imported from France, Germany, or Belgium.21 In addition, seventh century deep blue glass beakers were also found on-site at an Anglo-Saxon royal burial chamber in Prittlewell, Essex.22
Ipswich ware, including items like jars and pitchers, was one of the most popular types of pottery manufactured in Anglo-Saxon times, produced 18 in large kilns and on wheels in Ipswich, Suffolk, from the eighth century onwards. It had a wide distribution and has been found on sites in London, York, Kent, Beverley and Flixborough, to name just a few.23
During the later Anglo-Saxon period kitchens started to evolve but were limited to the houses of the elite. They were also separate buildings often built next to the main hall. One such kitchen at Sulgrave in Northamptonshire was connected to the hall via an antechamber, complete with built-in drainage to enable dirty water to flow out, in contrast to many of our preconceived ideas of the unsanitary conditions of the period.24
We have no knowledge of whether cooks were professionally trained or how recipes were communicated. I once heard the Swedish chef Magnus Nilsson talking about the culture of recipes in Scandinavia and how they had always been passed down orally from generation to generation. Before literacy, this would have been understandable, but it seems to have been a tradition which endured. We do know from Ælfric’s Colloquy that cooks existed as a profession by the eleventh century:
The Cook says: If you expel me from your society, you’ll eat your vegetables raw and your meat uncooked; and you can’t even have a good broth without my art […]. If you drive me out […] then you’ll all be servants, and none of you will be lord. And without my craft you still won’t be able to eat.25
What this tells us is that although many citizens of later Anglo-Saxon society would have been capable of understanding basic cooking skills, royalty and nobility would still have needed to employ competent cooks.
The Domesday Book is littered with cooks, and all of them are male names, suggesting this was not initially a position for women. In Salmonsbury, Gloucestershire, we learn that Humphry the cook had one plough and four smallholdings, while Gilbert, a cook from Northamptonshire, had a mill, 28 acres of land and six ploughs.26
Ælfstan is the monastic cook mentioned in the Life of St Æthelwold 19 written by Wulfstan, a tenth-century monk and priest from Winchester, who was also a pupil of Æthelwold. Ælfstan’s chores included ‘cooking meat every day and serving it painstakingly to the workmen, lighting the fire, fetching water, and keeping the pans clean’.27
Ælfstan also shows his obedience to Æthelwold by placing his hand in a boiling pot to pull out a morsel of food. As if martyred, his arm remained uninjured.
A lot of food was boiled in Anglo-Saxon times, as with Ælfstan’s cooking, but it was also roasted and broiled. One term for this was ge-brǽdan,28 another was bræding, while ge-hierstan was typically associated with the act of frying.29
Rent during the Anglo-Saxon era was often paid in food and feudal contracts were drafted to ensure the terms of agreement between the lord of the manor and his labouring peasant tenants. There are numerous documents that allude to this. An example of this practice from the village of Hurstbourne in Hampshire is included here:
First from every hide [they must render] 40 pence at the autumnal equinox, and 6 church mittan of ale and 3 sesters of wheat for bread, and [they must] plough 3 acres in their own time and sow them with their own seed and bring it to the barn in their own time, and [give] 3 pounds of barley as rent, and [mow] half an acre of meadow as rent in their own time, and make it into a rick, and [supply] 4 fothers of split wood as rent, made into a stack in their own time, and [supply] 16 poles of fencing as rent, likewise in their own time, and at Easter [they shall give] two ewes with two lambs – and we [reckon] two young sheep to a full-grown sheep – and they must wash the sheep and shear them in their own time, and work as they are bidden every week except three – one at windwinter, the second at Easter, the third at the Rogation days.30
Food was also fundamental to customs surrounding death – both in relation to the feasting that took place at the time of burial, as well as 20 the items of food and cooking utensils that were buried alongside the dead. A fragment of a will discovered in Bury St Edmunds revealed the monetary costs bequeathed by one person to cater for this custom:
[…] 5 ores for the first funeral feast for malt and for fuel and 42 pence for bread and 17 pence for a pig and 2 ores [for] a bullock and 1 ore [for] three bucks a 8 pence [for] a cheese and 3 pence for fish and 4 pence for milk.
And 11 ½ ores for the second funeral feast […]31
Anglo-Saxon graves often contained pots for food and cooking, along with domestic utensils, examples of which have been unearthed at the Anglo-Saxon cemeteries at Girton College Cambridge, Buckland in Dover and Castledyke South, Barton-Humber, to name just a few. These were pagan offerings to the gods, which continued after England’s conversion to Christianity. Foodstuffs discovered in burial sites, along with other evidence including purpose-built structures, pits and burnt stones erected in cemeteries, also indicate the presence of culinary funeral rituals. A final shared meal with the dead.32
Communal feast halls were central to Anglo-Saxon society in England. Excavations at Yeavering and Cheddar have revealed the foundations of halls which were tens of feet long and wide, with high ceilings. Although Sutton Hoo offers a ship opposed to a hall, the numerous trappings discovered there demonstrating a kingly lifestyle, including drinking cups, horns and even a harp, are all an affirmation of significant on-site feasting.33 Written within the context of sixth-century pagan Scandinavia, the epic poem Beowulf paints a picture of feast hall life. Hrothgar, king of the Danes is plagued by an angry lake monster named Grendel who sets about terrorising the king’s men, in response to all the noise generated by the merriment conducted in the king’s mead hall, known as ‘Heorot’. A young and cocky Swedish prince, Beowulf, challenges Grendel and is victorious. The monster’s mother returns to the mead hall and causes more destruction in revenge for her son’s death. Beowulf battles with her in a cave at the bottom of the lake and again is triumphant. There is much celebrating before Beowulf returns to his 21 own kingdom, eventually succeeding his father to the throne. Towards the end of his life Beowulf engages in a bloody battle with a dragon, a fight which finds him deserted by his own men, with the exception of young Wiglaf. They defeat the dragon together, but Beowulf is mortally wounded and names Wiglaf his successor. The story ends surrounded by the uncertain future of Beowulf’s kingdom. It is a story of heroism, good triumphing over evil, but with ominous undertones.
Although there are no direct references to food in Beowulf, much has been read into the symbolic nature of the mead hall itself, Heorot, a word which translates as deer or stag. It is a place of nobility, for celebrating communally, eating, and drinking together. We can gain some potential knowledge about Anglo-Saxon etiquette in Beowulf through the cup-bearer, whose job is specifically to serve alcohol in a formal way to each member of the party, acknowledging both status and the importance of welcoming guests. The Beowulf poet, who is anonymous, refers to the ‘mead-benches’, these were literally long seats where people were seated to drink. Stephen Pollington has written at length about the notion of ‘togetherness, friendship, hospitality, fellowship, brightness and warmth’ within the context of the mead hall as a building for people to unite in communal drinking and eating. A place of sanctuary in a dark and harsh world fuelled with battles.34
Entertainment was also a significant part of the feasting process in Anglo-Saxon times. Beowulf introduces us to the scop, an early medieval name for a poet and a minstrel who sings the story of Finn and Hnæf during the banquet.35
Both monastic and secular communities ate communally. Most people outside the church lived in villages, although there were some commercially active new towns. Rural villages were a mix of farmsteads and hamlets, self-sufficient communities, where people grew their own produce, made their own clothes and tools. Village or farmstead communities also had a hall or halls for meeting, discussing business, undertaking religious ceremonies, and eating. These differed from the royal halls, which would have been much larger and decorative. 22
The site of one of the most distinctive of these halls can be found in Northumberland at Yeavering, first recorded by Bede in the eighth century as a royal villa and now part of the Gefrin Trust. The Heritage Gateway website describes the Great Hall at Yeavering as:
Rectangular in plan, [it] was of panelled timber and trench construction with partitions at either end creating long and narrow ante-chambers. Doors were made in each of the four walls and were connected by axial passages which divided raised timber floors supported by piles. A group of post-holes, trapezoidal in shape, situated in the centre of the building, and resembling the dias of the assembly structure, suggests the possibility that a chair or throne, flanked by tall posts, stood in the main passage, close to an open area which was likely to have contained a hearth. Adjoining the eastern end of this building were two connected palisaded enclosures which were thought to be for horses and men at arms. Tiny bone fragments and pottery found in the fill of the major post-holes along with the buildings’ apparent structure, suggest that this building was feasting hall and throne room.36
There are a number of manuscripts from the Anglo-Saxon period that focus on early medieval law and penance, including works like the Scriftboc, the Canons of Theodore and the Old English Penitential. Unsurprisingly, fasting and the denial of certain foods were popular punishments. Like this following translation from the Scriftboc:
If a man slays another in [an act of] mord [homicide] and with a wrathful mind and with concealment, let him fast four years; some wish for seven.37
Saint Chrodegang, the Bishop of Metz, is understood to have written the earliest surviving set of rules for canons in the mid-eighth century and his writings greatly influenced the European early medieval church.
Most monasteries adhered to strict rules about eating and drinking, with many following the customs of Saint Benedict. As there were so 23 many days of abstinence, these rules varied from month to month. Generally, a monk was allocated one pound of bread a day, a dish of pulses or porridge, a portion of meat or cheese if fasting.38
Chrodegang stipulated the following allowance of food and drink, which provides us with a good insight into eighth-century monastic eating habits:
Whether the clergy eat once or twice in the day, they should receive from the least to the greatest, four pounds of bread. When they eat twice in the day they should have lunch at midday, with one portion of meat between two, and one other dish; if there be no other such dishes, they should have two helpings of meat. At supper they should either have one helping of meat between two, or some other dish. At times when they follow a Lenten regime, at midday they should have a portion of cheese between two clerics, and some other dish; if fish are available, or beans, or anything else, a third dish should be added. At supper they should have another dish between two of them, and a portion of cheese. If God grants them more, they should be grateful for it. On days when there is but a single meal, they should have one dish between two, and a portion of cheese and a serving of beans or other pulse. And if it happens that there be no acorns or beechmast that year, and they have not the means to make up the ration of meat, the bishop, or whoever represents him, should see to it that they have some compensation either of Lenten fare or anything else, whatever God makes possible.
If the region produces wine, each one should receive five pints of wine every day, unless there be a bad season which makes this impossible. If the full amount of wine cannot be produced, they should have three pints of wine, and three of beer, and beware of drunkenness. If there is even less wine available, and the bishop or his representative is unable to make up the ration, he should provide as much as he can, and console them with beer. From those who abstain from wine, the bishop or his representative should make sure that they have as much beer as they should have had wine.3924
Aside from the fierce warnings against the evils of alcohol, what is most interesting about this passage is the suggestion that both acorns and beech nuts (beechmast) were used as food fillers. Monastery food had a reputation for being modest and simple. There is no mention of how these nuts were prepared. Perhaps they were ground down and made into broths, or mixed with something else and fried as a solid cake. Anne Hagen notes that acorns were typically bulk famine foods and were likely to have been mixed together with cereal flour and other pulses.40
A less fire and brimstone approach to the rules of cooking in monastic environments comes from the Italian Saint Benedict, a fifth/sixth century saint, whose precepts were adopted widely by the European Christian church. He recommended that all members of the clergy take it in turns to cook for one another, and that on Saturdays, whoever was cooking should be tasked with sweeping the kitchen, washing the towels that were used to wash the hands and feet of the rest of the clergy, and clean and return all the kitchen utensils to the procurator (the monk in charge), to hand over to the next cook the following week. Weekly cooks were also instructed to eat their own portions of bread and wine before serving the others, so that they wouldn’t get distracted from their duties.41
When approaching the research for this book to determine the diets of Anglo-Saxon communities, I felt it was essential to investigate what people were eating in the centuries immediately before, as well as immediately after. Where records are sparse during the Anglo-Saxon era, the Romans left a wealth of written accounts, including plenty of evidence relating to food and how it was prepared. Some of these recipes must have been handed down, evolved, or morphed into other creations. The Normans appear to have influenced the existing English diet tremendously after 1066, but that could just be because more documentation exists from this time. It is difficult to determine exactly what culinary legacy the Romans left behind, particularly as the majority of everyday folk would not have indulged in the likes of stuffed dormice and roasted pheasant, and the record books were written by and for the literate nobility. 25
