Notes

• ‘Alle the poure peple then peescoddes brought / Benes and baken apples thei brouhte in here lappes / Onions and pot herbs and ripe chiries many’. Food in the Middle Ages was not always as plentiful as this passage from William Langland’s Piers Plowman might suggest, but there is no doubting its variety. This unique and fully illustrated study begins by examining this extraordinary range, discussing its production and distribution and identifying the different types of food eaten by all classes of medieval English society. Everything that can be discovered about medieval food is dealt with here, from hunting, fish-breeding, brewing and baking to food hygiene and storage and the way in which the kitchen and pantry of a large household were organized. For the first time, too, the nutritional value of the food is systematically evaluated in order to consider whether or not people in medieval England were well fed. There is also a detailed description of the remarkably elaborate regulations known to have been associated with the serving and eating of food in the great households. The book concludes with a discussion of the organization of medieval feasts, such as that held at York on 26 December 1251, which, after six months of preparation, saw the consumption of no fewer than 68,500 loaves of bread and 25,000 gallons of wine, along with 1,300 deer, 170 boars, 60,000 herring, 10,000 haddock and 7,000 hens. Firmly based on archaeological and written evidence, this groundbreaking work provides a fascinating introduction to a vital but often neglected topic in the study of medieval England, and one which will be of interest to historian and layman alike