eaten, and states, that when boiled they are salutary in fever and diarrhoea, and that their gall mixed with pepper is good for a sore mouth!m Horse-flesh, which our delicacy rejects with aversion, appears to have been used, though it became unfashionable as their civilization advanced. The Penitentiale says, "Horse-flesh is not prohibited, though many families will not buy it." But in the council held in 785, in Northumbria, before Alfwold, and in Mercia, before Offa, it was discountenanced. 66 Many among you eat horses, which is not done by any Christians in the East. Avoid this."o But though animal food was in much use among our ancestors, it was, as it is with us, and perhaps will be in every country in which agriculture has become habitual, and population much increased, rather the food of the wealthier part of the community than of the lower orders. That it could not be afforded by all, is clear, from the incident of a king and queen visiting a monastery, and inquiring, when they saw the boys eating only bread, if they were allowed nothing else. The answer returned was, that the scanty means of the society could afford no better. The queen then petitioned the king to enable them to provide additional food.P They had wheat and barley in general use, but their prices were different; wheat, like meat, was a dearer article, and therefore less universal. It is said of the Abbey of St. Edmund, that the young monks eat barley-bread, because the income of the establishment would not admit of their feeding twice or thrice a day on wheaten bread. Their corn was thrashed with a flail like our own, and ground by the simple mechanism of mills, of which great numbers are particularized in the Doomsday Survey. In their most ancient law, we read of a king's grinding-servant;" but both water-mills and wind-mills occur very frequently in their conveyances after that time. They used warm bread. The life of St. Neot states, that the peasant's wife placed on her oven "the loaves which some call loudas." In the agreement of one of their social gilds, a broad loaf well besewon and well gesyfled is noticed." In one grant of land we find six hundred loaves reserved as a rent, and oftentimes cheeses. They were allowed to use milk, cheese, and eggs, on their fast-days." Some individual devotees chose to be very rigorous. In 735, a lady is mentioned, in Oxford, of a noble family, who mortified herself by lying on the bare ground, m 1 Wilkins's Conc, p. 123. • Ibid. p. 151. a Dugd. Mon. p. 296. Bede, ed. Smith, p. 234. " Dugd. Mon. p. 278. w Wilk. Leg. Sax. p. 194. n Ibid. P MS. Cotton Claud. C. 9, p. 128. t MS. Cott. Claud. A. 5, p. 157. and subsisting on broth made of the poorest herbs, and on a small quantity of barley-bread. In the same century, Boniface, the Anglo-Saxon missionary, complained of some priests, that they did not eat of the meats which God had given, and that others fed on milk and honey, rejecting animal food." Abstinence too rigorous was not, however, a general fault of the Anglo-Saxon monks. On the contrary, whenever the interior of a well-endowed monastery is opened to our view, we meet with an abundance which precluded mortification." Orchards were cultivated, and we find figs, grapes, nuts, almonds, pears, and apples mentioned. Lac acidum, perhaps buttermilk or whey, was used in a monastery in very handsome vessels, called creches, from Hokeday to Michaelmas, and lac dulce from Michaelmas to Martinmas. In the same place, placentas were allowed in the Easter and Whitsun weeks, and on some other festivals, and broth or soups every day. In another monastery, we find land given to provide beans, salt, and honey for the brothers. From the panegyric of Aldhelm, we may infer that honey was a favourite diet; for he says, that it excels all the dishes of delicacies and peppered broths. In the MS. before mentioned, a colloquy occurs with the baker (bæcere). Of what use is your art? we can live long without you.'"You may live through some space without my art, but not long, nor so well; for without my craft every table would seem empty, and without bread (hlafe) all meat would become nauseous. I strengthen the heart of man, and little ones could not do without me."f In the same MS. the food of children is thus mentioned: 'What do you eat to-day?". "As yet I feed on flesh-meat, because I am a child living under the rod."- What more do you eat?' "Herbs, eggs, fish, cheese, butter, and beans, and all clean things I eat with many thanks." They appear to have used great quantities of salt, from the numerous grants of land which specify salt-pans as important articles. In the end of autumn they killed and salted much meat for their winter consumption. It is probable that their provision of winter fodder for their cattle was very imperfect, and that salted meat was in a great measure their food till the spring reclothed the fields with verdure. One part of the dialogue above alluded to is on the salter. * Dugd. Mon. 173. Bon. Ep. Mag. Bib. Pal. xvi. p. 50. z The allowances of the Abingdon monastery may be taken as a specimen. See them in Dugd. Mon. p. 104. 3 Gale Script. 490. b Ingulf, p. 50. c Dugd. Mon. p. 104. The creche contained septem pollices ad profunditatem a summitate unius usque ad profundum lateris ulterius. Ibid. d 3 Gale Script. 445. f MS. Cott. Tib. A. 3. © Ald. de Laud. Virg. p. 296. $ Ibid. "Much: none of 'Salter! what does your craft profit us?' you can enjoy pleasure in your dinner or supper, unless my art be propitious to him."-How? "Which of you can enjoy savoury meats without the smack of salt? Who could sell the contents of his cellar or his store-houses without my craft? Lo! all butter (buter gethweor) and cheese (cys gerun) would perish, unless you used me."h The Anglo-Saxon ladies were not excluded from the society of the male sex at their meals. It was at dinner that the king's mother urged Dunstan to accept the vacant bishopric, and it appears from many passages in Saxon writings, and from the drawings in their MSS., that both sexes were together at their seasons of refreshment. We have an account of Ethelstan's dining with his relation Ethelfleda. The royal providers, it says, knowing that the king had promised her the visit, came the day before to see if every preparation was ready and suitable. Having inspected all, they told her, "You have plenty of every thing, provided your mead holds out." The king came with a great number of attendants at the appointed time, and after hearing mass, entered joyfully in the dinner apartment; but unfortunately in the first salutation, their copious draughts exhausted the mead vessel. Dunstan's sagacity had foreseen the event, and provided against it; and though "the cup-bearers, as is the custom at royal feasts, were all the day serving it up in cut horns, and other vessels of various sizes," the liquor was not found to be deficient. This, of course, very much delighted his majesty and his companions; and, as Dunstan chose to give it a miraculous appearance, it procured him infinite credit A historian of the twelfth century contrasts, with much regret, the fashion, introduced by the Normans at court, of only one entertainment a day, with the custom of one of our preceding kings, who feasted his courtiers daily with four ample banquets. He contends that parsimony produced the direful change, though it was ascribed to dignity. Many good customs have originated from selfish causes; but no one will now dispute, that both mental and moral refinement must have been much advanced by this diminution of the incitements and the opportunities of gluttony and inebriety. We may remember of the king Hardicanute, so celebrated for his conviviality, that he died at a feast. A few circumstances may be added of their fasting. It is mentioned in Edgar's regulations, as a part of the penance of a h MS. Cott. Tib. A. 3. i MS. Cott. Cleop. B. 13, and Nero, C. 7. i Cleop. B. 13, p. 67, and Acta Sanct. 29th May, p. 349, 350. * Hen. Hunt. lib. vi. p. 365. Malmsbury remarks, that the profusion of the Eng. lish feasts was increased after the Danish visits, p. 248. rich man, that he should fast on bread, green herbs, and water.' It is expressed in another part, that a layman during his penitence should eat no flesh, nor drink any thing that might inebriate. The law of Wihtræd severely punished the non-observance of fast days. If any man gave meat to his servants on these days, he was declared liable to the pillory, or literally the neck-catch, heals-fang. If the servant ate it of his own accord, he was fined six shillings, or was to suffer in his hide." CHAPTER IV. Their Drinks and Cookery. ALE and mead were their favourite drinks, and wine was an occasional luxury. Of the ale, three sorts were noticed. In a charter, two tons of clear ale, and ten mittan or measures of Welsh ale, are reserved. In another, a cumb full of lithes, or mild ale. Warm wine is also mentioned. The answer of the lad, in the Saxon colloquy, to the question, what he drank, was, " Ale if I have it, or water if I have not." On being asked why he does not drink wine, he says, "I am not so rich that I can buy me wine, and wine is not the drink of children or the weak-minded, but of the elders and the wise."d In the ancient calendar of the eleventh century, there are various figures pictured, to accompany the different months. In April, three persons appear sitting and drinking: one person is pouring out liquor into a horn; another is holding a horn to his mouth. We have the list of the liquors used at a great Anglo-Saxon feast, in a passage of Henry of Huntingdon, which describes an atrocious catastrophe: At a feast in the king's hall at Windsor, Harold, the son of Godwin, was serving the Confessor with wine, when Tosti, his brother, stimulated by envy at his possessing a larger portion of the royal favour than himself, seized Harold by the hair in the king's presence. In a rage, Tosti left the company, and went to Hereford, where his brother had ordered a great royal banquet 1 Wilk. Leg. Sax. 97. n Ibid. 11. m Ibid. 94. a Sax. Chron. 75. Two tuns full of hlutres aloth, a cumb full of lithes aloth, and a cumb full of welisces aloth, are the gafol reserved in a grant of Offa. Dugd. Mon. p. 126. c Bede, 257. d MS. Tib. A. 3. • MS. Tib. B. 5. to be prepared. There he seized his brother's attendants, and cutting off their heads and limbs, he placed them in the vessels of wine, mead, ale, pigment, morat, and cider. He then sent to the king a message, that he was going to his farm, where he should find plenty of salt meat, but had taken care to carry some with him. The pigment was a sweet and odoriferous liquor, made of honey, wine, and spiceries of various kinds. The morat was made of honey, diluted with the juice of mulberries. As the canons were severe on drunkenness, though the manners of society made all their regulations ineffectual, it was thought necessary to define what was considered to be improper and penal intoxication. "This is drunkenness, when the state of the mind is changed, the tongue stammers, the eyes are disturbed, the head is giddy, the belly is swelled, and pain follows." To atone for this, fasts, proportioned in duration to the quality of the offender, were enjoined.h It will not be uninteresting to add the description of a feast, as given in Judith by an Anglo-Saxon poet: We have a glance of their customs, as to drinking, in this short passage: "When all were satisfied with their dinner, and the tables were removed, they continued drinking till the evening.” f Hen. Hunt. lib. vi. p. 367. Du Cange in voc. and Henry's History of England, iv. p. 396. h Spelm. Concilia, 286. Frag. Judith. i Gale Scrip. iii. p. 441. |