Although meat was, doubtless, sometimes roasted, this process seems to have been much more commonly applied to poultry and game, and even fresh meat was very usually boiled. One cause of this may, perhaps, have been, that it seems to have been a common practice to eat the meat, and even game, fresh killed--the beef or mutton seems to have been often killed for the occasion on the day it was eaten. In the old fabliau of the “Bouchier d’Abbeville” (Barbazan, tom. iv. p. 6), the butcher, having come to Bailueil late in the evening, and obtained a night’s lodging at the priest’s, kills his sheep for the supper. The shoulders were to be roasted, the rest, as it appears, was recommended to be boiled. The butchers, indeed, seem usually to have done their work in the kitchen, and to have killed and cut up the animals for the occasion. There is a curious story in the English Gesta Romanorum (edited by Sir Frederic Madden), which illustrates this practice. “Cæsar was emperor of Rome, that had a forest, in the which he had planted vines and other divers trees many; and he ordained over his forest a steward, whose name was Jonatas, bidding him, upon pain, to keep the vines and the plants. It fell, after this ordinance of the emperor, that Jonatas took the care of the forest; and upon a day a swine came into the forest, the new plants he rooted up. When Jonatas saw the swine enter, he cut off his tail, and the swine made a cry, and went out. Nevertheless, he entered again, and did much harm in the forest. When Jonatas saw that, he cut off his left ear; and the hog made a great cry, and went out. Notwithstanding this, he entered again the third day; and Jonatas saw him, and cut off his right ear, and with a horrible cry he went out. Yet the fourth day the swine re-entered the forest, and did much damage. When Jonatas saw that the hog would not be warned, he smote him through with his spear, and slew him, and delivered the body to the cook for to array the next day to the emperor’s meat. But when the emperor was served of this swine, he asked of his servants, ‘Where is the heart of this swine?’--because the emperor loved the heart best of any beast, and more than all the beast. The servants asked the cook where the heart of the swine was, for the lord inquired after it. The cook, when he had arrayed the heart, saw it was good and fat, and eat it; and he said to the servants, ‘Say to the emperor that the hog had no heart.’ The emperor said, ‘It may not be; and therefore say to him, upon pain of death, that he send me the heart of the swine, for there is no beast in all the world without a heart.’ The servants went to the cook with the emperor’s orders; and he replied, ‘Say to my lord, but if I prove mightily by clear reasons that the swine had no heart, I put me fully to his will, to do with me as he likes.’ The emperor, when he heard this, assigned him a day to answer. When the day was come, the cook, with a high voice, said before