When he came to the throne as Richard II. he had very enlarged ideas on expenditure, and amongst others on Christmas feasts. He held one at Lichfield in 1398, where the Pope's Nuncio and several foreign noblemen were present, and he was obliged to enlarge the episcopal palace in order to accommodate his guests. Stow tells us: "This yeere King Richarde kept his Christmas at Liechfield, where he spent in the Christmas time 200 tunns of wine, and 2000 oxen with their appurtenances." But then he is said to have had 2000 cooks, and cookery was then elevated into a science: so much so, that the earliest cookery book that has come down to us is _The Forme of Cury_, which "was compiled of the chef Mairt Cok of Kyng Richard the Secunde, Kyng of .nglond[4] aftir the Conquest." Twenty-eight oxen, three hundred sheep, an incredible number of fowls, and all kinds of game were slaughtered every morning for the use of his household. It seems incredible, but see what old John Hardyng, the metrical chronicler, says:-- Truly I herd Robert Ireleffe saye, Clerke of the grene cloth, y^{t} to the household, Came euery daye for moost partie alwaye, Ten thousand folke by his messis tould, That folowed the hous aye as thei would, And in the kechin three hundred seruitours, And in eche office many occupiours; And ladies faire with their gentilwomen, Chamberers also and launderers, Three hundred of them were occupied then. [Footnote 4: [Transcriber's Note: ".nglond" appears in the original. An 18th-Century annotated edition of _The Forme of Cury_ notes that in the original manuscript, "E was intended to be prefixed in red ink" in place of the leading period. See Pegge, Samuel, _The Forme of Cury_, p. 1, note c (London: J. Nichols, 1780) (page image available at http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/foc/FoC042.html).]]