Our Legal Heritage : 600-1776 King Aethelbert - King George IIIReilly, S. A.
History
Our Legal Heritage : 600-1776 King Aethelbert - King George III
Reilly, S. A.
Law -- England -- History
Master and servants ceased to eat together in the same hall,
except for great occasions, on feast days, and for plays. The
lord, and his lady, family, and guests took their meals in a great
chamber, usually up beneath the roof next to the upper floor of
the great hall. The chimney-pieces and windows were often richly
decorated with panelled stonework, tracery and carving. There was
often a bay or oriel window with still expensive glass.
Tapestries, damask, and table-cloths covered the tables. There was
much formality and ceremonial ritual, more elaborate than before,
during dinners at manorial households, including processions
bringing and serving courses, and bowing, kneeling, and
curtseying. There were many courses of a variety of meats, fish,
stews, and soups, with a variety of spices and elaborately cooked.
Barons, knights, and their ladies sat to the right of the lord
above the salt and were served by the lord's sewer and carver and
gentlemen waiters; their social inferiors such as "gentlemen of
worship" sat below the salt and were served by another sewer and
yeomen. The lord's cupbearer looked after the lord alone. A
knights table was waited on by yeomen. The gentlemen officers,
gentlemen servants and yeomen officers were waited on by their own
servants. The amount of food dished out to each person varied
according to his rank. The almoner said grace and distributed the
left-overs to the poor gathered at the gate. The superior people's
hands were washed by their inferiors. Lastly, the trestle tables
were removed while sweet wine and spices were consumed standing.
Then the musicians were called into the hall and dancing began.
The lord usually slept in a great bed in this room. The standard
number of meals was three: breakfast, dinner, and supper.
The diet of an ordinary family such as that of a small shopholder
or yeoman farmer included beef, mutton, pork, a variety of fish,
both fresh and salted, venison, nuts, peas, oatmeal, honey,
grapes, apples, pears, and fresh vegetables. Cattle and sheep were
driven from Wales to English markets. This droving lasted for five
centuries.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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