But few pleasures appealed to the mediæval citizen so strongly as that of dining well; and besides these peace-promoting drinkings there were many occasions whereon members of guilds and crafts met together to feast and do their best to justify the reputation, which still clings to city folk and aldermen, of loving good cheer. The meals of the Middle Ages were long and heavy. The highly-flavoured cookery, with its strange mixture of meat and sweets--fowls stuffed with currants was a favourite dish--would appear barbarous to modern epicures; but such as it was, vast preparations and much money were lavished upon it. The members of each craft fellowship met once a year to hold a feast, while the brethren of the Trinity guild celebrated the Assumption and S. Peter's Eve by a banquet and probably also the festival of the Decollation of S. John. The Corpus Christi had a "Lenton" dinner, a "goose" dinner in August, and a "venison" one in October,[637] and in 1492 they spent £26, 0s. 4d. on their feasts, a sum only 13s. less than the annual stipend due to the five priests supported by the guild.[638] But the record of common feasting is not yet exhausted. The members of the Corpus Christi fraternity met together at a breakfast on the morning of the festival of the Body of Christ, and all the crafts supped on cakes and ale on the great processional nights. One dozen spiced cakes, three dozen white cakes, "a seysterne" and a half of ale with "comfets," and a pound of "marmalet" were ordered for the carpenters' merry-making on Midsummer eve, 1534.[639] Nor were the journeymen forgotten on these joyous evenings; they partook of plainer fare--bread and ale--at their master's expense.