GOOD HOUSEKEEPING:
“the arte of hus wifship”
Gwen Hamilton
GOOD HOUSEKEEPING:
“the arte of hus wifship”
“But yet er I begynne to shewe the
wife, what warkes she shall do, I wyll firste teche her a lesson...that is,
that she shulde not be ydle at noo tyme.”
John Fitzherbert, The Boke of Husbandry, c.1530
My intent in researching this subject
is to learn about the life of the medieval housewife and about houses,
household work, and domestic practices in the late middle ages. My search is not intended to cover the
extreme poor, about whom we know very little and whose resources were not
sufficient for domestic comfort, or to cover the noble houses, which had many
tiers of servants, almost all male. My
interest is in the “housewife”, partner of the male householder, who had
resources, few or many, that she either used herself or directly instructed
someone else to use. In studying her, I
am using the medieval concepts of her tasks rather than those we currently
attach to the term “housework”. My
sources are generally English and French and refer to the typical northern
European household centred on a married couple rather than an extended
family.
Fitzherbert’s instructions to the
wife in the Boke of Husbandry speak
to her as the partner of her husband in making a living from the land. She would not have done tasks such as
ploughing, which was considered men’s work, but other important areas of effort,
such as dairy, which were considered women’s work. Fitzherbert suggests that after praying upon
rising, the wife should sweep and tidy the house, milk the cows, check on the
calves, strain the milk, get the children up and dressed, get breakfast, and
start provisions for dinner and supper.
Grain needs to get to and flour from the mill and the amounts checked,
in case the miller is cheating. She will
often need to bake and to brew, to feed the swine morning and evening and feed
the poultry in the morning and gather eggs.
He gives instructions for successfully breeding poultry, then moves on
to gardening. At the beginning of March,
she needs to plant her kitchen garden, making sure she has all the necessary
herbs and vegetables for the pot, and of course the garden will need regular
weeding. March is also time to sow flax
and hemp, both crops which need arduous and careful processing. He suggests that she could also spin wool if
it is available and that she should keep her spindle handy to use in any idle
moments and make blankets and clothing.
Winnowing, making malt, washing and wringing, making hay, and helping
her husband with filling the dung cart or hay wagons are also mentioned as possible
tasks. She might also go to market to
sell butter or cheese (which she presumably would have made) and to purchase
things for the house, carefully reckoning up the money in either case. Fitzherbert also gives some good – and no
doubt necessary – advice on prioritizing tasks.
This rather overwhelming list of
duties shows respect for the importance of the work of the wife, including the specifically
domestic part of it. Her day is
obviously very full, but still time is taken to put her house in order and see
that her family is properly cared for.
The urban housewife’s work list would be different, as it would not
include agricultural work, but the work list of the wife of an artisan or
merchant could include work in the shop.
It certainly would include responsibility for the cleanliness of the
house, care of children, supervision of servants and apprentices, spinning,
sewing, purchasing household items, brewing, and baking, and preparing meals.
Goodman
refers to apprenticeship papers, possibly for orphan girls, offering to teach
“the arte of hus wifship”, perhaps to prepare them for domestic service. (Goodman, 2015, 110) As well, many young
people worked as servants for a period of time to learn skills in addition to
those learned at home and to earn some money for setting up their own households
in adult life. The role of housewife
required the appropriate knowledge and practice to be effective. Hanawalt quotes some of the many female tasks
mentioned by a young female servant: “I
must learn to spin, to reke, to card, to knit...to brew, bake, make mault,
reap...weed in the garden, milk, serve hogs...sweep filthy houses...turn the
spit, scour pots, wash dishes, fetch wood, scald milk pans, wash the
churn...set everything in good order.” (Hanawalt, 1986, 158)
THE HOUSE
To envision the labours of the
housewife, it seems to me necessary to understand the home she was working
in. By the late middle ages, a basic
pattern for the arrangement of space in the house had formed. A few “long houses”, with living space at one
end and shelter for animals at the other, still existed, but they were
gradually disappearing. The very poor might
live in one-room cottages or rent a single room in a town, but larger houses, from peasant to merchant
to gentry, centred around a hall with a chamber at one end and service area at
the other.
Typically, the hall had an open hearth in the
centre, with a louver in the ceiling for the escape of smoke, and provided
space for work, cooking, child care, and socializing. This would also be where some members of the
household slept.
The chamber provided some privacy and
was where the family slept. Small
valuable items would likely be stored there.
In a substantial home the service
area would be divided into two rooms, the buttery and the pantry. In the buttery, drink and the utensils to
serve it were stored; in the pantry, food, particularly bread, dishes and table
linen were kept. A wealthy home might
have more rooms and perhaps a separate kitchen, but hall, chamber, and service
area were the core elements expected in a house. (Gilchrist, 2012, 115-120)
In a rural village, the house sat
within the “toft”, the part of the peasant holding that included outbuildings
such as latrines, a separate kitchen, an oven or bakehouse, barn or granary, or
pig sty, for instance, depending on the status and needs of the householder. These were increasingly arranged to form a
courtyard in the late middle ages. In
excavations, such as at Wharram Percy, refuse appeared to be concentrated at
the outer edges of the “crofts” (enclosed kitchen gardens and paddocks), well
away from the houses. In a town, because of reduced space available,
the house might be on two or more levels, with the lower level forming a shop
and/or storage, and the living quarters above.
Additional space was sometimes added with jetties protruding from the
front of the upper stories over the street.
An open area called a burgage was often behind the town house, with
space for some outbuildings such as latrines and for refuse pits, which would
of necessity be nearer the urban house than the rural one.
There might also be
a small garden. (Gilchrist, 2012, 115-120)
Wealth and status were shown in the
size of the houses and in the materials used to build them. A typical construction was timber framing
filled by panels of wattle and daub.
Stone pads under the main timbers or a stone foundation would add to the
durability of the house and gradually became more common. Improved techniques in timber framing also
led to longer-lasting houses. High
status homes might be built of stone. Some
London houses show decorative use of stone, for example with chequered patterns
on the walls formed with white limestone and flint. There is evidence for the use of brick in
London from the late 13th century, but it does not seem to have been
commonly used until the mid-15th century. (Egan, 1998, 26-35)
Thatch was the most common roofing
material, but ceramic tile, wooden shingles, and slate were used on some
buildings. The London findings showed
mostly ceramic tiles, but of course wooden shingles would have been less likely
to survive, and thatch would have left no trace. Towns and cities tried to ban thatch because
of fire hazards, but were generally not successful. There
are examples in the London findings of decorative ceramic finials for the roof
ends and possibly gutters. (Egan, 1998, 26-35)
Floors
The floors of the majority of houses
were probably tamped down, “beaten” earth, clay, or chalk in the early part of
the late middle ages, with “cobbled” floors created with small stones
apparently fairly common. (Wood, 1983, 389-390) There were wooden floors in some upscale
houses and forming the upper story floors in houses of more than one level,
which of course would apply to most urban housing. Stone slab floors and brick floors were
adopted later in wealthier homes.
Ceramic floor tiles, both plain and decorated, had been in use since the
early 13th century in institutional buildings, but only came into
widespread domestic use during the 14th century, although they are
rarely found in situ as they could be removed along with other household
fittings when the residents moved. (Egan, 2010, 37-40; Schofield, 1995,
111-113) Numerous medieval paintings of domestic
scenes show tiled floors, usually with plain tiles.
Floors of all kinds were generally
covered with rushes or straw, which were swept out and replaced when
dirty. Rushes could be either strewn
loose or woven as mats. The wealthy
often strewed the floor with sweet smelling herbs and even flowers. (Forgeng, 2009; Kowalseski, 2008,
148-149; Egan, 2010, 38) Thomas Tusser in Points
of Good Husbandry lists appropriate strewing herbs: “Basil, baulm, camomile, costmary, cowslip
and paggles, daisies of all sorts, sweet fennel, germander, hyssop,
lavender...marjoram, mandeline, pennyroyal, roses of all sorts, red mints,
sage, tansy, violets, and winter savory.”
Although we have ample documentary evidence for the use of rushes, and
archaeology has located huge numbers of them in dumps, they are not generally
shown in pictures of domestic settings.
Two 15th
century versions of the Birth of Mary, both showing tiled floors.
Windows
From the 12th century, many
churches and some large buildings had windows with beautiful stone tracery and
glass, some of it stained glass.
However, it was not until the late middle ages that glass was much used
in domestic settings and even then remained expensive. Some window openings that were not glazed
were covered with horn or with oiled parchment or oiled or waxed cloth. Some windows that were unglazed or partially
glazed were provided with wooden shutters to keep out cold and rain. (Gilchrist, 2012, 121)
In larger homes, oriel and bay
windows could be found. In the towns,
where space was at a premium, bay windows might project over the street on an
upper floor.
On the opposite page are some
examples of types of medieval windows.
At the top are pictures of a building from the Weald and Downlands Open
Air Museum, showing unglazed, wooden-barred windows that could be covered with
shutters from the inside. Further down a
picture of the kitchen at Gainsborough Old Hall shows the uncovered window
providing light. The John Bourdichon
painting shows an industrious couple working by the light of a window with
metal bars and no visible shutters. Three
pictures below those show glazed and partially glazed windows, with shutters to
aid warmth, security, and privacy. The
example from the Mérode altarpiece also has a decorative
touch of stained or painted glass. Panes
were necessarily small as the technology to produce large panes did not yet
exist. Panes would have been joined by
lead cames.
At the bottom of the opposite page is
Barley Hall’s horn window, believed to be the only extant example in
England. Barley Hall is located in York
and the horn would have been a by-product of the shambles there; horns were
boiled to separate the translucent horn from the core. The horn was then cut and shaped into slats
and dried flat.
Even where glass was used in a house,
it would not likely be used in all rooms; the expense of glazing would likely
be confined to rooms where visitors would be impressed.
Warmth and Light
Fire was a necessity in all homes,
for warmth, for cooking, and often for light.
For much of the middle ages, there would have been a central hearth in
the centre of the hall, with smoke escaping through an opening in the
roof. Sometimes that opening had a cover
which could be used in inclement weather; sometimes the opening was fitted with
a louver, which could be a simple structure, perhaps made from a barrel, or it
could be a ceramic roof tile, often in fanciful shape, which had holes that
permitted smoke to escape but discouraged the entry of rain. The central hearth was slow in disappearing,
with some homes still using them in the 16th century. Goodman theorizes that this may have been
because with a fireplace much of the heat produced goes up the chimney and the
central, open hearth would use less fuel to produce needed warmth.
The hearth
in some instances moved to the side of the room, saving space and making it
easier to hang pots, etc. from the wall over the fire. Funnel-shaped hoods were developed to guide
the smoke up and out, resulting in less smoke in the room. True fireplaces were eventually built, first
in the towns, where space was a concern.
The chimney was often built outside the house. There were problems as this evolved, as not
only were the houses readily flammable, but the chimneys were often made of
wood, plastered over as a fire retardant.
The resulting fires led to laws prohibiting the use of wood in this way,
but as the laws were repeated one presumes they were not universally
obeyed. Stone, brick, or tile could be
used to fireproof the wall behind the hearth.
Eventually, as fireplaces and chimneys became more common, some larger
houses would build chimneys which could serve two fireplaces, back to back, in
different rooms. In homes with separate
kitchens, kitchen fireplaces could be large, to allow multiple dishes to be
prepared. There might even be two
fireplaces and a built in oven in wealthy kitchens. At night, the fire could be banked or covered
with a “curfew” or couvre-feu for safety. (Schofield, 1995, 113-116)
The most
important type of light in the middle ages was definitely natural
sunlight. The typical daily routine was
set to maximize the use of natural light, with most people rising before dawn
and going to bed shortly after dusk. Many
guilds had regulations against their members working by artificial light
because it was felt that the poor light would affect the quality of the
workmanship. The main meal of the day
was dinner, in late morning. This meant
that several hours of good light were available in which to work on the dishes
required for the most important meal of the day, and of course to clean up
afterwards.
Rablais quoted
an old proverb in Pantagruel:
Rise at five, dine at nine,
Sup at five, to bed at nine,
Makes a man live to ninety-nine.
That said, there were
circumstances that required light in the evening or night-time on occasion or
in areas with few or no windows, such as some storage areas. There were several types of artificial light
available. Wax candles provided good, reasonably
steady light, but were extremely expensive and the wicks needed trimming every
20 minutes or so to burn properly. They
were primarily used in churches and by the very wealthy. Candles made from animal fat (tallow) were
much more economical, but were smelly and didn’t provide as good light as the
wax candles, and again had wicks that needed trimming as they burned. Candle holders were typically metal, mostly
of the “pricket” type with a sharp spike holding the candle in place, which
worked well with candles of any diameter.
Some socket-type candle holders were used from about the 14th
century, usually with an opening in the socket to eject the candle stub easily. Candlesticks frequently appeared in period
inventories. Candelabra, some pretty basic,
could be used to hold multiple candles, particularly hanging from the ceiling.
Melted animal
fat could also be used to make rushlights.
Rushes were gathered, then stripped down to the pith, leaving only a
thin strip of the outside peel to make it less fragile to handle. The pith was soaked in the melted fat, and then
dried. The rushlight was held in a metal
clip at an approximately 45 degree angle.
It provided a rather brief light and not a terribly strong one, but was
very inexpensive and provided adequate light for many things. Rushlight in holderF
Where stone or
brick walls – or an outdoor setting – made for fewer concerns about fire, torches
could be used. These could be made of
rushes, dried grass, or other flammable materials, sometimes saturated with
fat. This was the cheapest possible
lighting, but the most dangerous, throwing off sparks and hot ash.
Some buildings
had built in small shelves or niches to put candlesticks or small lamps on. (Newman, 2001, 56-59)
Walls
Plaster and/or whitewash were
frequently used to brighten interior walls.
We have documentary evidence of pictures being painted on plastered
walls, although this documentation is for royal residences such as the royal
rooms in the Tower of London, in great houses, or in churches. A very typical style of painting on plastered
stone walls was to paint “grout” lines to form faux stones, often with flowers
painted on the “stones”. More elaborate
pictures, particularly with a religious theme, also were done. The paintings themselves rarely survive, but
we have an extant example of a 14th century “painted chamber” at
Longthorpe Tower. The Thorpes, who
commissioned these paintings, were locally important, but certainly not noble nor
of high status, nor was Longthorpe a particularly large house. This makes it quite possible that paintings
on walls were more widely popular than has been realized. Some of the Longthorpe pictures include a
Nativity, the Seven Ages of Man, and a frieze of Apostles, as well as a hermit
with birds and rabbits meditating on a vision of Christ. The style is similar to that of the Luttrell
Psalter, although Wood deems the work finer.
Some of the paint has faded and disappeared, but the original would have
likely have included blues and greens, with gold and vermilion. (Wood, 1983, 394-401)
Wainscoting
was also used from the 13th century, although usually painted, often
in bright colours such as green, and sometimes with pictures. (Wood, 1983, 394-401)
Hanging
fabric, particularly wool, on the walls to discourage draughts began early,
even from the Saxon period. By the 14th
century painted cloths were in vogue, sometimes with very elaborate
pictures. Tapestries became popular with
the wealthy, but painted cloths continued to be widely used as a less expensive
way to add colour and style and block cold breezes. (Wood, 1983, 402) Painted cloths are featured in
various inventories, including those of the merchant class. In 1391, Richard Toky, grocer, had three
painted cloths, and in 1406, John Olyver, draper, had a “steined sale”, a set
of hall-hangings, probably stencilled. Tapestries
were being made in England in the 14th century, mentioned in the
wills of the wealthy such as the Earl of Arundel, but the draper, John Olyver,
mentioned above, also had a set (presumably much less valuable than the Earl’s)
of red and black tapestry, which included matching “bankers” or bench covers
and 12 cushions. (Schofield, 1995, 128-129)
15th century beam end
fragmentF
Medieval households were sparsely
furnished. Typical pieces in the hall
were trestle tables, benches, cupboards, and chests. There was sometimes a stool or chair or two
or a form with a back, possibly in front of the fire. Chairs, particularly with arms, were status
symbols, used only by the master of the household and possibly the mistress if
there was a second chair. Some
inventories of halls include work items such as spinning wheels or looms,
suggesting that the area was also used by women of the house to produce fabric,
whether for home use or to sell.
“Soft
furnishings” were also important. Christine de Pizan talks about the importance
of linens to the housewife: “Having
smoothly-woven, fine linens is a well-earned, honest pleasure for any woman who
is careful and provident. She can take great pleasure in white, sweet-smelling
linens stored in her coffers. These may be used for any special guests her
husband invites to stay with them at the house, for which she will be highly praised." (Pizan, 1989, 188)
Bench covers
called “bankers” might offer colour, and cushions, often matching the bankers,
could add comfort. In a comparison
between inventories of rural and urban homes, discussing “bourgeois
domesticity”, Goldberg describes a tendency for rural householders to spend
more on practical items such as kitchen utensils and for urban householders to
spend more on items for comfort and status, such as cushions and silver
spoons. A wealthy merchant, Richard
Lyons, in 1376 owned 39 cushions, kept in several rooms. A century later, however, even a relatively
poor farmer, Thomas Arkyndyll, possessed two cushions. (Kowalseski, 2008, 132-133)
Bedsteads
were often the most expensive item of household furniture, a matter of pride
and a symbol of status. In many ways, it
was more than a piece of furniture. The
article An Honest Bed discusses the
bed’s place in the home as the appropriate setting for consummation of
marriage, for childbirth, and for making a “good death”, in other words for the
most important life passages. A fully
appointed bed would consist of a wooden bedstead, possibly with intertwined
ropes as a base. On this would be placed
a mattress stuffed with wool or sweet-smelling bedstraw and herbs, with a
featherbed above it. The featherbed
would probably be made of linen, waxed on the inside to discourage the escape
of feathers. White linen sheets would
follow, with blankets or quilts, perhaps a decorative coverlet. A bolster might lie across the head of the
bed, topped with feather pillows.
Curtains, hung from the ceiling, enclosed the bed at night, providing
warmth and some privacy. Medieval
pictures often show people sleeping in a semi-reclining position, propped up by
bolster and pillows. Some of the experts
say this is indeed likely the way they slept, others feel that the position may
have been an artistic device, rather along the lines of showing people wearing
crowns in bed.
Of course, an
elaborate bedstead with featherbed and curtains was a best case scenario. Children and servants might sleep in a
“running” or trundle bed, which would be hidden under the larger bed during the
day, and which would likely have a simple mattress, with no featherbed to add greater
comfort. Simpler, poorer beds might be
no more than a wooden box with a mattress or a pallet stuffed with straw or
rushes. (Foreng, 2009, loc1486)
Babies slept in
cradles, some of which had clever arrangements which allowed the mother or
nurse to rock it with a foot, leaving her hands free for other things. Few people slept alone, whatever their
status. Bedrooms often did not have
fireplaces and no doubt a warm companion was welcome.
Kitchen
Brears’ descriptions of kitchens in Cooking and Dining in Medieval England
would suggest that where there was a separate kitchen, it might be somewhat
separated from the main building because of fire hazards. The floors were sometimes slightly sloped to
ensure drainage. There would be a
fireplace, perhaps two in a large household, and possibly an oven. There would likely be a small wooden table
used only for preparing vegetables, which would be chopped with a pair of
chopping knives. Probably there would
also be a large wooden ‘dressing board’ on which to prepare meat, using sharp
knives and a meat axe. There would be a
lockable cupboard or aumbry to secure expensive items such as sugar and spices
and secure containers to prevent rats and mice getting into grain and other
food. Baskets would be used to bring in
and store fruit, vegetables, fuel, and kindling. Graters, mortars, spits, ladles, sieves, pots
for boiling things, flesh hooks, large spoons and forks, salamanders and
shovels to be heated and used to “broil” items such as melted cheese would be
part of the kitchen equipment in a well-equipped household. There would be wooden bowls and possibly
ceramic ones for mixing things. Water would have needed to be fetched from a well or cistern
or other water source.
Lighting in the kitchen would be
mostly natural light through unglazed windows or windows covered with oiled
linen. This is, as mentioned before, one
reason for the main meal of the day being in the late morning, to utilize the
best light of the day. In the winter,
when there is less light, artificial lighting was sometimes needed in addition
to the firelight. Wax candles would have
been prohibitively expensive for most households, and according to Brears
provide insufficient light, although Chiquart recommends candles of suet or
tallow for night work (Henisch
2009, 144). Brears suggests cressets as a popular and
practical solution, usually consisting of a stone column or slab with hollows
approximately 3 by 4 inches cut into the flat stone and filled with oil or
animal fat, with a wick added. (Brears 2008, 173-194)
(Illustration of table and knives from Luttrell Psalter)
HOUSEHOLD
ROUTINE
Advisors such as Fitzherbert and le Ménagier
de Paris agreed that the day needed to start with prayer, when the medieval day
began about an hour before dawn. The
fire needed to be revived and water provided for washing. Children, if students, were expected to be at
school by 6:00 and men would likely be in the fields or in the shop by that
time.
Both advisors also agreed that the
first task in the day would be ensuring the tidiness of the house. Obviously work is more easily done in an
organized environment and certainly le Ménagier was concerned for the
appearance of his home. He advises his
young wife to instruct her companion thus: “First she must assign the
chambermaids early in the morning to sweep and keep clean the entrances to your
house...and to dust and shake out the foot rests, bench covers, and
cushions. Next, every day the other
rooms should be similarly cleaned and tidied for the day, as befits our social
position.”
Animals attached to the household
needed to be dealt with early, whether it involved the farm wife milking cows or
the lady’s servants feeding her pets and reporting on any concerns with animals
on the manor. Le Ménagier does not
expect his wife to be milking or feeding farm animals, but absolutely does
expect her to know what the work involves and to ensure that it is being done
well.
Breakfast was not a major meal in the
middle ages and not everyone would eat breakfast. This distinction is seen in Alice de Breyne’s food accounts:
typically 3-8 people were fed at breakfast, about 20 at dinner.
(Swabey, 1999, 10 ) Food would likely be bread and
ale, perhaps with some cheese.
However, the
main meal of the day would be in late morning, sometime between 9:00 and 11:00,
and preparations for it would take up much of the morning. For some families this might consist of
cooking a pottage containing perhaps dried peas and whatever vegetables might
be on hand, with occasional additions of meat.
For a well to do family, the servants might spend considerable time
creating a meal with multiple courses of several dishes each. Although the servants would do the actual
preparation in a wealthier household, the lady of the house would have planned
the meal, would likely supervise to some extent, and would need to use her keys
to access the more expensive ingredients such as spices.
Another
frequent task would be the care of the valuable textiles in the home. Beds needed to be made, which would often
involve tightening the rope undercarriage and shaking the mattresses to prevent
the contents bunching up. There would be
the necessary clean up after preparation of food. Water needed to be fetched from a well or
other outside source. Firewood must be
collected and cut to appropriate lengths, then safely stored to feed the fire
or fires in the house. Gardens must be
tended regularly during the growing season and even urban homes often had
gardens. The house must be supplied with
bread and drink and other necessities, whether this was done by baking and
brewing or by purchase. Some women added
to the family income with brewing, dairy work, or spinning.
Childcare threaded through the day. In the extant fragment of the ballad The Tyrannical Husband, the wife points
out to her complaining husband that she had to do her tasks hindered by crying
children and often after being up most of the night with a child. Sick children, apprentices, and servants were
the responsibility of the housewife, who was expected to have some knowledge of
helpful herbs to act as remedies.
I ryse up at morow and fynde owr howse wylde; (in
disarray)
Then I melk owre kene and torne them on the felde.
Whyll yow slepe fulle stylle, also Cryst me schelde!
“Than
make I buter ferther on the day;
After make I chese, – thes holde yow a play;
Then wyll owre cheldren wepe and upemost they,
Yett wyll yow blame me for owr good, and any be awey.
“Whan I have so done, yet ther
comys more eene, (remains more to do)
I geve our chekyns met, or elles they wyl be leyne:
Our hennes, our capons, and owr dokkes be-dene. (all
together)
Yet tend I to owr goslyngs that gothe on the grene.
“I bake, I brew, yt wyll not elles
be welle:
I bete and swyngylle flex, (pound flax) as
ever have I heylle: (health)
I hekylle the towe, I kave, and I keylle, (I
separate the chaff from the grain, and I stir the pot)
I toose owlle and card het and spyn het on the wheylle.”
Supper was a lighter meal, usually
eaten around 5:00. Before retiring to
bed around sunset, the house would need to be carefully checked. Generally, seeing the household safely shut
down for the night was the housewife’s responsibility. (Hanawalt, 1986, Ch. 9) Was
all the food carefully put away in where mice and other vermin couldn’t reach
them? Did everyone know what they needed
to do the next morning? Was the fire
banked or covered with a curfew? Were
candles or lamps safely put out? Were
chests and doors locked? Finally, a
chance to rest, sleep, gather energy for the next day.
“Wash dishes, lay leavens, save fire and away,
Lock doors and to bed, a good huswife will
say.” Thomas Tusser
GETTING
THINGS CLEAN
People living in the middle ages of course
knew nothing about germs or about how illness was spread. Insect pests made people uncomfortable, so
they were anxious to rid themselves of them as far as they were able to do so. Clean and attractive homes were pleasanter
and more comfortable to live in and certainly more impressive to visitors. Historian Ian Mortimer suggests that
“foul-smelling homes have connotations of sinfulness, corruption, and
decay. No one wants that sort of label;
rather, they want the opposite, cleanliness and respectability.” (Mortimer, 2008, 196 )
Also, they believed that illness could
be spread by bad smells or “miasma”, so they preferred a house as free of them
as possible. Urban outdoor areas were
often filthy with animal excrement and other unpleasant detritus, but recurrent
waves of plague caused authorities to attempt a periodic clean up of the
streets in order to lessen the odours, fearing they would engender
disease. The other concern with hygiene
involved food. Knowledge of germ theory
is not necessary to understand that contaminated food makes people ill,
experience and folk knowledge will do that.
Any period instructions about dairy work make the importance of extreme
cleanliness very plain.
Floors were swept with a broom,
sometimes called a besom, made of a wooden stick with branches of a plant such
as broom, heather, or birch. Archaeological
evidence shows that floors were swept frequently and thoroughly enough to leave
U-shaped depressions in the floors of house sites. (Hanawalt,
1986, Ch. 9)
Furniture surfaces were wiped down with a cloth.
The household required large amounts
of water each day, which would have been carried in buckets from the
source. Given how heavy water is and
that wooden buckets are also heavy, even using a yoke for ease in carrying,
this is a work-intensive task. In the
country, where most people lived, the water would come from lakes, rivers,
springs, or wells. People were well
aware that water varied in quality. Some
recipes specify water from a spring or other extremely pure source. In some urban areas, water might come from
similar sources, but in large cities such as London, water could be piped to
outlets in some areas or sold by water-carriers.
Providing
for Personal Hygiene
Courtesy literature of the period stresses the
importance of washing your face and hands upon rising. In wealthy households, soap made from olive oil,
such as the Spanish Castile soap, might be available, or water with pleasant-scented
herbs added to it. Most households would
use plain water followed by a rub down with a linen towel. The hands would be washed several more times
a day, particularly before and after meals.
People did take baths, but this involved a great deal of work, so
washing from basins was more frequent. For
a bath, water would need to be brought in and heated in pots over the
fire. A wooden tub would often be lined
with cloth to avoid splinters, and then the water poured in. Afterwards, the dirty water needed to be
removed, again a bucketful at a time, and the tub cleaned out. In many households, the bath water would be
used by several people. Babies, however,
were frequently bathed. All the
literature on infant care stresses the importance of keeping the child
clean.
Linen underclothing was changed as
often as possible, given availability and laundry opportunities. The linen underclothing next to the body
protected the more difficult to clean outer clothing.
Fifteenth century recipe for water for
washing hands: “Boil some sage and pour
off the water, and let it cool until it is a little more than warm. Add to it camomile or margoram or rosemary,
and boil it with orange peel. Laurel
leaves are also good.” (Sloane MS, British Museum)
Caring for Textiles
Household laundry would include underclothing,
tablecloths and napkins, bed linens, and towels. Commonly all of these would be made from
linen. Very fine linen or embroidered
linen would be soaked in a fine soap solution or possibly soapwort, and then
gently washed in a tub. Heavier linen
could be soaked in lye or in ammonia made from fermented urine, then washed
much more vigorously, beaten with paddles or against stones in a river
bed. Black soap, a soft soap made with
lye from hardwood ashes combined with animal fat, sometimes with the addition
of lime, was often used for laundry. The
laundry would be laid on grass or bushes to dry, which also aided
bleaching. Linen is not white, but a
shade of beige or grey unless bleached.
A friend, THL Anne of Saffron Walden (MKA Wendy Maurice), experimented
with bleaching hand-spun, hand-woven linen over a period of six months using
various medieval bleaching methods: “The
basic with all the bleaching methods I tried was water and sun, keeping wet and
sunlight. Just wet and put out on the
grass and not sprinkled every couple of hours lightened but much less so. Those
alone were marginally fourth behind the most complicated in efficacy. Generally
speaking, other methods involved alternating between acid and alkali using
human urine, lye, cow dung water, buttermilk, sour milk, fermented bran; in winter
moonlight with frost. It did however require lengthy exposure of
the damp linen to sunlight on grass.” In
the middle ages, when linen was extremely valuable, this required having the
fabric guarded while spread out. Washing
and bleaching gradually made the linen softer and whiter. Laundry was one of the household chores most
often hired out when there were sufficient means to do so, as it was a
backbreaking job. The people hired to do
laundry were always female.
Other fabric also required care, but
could not be washed. Outer garments for
most people were made of wool and so were many of the wall hangings and
bankers. Silk and velvet and fur were
other textiles that might be in the homes of the well to do and required
special care. Le Ménagier gave very
specific directions both as to protecting the home from fleas and moths and
caring for various textiles.
He says that the household women
should air out, shake out, and inspect all sheets, coverlets, clothing, furs,
and other similar items regularly. They
should be aired only on dry sunny days to avoid attracting moths, and then
should be shaken and beaten with dry sticks.
Oil or grease stains can be treated with warmed urine, soaking the spot
for two days, afterwards compressing the part of the cloth where the spot
is. Fuller’s earth mixed with lye is
another possible stain remover he mentions, or clean chick feathers soaked in
really hot water. To remove stains from
silk, satin, and damask, he feels that verjuice is the best treatment.
For fur or skin that has stiffened, he
instructs his wife to remove it from the garment, then sprinkle it with wine,
toss flour on it, and allow it to dry for a day. After rubbing the skin thoroughly, it should
return to its former condition. Dried
roses or other sweet smelling herbs could be laid among clothing or linen to
give it a pleasant scent.
For fleas, le Ménagier recommends any
of the following treatments: alder
leaves scattered throughout the room, slices of bread smeared with glue or
turpentine with a lighted candle in the middle, spreading a rough cloth in the
room and carrying away the fleas that land on it, or wrapping flea-infested
items tightly and shutting them in a chest to kill the insects with lack of
light and air. He also feels that white
sheets are the best, as fleas and other insects are easily seen on them – he
stresses that freedom from fleas is important for husbandly comfort.
Other herbal remedies (or attempted
remedies) were tansy against flies, lavender or southernwood against moths,
camphor against almost anything, and pennyroyal against fleas. Wormwood and mint were used against mice and
ants. (Heise,
2007, 35-36)
Cleaning
Kitchen and Dining Equipment
Platina, a mid-15th
century Italian gourmet, describes the setting in which one should eat: “Napkins should be white and the tablecloths
spotless, because, if they were otherwise, they would arouse squeamishness and
take away the desire to eat. Let a
servant scrub the knives and sharpen their points so that the diners will not
be delayed by dullness of iron. The rest
of the dishes should be scrubbed clean whether they are earthen or silver, for
this meticulous care arouses even a sluggish appetite.” (Scully 1995, 173)
Ruth Goodman, a historian with the
Victoria and Albert Museum, does experimental archaeology in the domestic field
and has had many opportunities to work with period techniques in medieval and
early modern settings. She lists the
chemical tools for cleanliness in period as potash (ashes and lye), ammonia
(from fermented urine), acetic acid (vinegar), and salt, used with sand, chalk,
soot, fuller’s earth, and brick dust.
Herbal helps would be mare’s tail/horsetail, tansy, wormwood, soapwort,
rosemary, sage, and thyme. Ashes,
straight or used to make lye, could be used to cut grease. Fermented urine whitened stains and killed
bacteria. Vinegar was a de-scaling agent
and was anti-bacterial. Salt was
abrasive and killed bacteria; it was also used in food preservation because
they did understand that it prevented food from spoiling. Most of the herbs mentioned were used as
pesticides, as mentioned before, but soapwort sap could act like a mild
soap. The silica in mare’s tail made it
a useful scouring pad.
Goodman says that for scouring pots
and pans the best method is to toss some ashes into a warm pan, scour it using
a handful of straw or grass, then rinse with water – or as Horman’s Vulgaria
has it “take a wyspe of strawe and asshes; and scoure this potte”. (Henisch,
2009, 65)
The straw would then be thrown into the fire. Burned on food could be tackled with mare’s
tail or with a damp rag dipped in sand, then the pan rinsed.
She suggests that dishes, cups, and
bowls could be more gently cleaned with some vinegar in hot water, using a
cloth or a bunch of rosemary to wash them.
Knives, because the iron could rust, would be best cleaned with a paste
of chalk and water, then dried at once. (Ginn, 2013)
Worn out
towels and tablecloths were used for washing up, although on occasion cloth
needed to be purchased. In 1419, Alice
de Breyne bought six yards of linen for washing windows and kitchen ware. Linen for towels was sometimes woven as
“huckaback”, for greater absorbency. (Swabey, 1999, 95 )
FOOD
Gervase Markham in The Well-Kept Kitchen says, “To speak then of the outward and
active knowledges which belong to our English housewife, I hold the first and
most principal to be a perfect skill and knowledge in cookery.” Housewives could often take considerable
pride in their skill. When an apprentice
in the home of Sabine Johnson complained to his parents of her cooking,
particularly her bread, Mistress Johnson wrote an indignant reply, sending a
loaf of her bread with the letter as proof of her ability in baking. (Sim,
1996, 61-62)
Our medieval housewife would have
needed to plan meals, with choices affected by resources, religious rules, and
the age and status of the members of the household.
Food
Resources
The majority of the population lived in the
country. For them, grain for bread would
most frequently be from their own fields, vegetables from the garden which the
housewife would tend, meat from a pig or pigs allowed to forage in nearby
wooded areas and the occasional chicken too old to lay eggs. Possibly there might be pigeons or wild birds
that were not game birds. (Hunting was
legal only for the nobility.) There
would likely be eggs from poultry and dairy products from a cow or goat if they
had one. The care of poultry and the
dairy were considered female responsibilities.
The grain would need to be taken to the mill to be ground and bread
would likely be made in the home, although possibly baked in a community oven. Because grain keeps better than flour, it
would be taken to the mill in relatively small amounts as needed. Drink would most typically be ale, brewed by
the housewife, or sometimes cider. Fruit
such as apples would be available seasonally, as would nuts and berries from
the woods.
Availability of food was affected by
the seasons far more than we would immediately think. Cows were not in milk constantly, fresh
garden produce was available only in some months, hens laid fewer eggs in some
seasons than others and in any case laid fewer than modern chickens. Milk did not keep well, so was generally made
into butter and cheese. Salt, which
needed to be purchased, was the most important preservative, with sea salt the
cheapest. Some people had access to
fresh fish, but where that was not possible, salted or dried fish might be
available to purchase. Obviously, the
more prosperous the household, the greater the available resources and the more
meat would likely appear in the diet. Those with sufficient means could purchase
other foods and wines from markets in nearby towns, where they might also sell
surplus food they had themselves produced.
Those who lived in urban areas had access to a
wider range of foods, although their choice was still affected by the seasons
and by the difficulties of preserving many foods. Le Ménagier gives very specific instructions
to his wife about marketing and how to know if various foods are fresh,
although it is evidently the steward, Master Jehan, who will do the actual
purchasing. Obviously she needs to be
able to recognize the appropriate quality of food when it comes home. Le Ménagier mentions 19 butchers and the type
of meat they would be likely to carry, sheep, oxen, pigs, calves, kids,
chickens, pigeons, and goslings, all of which would likely be brought live to
market and slaughtered there. He gives
instructions for telling if a coney (rabbit) is fat, when certain types of fish
would come to market, how to tell the age of mallards and ring-doves and hares,
how to tell if partridges have been freshly killed, and the qualities of good
carp and eels.
Alice de Breyne’s household accounts
for 1412-13 show purchases of almonds, raisins, rice, saffron, ginger,
cinnamon, cloves, mace, figs, currants, dates, sugar, pepper, mustard seed,
soda-ash, and honey. Beef and pork were
served throughout the year on flesh days in her household. Beer or ale was the most common drink, although wine, cider,
mead, and perry (cider made with pears) were also beverages of the period. Sweet red wine was the most favoured of the
imported wines according to import duties and price controls. (Swabey, 1999, 86 )
The mistresses of more modest households would
no doubt do their own marketing. The High
Street would have had temporary booths and stalls set up on market days or for
fairs, as well as chapmen carrying their wares on horses or on their
backs. In the booths and shops, there
could also be candle sellers, basket makers, soap (some fine, made from olive oil and even
scented), brooms, combs, glassware, wooden hoops, rush matting, knives, and
pater nosters, as well as all the foods.
In the typical medieval city, there would be brightly coloured
signboards over the many taverns and tradesmen’s symbols over the shops, a bush
for a vintner, three gilded pills for the apothecary, a unicorn for the
goldsmith, and so on. In the permanent
shop stalls the front when opened would fold down to form a counter to display
the wares and often an upper part would fold up to create a small canopy to
protect them.
Bread and ale and even ready-made food could be purchased in
the city. Scully cites street cries from
Piers Plowman, 1377: “Cooks and their kitchen-boys kept crying, ‘Hot pies, hot! Good pork and geese! Go
dine, go! Tavern-keepers told them the
same, ‘White wine of Alsace and red wine of Gascony, Of the Rhine and
LaRochelle, to wash down the roast!’”
Other cries from Europe quoted by Scully include the following: “Mussels,
lily-white mussels! I have ripe strawberries, ripe strawberries! Buy my dish of
great smelts! Fine oranges, fine lemons!
Fresh eels! Rabbits for
sale! Rats or mice to kill! Old shoes, old shoes!”
Fast and Feast
Specific weekdays on which to fast varied
through the middle ages, although Friday and the eves of holy days were always
included. Those fast days essentially
were non-meat days, with other foods, particularly fish, allowed as
substitutes. There were two long 40-day
periods of fasting, Lent and Advent, when the fast was stricter. Particularly in Lent, not only meat but dairy
products were forbidden. This was more
difficult in northern Europe, where butter was used, than in southern Europe
where the cuisine more frequently used oil.
Where the household was prosperous enough to purchase almonds, almond
milk could substitute for cow’s milk. In
well-to-do homes, almond milk was frequently used even on feast days as cow’s
milk did not keep well. Some recipes
were particularly designed for Ember Days, days when meat was forbidden, but
not dairy. Children, pregnant women, and
the ill were not expected to keep fast as strictly.
Age and
Status
Children were thought to need a
different diet to adults. “Pap”, a type
of porridge, was a typical first food, made of hulled grain, flour, or
breadcrumbs, cooked in water or milk until the mixture thickened. Once teeth were present for chewing, children
were encouraged to gnaw on crusts.
Walter de Bibbesworth also recommended carefully peeled and cored apples
or a soft-boiled egg. (Henisch 2013, 37-38) The study of child
skeletons found at Wharram Percy seems to indicate children ate a diet more
dominated by plant foods than the diet of adults. This appears to have led to somewhat slower
physical maturation than children in our time and culture. (Gilchrist 2012, 33, 41-42)
Servants ate less elaborate meals
than their masters, with fewer dishes and less meat. Le Ménagier recommends one filling dish
which they can eat until satisfied, accompanied by wine, but not an inebriating
amount. The difference made by rank to
the food provided is also demonstrated in the plans for three meals for those
who attended the funeral of Thomas Stonor, documented in the Stonor Letters. After the dirges, poor men received bread and
cheese, while the priests and gentlemen had lamb, veal, roasted mutton, and
chickens in a dish. For breakfast, the
“priests and other honest men” had calves’ heads and salt beef, but nothing was
provided for the poor. For dinner, the
poor had “umbles to pottage”, salt beef, roasted veal in a dish, and roasted
pork. The gentry had pottage, “browes of
capons or”, mutton, geese, and custard for the first course, pottage, jussell
(grated bread and eggs in broth), capons, lamb, pig, veal, roast pigeons,
pheasant, baked rabbit, venison, and jelly for the second course. There were pewter vessels for the gentlemen
and silver spoons and silver salt cellars for the most important.
The farm housewife would on occasion
need to feed seasonal workers as well as her family and to plan special meals
for the Christmas season and other festive days when they would likely have
guests to join in the celebration. Brears
cites a middle-class menu from Furnivall’s Early
English Meals and Manners – A Feast for a Franklin:
First course: Brawne with mustard, bacon with
peas, boiled beef or mutton, boiled chicken or capon, roast goose and roast
suckling pig, baked custard of eggs and cream
Second course: Mortrews
and jussell (eggs and broth), roast veal, lamb, kid, cony, or pigeon, bakemeats and dowcets (small cream-filled pastry), fritters, a leach (pudding, sliced), spiced apples and pears, bread and
cheese
Void: Spiced
cakes and wafers, braggot (very strong ale with honey and
spices added) and mead
Wealthier and more socially prominent
women such as le Ménagier’s wife would need to plan and
supervise the preparation of elaborate meals to satisfy her husband’s guests. The Ménagier provides
his wife with a number of menus, “divers dinners and suppers of great lords and
others…whereupon you may choose, collect, and learn whatsoever dishes it may
please you…when you have to give a dinner or supper.” I infer that these suggestions are for
company dinners for other well-to-do, prominent bureaucrats rather than everyday
fare, since he generally stresses that he and his wife are not great lords and do not move in that set. A suggested menu of his which his friends
would no doubt have found impressive follows:
“First course: Beef
and marrow pasties, hare in civey, great joints, a white coney brewet, capons
and venison with sops, white porray, turnips, salt ducks, and chines.
Second course: The best roast, a rosee of larks, a
blankmanger, umbles, boar’s tail with hot sauce, fat capon pasties, fritters,
and Norwegian pasties (made with cod’s liver)
Third course: Frumenty, venison, various sorts of
glazed meats, fat geese and capons, cream darioles (small pastries containing custard, possibly with dried fruit or almonds) and leches (slices) fried and sugared, bourreys of hot galantine, capon jelly, coneys, young
chickens, rabbits, and piglings
Fourth course: Hippocras (spiced and sweetened wine) and wafers for issue.”
Food
Preparation
Supplies of fuel and water needed to be
readily available to the cook. In rural
areas, those attached to manors usually had the privilege of gathering fallen
wood and dead wood from their lord’s woods and forests, although growing wood was
always carefully protected. Many people
in villages and towns had fuel gathering rights associated with their
property. In the cities, fuel was more
difficult to obtain and might be bought from a woodmonger. Woodmongers were organized in London by the
14th century, selling wood shipped down the Thames or shipped from
Kent and Sussex down the coast then up the Thames to London. Wood prepared for market was cut into
standard sizes, with standard prices.
The City of London had a numbered size system, with pieces cut into four
foot lengths of timbers of 16 inch girth, 23 inch girth, 28 inch girth, and 33
inch girth. Each of these could be split
into halves or quarters. These larger
pieces of wood made good fires for roasting and general cookery. Smaller branches and twigs were cut into
convenient lengths and tied into bundles called ‘faggots’ or ‘kids’. Smaller bundles yet were called
‘bavins’. These bundles were used for
ovens. (Bears,
2008, 56-57)
Peat and coal were used in some areas
and charcoal was used for cooking in braziers.
Bread – the
most important item of the diet
Grain, typically referred to as ‘corn’, was
central to the diet of all classes, and included wheat, barley, millet,
sorghum, oats, buckwheat, and spelt. “Give
us this day our daily bread” was quite literally meant. Grain could be kept over the winter and
ground into flour as needed, mostly into what we would call whole-grain flour,
still including the bran. An experienced
housewife would presumably know how much to take to the mill at a time, based
on family size and what baking she expected to do. To take too little could leave her to run
short at an awkward time, but to take too much would risk waste of a valuable
resource. Leavened white bread made with
wheat was the most prized bread, but was mostly eaten by the wealthy and not
necessarily as standard fare even for them.
According to Stone in Food in Medieval England, Diet and Nutrition: “It has been estimated that at the beginning
of the 14th century grain accounted for up to 80 percent of a
harvest worker’s calories and 78 per cent of a soldier’s; even among the lay
nobility of medieval England, grain provided 65-70 per cent of their energy
intake...consumed in three main ways: as
bread, as ale...as pottage. On balance,
bread was the most important.”
Grain could be used in many ways and
bread made in a variety of ways with a variety of grains. Grain such as oats could be used for
porridges and to add bulk to pottages.
One dish of boiled grain that could be found at many economic levels is
frumenty, wheat hearts or sometimes barley, boiled with broth or milk to form a
thick porridge. Honey, eggs, and other good
things could be added, making for a golden, tasty dish which was frequently
served with venison or other meat and was a favourite festive dish.
Bread was not necessarily baked in an
oven. Small homes did not generally have
ovens, and community ovens or the use of bakers’ ovens usually had a cost
involved. As well, baking loaves in an oven would take more time and fuel than
cooking the dough either in flat cakes on bakestones or on iron plates or in a
cooking pot. The pot could be either
hung or turned upside down over the dough and covered with ashes. An example of a stone bakestone with a 14
inch diameter and an inch thickness was found at the Wharram Percy site and
likely would have been used to cook flat bannocks, possibly with mixed
grains. Round iron plates, sometimes
also referred to as bakestones, have been found in many places. Many had loops on one side for hanging when
not in use. Piers Plowman speaks of
eating oat cakes with curds and cream. (Brears,
2008, 109-112) I would personally imagine that even a
housewife who ordinarily baked her bread in an oven would on occasion make
bannock this way when out of regular bread or in need of a quick meal for the
children.
Brears includes several recipes for
breads cooked without an oven, including these:
Thin Havercake/Oatcake
85 g fine
oatmeal 5 g lard or
dripping
45 ml warm
water Pinch of salt
Melt lard or dripping in the water and mix
into oatmeal and salt to form a dough.
Knead quickly and roll or pat out on a thin layer of oatmeal to form a
10 inch diameter disc. Heat
bakestone. Slide havercake onto
bakestone and leave to bake for 5 or 6 minutes until edges begin to curl
up. Turn over, using a thin board to
give support and bake on the other side.
It will still be pale. Remove
from bakestone and prop in front of the fire to dry out and slightly
toast.
Crock or Flick Cakes
225 wholemeal
flour, with coarse bran sifted out 150
ml milk
Pinch of
salt 120
g raw pork fat
Grease the bottom of a cooking pot and place
it over a gentle heat to warm up. Chop
fat into small pieces...mix into the flour and salt, then mix in just enough milk
to produce a stiff dough. Form into an
8-inch diameter round cake, floured top and bottom. Place in the bottom of the cooking pot,
cover, and bake each side for 10 minutes.
Remove and allow to cool.
In Brears’ opinion these recipes, although not
from medieval cookbooks, are similar to ones that would have been used in the
medieval period. Neither recipe contains
leavening, but I have seen and eaten leavened wheat loaves baked very
successfully in an iron pot put in the coals, in a way believed to be used in
the middle ages.
Wheat, with its gluten content to help the
bread rise, was the preferred grain. Rye
and barley made coarser bread. Wheat
flour, just as ground, was good for making bread for trenchers, the coarse
bread used as personal plates/cutting boards when dining. The first stage in refining it was a
horsehair or canvas sieve, used to remove the coarsest particles of bran. The resulting flour was used to make cheat or
cribble loaves, similar to modern whole-wheat bread. The next stage was called bolting or bunting,
with the sieved flour wrapped in a linen bolting cloth, then jerked up and
down, allowing only the finest particles to escape. Depending on the fineness of the linen weave,
this flour made either mancets, cockets, cracknels, simnels (good quality
breads) or wastel and paindemaine loaves (the finest breads, served only at
important tables).
If the bread was being made in any quantity,
it would probably be made in a kneading or dough trough, which provided the
necessary space. Alice de Breyne’s
household produced “230 white loaves and 36 black loaves” from eight bushels of
wheat every five days.
Brears describes probable methods, based on a
combination of descriptions of medieval breads and early post-medieval recipes.
Trencher and coarse cheat breads were
probably made by putting the meal into a dough trough that still had soured
dough from a previous batch in it, then working in hot water and salt. It would be left overnight to ferment, and
kneaded in the morning to make a stiff dough to be baked at a high
temperature.
The best cheat bread would use a piece of sour
dough beaten into warm water, thoroughly mixed, and sieved. This leaven would be poured into a well in
the flour and mixed with the hand to form a smooth batter. After being covered with a layer of dry flour
it was left overnight. In the morning, a
little warm water and salt was added, then the dough kneaded, either by hand,
or put in a cloth and kneaded by foot, or worked with a “brake”, a wooden bench
and leaver combination. It was then put
into loaves, allowed to rise, and baked.
Manchets and paindemaines were leavened by
frothy yeast skimmed off the top of fermenting ale. It was probably mixed much like the cheat
bread, then after rising formed into small round loaves, the edges cut in all
around and the top pricked to make it rise higher. (Brears,
2008, 115-118)
Some bread was made from dredge (oats and
barley) and Maslin bread was made from wheat and rye combined. The bread of the very poor might well partly
consist of bran that had been removed when producing white flour and might also
partly consist of peas and/or beans.
The oven needed to be prepared. Ruth Goodman, working with period ovens,
found it took four to five faggots of wood to heat the oven to the necessary
temperature, taking about 45 minutes to achieve this. It could be tested by throwing a handful of
flour against the back wall; the flour should spark when it touches the
wall. The embers would be quickly raked
out onto the floor and scraped out of the way.
The oven was roughly wiped out with a damp mop and the loaves slid into
the oven. The door would be propped in
place and gaps sealed with simple dough made of flour and water. The bread would take about 40 minutes to
bake, sounding hollow when tapped on the bottom. The loaves would be quickly removed so that
pies and pastries could now be baked in the cooler oven. Speed counted here as heat would be rapidly
lost through the open door. (Ginn, 2013, loc)
Because they did not have baking powder or
baking soda to make risen cakes or cookies, bread crumbs were used to provide
body to dishes such as gingerbread, which was often coloured and moulded.
Gingerbread
Take
good honey and clarify it on the fire, and take good white bread and grate it
and put it in the boiling honey, and stir it well with a slice so that it will
not burn to the container; and then take it off and add ginger, long pepper,
and sanders, and mix it up with your hands.
Put it in a flat box and strew sugar on it, and pick cloves in it around
the edge and in the midst, if it please you. (Hieatt, 2013, 81)
Here is
a simple, savoury dish which also uses grated bread.
Jussel
Take
grated bread and eggs and beat them together; add saffron, sage, and salt, and
mix it with broth. Boil it and serve it
forth. (Hieatt, 2013, 30)
Bread
was also used in slices in various recipes such “panperdy”, a recipe from
Gervase Markham’s The Well-Kept Kitchen:
Panperdy (from “pain perdu”)
To make the best panperdy, take a dozen eggs
and break them, and beat them very well, then put unto them cloves, mace,
cinnamon, nutmeg, and good store of sugar, with as much salt as shall season
it: then, take a manchet, and cut it
into thick slices like toasts; which done, take your frying pan, and put into
it good store of sweet butter, and, being melted, lay in your slices of bread,
then pour upon them one half of your eggs; then when that is fried, with a dish
turn your slices of bread upward, and then pour on them the other half of your
eggs, and so turn them till both sides be brown; then dish it up, and serve it
with sugar strewed upon it.
Pottages
The pots might be metal or earthenware,
although earthenware pots were more difficult to use and very apt to crack or
break, requiring a slow introduction to heat.
The redeeming feature of earthenware pots, however, was their cheapness,
and they were apparently regarded as more or less disposable. (Brears,
2008, 221)
The recipes below are from Brears, showing
some of the possible variety.
Beans Yfryed
1 lb broad
beans 1-2 cloves garlic, chopped 1 large onion, finely chopped Olive oil or lard
Simmer the beans in water for 20-25 minutes
until they burst, then drain. Fry the
beans, onion, and garlic in the oil or lard for 5 to 10 minutes, until pale
golden brown. Pour into a dish and
sprinkle with a little sugar and cinnamon.
Long Worts of Meat (Thick stew with greens)
2 lbs lean
beef joint 60 oz white breadcrumbs beef marrow bone pinch of saffron
8 oz cabbage
or spring greens 1 tsp salt
Put beef and bone in pot, just cover with
boiling water. Bring back to the boil,
skim, then simmer gently for 1 ½ to 2 hours until tender. Parboil the cabbage or greens until just
tender, then drain, chop coarsely and stir into the beef stock with the
breadcrumbs, saffron and salt. Simmer
briefly, then serve all in the same dish.
Hens in
Gauncelye
2 lbs roast
chicken 4 beaten egg yolks 1 pint milk
pinch of
saffron 4 cloves of garlic,
peeled
Remove meat from the chicken and cut into
cubes. Grind the garlic with a little of
the milk; add remaining milk, chicken, and saffron. Simmer for 10 minutes. Scald the yolks with a little of the hot
milk, return to the pan and stir without boiling until it thickens, then
serve.
Plaice Boiled
1 plaice,
about 1 lb 2 tsp salt ½ tsp ground mustard ¾ pint light ale
2 tsp
chopped parsley
Mix mustard and salt into a ½ pint of the ale
and bring to a boil, then set aside.
Clean and wash the fish. Put
remaining salt and ale, parsley, and ¾ pint water into a shallow pan and bring
to a boil. Put in fish, reduce heat, and
poach gently for 10-15 minutes until tender.
Remove fish to plate. Add ¼ pint
of its stock to the mustard mixture, bring to a boil, and pour over fish just
before serving hot.
Salads
Brears speaks of the medieval concern about
eating uncooked vegetables and fruit, quoting a warning from John Russell to
“beware of saladis, grene metis, & of fruites rawe, for they make many a
man haue a feble mawe (stomach)”. Greens
washed in unboiled water or otherwise contaminated could certainly cause some
unpleasant stomach upsets. (Brears, 2008, 258)
However, the warning would suggest that some people did indeed eat
salads.
Hieatt provides a 14th century
recipe from The Forme of Cury for salad:
“Take parsley, sage, green garlic, spring
onions, onions, leeks, borage, mints, scallions, fennel, town cresses, rue,
rosemary, purslane: rinse and wash them clean.
Pick them over. Pluck them small
with your hand, and mingle them well with raw oil; lay on vinegar and salt and
serve it forth.” (Hieatt, 2013, 152)
Markham talks at more length about salads,
although most of what he calls “sallats” are combinations of cooked or pickled
vegetables. Some versions are apparently
meant as table decorations. However,
what he calls a “simple sallat” indeed contains a mixture of uncooked greens
and gives an interesting list of what would be available. “First then to speak of sallats, there be
some simple and some compounded; some only to furnish out the table, and some
both for use and adornation: your simple
sallats are chibols (a mild onion)
peeled, washed clean, and half of the green tops cut clean away, so served on a
fruit dish; or chives, scallions, radish roots, boiled carrots, skirrets (water parsnip), and turnips, with such
like served up simply; also, all young lettuce, cabbage lettuce, purslane, and
divers other herbs which may be served without anything but a little vinegar,
sallat oil, and sugar; onions boiled, and stripped from their rind and served
up with vinegar, oil and pepper is good...so is samphire, bean cods, asparagus,
and cucumbers, served likewise...with a world of others, too tedious to
mention.” (Markham,
1968, 64)
Pies and
Pastries
“Next to these already rehearsed, our English
housewife must be skilful in pastry.” Gervase Markam, The Well-Kept Kitchen.
In the middle ages, most pastry was designed
as a convenient and disposable baking dish.
The “paste” would be prepared and usually formed into a “coffin” or
container, which would either be left to dry out or be briefly baked in order
for it to keep its shape. Sometimes
ceramic dishes were used to support the pastry walls, such as ceramic flan
dishes which were also used for baking some rather large and fragile foods, but
most often the coffins were free-standing containers into which combinations of
boiled meats or other foods would be placed, covered with a pastry lid, and
briefly baked just before serving. The
simplest and apparently most frequently used type of pastry was composed of
flour and boiling water. This formed a
hard and not very tasty outer shell from which the food would be served. The poor, buying pies, probably ate the whole
thing, but wealthier diners would not.
Some recipes call for the addition of eggs and sugar, which make the
pastry more suitable for fancy shapes, as the flour and water paste tended to
dry unevenly and blister in the oven. (Brears, 2008, 125-130)
Markham talks about choosing different types
of pastry for different contents: a moist, tough, coarse, long-lasting crust
made with rye flour for pies of venison, boar, and bacon, while a thinner white
crust made from wheat flour is more appropriate for chicken, calves’ feet,
olives, and the like.
Tart of Flesh (Brears,
2008, 131)
12 oz wheat flour 1 tsp mixed ground cloves, mace,
pepper, ginger, & saffron
4 dried figs ¼
pint wine or ale
2 tbsp raisins 2
tbsp pine kernels
1 oz lard 1
tsp salt
4 oz white cheese 1 tbsp sugar or honey
6 dates, finely chopped 1 tbsp almond milk yellowed with saffron
10 oz minced pork 1 egg, beaten
Prepare an 8 inch case and lid with the flour
and 6 fl. oz boiling water. Simmer the
figs in the wine or ale for 5 minutes, cool, drain, and chop. Fry the raisins and pine kernels in lard
until they start to brown, then cool.
Chop the cheese finely, combine with pork and egg, then stir in raisins,
pine kernels, spices, salt, and sugar or honey.
Pack the filling into the case, top with chopped dates, fit the lid on
and pinch the edges. Cut a hole in the
centre. Brush the tart with the saffron
milk and bake.
Apple Tart (Brears,
2008, 132)
Pre-baked tart case 4 dried figs
Pinch of saffron 1 lb peeled and cored apples
4 oz peeled pear ¼ tsp cinnamon and ginger
2 tbsp raisins
Simmer figs for 5 minutes, cool, drain, and
chop. Mix all ingredients and grind to
form a smooth paste. Fill the case and
bake until the fruit pulp is cooked.
Custard or Doucet (Markham, The Well-Kept Kitchen)
To bake an excellent custard or doucet...take
a good store of eggs, putting away one quarter of the whites, and beat them
exceeding well...and mix with the sweetest and thickest cream you can
get...Season it with salt, sugar, cinnamon, cloves, mace, and a little nutmeg,
which done, raise your coffins of good tough wheat paste and if you please,
raise it in pretty works, or angular forms...When the coffins are ready, strew
the bottoms a good thickness over with currants and sugar; then set them in the
oven and fill them up with the confection before blended...adorn all the tops
with caraway comfits and slices of dates pricked right up and so serve them up
to the table.
Meat
Beef and mutton account for the majority of
remains in bone pits and were the most widely eaten meats medievally. However, the wealthy enjoyed a great deal of
variety in meat in their diet – the information on butchers in Le Ménagier de
Paris gives an idea of this variety – and the diet of the poor was mainly
vegetarian, with the small additions of meat probably most frequently
pork. A pig could be raised on poor
land, be allowed to scavenge for part of its food, and produced large
litters. Its meat was very suitable for
long-term preservation by salting, smoking, or combined drying and smoking, an
important factor for the poor. (Woolgar, 2006, ch.5-7)
Nothing was wasted of the animal. Small scraps of meat would be made into
puddings or sausages, as was the blood.
Here is a recipe of Markham’s for blood pudding:
Blood Pudding
Take the blood of a hog whilst it is warm, and
steep in it a quart or more of great oatmeal grits, and at the end of three
days with your hands take the grits out of the blood, and drain them clean;
then put to those grits more than a quart of the best cream warmed on the fire;
then take mother of thyme, parsley, spinach, succory, endive, sorrel, and
strawberry leaves, of each a few chopped exceeding small, and mix them with the
grits, and also a little fennel seed finely beaten; then add a little pepper,
cloves, and mace, salt, and great store of suet finely shred, and well beaten;
then therewith fill your farmes, and boil them, as hath been before described.
Meat was often boiled or stewed, which was
particularly practical for older, tougher cuts of meat, and required less
attention during preparation than roasted meat.
A breast of mutton stewed (Markham, The Well-Kept Kitchen)
Take a very good breast of mutton chopped into
sundry large pieces, and when it is clean washed, put it into a pipkin with
fair water, and set it on the fire to boil; then scum it well, then put in of
the finest parsnips cut into large pieces as long as one’s hand, and clean
washed and scraped; then a good store of the best onions, and all manner of
sweet pleasant pot herbs and lettuce, all grossly chopped, and good store of
pepper and salt, and then cover it, and let it stew till the mutton be enough;
then take up the mutton, and lay it in a clean dish with sippets, and to the
broth put a little wine vinegar, and so pour it on the mutton with parsnips
whole, and adorn the sides of the dish with sugar, and so serve it up.
Roasts of tender, young animals were a luxury
and a dish England was famous for doing well.
Markham provides rules about the roasting of meat. He stresses that the equipment, the spits and
cob-irons, must be clean and the meat picked over and washed before
spitting. The spit should not pierce the
most desirable parts of the meat and the meat should be properly broached – that
is, firmly tied together and attached to the spit in such a way that it sits
firmly on it, not slipping on the spit or falling apart during roasting. Markham feels that the best bastings are
sweet butter, sweet oil, barrelled butter, or fine rendered up seam, with
cinnamon, cloves, and mace. He recommends
fine white bread crumbs or very fine white meal for dredging. Roasting is done in front of the fire rather
than over it and the spit must be turned regularly to ensure the meat being
evenly roasted. A dripping pan would be
beneath the roast to catch the drippings.
How to roast a Hare (from
A Book of Cookrye, printed by Edward Allde, 1591)
Wash him in faire water, then perboile him,
and lay him in colde water againe, then Larde him and roast him on a Broche,
then to make sauce for him, take red vinegar, Salt, Pepper, ginger, Cloves,
Mace, and put them togither, then mince apples and onions, and fry them in a
Panne, then put your sauce to them with a little sugar, and let them boyle well
togither, then baste it upon your Hare and so serve it.
“Good ploughmen look weekly, of custom and
right,
For roast meat on Sundays and Thursdays at
night;
Thus doing and keeping such custom and guise,
They call thee good huswife – they love thee
likewise.”
Thomas Tusser, 1575
DRINK
Brewing ale was one of the standard tasks
mentioned as part of the housewife’s duties.
Ale was not primarily a recreational drink, but a contributor to
calories and nutrition. Because the
water was boiled in the process, it was also a safer drink where water supplies
were possibly contaminated. Because ale
without hops could only be kept for a week to ten days, women expected to brew frequently. They could, however, purchase ale from others
for their household or to eke out their own supply. A woman who wished to sell ale could simply
put a pole with a bush on it out a window and that would advertize that she had
ale available. Tusser, ever concerned
about unnecessary expense, advises the housewife to brew her own ale,
especially since the leftovers from the process contribute to fattening the
pigs being raised.
Great houses and monasteries had enormous
brewing houses, usually attached to a bakehouse, with large vats and many butts
to hold the ale. Alice de Breyne’s
household, for instance, produced approximately 130-140 gallons at each
brewing, while one priory could produce 700 gallons. (Woolgar,
2006, loc 248)
Most households had much simpler arrangements. Eventually the European custom of adding hops
became more popular in England, replacing the sweeter ale with the more bitter,
but better keeping, beer.
The first stage of brewing is malting the
barley to convert its starch into sugars that will feed the yeast. Barley is the traditional grain used, but
other grains could be and sometimes were substituted. The cleaned grain is spread about an inch
deep on a clean wooden floor, and then sprinkled with water. The grain is stirred and watered until all
the grain is evenly damp, when it would be spread out again to a depth of three
inches or so. The stirring and watering
is repeated every few hours until all the grains swell. Now the grain is moved into a deeper pile to
allow warmth to build up. Over the next
few days, the heap continues to be stirred, ensuring the grain is developing
evenly. When the grains begin to sprout,
the grain must now be heated sufficiently to kill the shoots, but not scorch
the grain. Malting kilns were structures
with low arches and a smooth top. A fire
was built beneath and the grain spread on top.
For small, regular batches, the floor of the oven after baking was
sufficient, but larger batches required a kiln.
Yeast, often originally captured from wild
yeast, was also needed. Yeast was kept
and fed from brewing to brewing.
Water was brought to a boil and poured over
malt in a wooden tub. Flavourful herbs such
as heather, sage, elderflower, nettles or alecost could be added at this
point. The mix was then left to sit
while the sugars leached out of the barley.
In cool weather it might be necessary to wrap the tub with a blanket to
keep it warm enough. After a time, the
thick, dark liquid is drawn off into another tub and frothy yeast added and the
new mixture left overnight to brew. A
second batch of boiling water would be poured over the malt to make “small
ale”, weaker and less alcoholic. In the
morning, after new yeast was collected from the top of the brew, the liquid
would be strained and stored in pots or barrels with lids, although they would
not be completely airtight as gases would continue to develop and need to
escape. (Ginn,
2013, ch 6) (Markham, 1986, 204-209)
Markham also writes about the making of cider
and perry. He describes the apples or
pears being picked, cleaned, and put in a press mill to be crushed. The fruit would then be strained through a
haircloth bag, allowed to settle, then put into hogsheads or other
vessels. The residue in the bag would
not be wasted, but would have water added to it to make “small” cider or
perry. Cider or perry made from summer
fruit would be called “sweet” cider or perry, that from winter fruit, “sour”
cider or perry, which would be used last as it “endures the longest”. (Markham,
1986, 209)
Wine would be purchased rather than made, but
there was much concern about preserving the quality of the wine. Le Ménagier advises having the wines checked
weekly and suggests a number of cures for possible problems. For wine gone bad, exposing the barrel to
frost is suggested; for tartness, adding ripe black grapes; for an ill smell,
powdered elder wood and grain of paradise hung in bags inside the cask; for
“muddiness”, hard boiling eggs, frying the whites and shells, and then putting
them in a bag to be hung in the cask; for redness in white wine, adding holly
leaves. (Power,
1992, 141-142)
DAIRY
The dairy was traditionally a female
enterprise and any financial gain was often hers as well. Skill in the dairy was highly prized and the
butter and cheese – “white meats” – produced were an important part of the
diet. As Markham in The English Housewife describes the best kind of “kine” for
dairying, the housewife quite possibly would have been the one to choose the
animals as well. He describes the ideal
cow as “of big bone, fair shape, right breed, and deep of milk, gentle and
kindly.”
Cows would typically be given names by their
mistress, some of which we know, such as ‘Motherlyke’, ‘Galyan’, ‘Nutte’,
‘Lovely’, ‘Lightfote’, and ‘Goldelockes’.
The milkmaid would sit on a three-legged milking stool, with a tub of
around one-gallon in capacity firmly held between her feet and against the
stool. One stave would extend well above
the top to act as a handle. Once the
milk was in the tub, it was taken into the dairy to be ‘siled’ or strained by
being poured through a haircloth canvas or woollen cloth to remove any hair,
grit, or other debris, and then left overnight in broad, shallow earthenware
‘settling-pans’, which had been scalded.
When the cream rose to the surface, it could be skimmed off with a
shallow wooden dish. If it was to be
used for butter, it would be put directly into the churn. (Brears,
2008, 79-80)
Because milk, whether from cows, sheep, or
goats, did not keep well and because the amount of milk produced was little to
none in some parts of the year, it was important to preserve as much as
possible as cheese and butter, using salt to increase its shelf life. Everything in a dairy was kept spotlessly
clean, with vessels carefully scalded out, as the housewife or dairymaid was
well aware even a touch of dirt or mould could make dairy products turn quickly
and become inedible.
At this period, the dash churn, with a tall, narrow
coopered wooden bottom and a wooden piston-like dash was common. The dash would agitate the cream until small
globules of butter began to separate from the buttermilk, the amount of time
depending on temperature and quality of the cream. As the process continued, the mass of butter
could eventually be lifted from the buttermilk.
The buttermilk still in the butter needed to be removed by first washing
it and then beating it with a wooden spoon in a wooden bowl to remove the last
traces. Salt was then beaten into it and
it was packed tightly into pottery jars to be stored until needed. The buttermilk could be used as a refreshing
drink.
Cheese was made by warming the milk to blood
temperature, then stirring in rennet (salted and dried lining of a suckling calf’s
stomach) to coagulate the milk into curds and whey. The juice of lady’s bedstraw could be used
the same way, but not as effectively.
Once broken up and partly drained, the curds were mixed with salt and
transferred to a cloth-lined tub called a cheese-vat, which had openings to
allow whey to escape. A wooden form was
placed on top of the cheese within the cheese-vat and then a cheese press was
used to press out the remaining whey.
After pressing, the cheese was rubbed with salt and often wrapped in
cheesecloth, then put on racks to ripen.
The cheeses would be regularly checked and turned. Hard cheeses, sometimes made with skim milk,
kept best – although skim milk cheese could be tough and less flavourful – and
were common in the diet of the poor.
More prosperous homes could make treats such as cheesecakes, cottage
cheese, and junkets. Below is a recipe for a soft cheese:
Vyaunde Leche
2 pt full-cream milk 2 TBSP honey 1
pt light ale
1 lb cottage cheese a little red food colouring pinch of salt
Mix the milk and food colour, heat to 100° F,
pour in the ale, remove from heat, and leave for 15 minutes. Pour the curds and whey into a square of fine
muslin, hang up and leave to drain for 20 minutes. Mix cottage cheese, drained curds, and honey
together, with salt to taste. Pack into
a muslin-lined cylindrical vessel with holes pierced through base and
sides. Allow to drain overnight, then
unwrap, and serve in slices. (Brears, 2008, 84)
THE GARDEN
The majority of medieval households had
gardens, which ranged from the large gardens of the wealthy, which might have hired
gardeners who sold produce as well as providing for the kitchen, to the more
typical small plot of land tended by members of a household and the produce of
which was directly consumed by the household.
The gardens would have boundaries, usually with ditches and/or fences to
prevent damage from wandering animals. Even
in urban settings, a small garden with a vegetable plot and a few fruit trees
was possible and garden plots could also be rented, both in the town and in the
countryside. The produce did not provide
the main sources of nutrition or calories, but rather were additions to the
diet. (Woolgar,
2006, loc 401)
Markham and Le Ménagier both provide
information on when to sow and transplant various plants.
Le Ménagier adds advice on watering plants
early in the morning or in the evening, watering only the stem and earth and
not the leaves. His advice on planting
is month by month, and would provide a succession of garden produce for the
table throughout the year.
We know the names of most of the plants grown,
thanks to extant lists such as Fromond’s, compiled about 1525, as well as
earlier ones, such as Jon Gardener’s from 150 years before. Many of the plants, particularly those grown
to add to pottage, are familiar to us as food, such as beets, cabbage, lettuce,
mint, spinach, onions, leeks, carrots, parsnips, radishes, and turnips. Some others are certainly known to us, but
are no longer seen as usual additions to the diet, for example marigolds,
daisies, violets, and poppies. Some plants
common in the middle ages are rarely or never heard of now, such as Good King
Henry (similar to spinach), and Alexanders (which has a taste between celery
and parsley). Where space was
sufficient, trees and shrubs were planted, to bear apples, cherries,
mulberries, pears, walnuts, and other fruit and nuts. Fruit trees were skilfully grafted, another
procedure about which Le Ménagier gave instructions. (Landsberg,
2003, 79-81)
Some of the plants grown were for medicinal
purposes, as the housewife was the first and often only resource for care
during illness. Markham suggests various
remedies, such as this one: “To make a
poultice to cure any ague sore, take elder leaves and seethe them in milk till
they be soft, then take them up and strain them; then boil it again till it be
thick, and so use it to the sore as occasion shall serve.”
SUPERVISION OF
SERVANTS AND AUTHORITY IN THE HOME
Le Ménagier has a great deal to say to his wife regarding the
hiring and supervision of their servants, saying that “he that hath to do with
good servants, he hath peace”. Along
with the advice, however, he gives her a great deal of authority: “I leave you the rule and authority...to
receive them into our service, to hire them at your pleasure, to pay and keep
them in our service as you please, and to dismiss them when you will.” Later, he continues: “After your husband, you should be mistress
of the house, the giver of orders, visitor, ruler and sovereign administrator,
and it is for you to keep your maidservants in subjection and obedience to you,
teaching, correcting and chastising them.”
He also makes it plain that she needs to be kind and encouraging to good
servants and to care for their morals and their welfare. (Power, 1992,
134-140)
Le Ménagier and his bride were wealthy and had
a large household, but Thomas Tusser, speaking of a much less exalted
establishment, advises that at least one of the husband and the housewife needs
to be present at all times to keep an eye on the servants: “When husband is absent, let huswife be chief,
And look to their labour, that eateth her beef.
Where husband and wife be both out of place, Their servants do loiter,
and reason their case.” He does add
later, “Good servants reward.”
A great many households, including peasant
households, had servants. Assigning
their tasks efficiently, supervising the amount of care they took in performing
them, teaching new, probably young, servants the needed skills, and managing
the interactions of the people in the home must have taken considerable time
and patience.
It is notable that Margaret Paston,
whom we know from the Paston letters, seems to feel comfortable making
decisions in her husband’s absence and sending him lists of purchases she
wishes, without any sense that she has to beg and plead for anything, even if
he is definitely the head of the household.
In a letter of 1453, she speaks of supervising the construction of some
additions to the house and although John had asked for some furniture to be set
up in a particular chamber for him to use as an office and bedroom, she measured,
decided there was not enough space in the room he wanted and switched it to
another. In another letter, she speaks
of doing business for him, then requests, “I pray you will vouchsafe to buy for
me such laces as I send you examples of in this letter and one piece of black
lace. As for the caps you sent me for
the children, they are too little for them.
I pray you buy them finer caps and larger than those were.”
THE
HOUSEWIFE AS FAMILY REPRESENTATIVE
I found it interesting how much the books of
advice referred to expectations of piety, pleasantness, manners, and
dress. Le Ménagier presumably had a
personal interest in this, but much of his concern about her dress and
behaviour seems to be for the family’s standing in the community.
Markham also speaks of religious devotion, of not
using angry or unbecoming language, and of dressing according to her husband’s
“estate and calling”, in “comely, cleanly” garments. His paragon of housewifely virtues should be
“of chaste thoughts, stout courage, patient, untired, watchful, diligent,
witty, pleasant, constant in friendship, full of good neighbourhood, wise in
discourse...sharp and quick of speech, but not bitter or talkative, secret in
her affairs, comfortable in her counsels.”
This is certainly a description of someone who would manage a household
that would be very pleasant to live in for husband, children, and servants, but
it is also a description of someone who would be well respected in the
community.
CLOSING
I enjoyed doing this research, which has
provided me with a much better picture in my mind of the medieval woman managing
her home. It is a fantasy picture in
some ways, the medieval male dream of the perfect housewife, which has probably
about as much truth in it as the picture of the modern housewife in television
commercials. However, I firmly believe
that Fitzherbert, Markham, and Tusser were correct in seeing the housewife as being
as much responsible for the success of the household as the householder, and
that part of this success was the comfort of the home. I believe she did her best with her resources
to provide a clean, pleasant, healthy place in which her family could live,
work, and relax.
Medieval clergy were often misogynists, but
one fifteenth century preacher, Bernadine of Sienna, wrote a sermon that was a
paean to the housewife and I will close with his words.
“That man knows it who has her, the good housewife, who
rules the whole household well .... If a man have neither wife nor other to
rule his household, know you how it is with the house? I know, and I will tell
you. If he be rich, and have plenty of grain, the sparrows and the moles eat
their fill thereof. It is not set in
order, but all so scattered abroad that the whole house is the fouler for it.
If he have oil, it is all neglected and spilt... And his wine? When at last he
comes to the cask, he draws the wine without further thought; yet perchance the
cask shows a crevice behind, and the wine wastes. Or again a hoop or two is
started, yet it may go its way for him; or the wine turns to vinegar, or
becomes utterly corrupt. In his bed, know you how he sleeps? He sleeps in a
pit, even as the sheets chance to have been tumbled upon the bed; for they are
never changed until they are torn. Even so in his dining-hall; here on the
ground are melon-rinds, bones, peelings of salad, everything left lying on the
ground almost without pretense of sweeping. Know you how it is with his table?
The cloth is laid with so little care that no man ever removes it till it be
covered with filth. The trenchers are but sparingly wiped, the dogs lick and
wash them. His pipkins are all foul with grease: go and see how they stand!
Know you how such a man lives? even as a brute beast. I say that it cannot be
well for a man to live thus alone.”
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bayard,
Tania (translator, editor), A Medieval
Home Companion: Housekeeping in the 14th Century,
1991, Harper Collins
Brears,
Peter, Cooking and Dining in Medieval
England,
2008, Prospect Books
Egan,
Geoff, editor, The Medieval Household:
Daily Living c.1150-c.1450
2010, The Boydell Press
Forgeng,
Jeffery L., & Will McLean, Daily Life in Chaucer’s England
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