HIST 398
SYLLABUS
WEEKLY DISCUSSION MATERIALS

LIFE IN THE CASTLE

Tuesday:

Videos:

“The Adventures of Robin Hood” (starring Errol Flynn, 1938): dining scene 4:57 min.; start at 1:52)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuXcMzs8PQY&t=2s

“Let’s Cook History: The Medieval Feast” (documentary, 52 min.):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTXKAYO6Z80

Readings:

Gies and Gies, Life, Chap. 6 (pp. 109- 124), and Chap. 11 (pp. 206-216)

Carlin and Crouch, Lost Letters, Documents 5-6 (pp. 42-52)

Here are some medieval depictions of food preparation, service, and eating:
from the Maciejowski Bible (made in Paris for Louis IX, 1244 x 1254):

butchering goats

slaughtering (sacrificial) sheep & cooking the meat
detail: cauldron, pot-rack, flesh-hook

King Saul decides to murder his dinner guests
detail: tableware, food, kneeling servant
detail: table knife
detail: table knife poised for use
detail: sipping wine

King David hosts a feast
detail: tableware
detail: panter slicing bread
detail: drinking cup
detail: carved table-end

what’s under the tablecloth?

a family dinner (a man and his daughter entertain a Levite and his wife)
detail: a servant slices bread
detail: dish of food

the Exodus: collecting the water sweetened by Moses

distribution of grain from barrels during famine in Egypt

peasant harvest meal in the fields (Ruth eats with Boaz)
detail: knife used for slicing bread

A vintner’s assistant draws wine from a barrel (Tacuinum Sanitatis); and drawing wine from a barrel, showing taps (14th cent.)

German wine cellar (17th cent.)

Tippling monk (BL, Sloane MS 2435, f. 44v)

Saintonge wine jug (found at Glastonbury Abbey; made near Saintes, SW France, c. 1280-1330)

Kitchen, Windsor Castle, Berkshire (late 15th cent.), in 1819), and in a recent photo (after repair of roof following 1992 fire),
and in a painting by Alexander Creswell of the restored kitchen after the fire of 1992

Abbot’s kitchen, Glastonbury Abbey

Plan of Haddon Hall, 13th-17th cent. (including Hall, Pantry, Buttery, Kitchen, and unlabeled Bakehouse)

Remains of great hall of Winchester Palace, Southwark, with vaulted undercroft (c. 1220, with rose window c. 1320); drawing of the palace in 1660

Dirleton Castle (East Lothian, Schotland): 14th-century Great Hall;  Buffet in 14th-century Great Hall

A royal dinner, with buffet in background (English, 15th cent.)

Medieval tableware and kitchenware:
pewter salt cellar, 1400-1500
pottery jugs
enamelled glass beaker from N. England (the “Luck of Edenhall”), made in Syria or Egypt, 13th cent.
enamelled glass beaker, made in Venice, c. 1330 (British Museum)
five silver beakers, made in Prague, c. 1350
mazer, from Flanders, mid 14th cent. (probably commemorating the marriage of the count’s illegitimate son Louis with Mary of Ghistelles)
Perugian towel, 1400-1500, cotton and linen (V & A; compare with towel in “Birth of the Virgin,” by Giovanni da Milano, 1365)

Here are some modern re-enactments or reproductions of medieval feasts.  What is historically accurate in them? What is incorrect or anachronistic?

http://ninimakes.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8357ada6869e20120a796d202970b-pi

Reproduction medieval table in Barley Hall (restored 15th-century building in York)

Medieval Feast Set in the Great Hall of Warwick Castle

Medieval banquet menu (G Live, Guildford, Surrey, Feb. 2014; glive.co.uk)

Medieval Times menu (another Medieval Times menu, with vegetarian option)

Thursday:

Videos:

Getting Dressed in the Fourteenth Century – The Ploughman (4:53 min.):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNAMbRt5eI8&feature=youtu.be

Getting Dressed in the Fourteenth Century – Maid and Matron (7:08 min.):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ibj7GsfsCpI

Week 7 mini-paper topic:

You work in a castle kitchen as a cook or cook’s assistant. Describe a typical day’s work.

Readings:

Labarge, A Baronial Household, Chap. 7 (“Cooking and Serving of Meals”), pp. 116-128

Holmes, pp. 87 (bottom) – 94

Carlin and Crouch, Lost Letters, Documents 22-23 (pp. 92-98)

John Russell, Boke of Nurture (c. 1460): How to serve one’s master at table
https://web.archive.org/web/20110720113023/http://jrider.web.wesleyan.edu/wescourses/2001f/fren234/01/bookofnurture.htm