by Alison Weir
Even though fresh springwater was piped into the palaces, it was not thought safe for human consumption,18 so most people drank ale, beer, or wine; the Cellar outlaid a massive £3,000 (£900,000) each year on alcoholic beverages. The Serjeant of the Cellar, William Abbott, 19 was in charge of three departments: the Cellar, the Buttery, and the Pitcher House. At Hampton Court, the great cellar, which supplied the court, was underneath the great watching chamber; next door was the vaulted privy cellar, built in 1536 and used for storing the King’s own wine. 20
Ale was the staple drink, and the six hundred thousand gallons drunk each year by the court came from the royal breweries, but during Henry’s reign, beer, initially imported from Flanders, gained in popularity, despite the King’s efforts to ban it. But the hops his brewer was forbidden to use preserved beer for longer, whereas ale deteriorated rapidly. Neither drink was very potent. At court, ale was were served in leather jugs at the Buttery hatches.
Wines were imported from all over Europe, especially Anjou, Gas-cony, and Burgundy; over 120 varieties were known. Wine was a gentleman’s drink, bought by the barrel, not bottled; a barrel might contain 105 or 205 gallons. The King spent a fortune on wines: £700 on claret alone in 1526, and £844 on Bordeaux wines in 1528,21 while the court consumed three hundred barrels of wine a year. Many sixteenth-century wines did not keep well; those that did often had a higher alcohol content than today (up to 17 percent). Wine was very much a status symbol, an essential adjunct to polite society. Sweet, strong wines, such as Osney from Alsace, were very popular, as was hippocras, a warm, richly spiced, sugared red wine which was served at the end of banquets.22
Under strict security, wine was drawn off from the barrels, then taken in leather jugs up from the Cellar to the Buttery (French, boutellerie ), which was usually at the lower end of the hall.23 Here, the Butler and his staff would decant it into pitchers supplied by the Pitcher House. The Pitcher House also distributed silver plate, goblets, and other vessels.24 Each day, the Yeomen of the Pitcher House had to collect the jugs and goblets left in the chambers of those who had taken drinks to bed.25 Next to the Buttery was the Pantry (panus being Latin for bread), where bread from the Bakehouse was stored in wooden chests called arks, along with table linen and candles. The Pantler’s duty was to lay the tables in the hall and slice the loaves.
All food eaten in Tudor times was organic, but much of it was available only on a seasonal basis. Refrigeration was unknown, so perishable stuffs had to be supplied daily. Food was stored in the Larders, mainly in barrels. The greater houses had wet larders, dry larders, and flesh larders; at Hampton Court, they all led off Fish Court. It was understood that raw and cooked foods should be kept separate. The wet larders were used for storing the numerous varieties of fish, and had their own cisterns. The court’s chief contractor for fresh sea fish was Thomas Hewyt of Hythe, Kent,26 while there were moats and fishponds containing freshwater fish, such as carp and bream, at several palaces; the three fishponds at Hampton Court occupied the site of the present Pond Gardens, whose walls date from 1536.
A wide range of raw game was hung in the well-ventilated flesh larders, and the amount required for the next day was cut every evening for issue to the kitchens after 5 A.M. Venison, which came from the royal deer parks, was hung for up to six weeks before it was eaten;27 it was a high-status meat, reserved for royalty and their guests. General provisions were kept in the dry larders. The Serjeant of the Larder would inspect all food as it arrived.28
The purchase and storage of perishable goods such as meat, cheese, vegetables, and eggs, which were known as achates, was the responsibility of the Acatery (from which derives the word “cater”). Vegetables were mostly imported from Flanders, and the King employed a Flemish gardener to grow his salad vegetables, which were often eaten cooked, with sugar, oil, and vinegar. During Henry’s reign, vegetables gained in popularity, after having been regarded for a century as a poor man’s food.29 The King was especially fond of artichokes, which were grown in his gardens. 30
The Poultry, which was usually some distance from the palace, supplied poultry, lamb, and mutton. At Hampton Court, there was also a pheasant yard. The birds were slaughtered by the staff of the nearby Scalding House, who then plunged the carcasses into huge vats of boiling water preparatory to plucking them.
Meat made up the bulk of the daily diet. Most meat for the court was boiled, or roasted on spits. Seven boys were employed to turn the spits, and were given extra rations of ale to help keep them cool. Each kitchen had an adjacent Boiling House with a huge copper cauldron set over a furnace, for cooking beef,31 for pies or stews, and for making stock for pottage; the cauldron at Hampton Court held eighty gallons, enough for eight hundred meals.32 Sometimes meat or fish was fried in skillets or broiled on gridirons.
Several kitchen offices were staffed by specialists. The Pastry, which had four great ovens—at Hampton Court, the largest was 12 feet in diameter—made hundreds of raised piecrusts, or “coffins,” and tart cases. Most were of wholemeal or wheatmeal flour, but the King’s pastry was concocted from the best unbleached white flour. The Pastry also made him enormous pasties containing whole sides of venison.33
The Serjeant of the Pastry was also in charge of the Saucery, which made mustard and a variety of garnishes and sauces. Many sauces were flavoured with herbs, vinegar (made by the Cellar from “feeble or dull wines”), 34 and verjuice, the juice from sour crab apples,35 which was the main product of the few English vineyards remaining in the sixteenth century.
Spices were used in both cookery and medicines, but since most came from the Mediterranean and were very expensive, their use was restricted to the upper ranks. They would be ground by the Yeoman of the Spicery using a pestle and mortar, and distributed where needed in the kitchens. The Spicery also bought and stored loaves and cones of sugar—another costly commodity—and fruit from the royal orchards.36
There is plenty of evidence that Henry VIII loved fruit. His orchards supplied a rich yield of pears, apples, plums, damsons, cherries, and strawberries—the last two were particular favourites of the King and Anne Boleyn37—and in 1533 the royal gardener, Richard Harris, established a market garden at Tenham Manor, Kent, which supplied fruit to the court. Citrus fruits were costly and rare, as they had to be imported from Spain; Katherine of Aragon was instrumental in popularising oranges in England. Henry loved them, especially in pies and preserves. Peaches were grown at Richmond, and it was Henry who, late in his reign, introduced apricots into England, in the gardens at Nonsuch. People often brought him gifts of fruit—pomegranates, apples, pears, grapes, dates, even an orange pie and a melon.38
Raw fruit was believed to cause fevers, so fruit was usually served cooked in tarts, or dried, or made into preserves. Fruit might be served to important courtiers only at the beginning and end of meals, or as a dressing for meat or fish; or it might simply be eaten as a snack.39
The Chief Clerk of the Spicery also supervised the Confectionary, Wafery, Ewery, Chandlery, and Laundry.
Sweet dishes and comfits such as marchpane,40 gingerbread, and Henry’s favourite quince marmalade—a preserve so thick it could be sliced—were prepared in the Confectionary,41 where the cooks had to have artistic as well as culinary skills. In 1517, when the Papal Nuncio was entertained by the King, he was impressed by the “jellies of some twenty sorts made in the shape of castles and animals” by the Confectionary.42 The King was particularly fond of jelly made with hippocras. Sugar could cost up to 10d (£12.50) per pound; therefore, most confections were luxury items produced for the King’s table or for banquets. Sweet wafer biscuits stamped with the royal arms were made exclusively for the King and senior courtiers by the Wafery.43 These wafers were usually served with hippocras at the end of a banquet.
Tablecloths, napkins, fingerbowls, and ewers were bought, stored, and issued daily by the Ewery, a department sometimes referred to as the Napery. The basins and ewers were normally of silver gilt. The royal napery would be
of the finest linen damask, often embroidered with silver or gold thread. Tablecloths were changed at least twice a week, or sooner if they became grubby.44
The ancient royal right of purveyance, or “prise,” meant that the King was allowed to buy food on demand at prices fixed at a lower rate than normal. His purveyors not only seized upon the choicest goods at markets, farms, and ports, but also commandeered horses and wagons to transport the goods. They did not pay in cash, but issued receipts, which could only be redeemed by the hapless vendor in person at the Board of the Greencloth—a requirement that often put him to considerable inconvenience and expense. The royal purveyors were consequently very unpopular, especially in the southeast, where the court was usually based, and the system was open to abuses and corruption. Thomas Cromwell tried to improve it in 1539, insisting that vendors be paid in cash, and making each county responsible for supplying its quota of goods at the “King’s price,” or paying taxes to make up for any shortfall. But it was a long time before the new arrangements came fully into force, and there were still many complaints.45
In the greater houses, about 600 lesser members of the household ate in the great hall, which at Hampton Court could accommodate as many as three hundred at a sitting; in the lesser houses, there were outer guard chambers which served as dining rooms. About 230 officers and servants took meals in their own departments.
The senior officers of the household, the nobility, and the Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber ate in some style off silver dishes at tables set up in the great watching chamber. Privy councillors had the right to dine in the council chamber. All were served by Gentlemen Ushers, Sewers, Grooms, and Pages of the Chamber, who ate what was left after their betters had departed. 46
By the sixteenth century, people of high rank preferred to dine in privacy and comfort, rather than preside over their household. The King normally took his meals in the privy chamber, or, if he was entertaining guests, in greater state in the presence chamber.
There were frequent, obviously unsuccessful injunctions against courtiers eating their meals in their lodgings or “in corners and secret places,”47 or entertaining guests at the King’s expense, which caused endless problems for the kitchens. The Clerk of the Kitchen kept detailed records of where and what each person should be eating, and made regular checks that everyone was where he was supposed to be. Only the Lord Chamberlain, the Vice Chamberlain, the Captain of the Guard, and the Lord Steward were allowed to take meals in their own lodgings.
Breakfast—comprising bread, meat, and ale—was served around 7 A.M.; dinner, the main meal of the day, was between 10 A.M. and 1 P.M., and supper between 4 and 7 P.M. An evening snack, called “all night,” was distributed around 8 to 9 P.M.48 Dinner and supper consisted of two courses with a prescribed number of dishes at each.
What a man ate was an outward manifestation of his rank. The number of dishes and type of food served to each person differed according to degree, being determined by sumptuary laws and the dietaries laid down in the Household Ordinances: the Lord Chamberlain got sixteen dishes at dinner and eleven at supper, while Household servants received four at each.49 The Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber enjoyed a rich daily diet consisting of beef, mutton, veal, capons, conies, pheasants, and either lamb, pigeon, or chicken, followed by tart, butter, and fruit.50 Smaller, cheaper portions of meat were served to servants, as well as bowls of that Tudor staple, pottage, which was meat stock thickened with oatmeal or barley and seasoned with salt, vegetables, and herbs.51
Andrew Barclay complained bitterly about the food served to the lower ranks; while he and his companions “gnawed” on brown bread and cheese, “as hounds ravenous,” they had to watch “dainteous dishes” destined for their superiors’ tables being carried past them:
To see such dishes and smell the sweet odour,
And nothing to taste, is utter displeasure.
Occasionally, as a sign of favour, lords would send down choice morsels to their servants—a practice that Barclay says caused “great anguish and torment” to those not so favoured. Even if one was lucky, such “scraps” did not
. . . allay thy hunger and desire,
But, by their sweetness, set thee more on fire.
Rank and precedence also dictated where a person sat at meals. Tables were usually arranged in a U shape, with the top table being set on the dais. This was where the most important people sat, “above the salt,” with the persons of highest estate occupying chairs; the ceremonial saltcellar, or nef, was always placed to the right of the most important person present. Those on the lower tables were seated according to their degree, with the lowliest at the far end.
If important guests were present at meals, the menu would be more lavish in their honour, and appropriate to their rank, not that of the host. The Dukes of Burgundy had elevated the art of dining into a powerful status symbol, and much of what was produced by the royal kitchens was beautifully presented and designed to impress visitors. Food might be gilded with gold or silver leaf, or painted with edible natural dyes; taste was not a priority. Some food was even scented with musk or ambergris, and rose water was a common ingredient.
At every mealtime, trestle tables were set up and spread with cloths, which were strewn with herbs and flowers to purify the air. In the privy chamber, each diner’s place was set with a silver or perhaps pewter 52 trencher, spoon, goblet, and sauce bowl; manchet loaves wrapped in a napkin; and a flagon of wine. Every person brought his own eating knife, which he kept in a sheath attached to his belt, but the King owned sets of eating knives—one set was garnished with “emeralds, pearls, rubies and amethysts, with knives having diamonds at the end of them” 53—which were placed at the convenience of guests. Some had matching forks, but forks (an Italian invention) were used only to serve meat or sticky foods, not for eating. It was customary to eat with a knife and one’s fingers, having due regard for the sensibilities of others: one used the left hand to take food from communal dishes, and the thumb and first two fingers of the right hand to eat with. The knife was for serving and cutting meat, and helping oneself from the salt bowls. Spoons were used to eat liquid food, and were rubbed clean with bread several times during a meal.54 Henry VIII owned sixty-nine gold spoons and twelve silver spoons “with columns at the ends.”55
Place settings similar to those in the privy chamber were laid in the great hall, but the utensils were of wood, the bread was cheat, and ale, not wine, was served in a leather jug. In both chamber and hall, food was served in “messes” in large dishes, each mess being sufficient for four persons. A cooked mess of beef weighed seven hundred grams, so each person received about 175 grams of meat.56
Meals were served with great ceremony. The company was summoned by minstrels blowing trumpets, shawms, or pipes.57 A fanfare sounded as the high table was seated, then a Latin grace was said by the chaplain. The company stood—the men bareheaded—as dishes were carried in procession into the dining chamber, where diners were served in order of rank and numerous servants stood by to attend to their needs. Good table manners, a sign of good breeding, were expected of everyone. People washed their hands before dinner and between courses. Napkins were not spread on laps but laid across the left shoulder. Elbows or fists were not to rest on the table, and picking one’s nose or scratching one’s head was unthinkable, although diners might spit discreetly and wipe runny noses on their sleeves.58 It was the mark of a gentlemen to be familiar with the intricate rules for carving the many cuts of meat that were served.
In the hall, the courtesies were not always strictly observed. It was so crowded and chaotic that there were frequent spillages and breakages. And the company, as Andrew Barclay observed, was far too hungry to observe niceties:
If the dish is pleasant, either flesh or fish,
Ten hands at once swarm in the dish;
And if it be flesh, ten knives shalt thou see
Mangling the flesh, and in the platter flee.
To put there thy hands is peril without
fail
Without a gauntlet, or else a glove of mail. . . .
Slow be the servers in serving alway,
But swift be they after taking meat away.
This was because those serving would eat whatever was left after the sitting had ended.
It was considered uncharitable to finish all one’s food. Leftover food, known as manners, was placed on a dish called a voider and passed down to those of lesser rank, or collected by the Almoner and given to the beggars who crowded outside the palace gates.59
9
“Elegant Manners, Extreme Decorum, and Very Great Politeness”
The King’s magnificence was expressed through elaborate rituals and spectacular ceremonial. The propaganda value of colourful and sumptuous display, in which Henry delighted, was well understood, and the pageantry of his court incorporated dynastic, heraldic, and allegorical themes. John Skelton had told his pupil, “Be bountiful, liberal and lavish.”1 The King never forgot his advice, and his extravagant lifestyle, set against the splendid backdrop of his residences, was designed to emphasise to others the dignity of his elevated calling and place England firmly in the eye of Europe.
A rigid code of etiquette was observed at court, especially in the King’s presence. Entertainments and festivals were organised with the maximum ceremony, and during the reign there were six great occasions of state: two coronations, one near-legendary summit meeting, two royal visits, and a reception for a future queen.2 Then there were public processions and the solemnities attendant upon royal births, betrothals, marriages, and deaths; receptions of ambassadors; and the solemnities attendant upon the creation of peers. Court ceremonies and functions were usually organised by Garter King of Arms, assisted by the Vice Chamberlain.3