A hierarchy of bread consumption existed and was generally recognized. It permitted nobles, monks, scholars, and urban and country elites the pleasure of good white bread, while their servants were to eat brown bread and the peasants had to make do with bread of peas and beans, if they did not have other grains.50 When peasant prosperity in the late fourteenth century threatened the accepted bread hierarchy, John Gower complained:
Laborers of old were not wont to eat of wheaten bread; their meat was of beans and coarser corn, and their drink water alone. Cheese and milk were a feast to them and rarely ate they of other dainties; their dress was of hodden-gray.51
Langland also spoke of peasants refusing to eat bread with beans and preferring wheaten bread.52
In addtion to rye and beans, oats were eaten in the colder and wetter parts of England that could not produce wheat. Most barley was reserved for malt to be used in brewing, but an inferior barley, often combined with oats, was called "drege" and made into a heavy bread. Peas and beans were a nourishing supplement to the diet, either made into bread or served as a porridge. Bean shelling was done as needed; one case in the coroners' rolls describes the interior of a house in December in which the floor was covered with the husks of shelled beans.53
Peas and beans were so essential to the diet that elaborate bylaws governed their harvest. For a short period they could be eaten raw and were a much appreciated delicacy, but in the main they were dried. Peas and beans were partly a charity crop in villages. Bylaws from the thirteenth through the sixteenth centuries regulated when and how village paupers and cottars could pick from their neighbors' crops. They had to line up outside the pea field and could only pick for limited hours and on certain days of the week.54 To the village poor the routine peapicking privilege meant a week's worth of suppers in season.
The very young, the old, and the impotent had gleaning rights after harvest, but this right was not generally extended to the poor. At harvest all able-bodied men and women worked in the fields at reaping, binding, and carting. Even students and townspeople turned out for harvest, for the pay was good and the timing was crucial because of the weather. But the method of cutting grain (halfway up the stalk) and stacking it for the binders to make sheaves meant that grain dropped from the heads and some heads were missed. The gleaning of a field was profitable and, as we will see, women of the best village families often gleaned illegally alongside the impotent.ss
Barley was made into that other staple of the English diet, ale. While Gower may have thought that the peasants drank only water in the days when they knew their proper place, the evidence is against him. Brewing was common in peasant households, with women predominating in both home and commercial brewing. The quality of ale varied greatly. Some was so thick that it was rather like fermented bread, while the better-quality ale was more potent and clearer. Small ale was a very light ale that went through the wort a second time. Ale was not simply a nourishing and intoxicating drink but had a special social significance. If one did not leave a lamb to a grandchild or godchild, one left some malt. In joining a parish gild it was common to pay the entry fine in quarters of malt.
Wine was rare on peasant tables, even in the better households, but there were vats of wine in the abbot's garden large enough to fall into and drown.56 Cider was a regional drink in the southwest.
The basics of the diet were rounded out with fruits, greens, and vegetables. An we have seen, the close might contain cherry, apple, or pear trees. The garden would have cabbages, leeks, onions, garlic, peas and beans, and a variety of herbs to flavor foods and cure ills. We tend to underestimate the amount of gathering that was done in peasant societies. Women, children, and maid servants contributed to the household economy by picking greens by waterways, and nuts, wild fruits, and berries in the woods. In famines acorns were gathered and made into bread.
Condiments included garden herbs, vinegar (verjuice), salt, honey, and, for those who could afford them or on special occasions, spices such as pepper, cumin, and cinnamon. Honey, the chief sweetener, came from private beehives. The hives were valued items left in wills and sometimes stolen.57 Salt was procured by salt panning. We have already observed the case of the toddler who took his boiled egg directly to the salt pan to dip it.58
A survey of the diet suggests that it was a healthy one and might even appeal to a modern health columnist with its whole grains, a balance of fresh fruits and vegetables, and, though probably not in great quantities, some meat, cheese and fish. The evidence from skeletal remains indicates that the peasants were fairly robust. At Wharram Percy the mean stature was 5 feet 5 inches, larger than previously thought. Of the teeth examined, dental caries afflicted 8.1 percent, less than modern Britain but more than Anglo-Saxon Britain. Various rheumatic diseases (osteoarthritis) were common in vertebral columns and joints, and gall and bladder stones were found.59 In a leper graveyard the teeth found were in good condition and not worn as much as the teeth in other burials, indicating that the lepers had eaten softer foods because of abscesses and sores in their mouths. Two of the skeletons were of people who had worked hard through adult life and had died rather quickly of the disease.60 Various rhymes recommending temperate diets have come down to us and indicate that people gave thought to healthy eating.61
Although healthful, it is very difficult to know how plentiful food was for different economic groups in villages. At the top of the scale is the wealthy peasant in "How the Ploughman Learned his Paternoster":
At the other end of the scale is the pathetic picture of poor peasants in late winter, when food was scarce. Langland speaks of the poor having only milk and a little meal to make porridge for their children:
Poor peasants were found throughout the Middle Ages and in later centuries, but the only period of widespread hunger was in the early fourteenth century when population had outstripped food production and the weather became cold and wet. The worst period of famine in England was 1315-1321. People died in the streets during the first two years of severe famine. Conditions improved with the decreased population at the end of the fourteenth century and into the fifteenth; higher wages meant that most people lived well, but a fringe of decrepit individuals and families always relied on charity.
Determining the peasants' caloric minimum and their actual intake is difficult. Fernand Braudel tried to make some calculations of caloric intake and what percentage of the diet consisted of grain, protein, and drink, but these are at best vague and based on no hard evidence.64 Two English economic historians have calculated that a fully grown male ate up to five pounds of bread a day in a largely carbohydrate diet, or about five thousand calories a day.65
The accounts from a modest perpetual chantry in Bridport give some idea of meals in an establishment where food was neither wanting nor lavish. The priests usually drank second-quality ale and had wine only when important guests arrived. They had both bread and oatmeal. At Lent they had fresh and salted fish and dairy products, but did not eat much fish outside of Lent. During the rest of the year they ate beef, mutton, veal, pork, and poultry. Figs and spices enlivened the fare during Lent, and for their Christmas pudding they bought almonds, raisins, and dates. In addition to these items, which they purchased, they had a garden with vegetables, fruit trees, and a dovecote. Their expenses per person averaged about E2 15s. a year. Using their accounts, two historians have calculated their outlays. They spent 20 percent of their budget on farinaceous foods, 35 percent on meat and fish, 2 percent on butter and cheese, and 23 percent on drink. Food accounted for 80 percent of their budget. An additional 7.5 percent went toward fuel and light, but other expenses such as clothing were not included.' The priests of Bridport probably ate about the same things peasants would have, although the peasant household would have produced more of their own food rather than buying it.
Other sources provide clues to the amount of food considered necessary for sustenance. Contemporaries assumed that one person could live with a cottage garden and an acre or two of ar
able. Cottar families lived-not well, one imagines-on three to five acres. Hospital records also preserve the amounts of food distributed to the poor, who stopped for a meal, and served to permanent pensioners. At one of the most luxurious establishments, Sherburn hospital, each person received a loaf of bread and a gallon of beer daily, meat three times a week, and eggs, cheese and herrings on the other days. These were in addition to butter, vegetables, and salt.67 Another clue comes from the meals that the lord agreed to provide as part of the payment for boon work, labor required during intensive agricultural seasons such as plowing or harvest. Medieval wages, even for more professional positions such as college masters and members of barons' councils, were paid partly in money and partly in food. The guaranteed meal was highly valued until the period of high wages and cheap food at the end of the fourteenth century, when employers complained to the enforcers of the Statute of Labourers that workers wanted only money and not food.
Food accompanying boons varied only a little from manor to manor and from season to season. Some were more elaborate than others, and Ramsey Abbey peasants aptly and humorously named them: alebedrep, waterbedrep, and hungerbedrep. In the first the lord provided ale with the meal, in the second only water with the meal, and in the third they had to provide their own food. The amount furnished was often written in the custumals or customs of the manor. An example from Bishopstone, Sussex, is illustrative. At the two plowing boons the lord agreed to give meat on the first day and fish on the second, both washed down with ale. Those who had brought teams of oxen to the plowing were allowed to come to the lord's house for supper. At the wheat harvest the boon-work dinner consisted of soup, wheaten bread, beef, and cheese; and for supper they had bread and cheese accompanied by as much ale as they wished. On the second day of labor they were given soup, wheaten bread, fish, cheese, and ale to their fill. Supper consisted of a loaf of bread apiece.68
Harvest meals were certainly more elaborate and varied than the ordinary fare would have been, because the labor was hard and because it was payment to villeins, who had to put off their own fieldwork to work for the lord. If the food were withheld, the peasants struck. The number of meals eaten in a day depends on which are counted. Harrison claimed that the old habit of eating included four meals. a day: breakfast, dinner, beverages or nuntions, and a late supper before bed. In the Handlyng Synne the moralist Robert Mannyng recommended only two meals a day for adults, including working men, and three meals for children. His admonitions indicate that people ate more frequently. The heaviest meal seems to have been at noon, as Harrison observed.fi9
Peasants appreciated good food and shared with neighbors. We have already observed that the villagers enjoyed having neighbors and kin over for meals and ale, but more elaborate feasts were also part of village life. Parish gilds always held a banquet to celebrate their saint's day. The account book of a fifteenth-century village gild shows how elaborate these communal meals could be:
... beef, a calf with the purtenances thereof without the skin, three other calves, two half sheep, a breast of mutton, a breast of veal, five lambs, six pigs, seven rabbits; eggs, butter, milk, and cream; pepper, vinegar, cloves, mace, conniseed, sugar, dates, and English honey.
The cook who was to prepare this quantity of meat and spices into a banquet for about one hundred people was to have 16d. in wages. The banquet was served on the gild plates and the silver salt cellars and servers were proudly displayed for the occasion.70
Gluttony and drunkenness were a feature of village life, and the disapprobation of such behavior even appeared in coroners' inquests. "At midnight, 17 May, Osbert le Wuayle son of William Christemasse of Elston, who was drunk and disgustingly overfed, came from Bedford door to door towards his house." He fell on a stone in front of his house and hit his head. His servant boy found him the next morning. Drunkenness also led to fights. One night in February the vicar of Bromham set out to visit a parishioner when he was accosted by four men who asked him who he was. His flippant answer, "A man, who are you?" earned him a blow on the head with an ax from one of the drunks.71
Drunkenness seems to have been common among adults not only after an evening of drinking at the tavern, but also while working. For instance, John Baronn, aged thirty rode his horse to a tavern and fell off on the way home. Another man, aged thirty-two, was drunk and sitting on a bench near a well in the marketplace when he fell in and drowned. One drunk man fell into the water while fishing; another went to relieve himself in a pond and fell in; and a third was walking down the village street with a pot of ale in his hand when a dog bit him, and he tripped and hit his head on a wall trying to pick up a stone to throw at the dog. Women likewise went to taverns and got drunk. One popular carol spoke of women going to the tavern during the day and bringing along meat and fish. When they went home they told their husbands that they had been at church, but they fell asleep immediately.72
Women were somewhat more prone to have accidents in connection with drink than were men: 2 percent of women's accidents were specifically described as related to drink while only 1 percent of men's were. It is impossible to determine whether women were more likely to be drunk or whether such behavior on their part was socially unacceptable, as it is today, and therefore considered an important fact for the record. Drink certainly played a larger part in accidental deaths than is recorded. Many of the carting accidents in which a man fell off the load during harvest are probably attributable to ale consumed while harvesting.
Were the people who went to taverns, or sat down to a humble meal of bread, cheese, and ale, or attended gild banquets uncouth louts, as we commonly assume? It is perhaps surprising to find any evidence of refinement in living and fastidiousness about table manners. The principalia included tablecloths and goods stolen from peasant houses often included napkins, towels, and tablecloths. People ate with their fingers for the most part and used knives, which they always carried with them, to cut cheese, meat, and bread. Spoons were used for soups and porridge. In the better households, as we have seen, the spoons would have been silver, but wooden spoons served as well. Among the upper classes we know that hands were elaborately washed before meals. Rules for polite society included not petting cats and dogs at table, not picking teeth or cleaning them with a table cloth, and keeping nails clean so as not to offend a neighbor at table. Gild regulations also included directives for polite behavior at banquets. 73
By our standards the peasants would undoubtedly have been offensively malodorous, but it is all too easy to be overrefined in this matter. The ordinary smells associated with living in a smoky house, working around animals, and sweating from hard labor might offend our sensibilities, but they are common to farm work. It is only the accumulation of these odors on unwashed clothes and bodies that could lead to a certain ripeness of smell. Even so, toleration of odor is a matter for the people who lived with it and not a question of judgment for a historian, who does not have to sleep with a peasant man or woman. But because we are curious about the material environment, bathing is a relevant area of inquiry. Needless to say, such intimate detail is difficult to find even for the English kings, although we know that King John, whatever his other deficiences, had more entries in household accounts for hot baths than other kings."' Romances and illustrations accompanying the texts indicate that baths were part of erotic encounters and tubs were kept in bedchambers. Indeed, prostitution took place in the bathhouses in medieval Europe.75 But all of this does not tell us about peasants and their baths.
The coroners' inquests report on thirty-five people whose baths ended tragically by drowning. The case contents rather than the number of cases will, of course, be more informative. First, most of the cases occurred when the weather was warm, and most involved bathing in streams, pits, and rivers. For instance, after a twenty-six-year-old harvest worker bathed himself in a stream on a Tuesday in August 1362, he was dancing around to dry himself and fell in and drowned. Boys watching sheep on hot days took off their clothes to bathe and coo
l off. Other cases specifically mention people washing their hands before or after eating. A ten-year-old boy was sitting and eating on a market stall. When he finished, he went to wash his bowl and hands and fell into a trough. Another man went to bathe at vespers and drowned in the river because he did not know how deep it was. In winter, basins or tubs of hot water served for bathing. In February 1349 a woman was sitting in her house by the fire heating water for a bath. Her fifteen-day-old baby was near her in a cradle. The tripod broke and the boiling water scalded the baby." As these examples show, people enjoyed a bath and casually washed their dirty hands or bathed away the sweat of hot labor. What they do not show is how frequently they bathed.
Peasants laundered their clothing, and in almshouses and hospitals the warden's wife washed sheets and clothing for the inmates. Although there are only twelve cases involving laundering, they suggest how it was done and who did it. Ponds, pits, and rivers were common places to wash clothing or cloth. While women usually did the laundry, anyone might wash out their personal effects. A nineteen-year-old man finished his work on a Friday and washed his socks in a pit, into which he fell. Some laundry operations were more elaborate, with large vats of boiling water to wash dirty clothing."
The style of peasants' clothing remained largely unchanged during the whole period. Sumptuary legislation in the Lancastrian period described the garb well. Men wore loose tunics and cote-hardie, hoods and wide-brimmed straw hats. Women wore loose gowns, hoods, and cloaks. Both wore stockings or socks and leather shoes.78 The fact that the sumptuary legislation insisted that the peasants wear this homely garb is a sure indicator they were branching out in their wardrobes. From the thirteenth century on, thefts from peasant houses did not produce many furred garments, but brightly colored tunics and gowns of fine wools and silks, along with rings, bracelets, and fancy girdles, were all stolen. Wealthier peasants had always spent a part of their income on sartorial splendor, but better-quality clothing became more common with the new prosperity.
The Ties That Bound Page 8