and the _paradis_ of Provence, are of oldest repute. This reminds us of the couplet by the author of the “Street Cries of Paris,” thirteenth century:–
“Primes ai pommes de rouviau,
Et d’Auvergne le blanc duriau.”
(“Give me first the russet apple,
And the hard white fruit of Auvergne.”)
The quince, which was so generally cultivated in the Middle Ages, was looked upon as the most useful of all fruits. Not only did it form the basis of the farmers’ dried preserves of Orleans, called _cotignac_, a sort of marmalade, but it was also used for seasoning meat. The Portugal quince was the most esteemed; and the cotignac of Orleans had such a reputation, that boxes of this fruit were always given to kings, queens, and princes on entering the towns of France. It was the first offering made to Joan of Arc on her bringing reinforcements into Orleans during the English siege.
Several sorts of cherries were known, but these did not prevent the small wild or wood cherry from being appreciated at the tables of the citizens; whilst the _cornouille_, or wild cornelian cherry, was hardly touched, excepting by the peasants; thence came the proverbial expression, more particularly in use at Orleans, when a person made a silly remark, “He has eaten cornelians,” _i.e._, he speaks like a rustic.
In the thirteenth century, chestnuts from Lombardy were hawked in the streets; but, in the sixteenth century, the chestnuts of the Lyonnais and Auvergne were substituted, and were to be found on the royal table. Four different sorts of figs, in equal estimation, were brought from Marseilles, Nismes, Saint-Andeol, and Pont Saint-Esprit; and in Provence, filberts were to be had in such profusion that they supplied from there all the tables of the kingdom.
The Portuguese claim the honour of having introduced oranges from China; however, in an account of the house of Humbert, Dauphin of Viennois, in 1333, that is, long before the expeditions of the Portuguese to India, mention is made of a sum of money being paid for transplanting orange-trees.
[Illustration: Figs. 81 and 82.–Culture of the Vine and Treading the Grape.–Miniatures taken from the Calendar of a Prayer-Book, in Manuscript, of the Sixteenth Century.]
In the time of Bruyerin Champier, physician to Henry II., raspberries were still completely wild; the same author states that wood strawberries had only just at that time been introduced into gardens, “by which,” he says, “they had attained a larger size, though they at the same time lost their quality.”
The vine, acclimatised and propagated by the Gauls, ever since the followers of Brennus had brought it from Italy, five hundred years before the Christian era, never ceased to be productive, and even to constitute the natural wealth of the country (Fig. 81 and 82). In the sixteenth century, Liebault enumerated nineteen sorts of grapes, and Olivier de Serres twenty-four, amongst which, notwithstanding the eccentricities of the ancient names, we believe that we can trace the greater part of those plants which are now cultivated in France. For instance, it is known that the excellent vines of Thomery, near Fontainebleau, which yield in abundance the most beautiful table grape which art and care can produce, were already in use in the reign of Henry IV. (Fig. 83).
[Illustration: Fig. 83.–The Winegrower, drawn and engraved in the Sixteenth Century, by J. Amman.]
In the time of the Gauls the custom of drying grapes by exposing them to the sun, or to a certain amount of artificial heat, was already known; and very soon after, the same means were adopted for preserving plums, an industry in which then, as now, the people of Tours and Rheims excelled. Drying apples in an oven was also the custom, and formed a delicacy which was reserved for winter and spring banquets. Dried fruits were also brought from abroad, as mentioned in the “Book of Street Cries in Paris:”–
“Figues de Melites sans fin,
J’ai roisin d’outre mer, roisin.”
(“Figs from Malta without end,
And grapes from over the sea.”)
Butchers’ Meat.–According to Strabo, the Gauls were great eaters of meat, especially of pork, whether fresh or salted. “Gaul,” says he, “feeds so many flocks, and, above all, so many pigs, that it supplies not only Rome, but all Italy, with grease and salt meat.” The second chapter of the Salic law, comprising nineteen articles, relates entirely to penalties for pig-stealing; and in the laws of the Visigoths we find four articles on the same subject.
[Illustration: Fig. 84.–Swineherd.
Illustration: Fig 85.–A Burgess at Meals.
Miniatures from the Calendar of a Book of Hours.–Manuscript of the Sixteenth Century.]
In those remote days, in which the land was still covered with enormous forests of oak, great facilities were offered for breeding pigs, whose special liking for acorns is well known. Thus the bishops, princes, and lords caused numerous droves of pigs to be fed on their domains, both for the purpose of supplying their own tables as well as for the fairs and markets. At a subsequent period, it became the custom for each household, whether in town or country, to rear and fatten a pig, which was killed and salted at a stated period of the year; and this custom still exists in many provinces. In Paris, for instance, there was scarcely a bourgeois who had not two or three young pigs. During the day these unsightly creatures were allowed to roam in the streets; which, however, they helped to keep clean by eating up the refuse of all sorts which was thrown out of the houses. One of the sons of Louis le Gros, while passing, on the 2nd of October, 1131, in the Rue du Martroi, between the Hotel de Ville and the church of St. Gervais, fractured his skull by a fall from his horse, caused by a pig running between that animal’s legs. This accident led to the first order being issued by the provosts, to the effect that breeding pigs within the town was forbidden. Custom, however, deep-rooted for centuries, resisted this order, and many others on the same subject which followed it: for we find, under Francis I., a license was issued to the executioner, empowering him to capture all the stray pigs which he could find in Paris, and to take them to the Hotel Dieu, when he should receive either five sous in silver or the head of the animal.
It is said that the holy men of St. Antoine, in virtue of the privilege attached to the popular legend of their patron, who was generally represented with a pig, objected to this order, and long after maintained the exclusive right of allowing their pigs to roam in the streets of the capital.
The obstinate determination with which every one tried to evade the administrative laws on this subject, is explained, in fact, by the general taste of the French nation for pork. This taste appears somewhat strange at a time when this kind of food was supposed to engender leprosy, a disease with which France was at that time overrun.
[Illustration: Fig. 86.–Stall of Carved Wood (Fifteenth Century), representing the Proverb, “Margaritas ante Porcos,” “Throwing Pearls before Swine,” from Rouen Cathedral.]
Pigs’ meat made up generally the greater part of the domestic banquets. There was no great feast at which hams, sausages, and black puddings were not served in profusion on all the tables; and as Easter Day, which brought to a close the prolonged fastings of Lent, was one of the great feasts, this food formed the most important dish on that occasion. It is possible that the necessity for providing for the consumption of that day originated the celebrated ham fair, which was and is still held annually on the Thursday of Passion Week in front of Notre-Dame, where the dealers from all parts of France, and especially from Normandy and Lower Brittany, assembled with their swine.
Sanitary measures were taken in Paris and in the various towns in order to prevent the evil effects likely to arise from the enormous consumption of pork; public officers, called _languayeurs_, were ordered to examine the animals to ensure that they had not white ulcers under the tongue, these being considered the signs that their flesh was in a condition to communicate leprosy to those who partook of it.
For a long time the retail sale of pork was confined to the butchers, like that of other meat. Salt or fresh pork was at one time always sold raw, though at a later period some retailers, who carried on business principally among the lowest orders of the people, took to selling cooked pork and sausages. They were named _charcuitiers_ or _saucissiers_. This new trade, which was most lucrative, was adopted by so many people that parliament was forced to limit the number of _charcuitiers_, who at last formed a corporation, and received their statutes, which were confirmed by the King in 1475.
Amongst the privileges attached to their calling was that of selling red herrings and sea-fish in Lent, during which time the sale of pork was strictly forbidden. Although they had the exclusive monopoly of selling cooked pork, they were at first forbidden to buy their meat of any one but of the butchers, who alone had the right of killing pigs; and it was only in 1513 that the _charcuitiers_ were allowed to purchase at market and sell the meat raw, in opposition to the butchers, who in consequence gradually gave up killing and selling pork (Fig. 87).
Although the consumption of butchers’ meat was not so great in the Middle Ages as it is now, the trade of a butcher, to which extraordinary privileges were attached, was nevertheless one of the industries which realised the greatest profits.
We know what an important part the butchers played in the municipal history of France, as also of Belgium; and we also know how great their political influence was, especially in the fifteenth century.
[Illustration: Fig. 87.–The Pork-butcher (_Charcutier_).–Fac-simile of a Miniature in a Charter of the Abbey of Solignac (Fourteenth Century).]
The existence of the great slaughter-house of Paris dates back to the most remote period of monarchy. The parish church of the corporation of butchers, namely, that of St. Pierre aux Boeufs in the city, on the front of which were two sculptured oxen, existed before the tenth century. A Celtic monument was discovered on the site of the ancient part of Paris, with a bas-relief representing a wild bull carrying three cranes standing among oak branches. Archaeology has chosen to recognise in this sculpture a Druidical allegory, which has descended to us in the shape of the triumphal car of the Prize Ox (Fig. 88). The butchers who, for centuries at least in France, only killed sheep and pigs, proved themselves most jealous of their privileges, and admitted no strangers into their corporation. The proprietorship of stalls at the markets, and the right of being admitted as a master butcher at the age of seven years and a day, belonged exclusively to the male descendants of a few rich and powerful families. The Kings of France alone, on their accession, could create a new master butcher. Since the middle of the fourteenth century the “Grande Boucherie” was the seat of an important jurisdiction, composed of a mayor, a master, a proctor, and an attorney; it also had a judicial council before which the butchers could bring up all their cases, and an appeal from which could only be considered by Parliament. Besides this court, which had to decide cases of misbehaviour on the part of the apprentices, and all their appeals against their masters, the corporation had a counsel in Parliament, as also one at the Chatelet, who were specially attached to the interests of the butchers, and were in their pay.
[Illustration: Fig. 88.–The Holy Ox.–Celtic Monument found in Paris under the Choir of Notre-Dame in 1711, and preserved in the Musee de Cluny et des Thermes.]
Although bound, at all events with their money, to follow the calling of their fathers, we find many descendants of ancient butchers’ families of Paris, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, abandoning their stalls to fill high places in the state, and even at court. It must not be concluded that the rich butchers in those days occupied themselves with the minor details of their trade; the greater number employed servants who cut up and retailed the meat, and they themselves simply kept the accounts, and were engaged in dealing through factors or foremen for the purchase of beasts for their stalls (Fig. 89). One can form an opinion of the wealth of some of these tradesmen by reading the enumeration made by an old chronicler of the property and income of Guillaume de Saint-Yon, one of the principal master butchers in 1370. “He was proprietor of three stalls, in which meat was weekly sold to the amount of 200 _livres parisis_ (the livre being equivalent to 24 francs at least), with an average profit of ten to fifteen per cent.; he had an income of 600 _livres parisis_; he possessed besides his family house in Paris, four country-houses, well supplied with furniture and agricultural implements, drinking-cups, vases, cups of silver, and cups of onyx with silver feet, valued at 100 francs or more each. His wife had jewels, belts, purses, and trinkets, to the value of upwards of 1,000 gold francs (the gold franc was worth 24 livres); long and short gowns trimmed with fur; and three mantles of grey fur. Guillaume de Saint-Yon had generally in his storehouses 300 ox-hides, worth 24 francs each at least; 800 measures of fat, worth 3-1/2 sols each; in his sheds, he had 800 sheep worth 100 sols each; in his safes 500 or 600 silver florins of ready money (the florin was worth 12 francs, which must be multiplied five times to estimate its value in present currency), and his household furniture was valued at 12,000 florins. He gave a dowry of 2,000 florins to his two nieces, and spent 3,000 florins in rebuilding his Paris house; and lastly, as if he had been a noble, he used a silver seal.”
[Illustration: Fig. 89.–The Butcher and his Servant, drawn and engraved by J. Amman (Sixteenth Century).]
We find in the “Menagier de Paris” curious statistics respecting the various butchers’ shops of the capital, and the daily sale in each at the period referred to. This sale, without counting the households of the King, the Queen, and the royal family, which were specially provisioned, amounted to 26,624 oxen, 162,760 sheep, 27,456 pigs, and 15,912 calves per annum; to which must be added not only the smoked and salted flesh of 200 or 300 pigs, which were sold at the fair in Holy Week, but also 6,420 sheep, 823 oxen, 832 calves, and 624 pigs, which, according to the “Menagier,” were used in the royal and princely households.
Sometimes the meat was sent to market already cut up, but the slaughter of beasts was more frequently done in the butchers’ shops in the town; for they only killed from day to day, according to the demand. Besides the butchers’ there were tripe shops, where the feet, kidneys, &c., were sold.
[Illustration: Figs. 90 and 91.–Seal and Counter-Seal of the Butchers of Bruges in 1356, from an impression on green wax, preserved in the archives of that town.]
According to Bruyerin Champier, during the sixteenth century the most celebrated sheep in France were those of Berri and Limousin; and of all butchers’ meat, veal was reckoned the best. In fact, calves intended for the tables of the upper classes were fed in a special manner: they were allowed for six months, or even for a year, nothing but milk, which made their flesh most tender and delicate. Contrary to the present taste, kid was more appreciated than lamb, which caused the _rotisseurs_ frequently to attach the tail of a kid to a lamb, so as to deceive the customer and sell him a less expensive meat at the higher price. This was the origin of the proverb which described a cheat as “a dealer in goat by halves.”
In other places butchers were far from acquiring the same importance which they did in France and Belgium (Figs. 90 and 91), where much more meat was consumed than in Spain, Italy, or even in Germany. Nevertheless, in almost all countries there were certain regulations, sometimes eccentric, but almost always rigidly enforced, to ensure a supply of meat of the best quality and in a healthy state. In England, for instance, butchers were only allowed to kill bulls after they had been baited with dogs, no doubt with the view of making the flesh more tender. At Mans, it was laid down in the trade regulations, that “no butcher shall be so bold as to sell meat unless it shall have been previously seen alive by two or three persons, who will testify to it on oath; and, anyhow, they shall not sell it until the persons shall have declared it wholesome,” &c.
To the many regulations affecting the interests of the public must be added that forbidding butchers to sell meat on days when abstinence from animal food was ordered by the Church. These regulations applied less to the vendors than to the consumers, who, by disobeying them, were liable to fine or imprisonment, or to severe corporal punishment by the whip or in the pillory. We find that Clement Marot was imprisoned and nearly burned alive for having eaten pork in Lent. In 1534, Guillaume des Moulins, Count of Brie, asked permission for his mother, who was then eighty years of age, to cease fasting; the Bishop of Paris only granted dispensation on condition that the old lady should take her meals in secret and out of sight of every one, and should still fast on Fridays. “In a certain town,” says Brantome, “there had been a procession in Lent. A woman, who had assisted at it barefooted, went home to dine off a quarter of lamb and a ham. The smell got into the street; the house was entered. The fact being established, the woman was taken, and condemned to walk through the town with her quarter of lamb on the spit over her shoulder, and the ham hung round her neck.” This species of severity increased during the times of religious dissensions. Erasmus says, “He who has eaten pork instead of fish is taken to the torture like a parricide.” An edict of Henry II, 1549, forbade the sale of meat in Lent to persons who should not be furnished with a doctor’s certificate. Charles IX forbade the sale of meat to the Huguenots; and it was ordered that the privilege of selling meat during the time of abstinence should belong exclusively to the hospitals. Orders were given to those who retailed meat to take the address of every purchaser, although he had presented a medical certificate, so that the necessity for his eating meat might be verified. Subsequently, the medical certificate required to be endorsed by the priest, specifying what quantity of meat was required. Even in these cases the use of butchers’ meat alone was granted, pork, poultry, and game being strictly forbidden.
Poultry.–A monk of the Abbey of Cluny once went on a visit to his relations. On arriving he asked for food; but as it was a fast day he was told there was nothing in the house but fish. Perceiving some chickens in the yard, he took a stick and killed one, and brought it to his relations, saying, “This is the fish which I shall eat to-day.” “Eh, but, my son,” they said, “have you dispensation from fasting on a Friday?” “No,” he answered; “but poultry is not flesh; fish and fowls were created at the same time; they have a common origin, as the hymn which I sing in the service teaches me.”
This simple legend belongs to the tenth century; and notwithstanding that the opinion of this Benedictine monk may appear strange nowadays, yet it must be acknowledged that he was only conforming himself to the opinions laid down by certain theologians. In 817, the Council of Aix-la-Chapelle decided that such delicate nourishment could scarcely be called mortification as understood by the teaching of the Church. In consequence of this an order was issued forbidding the monks to eat poultry, except during four days at Easter and four at Christmas. But this prohibition in no way changed the established custom of certain parts of Christendom, and the faithful persisted in believing that poultry and fish were identical in the eyes of the Church, and accordingly continued to eat them indiscriminately. We also see, in the middle of the thirteenth century, St. Thomas Aquinas, who was considered an authority in questions of dogma and of faith, ranking poultry amongst species of aquatic origin.
Eventually, this palpable error was abandoned; but when the Church forbade Christians the use of poultry on fast days, it made an exception, out of consideration for the ancient prejudice, in favour of teal, widgeon, moor-hens, and also two or three kinds of small amphibious quadrupeds. Hence probably arose the general and absurd beliefs concerning the origin of teal, which some said sprung from the rotten wood of old ships, others from the fruits of a tree, or the gum on fir-trees, whilst others thought they came from a fresh-water shell analogous to that of the oyster and mussel.
As far back as modern history can be traced, we find that a similar mode of fattening poultry was employed then as now, and was one which the Gauls must have learnt from the Romans. Amongst the charges in the households of the kings of France one item was that which concerned the poultry-house, and which, according to an edict of St. Louis in 1261, bears the name of _poulaillier_. At a subsequent period this name was given to breeders and dealers in poultry (Fig. 92).
The “Menagier” tells as that, as is the present practice, chickens were fattened by depriving them of light and liberty, and gorging them with succulent food. Amongst the poultry yards in repute at that time, the author mentions that of Hesdin, a property of the Dukes of Luxemburg, in Artois; that of the King, at the Hotel Saint-Pol, Rue Saint-Antoine, Paris; that of Master Hugues Aubriot, provost of Paris; and that of Charlot, no doubt a bourgeois of that name, who also gave his name to an ancient street in that quarter called the Marais.
[Illustration: Fig. 92.–The Poulterer, drawn and engraved in the Sixteenth Century, by J. Amman.]
_Capons_ are frequently mentioned in poems of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; but the name of the _poularde_ does not occur until the sixteenth.
We know that under the Roman rule, the Gauls carried on a considerable trade in fattened geese. This trade ceased when Gaul passed to new masters; but the breeding of geese continued to be carefully attended to. For many centuries geese were more highly prized than any other description of poultry, and Charlemagne ordered that his domains should be well stocked with flocks of geese, which were driven to feed in the fields, like flocks of sheep. There was an old proverb, “Who eats the king’s goose returns the feathers in a hundred years.” This bird was considered a great delicacy by the working classes and bourgeoisie. The _rotisseurs_ (Fig. 94) had hardly anything in their shops but geese, and, therefore, when they were united in a company, they received the name of _oyers_, or _oyeurs_. The street in which they were established, with their spits always loaded with juicy roasts, was called Rue des _Oues_ (geese), and this street, when it ceased to be frequented by the _oyers_, became by corruption Rue Auxours.
[Illustration: Fig. 93.–Barnacle Geese.–Fac-simile of an Engraving on Wood, from the “Cosmographie Universelle” of Munster, folio, Basle, 1552.]
There is every reason for believing that the domestication of the wild duck is of quite recent date. The attempt having succeeded, it was wished to follow it up by the naturalisation in the poultry-yard of two other sorts of aquatic birds, namely, the sheldrake (_tadorna_) and the moorhen, but without success. Some attribute the introduction of turkeys into France and Europe to Jacques Coeur, treasurer to Charles VII., whose commercial connections with the East were very extensive; others assert that it is due to King Rene, Count of Provence; but according to the best authorities these birds were first brought into France in the time of Francis I. by Admiral Philippe de Chabot, and Bruyerin Champier asserts that they were not known until even later. It was at about the same period that guinea-fowls were brought from the coast of Africa by Portuguese merchants; and the travelling naturalist, Pierre Belon, who wrote in the year 1555, asserts that in his time “they had already so multiplied in the houses of the nobles that they had become quite common.”
[Illustration: Fig. 94.–The Poultry-dealer.–Fac-simile of an Engraving on Wood, after Cesare Vecellio.]
The pea-fowl played an important part in the chivalric banquets of the Middle Ages (Fig. 95). According to old poets the flesh of this noble bird is “food for the brave.” A poet of the thirteenth century says, “that thieves have as much taste for falsehood as a hungry man has for the flesh of the peacock.” In the fourteenth century poultry-yards were still stocked with these birds; but the turkey and the pheasant gradually replaced them, as their flesh was considered somewhat hard and stringy. This is proved by the fact that in 1581, “La Nouvelle Coutume du Bourbonnois” only reckons the value of these beautiful birds at two sous and a half, or about three francs of present currency.
[Illustration: Fig. 95.–State Banquet.–Serving the Peacock.–Fac-simile of a Woodcut in an edition of Virgil, folio, published at Lyons in 1517.]
Game.–Our forefathers included among the birds which now constitute feathered game the heron, the crane, the crow, the swan, the stork, the cormorant, and the bittern. These supplied the best tables, especially the first three, which were looked upon as exquisite food, fit even for royalty, and were reckoned as thorough French delicacies. There were at that time heronries, as at a later period there were pheasantries. People also ate birds of prey, and only rejected those which fed on carrion.
Swans, which were much appreciated, were very common on all the principal rivers of France, especially in the north; a small island below Paris had taken its name from these birds, and has maintained it ever since. It was proverbially said that the Charente was bordered with swans, and for this same reason Valenciennes was called _Val des Cygnes_, or the Swan Valley.
Some authors make it appear that for a long time young game was avoided owing to the little nourishment it contained and its indigestibility, and assert that it was only when some French ambassadors returned from Venice that the French learnt that young partridges and leverets were exquisite, and quite fit to appear at the most sumptuous banquets. The “Menagier” gives not only various receipts for cooking them, but also for dressing chickens, when game was out of season, so as to make them taste like young partridges.
There was a time when they fattened pheasants as they did capons; it was a secret, says Liebault, only known to the poultry dealers; but although they were much appreciated, the pullet was more so, and realised as much as two crowns each (this does not mean the gold crown, but a current coin worth three livres). Plovers, which sometimes came from Beauce in cart-loads, were much relished; they were roasted without being drawn, as also were turtle-doves and larks; “for,” says an ancient author, “larks only eat small pebbles and sand, doves grains of juniper and scented herbs, and plovers feed on air.” At a later period the same honour was conferred on woodcocks.
Thrushes, starlings, blackbirds, quail, and partridges were in equal repute according to the season. The _bec-figue_, a small bird like a nightingale, was so much esteemed in Provence that there were feasts at which that bird alone was served, prepared in various ways; but of all birds used for the table none could be compared to the young cuckoo taken just as it was full fledged.
As far as we can ascertain, the Gauls had a dislike to the flesh of rabbits, and they did not even hunt them, for according to Strabo, Southern Gaul was infested with these mischievous animals, which destroyed the growing crops, and even the barks of the trees. There was considerable change in this respect a few centuries later, for every one in town or country reared domesticated rabbits, and the wild ones formed an article of food which was much in request. In order to ascertain whether a rabbit is young, Strabo tells us we should feel the first joint of the fore-leg, when we shall find a small bone free and movable. This method is adopted in all kitchens in the present day. Hares were preferred to rabbits, provided they were young; for an old French proverb says, “An old hare and an old goose are food for the devil.”
[Illustration: Fig. 96.–“The way to skin and cut up a Stag.”–Fac-simile of a Miniature of “Phoebus, and his Staff for hunting Wild Animals” (Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century, National Library of Paris).]
The hedgehog and squirrel were also eaten. As for roe and red deer, they were, according to Dr. Bruyerin Ohampier, morsels fit for kings and rich people (Fig. 96). The doctor speaks of “fried slices of the young horn of the stag” as the daintiest of food, and the “Menagier de Paris” shows how, as early as the fourteenth century, beef was dished up like bear’s-flesh venison, for the use of kitchens in countries where the black bear did not exist. This proves that bear’s flesh was in those days considered good food.
Milk, Butter, Eggs, and Cheese.–These articles of food, the first which nature gave to man, were not always and everywhere uniformly permitted or prohibited by the Church on fast days. The faithful were for several centuries left to their own judgment on the subject. In fact, there is nothing extraordinary in eggs being eaten in Lent without scruple, considering that some theologians maintained that the hens which laid them were animals of aquatic extraction.
It appears, however, that butter, either from prejudice or mere custom, was only used on fast days in its fresh state, and was not allowed to be used for cooking purposes. At first, and especially amongst the monks, the dishes were prepared with oil; but as in some countries oil was apt to become very expensive, and the supply even to fail totally, animal fat or lard had to be substituted. At a subsequent period the Church authorised the use of butter and milk; but on this point, the discipline varied much. In the fourteenth century, Charles V., King of France, having asked Pope Gregory XI. for a dispensation to use milk and butter on fast days, in consequence of the bad state of his health, brought on owing to an attempt having been made to poison him, the supreme Pontiff required a certificate from a physician and from the King’s confessor. He even then only granted the dispensation after imposing on that Christian king the repetition of a certain number of prayers and the performance of certain pious deeds. In defiance of the severity of ecclesiastical authority, we find, in the “Journal of a Bourgeois of Paris,” that in the unhappy reign of Charles VI. (1420), “for want of oil, butter was eaten in Lent the same as on ordinary non-fast days.”
In 1491, Queen Anne, Duchess of Brittany, in order to obtain permission from the Pope to eat butter in Lent, represented that Brittany did not produce oil, neither did it import it from southern countries. Many northern provinces adopted necessity as the law, and, having no oil, used butter; and thence originated that famous toast with slices of bread and butter, which formed such an important part of Flemish food. These papal dispensations were, however, only earned at the price of prayers and alms, and this was the origin of the _troncs pour le beurre_, that is, “alms-box for butter,” which are still to be seen in some of the Flemish churches.
[Illustration: Fig. 97.–The Manufacture of Oil, drawn and engraved by J. Amman in the Sixteenth Century.]
It is not known when butter was first salted in order to preserve it or to send it to distant places; but this process, which is so simple and so natural, dates, no doubt, from very ancient times; it was particularly practised by the Normans and Bretons, who enclosed the butter in large earthenware jars, for in the statutes which were given to the fruiterers of Paris in 1412, mention is made of salt butter in earthenware jars. Lorraine only exported butter in such jars. The fresh butter most in request for the table in Paris, was that made at Vanvres, which in the month of May the people ate every morning mixed with garlic.
The consumption of butter was greatest in Flanders. “I am surprised,” says Bruyerin Champier, speaking of that country, “that they have not yet tried to turn it into drink; in France it is mockingly called _beurriere;_ and when any one has to travel in that country, he is advised to take a knife with him if he wishes to taste the good rolls of butter.”
[Illustration: Fig. 98.–A Dealer in Eggs.–Fac-simile of a Woodcut, after Cesare Vecellio, Sixteenth Century.]
It is not necessary to state that milk and cheese followed the fortunes of butter in the Catholic world, the same as eggs followed those of poultry. But butter having been declared lawful by the Church, a claim was put in for eggs (Fig. 98), and Pope Julius III. granted this dispensation to all Christendom, although certain private churches did not at once choose to profit by this favour. The Greeks had always been more rigid on these points of discipline than the people of the West. It is to the prohibition of eggs in Lent that the origin of “Easter eggs” must be traced. These were hardened by boiling them in a madder bath, and were brought to receive the blessing of the priest on Good Friday, and were then eaten on the following Sunday as a sign of rejoicing.
Ancient Gaul was celebrated for some of its home-made cheeses. Pliny praises those of Nismes, and of Mount Lozere, in Gevaudau; Martial mentions those of Toulouse, &c. A simple anecdote, handed down by the monk of St. Gall, who wrote in the ninth century, proves to us that the traditions with regard to cheeses were not lost in the time of Charlemagne: “The Emperor, in one of his travels, alighted suddenly, and without being expected, at the house of a bishop. It was on a Friday. The prelate had no fish, and did not dare to set meat before the prince. He therefore offered him what he had got, some boiled corn and green cheese. Charles ate of the cheese; but taking the green part to be bad, he took care to remove it with his knife. The Bishop, seeing this, took the liberty of telling his guest that this was the best part. The Emperor, tasting it, found that the bishop was right; and consequently ordered him to send him annually two cases of similar cheese to Aix-la-Chapelle. The Bishop answered, that he could easily send cheeses, but he could not be sure of sending them in proper condition, because it was only by opening them that you could be sure of the dealer not having deceived you in the quality of the cheese. ‘Well,’ said the Emperor, ‘before sending them, cut them through the middle, so as to see if they are what I want; you will only have to join the two halves again by means of a wooden peg, and you can then put the whole into a case.'”
Under the kings of the third French dynasty, a cheese was made at the village of Chaillot, near Paris, which was much appreciated in the capital. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the cheeses of Champagne and of Brie, which are still manufactured, were equally popular, and were hawked in the streets, according to the “Book of Street-Cries in Paris,”–
“J’ai bon fromage de Champaigne;
Or i a fromage de Brie!”
(“Buy my cheese from Champagne,
And my cheese from Brie!”)
Eustache Deschamps went so far as to say that cheese was the only good thing which could possibly come from Brie.
The “Menagier de Paris” praises several kinds of cheeses, the names of which it would now be difficult to trace, owing to their frequent changes during four hundred years; but, according to the Gallic author of this collection, a cheese to be presentable at table, was required to possess certain qualities (in proverbial Latin, “Non Argus, nee Helena, nee Maria Magdalena,” &c.), thus expressed in French rhyme:–
“Non mie (pas) blanc comme Helaine,
Non mie (pas) plourant comme Magdelaine, Non Argus (a cent yeux), mais du tout avugle (aveugle) Et aussi pesant comme un bugle (boeuf), Contre le pouce soit rebelle,
Et qu’il ait ligneuse cotelle (epaisse croute) Sans yeux, sans plourer, non pas blanc, Tigneulx, rebelle, bien pesant.”
(“Neither-white like Helena,
Nor weeping as Magdelena,
Neither Argus, nor yet quite blind, And having too a thickish rind,
Resisting somewhat to the touch,
And as a bull should weigh as much; Not eyeless, weeping, nor quite white,
But firm, resisting, not too light.”)
In 1509, Platina, although an Italian, in speaking of good cheeses, mentions those of Chauny, in Picardy, and of Brehemont, in Touraine; Charles Estienne praises those of Craponne, in Auvergne, the _angelots_ of Normandy, and the cheeses made from fresh cream which the peasant-women of Montreuil and Vincennes brought to Paris in small wickerwork baskets, and which were eaten sprinkled with sugar. The same author names also the _rougerets_ of Lyons, which were always much esteemed; but, above all the cheeses of Europe, he places the round or cylindrical ones of Auvergne, which were only made by very clean and healthy children of fourteen years of age. Olivier de Serres advises those who wish to have good cheeses to boil the milk before churning it, a plan which is in use at Lodi and Parma, “where cheeses are made which are acknowledged by all the world to be excellent.”
The parmesan, which this celebrated agriculturist cites as an example, only became the fashion in France on the return of Charles VIII. from his expedition to Naples. Much was thought at that time of a cheese brought from Turkey in bladders, and of different varieties produced in Holland and Zetland. A few of these foreign products were eaten in stews and in pastry, others were toasted and sprinkled with sugar and powdered cinnamon.
“Le Roman de Claris,” a manuscript which belongs to the commencement of the fourteenth century, says that in a town winch was taken by storm the following stores were found:–:
“Maint bon tonnel de vin,
Maint bon bacon (cochon), maint fromage a rostir.”
(“Many a ton of wine,
Many a slice of good bacon, plenty of good roasted cheese.”)
[Illustration: Table Service of a Lady of Quality
Fac-simile of a miniature from the Romance of Renaud de Montauban, a ms. of fifteenth century Bibl. de l’Arsenal]
[Illustration: Ladies Hunting
Costumes of the fifteenth century. From a miniature in a ms. copy of _Ovid’s Epistles_. No 7231 _bis._ Bibl. nat’le de Paris.]
Besides cheese and butter, the Normans, who had a great many cows in their rich pastures, made a sort of fermenting liquor from the butter-milk, which they called _serat_, by boiling the milk with onions and garlic, and letting it cool in closed vessels.
[Illustration: Fig. 99.–Manufacture of Cheeses in Switzerland.–Fac-simile of a Woodcut in the “Cosmographie Universelle” of Munster, folio, Basle, 1549.]
If the author of the “Menagier” is to be believed, the women who sold milk by retail in the towns were well acquainted with the method of increasing its quantity at the expense of its quality. He describes how his _froumentee_, which consists of a sort of soup, is made, and states that when he sends his cook to make her purchases at the milk market held in the neighbourhood of the Rues de la Savonnerie, des Ecrivains, and de la Vieille-Monnaie, he enjoins her particularly “to get very fresh cow’s milk, and to tell the person who sells it not to do so if she has put water to it; for, unless it be quite fresh, or if there be water in it, it will turn.”
Fish and Shellfish.–Freshwater fish, which was much more abundant in former days than now, was the ordinary food of those who lived on the borders of lakes, ponds, or rivers, or who, at all events, were not so far distant but that they could procure it fresh. There was of course much diversity at different periods and in different countries as regards the estimation in which the various kinds of fish were held. Thus Ausone, who was a native of Bordeaux, spoke highly of the delicacy of the perch, and asserted that shad, pike, and tench should be left to the lower orders; an opinion which was subsequently contradicted by the inhabitants of other parts of Gaul, and even by the countrymen of the Latin poet Gregory of Tours, who loudly praised the Geneva trout. But a time arrived when the higher classes preferred the freshwater fish of Orchies in Flanders, and even those of the Lyonnais. Thus we see in the thirteenth century the barbel of Saint-Florentin held in great estimation, whereas two hundred years later a man who was of no use, or a nonentity, was said to resemble a barbel, “which is neither good for roasting nor boiling.”
[Illustration: Fig. 100.–The Pond Fisherman.–Fac-simile of a Woodcut of the “Cosmographie Universelle” of Munster, folio, Basle, 1549.]
In a collection of vulgar proverbs of the twelfth century mention is made, amongst the fish most in demand, besides the barbel of Saint-Florentin above referred to, of the eels of Maine, the pike of Chalons, the lampreys of Nantes, the trout of Andeli, and the dace of Aise. The “Menagier” adds several others to the above list, including blay, shad, roach, and gudgeon, but, above all, the carp, which was supposed to be a native of Southern Europe, and which must have been naturalised at a much later period in the northern waters (Figs. 100, 101, and 102).
[Illustration: Fig. 101.–The River Fisherman, designed and engraved, in the Sixteenth Century, by J. Amman.]
[Illustration: Fig. 102.–Conveyance of Fish by Water and Land.–Fac-simile of an Engraving in the Royal Statutes of the Provostship of Merchants, 1528.]
The most ancient documents bear witness that the natives of the sea-coasts of Europe, and particularly of the Mediterranean, fed on the same fish as at present: there were, however, a few other sea-fish, which were also used for food, but which have since been abandoned. Our ancestors were, not difficult to please: they had good teeth, and their palates, having become accustomed to the flesh of the cormorant, heron, and crane, without difficulty appreciated the delicacy of the nauseous sea-dog, the porpoise, and even the whale, which, when salted, furnished to a great extent all the markets of Europe.
The trade in salted sea-fish only began in Paris in the twelfth century, when a company of merchants was instituted, or rather re-established, on the principle of the ancient association of Nantes. This association had existed from the period of the foundation under the Gauls of Lutetia, the city of fluvial commerce (Fig. 103), and it is mentioned in the letters patent of Louis VII. (1170). One of the first cargoes which this company brought in its boats was that of salted herrings from the coast of Normandy. These herrings became a necessary food during Lent, and
“Sor et blanc harene fres pouldre (couvert de sel)!”
(“Herrings smoked, fresh, and salted!”)
was the cry of the retailers in the streets of Paris, where this fish became a permanent article of consumption to an extent which can be appreciated from the fact that Saint Louis gave annually nearly seventy thousand herrings to the hospitals, plague-houses, and monasteries.
[Illustration: Fig. 103.–A Votive Altar of the Nantes Parisiens, or the Company for the Commercial Navigation of the Seine, erected in Lutelia during the reign of Tiberius.–Fragments of this Altar, which were discovered in 1711 under the Choir of the Church of Notre-Dame, are preserved in the Museums of Cluny and the Palais des Thermes.]
The profit derived from the sale of herrings at that time was so great that it soon became a special trade; it was, in fact, the regular practice of the Middle Ages for persons engaged in any branch of industry to unite together and form themselves into a corporation. Other speculators conceived the idea of bringing fresh fish to Paris by means of relays of posting conveyances placed along the road, and they called themselves _forains_. Laws were made to distinguish the rights of each of these trades, and to prevent any quarrel in the competition. In these laws, all sea-fish were comprised under three names, the fresh, the salted, and the smoked (_sor_). Louis IX. in an edict divides the dealers into two classes, namely, the sellers of fresh fish, and the sellers of salt or smoked fish. Besides salt and fresh herrings, an enormous amount of salted mackerel, which was almost as much used, was brought from the sea-coast, in addition to flat-fish, gurnets, skate, fresh and salted whiting and codfish.
In an old document of the thirteenth century about fifty kinds of fish are enumerated which were retailed in the markets of the kingdom; and a century later the “Menagier” gives receipts for cooking forty kinds, amongst which appears, under the name of _craspois_, the salted flesh of the whale, which was also called _le lard de careme_. This coarse food, which was sent from the northern seas in enormous slices, was only eaten by the lower orders, for, according to a writer of the sixteenth century, “were it cooked even for twenty-four hours it would still be very hard and indigestible.”
The “Proverbes” of the thirteenth century, which mention the freshwater fish then in vogue, also names the sea-fish most preferred, and whence they came, namely, the shad from Bordeaux, the congers from La Rochelle, the sturgeon from Blaye, the fresh herrings from Fecamp, and the cuttle-fish from Coutances. At a later period the conger was not eaten from its being supposed to produce the plague. The turbot, John-dory, skate and sole, which were very dear, were reserved for the rich. The fishermen fed on the sea-dragon. A great quantity of the small sea crayfish were brought into market; and in certain countries these were called _sante_, because the doctors recommended them to invalids or those in consumption; on the other hand, freshwater crayfish were not much esteemed in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, excepting for their eggs, which were prepared with spice. It is well known that pond frogs were a favourite food of the Gauls and Franks; they were never out of fashion in the rural districts, and were served at the best tables, dressed with green sauce; at the same period, and especially during Lent, snails, which were served in pyramid-shaped dishes, were much appreciated; so much so that nobles and bourgeois cultivated snail beds, somewhat resembling our oyster beds of the present day.
The inhabitants of the coast at all periods ate various kinds of shell-fish, which were called in Italy sea-fruit; but it was only towards the twelfth century that the idea was entertained of bringing oysters to Paris, and mussels were not known there until much later. It is notorious that Henry IV. was a great oyster-eater. Sully relates that when he was created a duke “the king came, without being expected, to take his seat at the reception banquet, but as there was much delay in going to dinner, he began by eating some _huitres de chasse_, which he found very fresh.”
By _huitres de chasse_ were meant those oysters which were brought by the _chasse-marees_, carriers who brought the fresh fish from the coast to Paris at great speed.
Beverages.–Beer is not only one of the oldest fermenting beverages used by man, but it is also the one which was most in vogue in the Middle Ages. If we refer to the tales of the Greek historians, we find that the Gauls–who, like the Egyptians, attributed the discovery of this refreshing drink to their god Osiris–had two sorts of beer: one called _zythus_, made with honey and intended for the rich; the other called _corma_, in which there was no honey, and which was made for the poor. But Pliny asserts that beer in Gallie was called _cerevisia_, and the grain employed for making it _brasce_. This testimony seems true, as from _brasce_ or _brasse_ comes the name _brasseur_ (brewer), and from _cerevisia, cervoise_, the generic name by which beer was known for centuries, and which only lately fell into disuse.
[Illustration: Fig. 104.–The Great Drinkers of the North.–Fac-simile of a Woodcut of the “Histoires des Pays Septentrionaux,” by Olaus Magnus, 16mo., Antwerp, 1560.]
After a great famine, Domitian ordered all the vines in Gaul to be uprooted so as to make room for corn. This rigorous measure must have caused beer to become even more general, and, although two centuries later Probus allowed vines to be replanted, the use of beverages made from grain became an established custom; but in time, whilst the people still only drank _cervoise_, those who were able to afford it bought wine and drank it alternately with beer.
However, as by degrees the vineyards increased in all places having a suitable soil and climate, the use of beer was almost entirely given up, so that in central Gaul wine became so common and cheap that all could drink it. In the northern provinces, where the vine would not grow, beer naturally continued to be the national beverage (Fig. 104).
In the time of Charlemagne, for instance, we find the Emperor wisely ordered that persons knowing how to brew should be attached to each of his farms. Everywhere the monastic houses possessed breweries; but as early as the reign of St. Louis there were only a very few breweries in Paris itself, and, in spite of all the privileges granted to their corporation, even these were soon obliged to leave the capital, where there ceased to be any demand for the produce of their industry. They reappeared in 1428, probably in consequence of the political and commercial relations which had become established between Paris and the rich towns of the Flemish bourgeoisie; and then, either on account of the dearness of wine, or the caprice of fashion, the consumption of beer again became so general in France that, according to the “Journal d’un Bourgeois de Paris,” it produced to the revenue two-thirds more than wine. It must be understood, however, that in times of scarcity, as in the years 1415 and 1482, brewing was temporarily stopped, and even forbidden altogether, on account of the quantity of grain which was thereby withdrawn from the food supply of the people (Fig. 105).
[Illustration: Fig. 105.–The Brewer, designed and engraved, in the Sixteenth. Century, by J. Amman.]
Under the Romans, the real _cervoise_, or beer, was made with barley; but, at a later period, all sorts of grain was indiscriminately used; and it was only towards the end of the sixteenth century that adding the flower or seed of hops to the oats or barley, which formed the basis of this beverage, was thought of.
Estienne Boileau’s “Book of Trades,” edited in the thirteenth century, shows us that, besides the _cervoise_, another sort of beer was known, which was called _godale_. This name, we should imagine, was derived from the two German words _god ael_, which mean “good beer,” and was of a stronger description than the ordinary _cervoise_; this idea is proved by the Picards and Flemish people calling it “double beer.” In any case, it is from the word _godale_ that the familiar expression of _godailler_ (to tipple) is derived.
In fact, there is hardly any sort of mixture or ingredient which has not been used in the making of beer, according to the fashions of the different periods. When, on the return from the Crusades, the use of spice had become the fashion, beverages as well as the food were loaded with it. Allspice, juniper, resin, apples, bread-crumbs, sage, lavender, gentian, cinnamon, and laurel were each thrown into it. The English sugared it, and the Germans salted it, and at times they even went so far as to put darnel into it, at the risk of rendering the mixture poisonous.
The object of these various mixtures was naturally to obtain high-flavoured beers, which became so much in fashion, that to describe the want of merit of persons, or the lack of value in anything, no simile was more common than to compare them to “small beer.” Nevertheless, more delicate and less blunted palates were to be found which could appreciate beer sweetened simply with honey, or scented with ambergris or raspberries. It is possible, however, that these compositions refer to mixtures in which beer, the produce of fermented grain, was confounded with hydromel, or fermented honey. Both these primitive drinks claim an origin equally remote, which is buried in the most distant periods of history, and they have been used in all parts of the world, being mentioned in the oldest historical records, in the Bible, the Edda, and in the sacred books of India. In the thirteenth century, hydromel, which then bore the name of _borgerafre, borgeraste_, or _bochet_, was composed of one part of honey to twelve parts of water, scented with herbs, and allowed to ferment for a month or six weeks. This beverage, which in the customs and statutes of the order of Cluny is termed _potus dulcissimus_ (the sweetest beverage), and which must have been both agreeable in taste and smell, was specially appreciated by the monks, who feasted on it on the great anniversaries of the Church. Besides this, an inferior quality of _bochet_ was made for the consumption of the lower orders and peasants, out of the honeycomb after the honey had been drained away, or with the scum which rose during the fermentation of the better qualities.
[Illustration: Fig. 106.–The Vintagers, after a Miniature of the “Dialogues de Saint Gregoire” (Thirteenth Century).–Manuscript of the Royal Library of Brussels.]
Cider (in Latin _sicera_) and perry can also both claim a very ancient origin, since they are mentioned by Pliny. It does not appear, however, that the Gauls were acquainted with them. The first historical mention of them is made with reference to a repast which Thierry II., King of Burgundy and Orleans (596-613), son of Childebert, and grandson of Queen Brunehaut, gave to St. Colomban, in which both cider and wine were used. In the thirteenth century, a Latin poet (Guillaume le Breton) says that the inhabitants of the Auge and of Normandy made cider their daily drink; but it is not likely that this beverage was sent away from the localities where it was made; for, besides the fact that the “Menagier” only very curtly mentions a drink made of apples, we know that in the fifteenth century the Parisians were satisfied with pouring water on apples, and steeping them, so as to extract a sort of half-sour, half-sweet drink called _depense_. Besides this, Paulmier de Grandmesnil, a Norman by birth, a famous doctor, and the author of a Latin treatise on wine and cider (1588), asserts that half a century before, cider was very scarce at Rouen, and that in all the districts of Caux the people only drank beer. Duperron adds that the Normans brought cider from Biscay, when their crops of apples failed.
By whom and at what period the vine was naturalised in Gaul has been a long-disputed question, which, in spite of the most careful research, remains unsolved. The most plausible opinion is that which attributes the honour of having imported the vine to the Phoenician colony who founded Marseilles.
Pliny makes mention of several wines of the Gauls as being highly esteemed. He nevertheless reproaches the vine-growers of Marseilles, Beziers, and Narbonne with doctoring their wines, and with infusing various drugs into them, which rendered them disagreeable and even unwholesome (Fig. 106). Dioscorides, however, approved of the custom in use among the Allobroges, of mixing resin with their wines to preserve them and prevent them from turning sour, as the temperature of their country was not warm enough thoroughly to ripen the grape.
Rooted up by order of Domitian in 92, as stated above, the vine only reappeared in Gaul under Protus, who revoked, in 282, the imperial edict of his predecessor; after which period the Gallic wines soon recovered their ancient celebrity. Under the dominion of the Franks, who held wine in great favour, vineyard property was one of those which the barbaric laws protected with the greatest care. We find in the code of the Salians and in that of the Visigoths very severe penalties for uprooting a vine or stealing a bunch of grapes. The cultivation of the vine became general, and kings themselves planted them, even in the gardens of their city palaces. In 1160, there was still in Paris, near the Louvre, a vineyard of such an extent, that Louis VII. could annually present six hogsheads of wine made from it to the rector of St. Nicholas. Philip Augustus possessed about twenty vineyards of excellent quality in various parts of his kingdom.
The culture of the vine having thus developed, the wine trade acquired an enormous importance in France. Gascony, Aunis, and Saintonge sent their wines to Flanders; Guyenne sent hers to England. Froissart writes that, in 1372, a merchant fleet of quite two hundred sail came from London to Bordeaux for wine. This flourishing trade received a severe blow in the sixteenth century; for an awful famine having invaded France in 1566, Charles IX. did not hesitate to repeat the acts of Domitian, and to order all the vines to be uprooted and their place to be sown with corn; fortunately Henry III. soon after modified this edict by simply recommending the governors of the provinces to see that “the ploughs were not being neglected in their districts on account of the excessive cultivation of the vine.”
[Illustration: Fig. 107.–Interior of an Hostelry.–Fac-simile of a Woodcut in a folio edition of Virgil, published at Lyons in 1517.]
Although the trade of a wine-merchant is one of the oldest established in Paris, it does not follow that the retail sale of wine was exclusively carried on by special tradesmen. On the contrary, for a long time the owner of the vineyard retailed the wine which he had not been able to sell in the cask. A broom, a laurel-wreath, or some other sign of the sort hung over a door, denoted that any one passing could purchase or drink wine within. When the wine-growers did not have the quality and price of their wine announced in the village or town by the public crier, they placed a man before the door of their cellar, who enticed the public to enter and taste the new wines. Other proprietors, instead of selling for people to take away in their own vessels, established a tavern in some room of their house, where they retailed drink (Fig. 107). The monks, who made wine extensively, also opened these taverns in the monasteries, as they only consumed part of their wine themselves; and this system was universally adopted by wine-growers, and even by the king and the nobles. The latter, however, had this advantage, that, whilst they were retailing their wines, no one in the district was allowed to enter into competition with them. This prescriptive right, which was called _droit de ban-vin_, was still in force in the seventeenth century.
Saint Louis granted special statutes to the wine-merchants in 1264; but it was only three centuries later that they formed a society, which was divided into four classes, namely, hotel-keepers, publichouse-keepers, tavern proprietors, and dealers in wine _a pot_, that is, sold to people to take away with them. Hotel-keepers, also called _aubergistes_, accommodated travellers, and also put up horses and carriages. The dealers _a pot_ sold wine which could not be drunk on their premises. There was generally a sort of window in their door through which the empty pot was passed, to be returned filled: hence the expression, still in use in the eighteenth century, _vente a huis coupe_ (sale through a cut door). Publichouse-keepers supplied drink as well as _nappe et assiette_ (tablecloth and plate), which meant that refreshments were also served. And lastly, the _taverniers_ sold wine to be drunk on the premises, but without the right of supplying bread or meat to their customers (Figs 108 and 109).
[Illustration: Fig. 108.–Banner of the Corporation of the Publichouse-keepers of Montmedy.]
[Illustration: Fig. 109.–Banner of the Corporation of the Publichouse-keepers of Tonnerre.]
The wines of France in most request from the ninth to the thirteenth centuries were those of Macon, Cahors, Rheims, Choisy, Montargis, Marne, Meulan, and Orleanais. Amongst the latter there was one which was much appreciated by Henry I., and of which he kept a store, to stimulate his courage when he joined his army. The little fable of the Battle of Wines, composed in the thirteenth century by Henri d’Andelys, mentions a number of wines which have to this day maintained their reputation: for instance, the Beaune, in Burgundy; the Saint-Emilion, in Gruyenne; the Chablis, Epernay, Sezanne, in Champagne, &c. But he places above all, with good reason, according to the taste of those days, the Saint-Pourcain of Auvergne, which was then most expensive and in great request. Another French poet, in describing the luxurious habits of a young man of fashion, says that he drank nothing but Saint-Pourcain; and in a poem composed by Jean Bruyant, secretary of the Chatelet of Paris, in 1332, we find
“Du saint-pourcain
Que l’on met en son sein pour sain.”
(“Saint-Pourcain wine, which you imbibe for the good of your health.”)
[Illustration: Fig. 110.–Banner of the Coopers of Bayonne.]
[Illustration: Fig. 111.–Banner of the Coopers of La Rochelle.]
Towards 1400, the vineyards of Ai became celebrated for Champagne as those of Beaune were for Burgundy; and it is then that we find, according to the testimony of the learned Paulmier de Grandmesnil, kings and queens making champagne their favourite beverage. Tradition has it that Francis I., Charles Quint, Henry VIII., and Pope Leon X. all possessed vineyards in Champagne at the same time. Burgundy, that pure and pleasant wine, was not despised, and it was in its honour that Erasmus said, “Happy province! she may well call herself the mother of men, since she produces such milk.” Nevertheless, the above-mentioned physician, Paulmier, preferred to burgundy, “if not perhaps for their flavour, yet for their wholesomeness, the vines of the _Ile de France_ or _vins francais_, which agree, he says, with scholars, invalids, the bourgeois, and all other persons who do not devote themselves to manual labour; for they do not parch the blood, like the wines of Gascony, nor fly to the head like those of Orleans and Chateau-Thierry; nor do they cause obstructions like those of Bordeaux.” This is also the opinion of Baccius, who in his Latin treatise on the natural history of wines (1596) asserts that the wines of Paris “are in no way inferior to those of any other district of the kingdom.” These thin and sour wines, so much esteemed in the first periods of monarchy and so long abandoned, first lost favour in the reign of Francis I., who preferred the strong and stimulating productions of the South.
Notwithstanding the great number of excellent wines made in their own country, the French imported from other lands. In the thirteenth century, in the “Battle of Wines” we find those of Aquila, Spain, and, above all, those of Cyprus, spoken of in high terms. A century later, Eustace Deschamps praised the Rhine wines, and those of Greece, Malmsey, and Grenache. In an edict of Charles VI. mention is also made of the muscatel, rosette, and the wine of Lieppe. Generally, the Malmsey which was drunk in France was an artificial preparation, which had neither the colour nor taste of the Cyprian wine. Olivier de Serres tells us that in his time it was made with water, honey, clary juice, beer grounds, and brandy. At first the same name was used for the natural wine, mulled and spiced, which was produced in the island of Madeira from the grapes which the Portuguese brought there from Cyprus in 1420.
The reputation which this wine acquired in Europe induced Francis I. to import some vines from Greece, and he planted fifty acres with them near Fontainebleau. It was at first considered that this plant was succeeding so well, that “there were hopes,” says Olivier de Serres, “that France would soon be able to furnish her own Malmsey and Greek wines, instead of having to import them from abroad.” It is evident, however, that they soon gave up this delusion, and that for want of the genuine wine they returned to artificial beverages, such as _vin cuit_, or cooked wine, which had at all times been cleverly prepared by boiling down new wine and adding various aromatic herbs to it.
Many wines were made under the name of _herbes_, which were merely infusions of wormwood, myrtle, hyssop, rosemary, &c., mixed with sweetened wine and flavoured with honey. The most celebrated of these beverages bore the pretentious name of “nectar;” those composed of spices, Asiatic aromatics, and honey, were generally called “white wine,” a name indiscriminately applied to liquors having for their bases some slightly coloured wine, as well as to the hypocras, which was often composed of a mixture of foreign liqueurs. This hypocras plays a prominent part in the romances of chivalry, and was considered a drink of honour, being always offered to kings, princes, and nobles on their solemn entry into a town.
[Illustration: Fig. 112.–Butler at his Duties.–Fac-simile from a Woodcut in the “Cosmographie Universelle,” of Munster, folio, Basle, 1549.]
The name of wine was also given to drinks composed of the juices of certain fruits, and in which grapes were in no way used. These were the cherry, the currant, the raspberry, and the pomegranate wines; also the _more_, made with the mulberry, which was so extolled by the poets of the thirteenth century. We must also mention the sour wines, which were made by pouring water on the refuse grapes after the wine had been extracted; also the drinks made from filberts, milk of almonds, the syrups of apricots and strawberries, and cherry and raspberry waters, all of which were refreshing, and were principally used in summer; and, lastly, _tisane_, sold by the confectioners of Paris, and made hot or cold, with prepared barley, dried grapes, plums, dates, gum, or liquorice. This _tisane_ may be considered as the origin of that drink which is now sold to the poor at a sous a glass, and which most assuredly has not much improved since olden times.
It was about the thirteenth century that brandy first became known in France; but it does not appear that it was recognised as a liqueur before the sixteenth. The celebrated physician Arnauld de Villeneuve, who wrote at the end of the thirteenth century, to whom credit has wrongly been given for inventing brandy, employed it as one of his remedies, and thus expresses himself about it: “Who would have believed that we could have derived from wine a liquor which neither resembles it in nature, colour, or effect?…. This _eau de vin_ is called by some _eau de vie_, and justly so, since it prolongs life…. It prolongs health, dissipates superfluous matters, revives the spirits, and preserves youth. Alone, or added to some other proper remedy, it cures colic, dropsy, paralysis, ague, gravel, &c.”
At a period when so many doctors, alchemists, and other learned men made it their principal occupation to try to discover that marvellous golden fluid which was to free the human race of all its original infirmities, the discovery of such an elixir could not fail to attract the attention of all such manufacturers of panaceas. It was, therefore, under the name of _eau d’or_ (_aqua auri_) that brandy first became known to the world; a name improperly given to it, implying as it did that it was of mineral origin, whereas its beautiful golden colour was caused by the addition of spices. At a later period, when it lost its repute as a medicine, they actually sprinkled it with pure gold leaves, and at the same time that it ceased to be exclusively considered as a remedy, it became a favourite beverage. It was also employed in distilleries, especially as the basis of various strengthening and exciting liqueurs, most of which have descended to us, some coming from monasteries and others from chateaux, where they had been manufactured.
The Kitchen.
Soups, broths, and stews, &c.–The French word _potage_ must originally have signified a soup composed of vegetables and herbs from the kitchen garden, but from the remotest times it was applied to soups in general.
As the Gauls, according to Athenaeus, generally ate their meat boiled, we must presume that they made soup with the water in which it was cooked. It is related that one day Gregory of Tours was sitting at the table of King Chilperic, when the latter offered him a soup specially made in his honour from chicken. The poems of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries mention soups made of peas, of bacon, of vegetables, and of groats. In the southern provinces there were soups made of almonds, and of olive oil. When Du Gueselin went out to fight the English knight William of Blancbourg in single combat, he first ate three sorts of soup made with wine, “in honour of the three persons in the Holy Trinity.”
[Illustration: Fig. 113.–Interior of a Kitchen of the Sixteenth Century.–Fac-simile from a Woodcut in the “Calendarium Romanum” of Jean Staeffler, folio, Tubingen, 1518.]
We find in the “Menagier,” amongst a long list of the common soups the receipts for which are given, soup made of “dried peas and the water in which bacon has been boiled,” and, in Lent, “salted-whale water;” watercress soup, cabbage soup, cheese soup, and _gramose_ soup, which was prepared by adding stewed meat to the water in which meat had already been boiled, and adding beaten eggs and verjuice; and, lastly, the _souppe despourvue_, which was rapidly made at the hotels, for unexpected travellers, and was a sort of soup made from the odds and ends of the larder. In those days there is no doubt but that hot soup formed an indispensable part of the daily meals, and that each person took it at least twice a day, according to the old proverb:–
“Soupe la soir, soupe le matin,
C’est l’ordinaire du bon chretien.”
(“Soup in the evening, and soup in the morning, Is the everyday food of a good Christian.”)
The cooking apparatus of that period consisted of a whole glittering array of cauldrons, saucepans, kettles, and vessels of red and yellow copper, which hardly sufficed for all the rich soups for which France was so famous. Thence the old proverb, “En France sont les grands soupiers.”
But besides these soups, which were in fact looked upon as “common, and without spice,” a number of dishes were served under the generic name of soup, which constituted the principal luxuries at the great tables in the fourteenth century, but which do not altogether bear out the names under which we find them. For instance, there was haricot mutton, a sort of stew; thin chicken broth; veal broth with herbs; soup made of veal, roe, stag, wild boar, pork, hare and rabbit soup flavoured with green peas, &c.
The greater number of these soups were very rich, very expensive, several being served at the same time; and in order to please the eye as well as the taste they were generally made of various colours, sweetened with sugar, and sprinkled with pomegranate seeds and aromatic herbs, such as marjoram, sage, thyme, sweet basil, savoury, &c.
[Illustration: Fig. 114.–Coppersmith, designed and engraved in the Sixteenth Century by J. Amman.]
These descriptions of soups were perfect luxuries, and were taken instead of sweets. As a proof of this we must refer to the famous _soupe doree_, the description of which is given by Taillevent, head cook of Charles VII., in the following words, “Toast slices of bread, throw them into a jelly made of sugar, white wine, yolk of egg, and rosewater; when they are well soaked fry them, then throw them again into the rosewater and sprinkle them with sugar and saffron.”
[Illustration: Fig. 115.–Kitchen and Table Uensils:–
1, Carving-knife (Sixteenth Century); 2, Chalice or Cup, with Cover (Fourteenth Century); 3, Doubled-handled Pot, in Copper (Ninth Century); 4, Metal Boiler, or Tin Pot, taken from “L’Histoire de la Belle Helaine” (Fifteenth Century);
5, Knife (Sixteenth Century);
6, Pot, with Handles (Fourteenth Century); 7, Copper Boiler, taken from “L’Histoire de la Belle Helaine” (Fifteenth Century);
8, Ewer, with Handle, in Oriental Fashion (Ninth Century); 9, Pitcher, sculptured, from among the Decorations of the Church of St. Benedict, Paris (Fifteenth Century);
10, Two-branched Candlestick (Sixteenth Century); 11, Cauldron (Fifteenth Century).
]
It is possible that even now this kind of soup might find some favour; but we cannot say the same for those made with mustard, hemp-seed, millet, verjuice, and a number of others much in repute at that period; for we see in Rabelais that the French were the greatest soup eaters in the world, and boasted to be the inventors of seventy sorts.
We have already remarked that broths were in use at the remotest periods, for, from the time that the practice of boiling various meats was first adopted, it must have been discovered that the water in which they were so boiled became savoury and nourishing. “In the time of the great King Francis I.,” says Noel du Fail, in his “Contes d’Eutrapel,” “in many places the saucepan was put on to the table, on which there was only one other large dish, of beef, mutton, veal, and bacon, garnished with a large bunch of cooked herbs, the whole of which mixture composed a porridge, and a real restorer and elixir of life. From this came the adage, ‘The soup in the great pot and the dainties in the hotch-potch.'”
At one time they made what they imagined to be strengthening broths for invalids, though their virtue must have been somewhat delusive, for, after having boiled down various materials in a close kettle and at a slow fire, they then distilled from this, and the water thus obtained was administered as a sovereign remedy. The common sense of Bernard Palissy did not fail to make him see this absurdity, and to protest against this ridiculous custom: “Take a capon,” he says, “a partridge, or anything else, cook it well, and then if you smell the broth you will find it very good, and if you taste it you will find it has plenty of flavour; so much so that you will feel that it contains something to invigorate you. Distil this, on the contrary, and take the water then collected and taste it, and you will find it insipid, and without smell except that of burning. This should convince you that your restorer does not give that nourishment to the weak body for which you recommend it as a means of making good blood, and restoring and strengthening the spirits.”
The taste for broths made of flour was formerly almost universal in France and over the whole of Europe; it is spoken of repeatedly in the histories and annals of monasteries; and we know that the Normans, who made it their principal nutriment, were surnamed _bouilleux_. They were indeed almost like the Romans who in olden times, before their wars with eastern nations, gave up making bread, and ate their corn simply boiled in water.
In the fourteenth century the broths and soups were made with millet-flour and mixed wheats. The pure wheat flour was steeped in milk seasoned with sugar, saffron, honey, sweet wine or aromatic herbs, and sometimes butter, fat, and yolks of eggs were added. It was on account of this that the bread of the ancients so much resembled cakes, and it was also from this fact that the art of the pastrycook took its rise.
Wheat made into gruel for a long time was an important ingredient in cooking, being the basis of a famous preparation called _fromentee_, which was a _bouillie_ of milk, made creamy by the addition of yolks of eggs, and which served as a liquor in which to roast meats and fish. There were, besides, several sorts of _fromentee_, all equally esteemed, and Taillevent recommended the following receipt, which differs from the one above given:–“First boil your wheat in water, then put into it the juice or gravy of fat meat, or, if you like it better, milk of almonds, and by this means you will make a soup fit for fasts, because it dissolves slowly, is of slow digestion and nourishes much. In this way, too, you can make _ordiat_, or barley soup, which is more generally approved than the said _fromentee_.”
[Illustration: Fig. 116.–Interior of a Kitchen.–Fac-simile from a Woodcut in the “Calendarium Romanum” of J. Staeffler, folio, Tubingen, 1518.]
Semolina, vermicelli, macaroni, &c., which were called Italian because they originally came from that country, have been in use in France longer than is generally supposed. They were first introduced after the expedition of Charles VIII. into Italy, and the conquest of the kingdom of Naples; that is, in the reign of Louis XII., or the first years of the sixteenth century.
Pies, Stews, Roasts, Salads, &c.–Pastry made with fat, which might be supposed to have been the invention of modern kitchens, was in great repute amongst our ancestors. The manufacture of sweet and savoury pastry was intrusted to the care of the good _menagiers_ of all ranks and conditions, and to the corporation of pastrycooks, who obtained their statutes only in the middle of the sixteenth century; the united skill of these, both in Paris and in the provinces, multiplied the different sorts of tarts and meat pies to a very great extent. So much was this the case that these ingenious productions became a special art, worthy of rivalling even cookery itself (Figs. 117, 118, and 130). One of the earliest known receipts for making pies is that of Gaces de la Bigne, first chaplain of Kings John, Charles V., and Charles VI. We find it in a sporting poem, and it deserves to be quoted verbatim as a record of the royal kitchen of the fourteenth century. It will be observed on perusing it that nothing was spared either in pastry or in cookery, and that expense was not considered when it was a question of satisfying the appetite.
“Trois perdriaulx gros et reffais
Au milieu du pate me mets;
Mais gardes bien que tu ne failles A moi prendre six grosses cailles,
De quoi tu les apuyeras.
Et puis apres tu me prendras
Une douzaine d’alouetes
Qu’environ les cailles me mettes,
Et puis pendras de ces maches
Et de ces petits oiseles:
Selon ce que tu en auras,
Le pate m’en billeteras.
Or te fault faire pourveance
D’un pen de lart, sans point de rance, Que tu tailleras comme de:
S’en sera le paste pouldre.
S tu le veux de bonne guise,
Du vertjus la grappe y soit mise,
D’un bien peu de sel soit pouldre … … Fay mettre des oeufs en la paste,
Les croutes un peu rudement
Faictes de flour de pur froment … … N’y mets espices ni fromaige …
Au four bien a point chaud le met, Qui de cendre ait l’atre bien net;
E quand sera bien a point cuit,
I n’est si bon mangier, ce cuit.”
(“Put me in the middle of the pie three young partridges large and fat; But take good care not to fail to take six fine quail to put by their side.
After that you must take a dozen skylarks, which round the quail you must place;
And then you must take some thrushes and such other little birds as you can get to garnish the pie.
Further, you must provide yourself with a little bacon, which must not be in the least rank (reasty), and you must cut it into pieces of the size of a die, and sprinkle them into the pie. If you want it to be in quite good form, you must put some sour grapes in and a very little salt …
… Have eggs put into the paste, and the crust made rather hard of the flour of pure wheat.
Put in neither spice nor cheese … Put it into the oven just at the proper heat, The bottom of which must be quite free from ashes; And when it is baked enough, isn’t that a dish to feast on!”)
From this period all treatises on cookery are full of the same kind of receipts for making “pies of young chickens, of fresh venison, of veal, of eels, of bream and salmon, of young rabbits, of pigeons, of small birds, of geese, and of _narrois_” (a mixture of cod’s liver and hashed fish). We may mention also the small pies, which were made of minced beef and raisins, similar to our mince pies, and which were hawked in the streets of Paris, until their sale was forbidden, because the trade encouraged greediness on the one hand and laziness on the other.
Ancient pastries, owing to their shapes, received the name of _tourte_ or _tarte_, from the Latin _torta_, a large hunch of bread. This name was afterwards exclusively used for hot pies, whether they contained vegetables, meat, or fish. But towards the end of the fourteenth century _tourte_ and _tarte_ was applied to pastry containing, herbs, fruits, or preserves, and _pate_ to those containing any kind of meat, game, or fish.
[Illustration: Fig. 117.–Banner of the Corporation of Pastrycooks of Caen.]
[Illustration: Fig. 118.–Banner of the Corporation of Pastrycooks of Bordeaux.]
It was only in the course of the sixteenth century that the name of _potage_ ceased to be applied to stews, whose number equalled their variety, for on a bill of fare of a banquet of that period we find more than fifty different sorts of _potages_ mentioned. The greater number of these dishes have disappeared from our books on cookery, having gone out of fashion; but there are two stews which were popular during many centuries, and which have maintained their reputation, although they do not now exactly represent what they formerly did. The _pot-pourri_, which was composed of veal, beef, mutton, bacon, and vegetables, and the _galimafree_, a fricassee of poultry, sprinkled with verjuice, flavoured with spices, and surrounded by a sauce composed of vinegar, bread crumbs, cinnamon, ginger, &c. (Fig. 119).
The highest aim of the cooks of the Taillevent school was to make dishes not only palatable, but also pleasing to the eye. These masters in the art of cooking might be said to be both sculptors and painters, so much did they decorate their works, their object being to surprise or amuse the guests by concealing the real nature of the disbes. Froissart, speaking of a repast given in his time, says that there were a number of “dishes so curious and disguised that it was impossible to guess what they were.” For instance, the bill of fare above referred to mentions a lion and a sun made of white chicken, a pink jelly, with diamond-shaped points; and, as if the object of cookery was to disguise food and deceive epicures, Taillevent facetiously gives us a receipt for making fried or roast butter and for cooking eggs on the spit.
[Illustration: Fig. 119.–Interior of Italian Kitchen.–Fac-simile of a Woodcut in the Book on Cookery of Christoforo di Messisburgo, “Banchetti compositioni di Vivende,” 4to., Ferrara, 1549.]
The roasts were as numerous as the stews. A treatise of the fourteenth century names about thirty, beginning with a sirloin of beef, which must have been one of the most common, and ending with a swan, which appeared on table in full plumage. This last was the triumph of cookery, inasmuch as it presented this magnificent bird to the eyes of the astonished guests just as if he were living and swimming. His beak was gilt, his body silvered, resting ‘on a mass of brown pastry, painted green in order to represent a grass field. Eight banners of silk were placed round, and a cloth of the same material served as a carpet for the whole dish, which towered above the other appointments of the table.
[Illustration: Fig. 120.–Hunting-Meal.–Fac-simile of a Miniature in the Manuscript of the “Livre du Roy Modus” (National Library of Paris).]
The peacock, which was as much thought of then as it is little valued now, was similarly arrayed, and was brought to table amidst a flourish of trumpets and the applause of all present. The modes of preparing other roasts much resembled the present system in their simplicity, with this difference, that strong meats were first boiled to render them tender, and no roast was ever handed over to the skill of the carver without first being thoroughly basted with orange juice and rose water, and covered with sugar and powdered spices.
We must not forget to mention the broiled dishes, the invention of which is attributed to hunters, and which Rabelais continually refers to as acting as stimulants and irresistibly exciting the thirst for wine at the sumptuous feasts of those voracious heroes (Fig. 120).
The custom of introducing salads after roasts was already established in the fifteenth century. However, a salad, of whatever sort, was never brought to table in its natural state; for, besides the raw herbs, dressed in the same manner as in our days, it contained several mixtures, such as cooked vegetables, and the crests, livers, or brains of poultry. After the salads fish was served; sometimes fried, sometimes sliced with eggs or reduced to a sort of pulp, which was called _carpee_ or _charpie_, and sometimes it was boiled in water or wine, with strong seasoning. Near the salads, in the course of the dinner, dishes of eggs prepared in various ways were generally served. Many of these are now in use, such as the poached egg, the hard-boiled egg, egg sauce, &c.
[Illustration: Fig. 121.–Shop of a Grocer and Druggist, from a Stamp of Vriese (Seventeenth Century).]
Seasonings.–We have already stated that the taste for spices much increased in Europe after the Crusades; and in this rapid historical sketch of the food of the French people in the Middle Ages it must have been observed to what an extent this taste had become developed in France (Fig. 121). This was the origin of sauces, all, or almost all, of which were highly spiced, and were generally used with boiled, roast, or grilled meats. A few of these sauces, such as the yellow, the green, and the _cameline_, became so necessary in cooking that numerous persons took to manufacturing them by wholesale, and they were hawked in the streets of Paris.
These sauce-criers were first called _saulciers_, then _vinaigriers-moustardiers_, and when Louis XII. united them in a body, as their business had considerably increased, they were termed _sauciers-moutardiers-vinaigriers_, distillers of brandy and spirits of wine, and _buffetiers_ (from _buffet_, a sideboard).
[Illustration: Fig. 122.–The Cook, drawn and engraved, in the Sixteenth Century, by J. Amman.]
But very soon the corporation became divided, no doubt from the force of circumstances; and on one side we find the distillers, and on the other the master-cooks and cooks, or _porte-chapes_, as they were called, because, when they carried on their business of cooking, they covered their dishes with a _chape_, that is, a cope or tin cover (Fig. 122), so as to keep them warm.
The list of sauces of the fourteenth century, given by the “Menagier de Paris,” is most complicated; but, on examining the receipts, it becomes clear that the variety of those preparations, intended to sharpen the appetite, resulted principally from the spicy ingredients with which they were flavoured; and it is here worthy of remark that pepper, in these days exclusively obtained from America, was known and generally used long before the time of Columbus. It is mentioned in a document, of the time of Clotaire III. (660); and it is clear, therefore, that before the discovery of the New World pepper and spices were imported into Europe from the East.
Mustard, which was an ingredient in so many dishes, was cultivated and manufactured in the thirteenth century in the neighbourhood of Dijon and Angers.
According to a popular adage, garlic was the medicine (_theriaque_) of peasants; town-people for a long time greatly appreciated _aillee_, which was a sauce made of garlic, and sold ready prepared in the streets of Paris.
The custom of using anchovies as a flavouring is also very ancient. This was also done with _botargue_ and _cavial_, two sorts of side-dishes, which consisted of fishes’ eggs, chiefly mullet and sturgeon, properly salted or dried, and mixed with fresh or pickled olives. The olives for the use of the lower orders were brought from Languedoc and Provence, whereas those for the rich were imported from Spain and some from Syria. It was also from the south of France that the rest of the kingdom was supplied with olive oil, for which, to this day, those provinces have preserved their renown; but as early as the twelfth and thirteenth centuries oil of walnuts was brought from the centre of France to Paris, and this, although cheaper, was superseded by oil extracted from the poppy.
Truffles, though known and esteemed by the ancients, disappeared from the gastronomie collection of our forefathers. It was only in the fourteenth century that they were again introduced, but evidently without a knowledge of their culinary qualities, since, after being preserved in vinegar, they were soaked in hot water, and afterwards served up in butter. We may also here mention sorrel and the common mushroom, which were used in cooking during the Middle Ages.
On the strength of the old proverb, “Sugar has never spoiled sauce,” sugar was put into all sauces which were not _piquantes_, and generally some perfumed water was added to them, such as rose-water. This was made in great quantities by exposing to the sun a basin full of water, covered over by another basin of glass, under which was a little vase containing rose-leaves. This rose-water was added to all stews, pastries, and beverages. It is very doubtful as to the period at which white lump sugar became known in the West. However, in an account of the house of the Dauphin Viennois (1333) mention is made of “white sugar;” and the author of the “Menagier de Paris” frequently speaks of this white sugar, which, before the discovery, or rather colonisation, of America, was brought, ready refined, from the Grecian islands, and especially from Candia.
[Illustration: Fig. 123.–The _Issue de Table_.–Fac-simile of a Woodcut in the Treatise of Christoforo di Messisburgo, “Banchetti compositioni di Vivende,” 4to., Ferrara, 1549.]
Verjuice, or green juice, which, with vinegar, formed the essential basis of sauces, and is now extracted from a species of green grape, which never ripens, was originally the juice of sorrel; another sort was extracted by pounding the green blades of wheat. Vinegar was originally merely soured wine, as the word _vin-aigre_ denotes. The mode of manufacturing it by artificial means, in order to render the taste more pungent and the quality better, is very ancient. It is needless to state that it was scented by the infusion of herbs or flowers–roses, elder, cloves, &c.; but it was not much before the sixteenth century that it was used for pickling herbs or fruits and vegetables, such as gherkins, onions, cucumber, purslain, &c.
Salt, which from the remotest periods was the condiment _par excellence_, and the trade in which had been free up to the fourteenth century, became, from that period, the subject of repeated taxation. The levying of these taxes was a frequent cause of tumult amongst the people, who saw with marked displeasure the exigencies of the excise gradually raising the price of an article of primary necessity. We have already mentioned times during which the price of salt was so exorbitant that the rich alone could put it in their bread. Thus, in the reign of Francis I., it was almost as dear as Indian spices.
Sweet Dishes, Desserts, &c.–In the fourteenth century, the first courses of a repast were called _mets_ or _assiettes_; the last, “_entremets, dorures, issue de table, desserte_, and _boule-hors_.”
The dessert consisted generally of baked pears, medlars, pealed walnuts, figs, dates, peaches, grapes, filberts, spices, and white or red sugar-plums.
At the _issue de table_ wafers or some other light pastry were introduced, which were eaten with the hypocras wine. The _boute-hors,_ which was served when the guests, after having washed their hands and said grace, had passed into the drawing-room, consisted of spices, different from those which had appeared at dessert, and intended specially to assist the digestion; and for this object they must have been much needed, considering that a repast lasted several hours. Whilst eating these spices they drank Grenache, Malmsey, or aromatic wines (Fig. 123).
It was only at the banquets and great repeats that sweet dishes and _dorures_ appeared, and they seem to have been introduced for the purpose of exhibiting the power of the imagination and the talent in execution of the master-cook.
The _dorures_ consisted of jellies of all sorts and colours; swans, peacocks, bitterns, and herons, on gala feasts, were served in full feather on a raised platform in the middle of the table, and hence the name of “raised dishes.” As for the side-dishes, properly so called, the long list collected in the “Menagier” shows us that they were served at table indiscriminately, for stuffed chickens at times followed hashed porpoise in sauce, lark pies succeeded lamb sausages, and pike’s-eggs fritters appeared after orange preserve.
At a later period the luxury of side-dishes consisted in the quantity and in the variety of the pastry; Rabelais names sixteen different sorts at one repast; Taillevent mentions pastry called _covered pastry, Bourbonnaise pastry, double-faced pastry, pear pastry_, and _apple pastry_; Platina speaks of the _white pastry_ with quince, elder flowers, rice, roses, chestnuts, &c. The fashion of having pastry is, however, of very ancient date, for in the book of the “Proverbs” of the thirteenth century, we find that the pies of Dourlens and the pastry of Chartres were then in great celebrity.
[Illustration: Fig. 124.–The Table of a Baron, as laid out in the Thirteenth Century.–Miniature from the “Histoire de St. Graal” (Manuscript from the Imperial Library, Paris).]
In a charter of Robert le Bouillon, Bishop of Amiens, in 1311, mention is made of a cake composed of puff flaky paste; these cakes, however, are less ancient than the firm pastry called bean cake, or king’s cake, which, from the earliest days of monarchy, appeared on all the tables, not only at the feast of the Epiphany, but also on every festive occasion.
Amongst the dry and sweet pastries from the small oven which appeared at the _issue de table_, the first to be noticed were those made of almonds, nuts, &c., and such choice morsels, which were very expensive; then came the cream or cheesecakes, the _petits choux_, made of butter and eggs; the _echaudes_, of which the people were very fond, and St. Louis even allowed the bakers to cook them on Sundays and feast days for the poor; wafers, which are older than the thirteenth century; and lastly the _oublies_, which, under the names of _nieules, esterets_, and _supplications_, gave rise to such an extensive trade that a corporation was established in Paris, called the _oublayeurs, oublayers,_ or _oublieux_, whose statutes directed that none should be admitted to exercise the trade unless he was able to make in one day 500 large _oublies_, 300 _supplications_, and 200 _esterets_.
Repasts and Feasts.
We have had to treat elsewhere of the rules and regulations of the repasts under the Merovingian and Carlovingian kings. We have also spoken of the table service of the thirteenth century (see chapter on “Private Life”). The earliest author who has left us any documents on this curious subject is that excellent bourgeois to whom we owe the “Menagier de Paris.” He describes, for instance, in its fullest details, a repast which was given in the fourteenth century by the Abbe de Lagny, to the Bishop of Paris, the President of the Parliament, the King’s attorney and advocate, and other members of his council, in all sixteen guests. We find from this account that “my lord of Paris, occupying the place of honour, was, in consequence of his rank, served on covered dishes by three of his squires, as was the custom for the King, the royal princes, the dukes, and peers; that Master President, who was seated by the side of the bishop, was also served by one of his own servants, but on uncovered dishes, and the other guests were seated at table according to the order indicated by their titles or charges.”
The bill of fare of this feast, which was given on a fast-day, is the more worthy of attention, in that it proves to us what numerous resources cookery already possessed. This was especially the case as regards fish, notwithstanding that the transport of fresh sea-fish was so difficult, owing to the bad state of the roads.
First, a quarter of a pint of Grenache was given to each guest on sitting down, then “hot _eschaudes_, roast apples with white sugar-plums upon them, roasted figs, sorrel and watercress, and rosemary.”
“Soups.–A rich soup, composed of six trout, six tenches, white herring, freshwater eels, salted twenty-four hours, and three whiting, soaked twelve hours; almonds, ginger, saffron, cinnamon powder and sweetmeats.
“Salt-Water Fish.–Soles, gurnets, congers, turbots, and salmon.
“Fresh-Water Fish.–_Lux faudis_ (pike with roe), carps from the Marne, breams.
“Side-Dishes.–Lampreys _a la boee_, orange-apples (one for each guest), porpoise with sauce, mackerel, soles, bream, and shad _a la cameline_, with verjuice, rice and fried almonds upon them; sugar and apples.
[Illustration: Fig. 125.–Officers of the Table and of the Chamber of the Imperial Court: Cup-bearer, Cook, Barber, and Tailor, from a Picture in the “Triomphe de Maximilien T.,” engraved by J. Resch, Burgmayer, and others (1512), from Drawings by Albert Durer.]
“Dessert.–Stewed fruit with white and vermilion sugar-plums; figs, dates, grapes, and filberts.
“Hypocras for _issue de table_, with _oublies_ and _supplications_.
“Wines and spices compose the _baute-hors_.”
To this fasting repast we give by way of contrast the bill of fare at the nuptial feast of Master Helye, “to which forty guests were bidden on a Tuesday in May, a ‘day of flesh.'”
“Soups.–Capons with white sauce, ornamented with pomegranate and crimson sweetmeats.
“Roasts.–Quarter of roe-deer, goslings, young chickens, and sauces of orange, cameline, and verjuice.
“Side-Dishes.–Jellies of crayfish and loach; young rabbits and pork.
“Dessert.–_Froumentee_ and venison.
“Issue.–Hypocras.
“Boute-Hors.–Wine and spices.”
The clever editor of the “Menagier de Paris,” M. le Baron Jerome Pichon, after giving us this curious account of the mode of living of the citizens of that day, thus sums up the whole arrangements for the table in the fourteenth century: “The different provisions necessary for food are usually entrusted to the squires of the kitchen, and were chosen, purchased, and paid for by one or more of these officials, assisted by the cooks. The dishes prepared by the cooks were placed, by the help of the esquires, on dressers in the kitchen until the moment of serving. Thence they were carried to the tables. Let us imagine a vast hall hung with tapestries and other brilliant stuffs. The tables are covered with fringed table-cloths, and strewn with odoriferous herbs; one of them, called the Great Table, is reserved for the persons of distinction. The guests are taken to their seats by two butlers, who bring them water to wash. The Great Table is laid out by a butler, with silver salt-cellars (Figs. 126 and 127), golden goblets with lids for the high personages, spoons and silver drinking cups. The guests eat at least certain dishes on _tranchoirs_, or large slices of thick bread, afterwards thrown into vases called _couloueres_ (drainers). For the other tables the salt is placed on pieces of bread, scooped out for that purpose by the intendants, who are called _porte-chappes._ In the hall is a dresser covered with plate and various kinds of wine. Two squires standing near this dresser give the guests clean spoons, pour out what wine they ask for, and remove the silver when used; two other squires superintend the conveyance of wine to the dresser; a varlet placed under their orders is occupied with nothing but drawing wine from the casks.” At that time wine was not bottled, and they drew directly from the cask the amount necessary for the day’s consumption. “The dishes, consisting of three, four, five, and even six courses, called _mets_ or _assiettes_, are brought in by varlets and two of the principal squires, and in certain wedding-feasts the bridegroom walked in front of them. The dishes are placed on the table by an _asseeur_ (placer), assisted by two servants. The latter take away the remains at the conclusion of the course, and hand them over to the squires of the kitchen who have charge of them. After the _mets_ or _assiettes_ the table-cloths are changed, and the _entremets_ are then brought in. This course is the most brilliant of the repast, and at some of the princely banquets the dishes are made to imitate a sort of theatrical representation. It is composed of sweet dishes, of coloured jellies of swans, of peacocks, or of pheasants adorned with their feathers, having the beak and feet gilt, and placed on the middle of the table on a sort of pedestal. To the _entremets_, a course which does not appear on all bills of fare, succeeds the dessert. The _issue_, or exit from table, is mostly composed of hypocras and a sort of _oublie_ called _mestier_; or, in summer, when hypocras is out of season on account of its strength, of apples, cheeses, and sometimes of pastries and sweetmeats. The _boute-hors_ (wines and spices) end the repast. The guests then wash their hands, say grace, and pass into the _chambre de parement_ or drawing-room. The servants then sit down and dine after their masters. They subsequently bring the guests wine and _epices de chambre_, after which each retires home.”
[Illustration: Figs. 126 and 127.–Sides of an Enamelled Salt-cellar, with six facings representing the Labours of Hercules, made at Limoges, by Pierre Raymond, for Francis I.]
But all the pomp and magnificence of the feasts of this period would have appeared paltry a century later, when royal banquets were managed by Taillevent, head cook to Charles VII. The historian of French cookery, Legrand d’Aussy, thus desoribes a great feast given in 1455 by the Count of Anjou, third son of Louis II., King of Sicily:–
“On the table was placed a centre-piece, which represented a green lawn, surrounded with large peacocks’ feathers and green branches, to which were tied violets and other sweet-smelling flowers. In the middle of this lawn a fortress was placed, covered with silver. This was hollow, and formed a sort of cage, in which several live birds were shut up, their tufts and feet being gilt. On its tower, which was gilt, three banners were placed, one bearing the arms of the count, the two others those of Mesdemoiselles de Chateaubrun and de Villequier, in whose honour the feast was given.
“The first course consisted of a civet of hare, a quarter of stag which had been a night in salt, a stuffed chicken, and a loin of veal. The two last dishes were covered with a German sauce, with gilt sugar-plums, and pomegranate seeds…. At each end, outside the green lawn, was an enormous pie, surmounted with smaller pies, which formed a crown. The crust of the large ones was silvered all round and gilt at the top; each contained a whole roe-deer, a gosling, three capons, six chickens, ten pigeons, one young rabbit, and, no doubt to serve as seasoning or stuffing, a minced loin of veal, two pounds of fat, and twenty-six hard-boiled eggs, covered with saffron and flavoured with cloves. For the three following courses, there was a roe-deer, a pig, a sturgeon cooked in parsley and vinegar, and covered with powdered ginger; a kid, two goslings, twelve chickens, as many pigeons, six young rabbits, two herons, a leveret, a fat capon stuffed, four chickens covered with yolks of eggs and sprinkled with powder _de Duc_ (spice), a wild boar, some wafers (_darioles_), and stars; a jelly, part white and part red, representing the crests of the three above-mentioned persons; cream with _Duc_ powder, covered with fennel seeds preserved in sugar; a white cream, cheese in slices, and strawberries; and, lastly, plums stewed in rose-water. Besides these four courses, there was a fifth, entirely composed of the prepared wines then in vogue, and of preserves. These consisted of fruits and various sweet pastries. The pastries represented stags and swans, to the necks of which were suspended the arms of the Count of Anjou and those of the two young ladies.”
In great houses, dinner was announced by the sound of the hunting-horn; this is what Froissard calls _corner l’assiette,_ but which was at an earlier period called _corner l’eau_, because it was the custom to wash the hands before sitting down to table as well as on leaving the dining-room.
[Illustration: Fig. 128.–Knife-handles in Sculptured Ivory, Sixteenth Century (Collection of M. Becker, of Frankfort).]
[Illustration: Fig. 129.–Nut-crackers, in Boxwood, Sixteenth Century (Collection of M. Achille Jubinal).]
For these ablutions scented water, and especially rose-water, was used, brought in ewers of precious and delicately wrought metals, by pages or squires, who handed them to the ladies in silver basins. It was at about this period, that is, in the times of chivalry, that the custom of placing the guests by couples was introduced, generally a gentleman and lady, each couple having but one cup and one plate; hence the expression, to eat from the same plate.
Historians relate that in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, at certain gala feasts, the dishes were brought in by servants in full armour, mounted on caparisoned horses; but this is a custom exclusively attached to chivalry. As early as those days, powerful and ingenious machines were in use, which lowered from the story above, or raised from that below, ready-served tables, which were made to disappear after use as if by enchantment.
At that period the table service of the wealthy required a considerable staff of retainers and varlets; and, at a later period, this number was much increased. Thus, for instance, when Louis of Orleans went on a diplomatic mission to Germany from his brother Charles VI., this prince, in order that France might be worthily represented abroad, raised the number of his household to more than two hundred and fifty persons, of whom about one hundred were retainers and table attendants. Olivier de la Marche, who, in his “Memoires,” gives the most minute details of the ceremonial of the court of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, tells us that the table service was as extensive as in the other great princely houses.
This extravagant and ruinous pomp fell into disuse during the reigns of Louis XI., Charles VIII., and Louis XII., but reappeared in that of Francis I. This prince, after his first wars in Italy, imported the cookery and the gastronomic luxury of that country, where the art of good living, especially in Venice, Florence, and Rome, had reached the highest degree of refinement and magnificence. Henry II. and Francis II. maintained the magnificence of their royal tables; but after them, notwithstanding the soft effeminacy of the manners at court, the continued wars which Henry III. and Charles IX. had to sustain in their own states against the Protestants and the League necessitated a considerable economy in the households and tables of those kings.
“It was only by fits and starts,” says Brantome, “that one was well fed during this reign, for very often circumstances prevented the proper preparation of the repasts; a thing much disliked by the courtiers, who prefer open table to be kept at both court and with the army, because it then costs them nothing.” Henry IV. was neither fastidious nor greedy; we must therefore come down to the reign of Louis XIII. to find a vestige of the splendour of the banquets of Francis I.
[Illustration: Fig. 130.–Grand Ceremonial Banquet at the Court of France in the Fourteenth Century, archaeological Restoration from Miniatures and Narratives of the Period.
From the “Dictionnaire du Mobilier Francais” of M. Viollet-Leduc.]
From the establishment of the Franks in Gaul down to the fifteenth century inclusive, there were but two meals a day; people dined at ten o’clock in the morning, and supped at four in the afternoon. In the sixteenth century they put back dinner one hour and supper three hours, to which many people objected. Hence the old proverb:–
“Lever a six, diner a dix,
Souper a six, coucher a dix,
Fait vivre l’homme dix fois dix.”
(“To rise at six, dine at ten,
Sup at six, to bed at ten,
Makes man live ten times ten.”)
[Illustration: Fig. 131.–Banner of the Corporation of Pastrycooks of Tonnerre.]
Hunting.
Venery and Hawking.–Origin of Aix-la-Chapelle.–Gaston Phoebus and his Book.–The Presiding Deities of Sportsmen.–Sporting Societies and Brotherhoods.–Sporting Kings: Charlemagne, Louis IX., Louis XI., Charles VIII., Louis XII., Francis I., &c.–Treatise on Venery.–Sporting Popes.–Origin of Hawking.–Training Birds.–Hawking Retinues.–Book of King Modus.–Technical Terms used in Hawking.–Persons who have excelled in this kind of Sport.–Fowling.
By the general term hunting is included the three distinct branches of an art, or it may be called a science, which dates its origin from the earliest times, but which was particularly esteemed in the Middle Ages, and was especially cultivated in the glorious days of chivalry.
_Venery_, which is the earliest, is defined by M. Elzear Blaze as “the science of snaring, taking, or killing one particular animal from amongst a herd.” _Hawking_ came next. This was not only the art of hunting with the falcon, but that of training birds of prey to hunt feathered game. Lastly, _l’oisellerie_ (fowling), which, according to the author of several well-known works on the subject we are discussing, had originally no other object than that of protecting the crops and fruits from birds and other animals whose nature it was to feed on them.
Venery will be first considered. Sportsmen always pride themselves in placing Xenophon, the general, philosopher, and historian, at the head of sporting writers, although his treatise on the chase (translated from the Greek into Latin under the title of “De Venatione”), which gives excellent advice respecting the training of dogs, only speaks of traps and nets for capturing wild animals. Amongst the Greeks Arrian and Oppian, and amongst the Romans, Gratius Faliscus and Nemesianus, wrote on the same subject. Their works, however, except in a few isolated or scattered passages, do not contain anything about venery properly so called, and the first historical information on the subject is to be found in the records of the seventh century.
Long after that period, however, they still hunted, as it were, at random, attacking the first animal they met. The sports of Charlemagne, for instance, were almost always of this description. On some occasions they killed animals of all sorts by thousands, after having tracked and driven them into an enclosure composed of cloths or nets.
This illustrious Emperor, although usually at war in all parts of Europe, never missed an opportunity of hunting: so much so that it might be said that he rested himself by galloping through the forests. He was on these occasions not only followed by a large number of huntsmen and attendants of his household, but he was accompanied by his wife and daughters, mounted on magnificent coursers, and surrounded by a numerous and elegant court, who vied with each other in displaying their skill and courage in attacking the fiercest animals.
It is even stated that Aix-la-Chapelle owes its origin to a hunting adventure of Charlemagne. The Emperor one day while chasing a stag required to cross a brook which came in his path, but immediately his horse had set his foot in the water he pulled it out again and began to limp as if it were hurt. His noble rider dismounted, and on feeling the foot found it was quite hot. This induced him to put his hand into the water, which he found to be almost boiling. On that very spot therefore he caused a chapel to be erected, in the shape of a horse’s hoof. The town was afterwards built, and to this day the spring of hot mineral water is enclosed under a rotunda, the shape of which reminds one of the old legend of Charlemagne and his horse.
The sons of Charlemagne also held hunting in much esteem, and by degrees the art of venery was introduced and carried to great perfection. It was not, however, until the end of the thirteenth century that an anonymous author conceived the idea of writing its principal precepts in an instructive poem, called “Le Dict de la Chace du Cerf.” In 1328 another anonymous writer composed the “Livre du Roy Modus,” which contains the rules for hunting all furred animals, from the stag to the hare. Then followed other poets and writers of French prose, such as Gace de la Vigne (1359), Gaston Phoebus (1387), and Hardouin, lord of Fontaine-Guerin (1394). None of these, however, wrote exclusively on venery, but described the different sports known in their day. Towards 1340, Alphonse XI., king of Castile, caused a book on hunting to be compiled for his use; but it was not so popular as the instruction of Gaston Phoebus (Fig. 132). If hunting with hounds is known everywhere by the French name of the chase, it is because the honour of having organized it into a system, if not of having originated it, is due to the early French sporting authors, who were able to form a code of rules for it. This also accounts for so many of the technical terms now in use in venery being of French origin, as they are no others than those adopted by these ancient authors, whose works, so to speak, have perpetuated them.
[Illustration: Fig. 132.–Gaston Phoebus teaching the Art of Venery.–Fac-simile of a Miniature of “Phoebus and his Staff for Hunting