was held at the castle, in 1179, by the two kings; and, in 1184, Henry for the last time celebrated his Christmas in the same hall of state: his son, who had shared the throne with him, being then dead.For the festivals of this period the tables of princes, prelates, and great barons were plentifully supplied with many dishes of meat dressed in various ways. The Normans sent agents into different countries to collect the most rare dishes for their tables, by which means, says John of Salisbury, this island, which is naturally productive of plenty and variety of provisions, was overflowed with everything that could inflame a luxurious appetite. The same writer says he was present at an entertainment which lasted from three o'clock in the afternoon to midnight; at which delicacies were served up which had been brought from Constantinople, Babylon, Alexandria, Palestine,055 Tripoli, Syria, and Phoenicia. The sumptuous entertainments which the kings of England gave to their nobles and prelates at the festivals of Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide diffused a taste for profuse and expensive banqueting;
for the wealthy barons, prelates, and gentry, in their own castles and mansions, imitated the splendour of the royal entertainments. Great men had some kinds of provisions at their tables which are not now to be found in Britain. When Henry II. entertained his own court, the great officers of his army, and all the kings and great men in Ireland, at the feast of Christmas, 1171, the Irish princes and chieftains were quite astonished at the profusion and variety of provisions which they beheld, and were with difficulty prevailed on by Henry to eat the flesh of cranes, a kind of food to which they had not been accustomed. Dellegrout, maupigyrum, karumpie, and other dishes were then used, the composition of which is now unknown, or doubtful. Persons of rank and wealth had variety
of drinks, as well as meats; for, besides wines of various kinds, they had pigment, morat, mead, hypocras, claret, cider, perry, and ale.
The claret of those times was wine clarified and mixed with spices, and hypocras was wine mixed with honey.
a cook of the period.
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The profusion of viands and drinks, obtained at great expense from different parts of the world for the gratification of the animal
appetites at such festivals as have been described, naturally led to
Excesses in Eating and Drinking,
and from the statements and illustrations in old manuscripts it would appear that "the merry monks" were prominent in gastronomi-cal circles. And extant records also state that the abbots of some of the monasteries found it necessary to make regulations restrain-ing the monks, and to these regulations the monks objected. Consequently the monks of St. Swithin at Winchester made a formal complaint to Henry II. against their abbot for taking away three of the thirteen dishes they used to have at dinner. The monks of Canterbury were still more luxurious, for they had at least seventeen dishes every day besides a dessert; and these dishes were dressed with spices and sauces which excited the appetite as well as pleased the taste. And of course the festive season of Christmas was an occasion of special indulgence. Sometimes serious excesses were followed by severe discipline, administered after the manner shown in the ancient illustration which is reproduced here.
monk undergoing discipline.
But these excesses were by no means confined to the monks. The Norman barons and gentry adopted many of the manners of
the English among whom they lived, and especially was this the case in regard to the drinking customs of Christmastide. Instead of commending the Normans of his time for their sobriety, as he might have done their ancestors, Peter of Blois, who was chaplain to Henry II., says: "When you behold our barons and knights going upon a military expedition you see their baggage horses loaded, not with iron but wine, not with057 lances but cheeses, not with swords but bottles, not with spears but spits. You would imagine they were going to prepare a great feast rather than to make war. There are even too many who boast of their excessive drunkenness and gluttony, and labour to acquire fame by swallowing great quantities of meat and drink." The earliest existing carol known to antiquaries is in the Anglo-Norman language, and contains references to the drinking customs of the period:--
"To English ale, and Gascon wine,
And French, doth Christmas much incline-- And Anjou's too;
He makes his neighbour freely drink, So that in sleep his head doth sink Often by day.
May joys flow from God above
To all those who Christmas love.
Lords, by Christmas and the host Of this mansion hear my toast-- Drink it well--
Each must drain his cup of wine, And I the first will toss off mine: Thus I advise,
Here then I bid you all Wassail,
Cursed be he who will not say Drinkhail." [17]
wassailing at christmastide.
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Proceeding with our historical narrative we come now to
The Romantic Reign of Richard the First,
surnamed Coeur de Lion, the second son of Henry II. and Eleanor of Aquitaine, who succeeded to the English throne on the death of his father in 1189. Richard is generally supposed to have derived his surname from a superiority of animal courage; but, if the metrical romance bearing his name, and written in the thirteenth century, be entitled to credit, he earned it nobly and literally, by plucking out the heart of a lion, to whose fury he had been exposed by the Duke of Austria for having slain his son with a blow of his fist. In the numerous descriptions afforded by the romance Richard is a most imposing personage. He is said to have carried with him to the Crusades, and to have afterwards presented to Tancred, King of Sicily, the wonder-working sword of King Arthur--
"The gude sword
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that Arthur luffed so well."
He is also said to have carried a shaft, or lance, 14 feet in length, and
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"An axe for the nones,
To break therewith the Sarasyns bones. The head was wrought right wele, Therein was twenty pounds of steel."
But, without attempting to follow Richard through all the brilliant episodes of his romantic career, there can be no doubt that he was a king of great strength and courage, and that his valorous deeds won the admiration of poets and chroniclers, who have surrounded him with a splendid halo of romance. Contemporary writers tell us that while Richard kept magnificent Christmases abroad with the King of Sicily and other potentates, his justiciars (especially the extravagant William Longchamp, Bishop of Ely) were no less lavish
in their expenditure for festive entertainments at home. And the old romance of "Richard Coeur de Lion" assures us that--
"Christmas is a time full honest;
Kyng Richard it honoured with gret feste. All his clerks and barouns
Were set in their pavylouns, And seryed with grete plente
Of mete and drink and each dainte."
There is no doubt that the Crusades had a vast influence upon our literary tastes, as well as upon the national manners and the festivities of Christmastide. On their return from the Holy Land the pilgrims and Crusaders brought with them new subjects for theatrical
