(Continued from part 1)
Despite the fact they resided at the top of the feudal pyramid, medieval noblemen were not all created equally.Rather, noblemen were subdivided based on whether they were lords, heirs, or younger sons.
Rather, the feudal system saw a single, all-powerful monarch as ruler of everyone and everything; a couple handfuls of earls or other magnates – direct liegemen of the king – below that; many more subinfeudated lords of lesser nobility below the magnates, sometimes two or three levels down; and finally, at the lowest levels of society, the non-noble peasants who held land in exchange for their labour upon it in producing their lord’s food.
Medieval knights paying a portion of their “knight’s fees”
A vassal’s assorted obligations to his lord – his so-called “knight’s fee” – were collectively deemed military in nature. However, as mentioned in my previous post on the feudal system, this isn’t to say all of a vassal’s responsibilities involved fighting.
Medieval commendation ritual
In the history books, all of this is more commonly referred to as the feudal system, which was the dominant structure of society in England for some four hundred years, and in continental Europe, even longer.
In this first of three post on this subject, I’ll provide a general overview of what the feudal system was.
Remnants of Peveril Castle’s keep: the basement as viewed from the upper level
As shown in the artist’s rendition to the right, it contained only two rooms – a principal chamber and a basement underneath that was likely used for storage and accessed via a spiral staircase.
The keep also had a latrine, a wall cupboard, and a large window looking out over the rest of the castle and the surrounding Hope Valley, but it didn’t have a fireplace, any food service rooms, or even a well.
Remnants of the keep and curtain wall of Peveril Castle in Derbyshire, England
These drawings always took a similar form: a large square in the middle of the paper, two taller turrets on either side, and a wall that extended the remaining length of the page on either side. I even owned a stencil that had a guide for making square waves that I used on the upper edges of each part of the picture.
For a frontal, ground level representation by an eight-year-old, I actually think I did pretty well, having depicted the three key components of the average medieval English castle: the keep, the tower, and the curtain wall.
Dinner scene from the Luttrell Psalter (c.1320-1340, Lincolnshire, England)
The time has now come to take a seat at said table and finish finding out.
The very first point of difference one might encounter relates to the time of day “dinner” was actually served. One might expect that turning up anywhere between 6:00 and 8:00pm as is common for modern dinners (particularly in North America) would also apply to the 13th century.
Cooking scene from the Luttrell Psalter (c.1320-1340, Lincolnshire, England)
In my previous post on medieval food, I discussed the raw ingredients that comprised medieval cookery.
In turning now to discuss how that cookery was done and what recipes often resulted, a key point made by Margaret Wade Labarge, author of Mistress, Maids and Men: Baronial Life in the Thirteenth Century, is as follows:
The medieval baron liked a complicated and highly seasoned dish. (p.118).
Kitchen scene from the Luttrell Psalter (c.1320-1340, Lincolnshire, England)
An experience so different, it will be the subject of three separate posts in this blog series, the first of which (today’s) focuses on the raw ingredients of medieval cuisine.
Three versions of Maid Marian (a 13th century character associated with Robin Hood), of which the more authentic outfit is that of the fox.
The clothing, incidentally, is one of the aspects Hollywood most often get wrong.
Typically, this occurs through clothing styles from one century being mis-attributing to another. This despite what author Mary G. Houston writes in Medieval Costume in England and France: The 13th, 14th and 15th Centuries:
What can be more diverse than the noble simplicity of construction and natural silhouette of the thirteenth century, compared with the slender elegance of the fourteenth, and the riot of variety and exaggeration in the fifteenth century. (pp. v-vi)
A Frame Around Infinity 