Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/368

 34^ Hijiory of Domejiic Manners for doubt that our Anglo-Saxon forefathers indulged in much eating ; but, as far as we can gather, for our information is very imperfeft, this indulgence conlifted more in the quantity than in the quality of the food, for their cookery feems to have been in general what we call "plain." Refinement in cookery appears to have come in with the Normans ; and from the twelfth century to the fixteenth we can trace the love of the table continually increafing. The monks, whofe inftitution had, to a certain degree, feparated them from the reft of the world, and who ufually, and from the circumftances perhaps naturally, fought fenfual gratifications, fell foon into the fin of gluttony, and they feem to have led the way in refinement in the variety and elaborate charafter of their difiies. Giraldus Cambrenfis, an ecclefiaftic himfelf, complains in very indignant terms of the luxurious table kept by the monks of Canterbury in the latter half of the twelfth century; and he relates an anecdote which fliows how tar at that time the clergy were, in this refpeft, in advance of the laity. One day, when Henry II. paid a vifit to Win- chefter, the prior and monks of St. Swithin met him, and fell on their knees before him to complain of the tyranny of their bifliop. When the king alked what was their grievance, they faid that their table had been curtailed of three difties. The king, fomewhat furprifed at this com- plaint, and imagining, no doubt, that the billiop had not left them enough to eat, inquired how many difiies he had left them. They replied, ten 3 at which the king, in a fit of indignation, told them that he himfelf had no more than three difiies to his table, and uttered an imprecation againft the bifliop, unlets he reduced them to the fame number. But although we have abundant evidence of the general fa£t that our Norman and Englifli forefathers loved the table, we have but imperfed information on the charader of their cookery until the latter half of the fourteenth century, when the rules and receipts for cooking appear to have been very generally committed to writing, and a certain number of cookery-books belonging to this period and to the following century remain in manufcript, forming very curious records of the domeftic life of our forefathers. From thefe I will give a few illuftrations of this fubjeft.