The medieval Church year resembled nothing so much as a chessboard of black and white squares, patterned with periods of fast and feast, each distinct and limited in time, yet dependent on the other for significance and worth. A Church feast was ushered in by a period of fasting; a fast was rewarded with not only a feast in this life, but the hope of a celestial banquet in the next.
Ordinary fast days were Friday, in memory of the crucifixion; Wednesday because it was the day Judas accepted money in exchange for his promise to betray Jesus; and Saturday because it was the day consecrated to Mary and the celebration of her virginity. Lent, however, is usually thought of when the subject of fasting comes to mind. It’s length, six weeks, was chosen in imitation of Jesus’ fast of forty days in the wilderness. In the farm year, a tenth of a man’s harvest, a tithe, had to be handed over to his lord or his parish priest. Of the year’s three hundred sixty five days, Lent’s forty made up a generous tenth, and were sometimes called “the tithe days of the year”.
During any other “fast” day of the year, the only difference was a change in the main ingredient from meat to fish. The amount eaten, and the number of meals eaten remained as usual. During Lent, the number of meals to be eaten each day was limited to one, and no proportional increase in the meal’s size was permitted. In Christianity’s early years, the Church ruled that this solitary meal was not to be eaten until the early evening, after the hour of Vespers which marked the end of the ecclesiastical day. According to popular belief, this rule was made to strengthen Lent’s character as an imitation of Jesus’ fast in the wilderness. While Jesus had managed to survive his forty days without eating a morsel, this was impossible for ordinary men, and so dinner time in lent was set in limbo, as it were, between the official end of one day and the official beginning of the next.
Shrove Tuesday falls the day before Ash Wednesday; Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and ends with Easter, and during this time no meat of any kind could be eaten. The formal reason for this had its roots in the significance of the season - Lent was a period of reflection on man’s sin, which could be traced back to Adam’s fall. When God discovered what Adam had done, He said “Cursed is the ground for thy sake”. The earth and the earth’s creatures were flawed by man’s failure, and in memory of that failure, no animal born or bred on land was to be eaten. This rule was strictly enforced and seriously obeyed. The prohibition was often stretched to cover other animal products: butter, cheese, milk and eggs. (Think vegan.)The rules about these were interpreted a bit less strictly than about meat; nevertheless, it was the custom for eggs at least to vanish after Shrove Tuesday, not to reappear until Easter Sunday.
Providentially, fish had escaped the curse by living in the water. Water itself was an element of special sanctity, washing away the sins of the world in Noah’s Flood, and the sins of the individual in baptism, and it’s creatures might be said to share something of it’s virtues.
To the modern diner, raised in an era of “healthy eating”, a meal without beef, pork, chicken or other flesh is not unusual. In the Middle Ages, flesh and other animal products was the mainstay of the meal, and their absence sorely felt. The Emperor Charlemagne explained to sympathetic ears that “he could not go long without food, and...fasting made him feel ill.” A 15th century schoolboy grumbles in his private notebook: “Thou wyll not beleve how wery I am off fysshe, and how moch I desir that flesch wer cum in ageyn...”.
Cooks of the period were expected to provide tempting dishes for their masters regardless of the restrictions of the season, and cookbooks abound with recipes created especially for Lent: Bruet of Almayne in lente, Vyaunde de cyprys in Lente, A Blancmenger of fysshe, Froyse in lente, Eyroun in lente, Ruschewys in lente appear on just 2 pages of the table of contents of a 15th century cookbook.
Preparing “fasting” menues can be enlightening both for the cook and the diner. Rather than punishment, fasting menues can amaze with the quality, quantity and variety of wonderful dishes which may be enjoyed. Even if it is impractical or undesireable to experience the deprivations of Lent for 40 days, a complete “Lenten” or “Fast” meal can add tangibly to a living history experience.
Food and Feast in Medieval Society, Bridget Ann Henisch, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1976, ISBN 0-271-00424-X
An Ordinance of Pottage: An Edition of the 15th C. Culinary Recipes in Yale University’s MS Beinecke 163, Constance Hieatt, Prospect Books, 1988, ISBN 0-907325-38-6
Fabulous Feasts- Medieval Cookery and Ceremony, Madeleine P. Cosman, George Brazillier, 1976, ISBN- 0-8076-0898-X
Daily Life in the Late Middle Ages, Edited by Richard Britnell, Sutton Publishing, Glouchestershire, 1998 ISBN 0-7509-1587-0
The Wars of the Roses- From Richard II to the fall of Richard III at Bosworth Field - as seen through the eyes of their contemporaries, Edited by Elizabeth Hallam, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988, ISBN: 1-55584- 240-2
The Medieval Gentlewoman: Life in a Gentry Household in the Later Middle Ages, Ffiona Swabey, Routledge, 1999 ISBN: 0415925118
© 2007- Gwen Nowrick. All Rights reserved. No reproduction via any method without the express written consent of the author.