Latest features The medieval era

Date Published:

10/03/2009

On one hand you've got bold knights being chivalrous and rescuing damsels, on the other there's the Black Death. Life was extreme in the medieval period

Population stats

The medieval period lasted from the Battle of Hastings in 1066 until Henry Tudor's victory at the battle of Bosworth in 1485 during which time the population rose and fell like a disappointing soufflé.

In 1086 England had a population of between 1 and 3 million which rose to 4 million in 1300. In 1485 the population fell to 2 million as the Black Death ravaged the land. The population of Scotland in 1300 was 750,000 and Wales had a mere 300,000 inhabitants. Both countries' populations were also decimated by the Black Death.

What's for dinner?

Peasants ate lots of course bread, cheese, eggs, vegetable stew and herring pie. Food was cooked on an open hearth.

Famine was common and brutal. The editor of the Annals of Bermondsey reported that starving people resorted to eating dogs, cats, the dung of doves and even their own children.

Fair game for the rich

In the mid-1100s London had a 24 hour eatery catering for all incomes: 'coarser meats for the poor, more delicate for the rich.'

Servants could expect salted meat and ale. Meat was dried and salted as a means of preservation because there was no refrigeration.

The rich ate meat and lots of it. Vegetables were seen as paupers' food. Among the rich, meals were highly flavoured and also brightly coloured with saffron or blood. Sugar and spices such as pepper were introduced by people returning from the Crusades; prices for these fluctuated hugely, but the price of staples such as bread and ale were pegged.

Hunting was a favourite pastime for the nobility and was seen as an essential apprenticeship for the young nobleman. Après-hunting feasts would be held where guests tucked into venison, wild boar, swan, heron, peacock, gull and wine.

Could you shoot your dinner?

Food and health

Fruit was reckoned to be bad for you, and a low intake of dairy produce made it difficult to resist epidemics.

Herbalism was big news. Popular herbal remedies included wormwood, to purge the digestive system of worms; lungwort, to treat chest illnesses; lemon balm, for anything from colds to serious conditions; feverfew, for headaches and labour pains; and marjoram, for bruises. Cumin or coriander seeds and honey were used as breath fresheners.

Home brew for you?

Herbal remedies thought to fight the Black Death included wearing sachets of lavender and thyme and taking a concoction of marigold, treacle and egg. Neither worked. The Black Death wiped out half the population by 1350.

Water was dirty and damaging to the health so peasants drank ale which they brewed themselves.

Brew your own beer

Get on my land

Medieval folk lived in a feudalist system meaning a few wealthy chaps lorded it over a mass of peasants.

Peasants farmed strips of land, usually for the 'lord of the manor'. Farming communities or manors grew their own food. Some peasants were free men but others – villains or serfs – were effectively slaves.

The poor shared their homes with their livestock. When a peasant died, his son had to give his best animal to the lord and his second best to the priest.

Discover more from our food past with Heston's Feasts

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