Feasting in the Great Hall on Christmas Day!

In this series:

• The Wild Boar from Valhalla to Christmas Kitchen.
• Catering the Medieval and Tudor Christmas Feasts.
• Ordering the Medieval and Tudor Household for Christmas.
• Feasting in the Great Hall on Christmas Day!
• Celebrating the Days of Christmas Before the New Year.

As I have pointed out in the first essay of this Christmas series, the Norsemen ate the wild boar — symbol of the sun — during their highest feasts.  In particular, it was the traditional dish to eat on the Pagan winter solstice.  Their communities in outposts in England would, then, have given the example that the Anglo-Saxon population took up and transferred from the solstice to Christmas.

Written records of daily life being rare for some centuries to come, finding information on the Boar’s Head as a dish served after the Conquest is difficult.  William the Conqueror’s laws tell us that boar and buck throughout the land belonged to the king and the punishments for touching them without permission were ferocious.  Holinshed’s Chronicles inform us that Henry II served it personally to his son, in 1170, when the younger Henry was crowned as his successor. It was the highest and most symbolic of honors.

Under Edward II, in 1316, we learn that boars were still common in England in the day of King John.

King John granted to the church of Lenton and the prior and monks there the tithe of venison taken in the said counties, to wit of hart and hind, buck and doe, boars and sows, to be held in frank [almoign],…[1]

The grant was renewed.  Dugdale’s Antiquities of Warwickshire[2] informs us that

in 1. Richard 1. gave to the Monks of St. Denis in France, for the health of his soul, and the soul of Sibill his wife, one Wax Taper yearly, price xiii d. as also a Stag and a Boar in their proper seasons, to be sent thither annually at the Feast of St. Dennis,…

In the 17^th year of Richard II, 1393, John Green, Prior of the Priory of Worchester, signed over the manor of Alveston to Henry Lyndrap for a raft of considerations including “a boar at Martinmas, price 5 s.”[3]  Whether the monks were in the habit of eating boar on Martinmas or fattening it until Christmas is not clear.

While all of this was going on, the Beaurepaire and Borhunte families were the lucrative hereditary Masters of the Royal Buckhounds at Rockingham.  King John is said to have visited Rockingham 14 times during his reign, presumably because the hunting was excellent.[4]  Some or all of the Royal hounds were housed there from at least that time.

At the time of Thomas Borhunte, around 1337, and almost certainly before, the actual office was called “Venour le Roy des deymers”.[5]   One of its requirements was:

to take charge of a veutrer at 2d. a day, who is to have a robe, or a mark in money, and also 4s. 8d. for boots by the year.

Veutrer is Norman French for a boar hunter.  Also to:

keep at his own cost, for the forty days of Lent, fifteen buckhounds and one berner

A berner was a varlet, or keeper, of the dogs, from bernarius, a boarhound.  Either the boar hunt or the memory of it was still popular at this time though specifics are difficult to come by.

It is the 16^th century before we get a good detailed look at the “ancient tradition” of the Christmas breakfast of brawn — specially prepared fatty meat from the boar’s head and neck.  The Inns of Court and several university colleges leave us a highly detailed picture of what the tradition had become.  The Wild Boar was now trapped and transported to a customer’s “frank pen” to be fattened up. The Royal and high noble tables participated at least until the time of Henry VIII.  James I succeeded only briefly in reviving it.

The masters of the household rose, heard solemn mass and progressed to the great hall for the yearly breakfast of brawne with mustard and malmsey while the Lord of Misrule for the Twelve Days of Christmas began his jovial reign for their entertainment.[6] The food was tangy and the flavor of both food and fool was strong.

Breakfast ended, the servants would clear the tables and reset them with fine tablecloths and napkins, loaves of fine bread, spoons and knives to each place and trenchers to hold the food.  Now the ladies would join the company. 

Once the guests were seated the Boar’s Head itself would enter on a fine silver platter, with a lemon in its mouth, held aloft by the most physically imposing member of the company, “accompanied with minstrelsy”.  The players played mainly lutes and horns — lots of flourishes of horns.  At some point, the servers — themselves likely second sons or later of noblemen — would break out in the Boar’s Head Carol.  Soon the whole room would take it up.

As the Boar was being served, a goose pie or sparrow or mince pie, with nibblets of neat's tongue and spiced fruit and nuts, or all of them, might follow behind.  Platters of partridge, of seasonal red deer, of capon.  Doe pie, lark stew in a great tureen.  A plum porridge was almost certainly to be had and maybe even a figgy pudding.  All of it with rich sauces.  All of it washed down with wine and ale.

At a later hour, for desert, a  dainty “ryschewy” might well be served.  Or, perhaps, frumenty, or both.  As the hall was being cleaned, following the meal, spiced cakes and wine might be served off to the side.

As for me, I have a touch of the gout.  Who wouldn’t after living on this menu for years?  As you can see, I have sampled from every dish — enjoyed a morsel, as it were, from each.  The rest I leave to you.

A Very Merry Christmas to All!

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[1] Calendar of Charter Rolls, Edward I and Edward II. 317.

[2] Dugdale, William.  The Antiquities of Warwickshire.  II.1091.

[3] Ibid., II.675.

[4] Burrows, Montagu. The Family of Brocas of Beaurepaire. 252.

[5] In Latin documents, “Venatore Hospicii Regis”.

[6] Dugdale, William.  Antiquities of the Four Inns of Court.  21.

Also at Virtual Grub Street:

• Zombie Apocalypse & Trick-or-Treating: Halloween through History. October 30, 2019. “Looking closely, however, we see that this Shakespeare quote has moved the “puling” (which it was actually called) back one day to Hallowmas, All Hallows Day, rather than All Souls.  Far more important, he has actually referred to puling as a special kind of speech spoken by beggars on Hallowmas Day.”
• A Thousand Years of English Terms.  June 2, 2019.  ‘One person did not say to another, “Meet you at three o’clock”.    There was no clock to be o’.  But the church bell rang the hour of Nones and you arranged to meet “upon the Nones bell”.’
• Feast of St. Michael, September 29: Beginning of the English Year. September 29, 2019. "Those who have read my “Thousand Years of English  Terms” may recall that the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels (a.k.a. “Michaelmas”), on September 29, marked the beginning to the English legal and business year."
• A Most Curious Account of the Funeral of Queen Elizabeth I: April 28, 1603.  April 28, 2019.  “Once it was clear that James I would face no serious challenges, Cecil and the others could begin to give attention to the matter of the Queen’s funeral.”
• Check out the English Renaissance Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.
• Check out the Medieval Topics Article Index for many more articles about this fascinating time.