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INTRODUCTION
texts were largely prescriptive, in other words, they gave people di-
etary or nutritional advice; but can we really be sure that the advice
was followed all the time, or even some of the time?
In addition to these written sources and the information they con-
tain, archeology can provide valuable data, especially regarding the
type and quantity of food eaten in a certain area. What the remains of
plants and bones cannot tell us, however, is when these foods were
eaten, by whom, and in what form. Visual representations, such as
drawings, paintings, tapestries, stained glass windows, and the like, to-
gether with other forms of material culture, such as furniture, kitchen
equipment, and dinnerware, allow us to picture what a dish or a meal
may have looked like. The present volume will draw on all these
sources and more to give as comprehensive an account as possible of
the role food played in medieval times.
One thing becomes abundantly clear from even just a cursory
glance at these sources: we have substantially more information on the
food of the medieval upper crust than the masses at the bottom of so-
ciety. To be sure, there were some equalizing forces at work that the
rich could not entirely escape, try as they might. Among them were
limitations imposed by geography and climate, the seasons, natural di-
sasters, diseases such as the bubonic plague, and the fasting laws that
religions imposed on their believers. By the Middle Ages, cooked food
was already the norm in all segments of society, but what foodstuffs
went into a dish, and how it was prepared and eaten, depended to a
large degree on one’s station in life. More than today, food served as
a status symbol then, and dietary transgressions were not just frowned
upon, they were punishable by law. In often exact detail, so-called
sumptuary laws spelled out what people of a certain class and income
level were allowed to consume. Medicine did its share in maintaining
social inequality by claiming that the dietary needs of manual laborers
and those of the leisure class were completely different. To stay
healthy peasants simply had to eat the coarse, rough food that just
happened to be of the lowest price and social prestige, while the more
delicate, rare, and costly foods were ideal for the dainty stomachs of
the rich. And when it came to warding off disease, a two-tier health
system also applied, with compound drugs made up of the most ex-
pensive spices for the lord, and garlic for the serf.
Serfs were the lowest ranks in the feudal system that by the twelfth
century was in effect across western Europe. It was based on the allo-
cation of land in return for service. At the top of this hierarchical sys-
tem was the king, who gave out grants of land or fiefs to nobles in
xix
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