Medieval Diet

[Lucius]

Re: Medieval Diet

 

After reading Markdoc's comments and thinking about it, I have to say that my brief lines overstated the case.

 

Smaller, rural communities left very few records - because the people of the time didn't consider them important - but examining court records from the 13th-15th centuries, we find over and over again references to accounts, to letters and to written messages, even when we are dealing with ordinary townsmen

 

But note that I did say "urban."

 

or small holders who might not own more than a cottage and a patch of garden. There are also common references to the salaries for school teachers - along with complaints about the standard of teaching - some things don't change! But there were, clearly all too many teachers and small schools for them to be only for the children of the wealthy and influential.

 

Too many to be only for the wealthy and influential - but are they truly so many that you can say with confidence that the majority of people must have been literate?

 

And as with diet or indeed almost anything, I'm sure a great deal depends on when and where. There would have been one rate of literacy, perhaps surprisingly high, in England in 1300 AD, and another in the Ukraine in 600 AD and still another in Helgeland in 900 AD. But if you are saying that the image of a massively ignorant populace in which even many of the nobility were illiterate is something that was true far less often, and in fewer places, than is commonly thought - or than I implied - I dare say you're right.

 

If we look at extant university records from the 1400's' date=' we find among admissions the sons of cheesemongers, fishermen, alewives, bricklayers, carpenters and house servants (admittedly, not very many, but still...). All of these must have been literate to a reasonable standard to be able to take the examination for entry.[/quote']

 

And some of whom might qualify as "urban," in the sense that I meant (not necessarily from a "city" but definitely not a rural person with an agricultural or pastoral occupation.)

 

I will concede that the son of a skilled tradesman is far from being noble, or clerical for that matter, but he's also not exactly a serf.

 

The picture we have now of that era actually also resembles that in much of Africa today. Only a privileged few were literate in the sense that we are - reading and writing without effort. A minority - generally the most deprived - were fully illiterate. Most people were in between: reading for pleasure was not something most people did (books were expensive and leisure time limited). But many - perhaps most - small business men and craftsmen, freeholders and even some affluent peasants could apparently read and write simple letters, read signs and contracts, do their accounts and file claims at court.

 

Or at least had a near kinsman or neighbor learned enough to read and write things on their behalf.

 

My own reading on the subject of the spread of English literacy (several years ago now) turned up the fact that at one time it was common for only one member of a married couple to read and write, and not always the husband interestingly enough. Apparently in one county the signatures on all the documents might be the husbands', and in another the signatures were overwhelmingly those of the wives. This would have been after the middle ages, though.

 

While we're at it, reading and writing were long thought of as separate skills (although one obviously presupposes the other) and it was not unheard of for someone to be able to read but not write. (Don't mind me, I'm just complicating the issue. )

 

I certainly don't question that "most - small business men and craftsmen, freeholders" and the like were literate. I just point out that in many places and times such people would not have constituted a majority.

 

That explains why when the bible was translated into local languages, starting in the mid 1300's, there was an almost insatiable demand. When printing became widespread, many printers' factories were set up simply to churn out as many copies as they could make. If the vast majority of the population was illiterate, who were purchasing the tens of thousands of volumes that were churned out?

 

In fact, as early as the fourth century the bible was translated into Gothic - and when I ask myself if that might have been only for the benefit of the Gothic "elite" I answer that their kings and chiefs and leading men would have been not only literate, but probably literate in Latin and wouldn't need the translation. Perhaps that's evidence that even that tribe of "barbarians" were more literate than one would expect.

 

edit: Or maybe it's evidence that Bishop Ulfilas wanted to be able to, or wanted his priests to be able to, read aloud to the Goths in a language they understood, without having to translate anew every time the homily called for a passage to be recited.

 

Of course, I'm also too cynical not to make the comment that even today more people buy bibles than actually read them.

 

Paper was expensive, so was often reused if possible (and medieval paper was not of high quality anyway: it doesn't keep well - hence the use of parchment for important documents),

 

And even parchment was reused often enough that there is a special word, "palimpsest" for such a recycled parchment.

 

 

and merchants used to mark up sales on wood or slate with charcoal or chalk - then scrub it off. Neither lends itself to preservation. I think rather than saying that most people were illiterate in medieval Europe, it's fair to say that almost nothing in the way of daily records have survived,

 

Which I think makes it a hard case to argue one way or the other. Even if it were the case that, say, 90% of the peasants laboring in the fields in a given kingdom during a given king's reign had basic literacy, how would we know?

 

I still think it's fair to say "Most people in Europe in the Middle Ages were probably illiterate," as long as we acknowledge that this statement has the same weaknesses as any generalization. "Most people" didn't include merchants (such as cheesemongers) or skilled tradesmen (such as carpenters or bricklayers) or servants or even "some affluent peasants."

But the literate minority certainly did include more than "The noble, the wealthy, and the clergy."

 

I know that at certain points in the period, some of the literate churchmen were complaining in writing that too many priests - the one class you'd expect to have 100% literacy - could not, or could only barely, read and write. Isn't it the case that sometimes even the monks whose job it was to copy manuscripts, were simply copying what was in front of them with no more understanding of it than a Xerox machine has? (hm, perhaps they would count as able to write but not to read....)

 

I'll also acknowledge that even my generalization is modified with a "probably." I'm aware of evidence and arguments neither of us have mentioned yet, suggesting a high rate of literacy (at least, in some times and places.) But I also recall that about 15 years ago while studying at Indiana University I read that the Roman Empire enjoyed a 10%, possibly 15%, literacy rate at its highest point - and it was stated that this cultural achievement was unmatched in Europe until the 18th or 19th century.

 

The knight who organised the mighty bank loan simply didn't get as much press from the troubadours as the knight who led the mighty charge.

 

Hear, hear! Let's hear it for the knight who organizes the mighty bank loan!

 

(Says the knight who sometimes has to calculate interest.)

 

Lucius Alexander

 

You'll find relatively few people today who still hold the view that knights were armoured buffoons ignorant of military strategy who kept winning wars mostly by luck or the grace of god - but that was the public viewpoint not so long ago.

 

I'll tell you one that really killed me....

I read a book about horsemanship that mentioned some of the classical authors who addressed the topic and then said "In the middle ages equestrianism did not exist." The author averred that those knights managed their horses with ignorant brutality.

 

Now, I don't know horses that well - I know palindromedaries better - but I know full well that the average mounted knight had to be a capable equestrian, and that war horses had to be well trained. If nothing else, consider what's involved in jousting - the horse can SEE the end of that lance and a horse does NOT like to have something hovering that close to its head and it's an accomplishment to keep it moving in a straight line while holding a lance couched - not to mention the fact that it's charging more or less straight at another mounted knight coming right at you. And that's just the joust, let alone what you'd deal with in combat. It would be flatly impossible for an incompetent horseman to be a knight!

 

So I think the assertion that knights had no equestrian skill can only be explained by the popular prejudice against an entire period of history.

 

Possibly I, and/or the sources I've been exposed to, have been blinded by such a prejudice. But I suspect that the statement "A majority of medieval Europeans were literate" is really not much more accurate than saying "Only a very tiny minority, mostly clergy and merchants and important nobility, were literate in medieval Europe."

[Curufea]

Re: Medieval Diet

 

The only real generalisation that consistently angers me is that all peasants had hard lives and wished to "overthrow their masters" in some kind of anti-slavery quasi-justification for regicide (or possibly more accurately regiphobia that borders on that of the ancient Romans).

[Markdoc]

Re: Medieval Diet

 

I'll tell you one that really killed me....

I read a book about horsemanship that mentioned some of the classical authors who addressed the topic and then said "In the middle ages equestrianism did not exist." The author averred that those knights managed their horses with ignorant brutality.

 

Now, I don't know horses that well - I know palindromedaries better - but I know full well that the average mounted knight had to be a capable equestrian, and that war horses had to be well trained. If nothing else, consider what's involved in jousting - the horse can SEE the end of that lance and a horse does NOT like to have something hovering that close to its head and it's an accomplishment to keep it moving in a straight line while holding a lance couched - not to mention the fact that it's charging more or less straight at another mounted knight coming right at you. And that's just the joust, let alone what you'd deal with in combat. It would be flatly impossible for an incompetent horseman to be a knight!

 

So I think the assertion that knights had no equestrian skill can only be explained by the popular prejudice against an entire period of history.

 

Yep. That's exactly the sort of prejudice that I'm taking about. It applies to virtually every aspect of "scholarship" on the medieval era when we look back at historians from a century/century and a half ago - including aspects you'd think would have little political freight, such as diet.

 

The whole concept was of a "dark age" in which knowledge and skill of every kind was lost.

 

Possibly I' date=' and/or the sources I've been exposed to, have been blinded by such a prejudice. But I suspect that the statement "A majority of medieval Europeans were literate" is really not much more accurate than saying "Only a very tiny minority, mostly clergy and merchants and important nobility, were literate in medieval Europe."[/quote']

 

You could be right ... it might be more accurate to say "a substantial proportion" rather than "most". To some extent I am reacting against the prejudice that learning somehow went into a dive after the fall of Rome and stayed there for a thousand years (despite the very clear advances in technology throughout the era). You are also right that this varies hugely by area to area: I'm thinking mostly of Western/northern Europe.

 

However, it does depend on how you define "illiteracy". In the US today it's often estimated that as many as 14% of US adults are illiterate. When you look at that number though, the vast majority of them are actually "poorly literate". For me illiterate means exactly what it says: unable to read or write. If you include the poorly literate in the "literate" category, "most" may not be an exaggeration.

 

A classic example: we have a detailed description of the inhabitants of the village of Montillou, in Ladurie's Montaillou - un village occitan (if you are interested in medieval history, this book is a must-read). Montaillou was a village of a bit over 200 around the year 1300, and was three days travel from the nearest town of any size, in the foothills of the Pyrenees. Not exactly a hotbed of culture. Yet among the literate people of the town were most if not all of the de Roquefort family (local nobles) and at least some of their servants, most of the Clergue and Benet families (and presumably some of their servants. These two families were well off, but not rich. But we also find literacy (at least at some level - enough to read letters) in such characters as Grazide Rives (the daughter of a wine seller, who was not wealthy enough to own a shop - he sold wine door to door) and Guillaume Maurs ... a landless shepherd (he used to live in the village and presumably learned to read from the rector of the church, as did most people in the village). Arnaud Baille (a cobbler) was literate (he was sent away from home at the age of 7 to be educated). Yes, a cobbler (to be fair, his father was a notary). In addition, Montaillou had its own notary (Piere Authie). If the continent was wallowing in the darkness of illiteracy, what were notaries doing practicing in an isolated village of 200 on the very rand of the kingdom? He could only have survived if there was actually a demand for reading and writing - which means there were obviously a reasonable number of literate people in the immediate area: otherwise what would be the point? We know from his testimony that he studied rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music and the writings of Virgil, Ovid and Cato ... in Montaillou. Which means in the 1200s, in Montaillou a moderately-sized village, far from any towns and cities, there were people in the village who owned (and read) the roman classics. We don't know exactly how many people were literate in Montaillou, but we do know that in this moderately isolated village, roughly a quarter were literate to some extent and that's almost certainly an under-estimate, because it's only those whose testimony indicates writing or reading something: it's not like there was a survey.

 

Edit: Duh! I forgot, until thinking of surveys - we do have survey of literacy for rural France (also from Ladurie) in his book The Peasants of Languedoc. He looks at village council records from the 1500's onwards in the rural parish of Aniane. He finds that among council members (who would have been among the most affluent in their neighbourhood, but still peasants) that roughly 50% of them were illiterate in the late 1500s. That's 250 years after Montaillou, but the two of them span the middle ages and suggest that even in relatively poor rural settings, a substantial proportion of the population was in fact literate through the medieval period.

 

cheers, Mark

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Medieval Diet

 

No' date=' it didn't really work like that over most of western/northern Europe - until relatively recently, your job was your identity. In many cases, it defined your legal rights as well. If you owned a cheesemonger's but lived in a manor and trained to fight - you wouldn't write "Cheesemonger" as your living. You'd write factotum, or gentleman, or alderman or something similar, depending on your position. If you write "cheesemonger", it's because you actually, physically sell cheese for a living. As an aside, I took that reference from the records of entry to the inns of the court in London, because they are online and searchable. And we know that Londoners were [b']extremely[/b] class conscious in that era.

 

So cheesemonger, in this context, means exactly what it seems to mean.

 

cheers, Mark

 

London? London? The city with the Guild Hall? Lord Mayors who belonged to guilds? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Whittington)

But never mind that: consider what Thomas Brady of Berkeley, one of the great historians of the age has to say about the urban aristocracy of south German cities:

http://books.google.ca/books?id=hm0r8eb8E7YC&pg=PA99&lpg=PA99&dq=thomas+brady+alsace&source=bl&ots=roTqVFnqpH&sig=7nRzeRPnHVKAwROtV9SeALAo0sI&hl=en&ei=PhmxSp6GMJLKsQPb6IXOCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#v=onepage&q=thomas%20brady%20alsace&f=false

You will find Brady's discussion of the mixed character of urban aristocracies beginning in the last para of p. 95ff, since me am to Internet-illiterate to cut and paste out of Google Books.

Here's an overview by a fine teacher, Chris Friedrichs. His summary of the constitution of London is part of the Google sample, and begins on p. 17.

http://books.google.ca/books?id=Aeh8Gccx0_sC&dq=chris+friedrichs+nordlingen&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=IMM4yFtNjx&sig=T90HRZshBRNqfYySMXk4zthu8HM&hl=en&ei=Zx2xSsn-HovYsgP-_dDGCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2#v=onepage&q=&f=false

 

There are other books and articles I could cite.

[Gawain]

Re: Medieval Diet

 

And dog' date=' horse, and pig all taste better than mutton![/quote']

 

And nothing tastes quite as good as lamb.

[Markdoc]

Re: Medieval Diet

 

London? London? The city with the Guild Hall? Lord Mayors who belonged to guilds? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Whittington)

But never mind that: consider what Thomas Brady of Berkeley, one of the great historians of the age has to say about the urban aristocracy of south German cities:

http://books.google.ca/books?id=hm0r8eb8E7YC&pg=PA99&lpg=PA99&dq=thomas+brady+alsace&source=bl&ots=roTqVFnqpH&sig=7nRzeRPnHVKAwROtV9SeALAo0sI&hl=en&ei=PhmxSp6GMJLKsQPb6IXOCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#v=onepage&q=thomas%20brady%20alsace&f=false

You will find Brady's discussion of the mixed character of urban aristocracies beginning in the last para of p. 95ff, since me am to Internet-illiterate to cut and paste out of Google Books.

Here's an overview by a fine teacher, Chris Friedrichs. His summary of the constitution of London is part of the Google sample, and begins on p. 17.

http://books.google.ca/books?id=Aeh8Gccx0_sC&dq=chris+friedrichs+nordlingen&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=IMM4yFtNjx&sig=T90HRZshBRNqfYySMXk4zthu8HM&hl=en&ei=Zx2xSsn-HovYsgP-_dDGCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2#v=onepage&q=&f=false

 

There are other books and articles I could cite.

 

Well, yes, but both of those authors agree with what I posted. To take one of the examples from the links you gave, Gottfried von Hohenburg, a wealthy guildmaster left us his records. Although his family got wealthy selling wine, he doesn't *ever* describe himself as "wineseller", but as "Guildmaster". He owned vineyards, but never once described himself as a "winemaker" - but as "Graf" (Count).

 

I wasnt saying that Townsmen never became wealthy or influential (or even noble): that happened all the time. I was saying that having become wealthy or influential they didn't pretend to be humbler and less-legally entitled that they were. Call Gottfried von Hohenburg a wineseller to his face and you'd likely end up with half a meter of steel through your belly.

 

I'm not joking - more than one fatal assault was occasioned by reminding a member of the gentry of his family's plebian past. And by and large, the courts would look kindly on the attacker - such a crude insult demands redress!

 

So yes, really, cheesemonger means someone who sells cheese, in their own person and bricklayer someone with rough, red hands who lays actual bricks. That the sons of both of these entered the courts - well they would have been charity cases, most likely. Someone who owned a shop or shops where other people sold cheese on their behalf, would describe themself as something else.

 

A simple analogy: I work most days in my office and do a lot of typing. If asked my job, however, I say "Doctor", "Professor" or "scientist", depending on context. I don't say "typist".

 

cheers, Mark

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Medieval Diet

 

Well, yes, but both of those authors agree with what I posted. To take one of the examples from the links you gave, Gottfried von Hohenburg, a wealthy guildmaster left us his records. Although his family got wealthy selling wine, he doesn't *ever* describe himself as "wineseller", but as "Guildmaster". He owned vineyards, but never once described himself as a "winemaker" - but as "Graf" (Count).

 

I wasnt saying that Townsmen never became wealthy or influential (or even noble): that happened all the time. I was saying that having become wealthy or influential they didn't pretend to be humbler and less-legally entitled that they were. Call Gottfried von Hohenburg a wineseller to his face and you'd likely end up with half a meter of steel through your belly.

 

I'm not joking - more than one fatal assault was occasioned by reminding a member of the gentry of his family's plebian past. And by and large, the courts would look kindly on the attacker - such a crude insult demands redress!

 

So yes, really, cheesemonger means someone who sells cheese, in their own person and bricklayer someone with rough, red hands who lays actual bricks. That the sons of both of these entered the courts - well they would have been charity cases, most likely. Someone who owned a shop or shops where other people sold cheese on their behalf, would describe themself as something else.

 

A simple analogy: I work most days in my office and do a lot of typing. If asked my job, however, I say "Doctor", "Professor" or "scientist", depending on context. I don't say "typist".

 

cheers, Mark

 

In reply I would only reiterate that the links already cited more than suffice to carry my point that we may discover quite wealthy members of the urban aristocracy listed as members of their guilds, and by extension, their nominal "job." This would of course be especially true not merely of Dick Whittington, mercer of London, but of Gottfried Hohenburg, especially prior to his raising to the rank of Graf in 1509.

That said, I would be remiss in not citing another book by my former teacher, available in full through Questia:

http://www.questia.com/PM.qst;jsessionid=KpvcHGDbQlGSBxPpvvkChZQ9kqJy6TLMKJ7l8KQvgzZn1CQpwBTh!-1813158499!-1899210215?a=o&d=37733193

Everyone likes Wikipedia, right?

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gro%C3%9Fb%C3%BCrger

And I should not neglect the classics. Mack Walker's German Home Towns is a historiographic tour de force. Read it and you wont ask yourself why wealthy urban rentiers continued to identify themselves by their nominal trades, but rather "how could it be otherwise?"

http://books.google.ca/books?id=JCxyn2_FmegC&dq=mack+walker+german+home+towns&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=kwDh5KHaZj&sig=G8C4KVjzO6V5XF_uecqqnoveWvo&hl=en&ei=fI6ySv-qOZH8sQPO_b2eDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false

 

I may have cheated Wikipedia fans by citing Wikipedia-Deutsch above. Unfortunately, the English Wikipedia article on guilds is rather diffuse. It does, howver, point to this quite nice little piece.

http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/richardson.guilds

[Lezentauw]

Re: Medieval Diet

 

Given this new information, I'm going to make Literacy the default in my fantasy campaigns from now on. There's no reason to enforce not being able to read, especially when you have maps and guild instructions all over the place.

 

As for the diet, I'm reminded of that other fantasy campaign staple -- the travelers inn/pub/restaurant. What would they really be like? What would they serve? where would people sleep and how much would it cost? What kind of privacy would you have if any? Would people really be sent to the stables to sleep, and would it be that bad if people were sleeping there all the time?

 

Oh, and Markdoc should be repped by, well, everybody. It's a brilliant post. I'm impressed.

 

One thing to keep in mind. During that time it was very rare for an inn/pub to actually have their own mugs. Every person that planned to have a drink out, carried their own mug with them. During this time mugs were very expensive, as each was hand made. For the most part they were either pottery or metal...

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Medieval Diet

 

One thing to keep in mind. During that time it was very rare for an inn/pub to actually have their own mugs. Every person that planned to have a drink out' date=' carried their own mug with them. During this time mugs were very expensive, as each was hand made. For the most part they were either pottery or metal...[/quote']

 

pottery mugs are easy and fairly disposable... we turn out quite a few in an average day doing demonstrations at faire. Our master potter has been known to crank out literally dozens of pieces in a single days work. Hardened leather mugs & bottles were also quite common (they found a LOT of these when they excavated the Mary Rose).

[Kaeto]

Re: Medieval Diet

 

As I understand it the typical tavern mug also known as a 'Leather Jack' was made from leather, boiled in oil to harden it. Then was coated in tar to make it liquid proof.

 

The resulting vessel wasn't very breakable. And I'm sure the tar imparted an "interesting" flavor to the contents.

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: Medieval Diet

 

As I understand it the typical tavern mug also known as a 'Leather Jack' was made from leather, boiled in oil to harden it. Then was coated in tar to make it liquid proof.

 

The resulting vessel wasn't very breakable. And I'm sure the tar imparted an "interesting" flavor to the contents.

 

When I realize that the people then wouldn't have minded, I wonder whether I could have lived in the Middle Ages.

[Kristopher]

Re: Medieval Diet

 

I love threads like these.

[Markdoc]

Re: Medieval Diet

 

One thing to keep in mind. During that time it was very rare for an inn/pub to actually have their own mugs. Every person that planned to have a drink out' date=' carried their own mug with them. During this time mugs were very expensive, as each was hand made. For the most part they were either pottery or metal...[/quote']

 

Actually it wasn't rare: but a lot of the mugs in a tavern would have been for regulars. Back in the day, most people going to a tavern would have used the same one (and judging by what little writings we have from that era, a lot of men used to eat meals and drink at taverns on a regular basis: sometimes every day). There's a reason for this: you could get hot food without needing to start a fire first - and for men without a household, leaving a fire in the house (if they had a house of their own) was a big risk*. So taverns used to (and in a few places today, still do) hold personal mugs behind the bar, on a hook or a shelf, often with the owner's name. These were mostly pottery (if the piles of shards are any guide), but could be quite elaborate (German steins are the ultimate expression of this). You left it at the tavern, because that's where you drank, and also because it was inconvenient to carry around - and easy to break (unless it was pewter which is both heavy and expensive). A leather jack or a drinking horn or a wooden cup was more for drinking in the course of the day and you could carry them without concern for damage. I've used both kinds (I have a set of drinking horns, still) and both of them impart a taste to whatever you drink out of them at first.

 

In contemporary art, you do see people with drinking vessels at their belts, but they are all the "lower sort" of people. The only people who regularly carried a drinking vessel with them, as far as I can tell, were those who couldn't expect one to be provided, so shepherds, laborers, tradesmen, etc - and SCA members

 

cheers, Mark

 

*as an aside, a lot of taverns used to sell beer and food "to go" or as they said "Out of the house". Boarding houses (where men/families without their own house would usually live) would often send a boy to the local tavern for a bucket of beer and some hot food when the lodgers came home and this practice persisted right up until the 20th century in some parts of Europe. In some mediterranean countries and in Latin America, this tradition persists, with many unmarried men eating dinner at the same bar every night. I ended up doing the same, most nights, when I lived in Brasil.

[Markdoc]

Re: Medieval Diet

 

In reply I would only reiterate that the links already cited more than suffice to carry my point that we may discover quite wealthy members of the urban aristocracy listed as members of their guilds' date=' and by extension, their nominal "job." This would of course be especially true not merely of Dick Whittington, mercer of London, but of Gottfried Hohenburg, especially prior to his raising to the rank of Graf in 1509. [/quote']

 

You're continuing to make my point for me, here. Who remembers "Dick Whittington, mercer"? No-one. People remember "Dick Whittington, Lord Mayor of London". He'd ceased being a mercer long before he became mayor. You're confusing someone's original "job" with their identity - a very 20th/21st century North American attitude, but not one shared by medieval Europeans. And actually not even very true today - it'd be like describing Bill Gates' job as "Salesman".

 

And Gottfried Hohenburg was the same, as I have pointed out. Neither would have described themselves by the terms associated with the menial members of the trade whereby they or their families made their fortune, nor for that matter would their contemporaries. This we know from their own, or their contemporaries writings, and this the links you provided make clear.

 

So yeah, someone who describes themselves as a cheesemonger is someone who actually, in their daily life, sells cheese. Not a guild master, because if they were a Guildmaster, that's what they'd write on their job description.

 

cheers, Mark

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Medieval Diet

 

Markdoc, I see the point you want to make. It might narrowly carry conviction in the sense that no-one's life is ever captured by their job description, and that to the extent that such a label is used in a medieval source, it means something more than merely a job.

It will most certainly not carry the claim that you wished to make originally, that a "Cheesemonger," as listed in some random medieval record, spends his days standing behind a counter, waiting to be shot dead by an irate customer. A Cheesemonger is a member of the guild of Cheesemongers, quite possibly a master, even a freeman or a livery man, in the London hierarchy. But a cheesemonger, and quite likely on the city council, or even a noble, in spite of still being a cheesemonger.

I'm not going to continue to wave at my texts. They're there for those who have the time.

For those who don't, some quotations:

In 1384 Whittington had become a Councilman. In 1392 he was one of the city's delegation to the King at Nottingham at which the King seized the City of London's lands because of alleged misgovernment. By 1393, he had become an alderman, as well as a member of the Mercers' Company. When Adam Bamme, the mayor of London, died in June 1397, Whittington was imposed on the city by the King as Lord Mayor of London in 1397 to fill the vacancy with immediate effect. Within days Whittington had negotiated with the King a deal in which the city bought back its liberties for £10,000 (nearly £4m today).[3] He was elected mayor by a grateful populace on 13 October 1398.

The deposition of Richard II in 1399 did not affect Whittington and it is thought that he merely acquiesced in the coup led by Bolingbroke. Whittington had long supplied the new king, Henry IV, as a prominent member of the landowning elite and so his business simply continued as before. He also lent the new king substantial amounts of money. He was elected mayor again in 1406 and in 1419, becoming a living legend in the process. In 1416, he became a Member of Parliament, and was also in turn influential with Henry IV's son, Henry V, also lending him large amounts of money and serving on several Royal Commissions of oyer and terminer. For example, Henry V employed him to supervise the expenditure to complete Westminster Abbey. Despite being a moneylender himself he was sufficiently trusted and respected to sit as a judge in usury trials in 1421. Whittington also collected revenues and import duties. A long dispute with the Company of Brewers over standard prices and measures of ale was won by Whittington

You have also mentioned Gottfried [v.] Hohenburg. I think you are being a little too bold about what we can know about Hohenberg. What we do know, as Brady says, is that "throughout the sixteenth century, there was a stratum of armigers and nobles in the guilds, some as rentiers, some as merchants [brady, 67]."

There is no doubt whatsoever that rich, noble, landed people participated in the guilds of Strasbourg as merchants. And we know this because that's the record we have. A listing of (say, how many horses he maintains at the town's cavalry stables) as Gottfried, Graf v. Hohenberg, Wineseller. [Guild zur Blume.] The table in question also shows armiger cheesemongers, you will note.

[Markdoc]

Re: Medieval Diet

 

Markdoc, I see the point you want to make. It might narrowly carry conviction in the sense that no-one's life is ever captured by their job description, and that to the extent that such a label is used in a medieval source, it means something more than merely a job.

It will most certainly not carry the claim that you wished to make originally, that a "Cheesemonger," as listed in some random medieval record, spends his days standing behind a counter, waiting to be shot dead by an irate customer. A Cheesemonger is a member of the guild of Cheesemongers, quite possibly a master, even a freeman or a livery man, in the London hierarchy.

 

That'd carry more weight if Medival London had had a guild of cheese mongers. (it didn't). Guess what? It didn't have a guild of bricklayers either. If you look in the records of students who entered the inns of court, you'll find many who listed their father's ocupation as apprentice, guildsman, or guildmaster, and gave the name of their guild. A guildman, by definition, was socially a cut above a merchant (be he never so wealthy) and would not have pretended - in an official document yet - to be of alower social class than he actually was.

 

It's pretty much impossible to understand the word, in this case in any other way. For those uncommon individuals listed as "bricklayer" or "Cheeesemonger" the word actually means exactly what it looks like it means.

 

Indeed your own links confirm it: it's doubtful how much he ever referred to himself as a Mercer, given his birth - his father was Sir William Whittington, Lord Pauntley - it's much more likely that he would have written "Gentleman" as his occupation: that's how he is referred to in the Mercer's Guild list. In the letter book of Gloucester, his occupation is given as "Esquire", in the London Letterbook his occupation is given as Alderman and Master. The first mention of him as a mercer that I know of comes after his death. Whittington himself, however in his last will and testament, calls himself "citizen and alderman".

 

cheers, Mark

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Medieval Diet

 

That'd carry more weight if Medival London had had a guild of cheese mongers. (it didn't). Guess what? It didn't have a guild of bricklayers either. If you look in the records of students who entered the inns of court, you'll find many who listed their father's ocupation as apprentice, guildsman, or guildmaster, and gave the name of their guild. A guildman, by definition, was socially a cut above a merchant (be he never so wealthy) and would not have pretended - in an official document yet - to be of alower social class than he actually was.

 

It's pretty much impossible to understand the word, in this case in any other way. For those uncommon individuals listed as "bricklayer" or "Cheeesemonger" the word actually means exactly what it looks like it means.

 

Indeed your own links confirm it: it's doubtful how much he ever referred to himself as a Mercer, given his birth - his father was Sir William Whittington, Lord Pauntley - it's much more likely that he would have written "Gentleman" as his occupation: that's how he is referred to in the Mercer's Guild list. In the letter book of Gloucester, his occupation is given as "Esquire", in the London Letterbook his occupation is given as Alderman and Master. The first mention of him as a mercer that I know of comes after his death. Whittington himself, however in his last will and testament, calls himself "citizen and alderman".

 

cheers, Mark

 

You will note that my other example, Strasbourg did have a guild of cheesemongers, and, as I mentioned above, the cheesemongers of Strasbourg included nobles and armigers. (Brady, 66 again.)

As for London, it may not have had cheesemongers, but it did have a Company of fishmongers.* To it belonged the great philanthropist and Lord Mayor often mentioned in the same breath as Whittington, William Walworth, the man who killed Wat Tyler. This tidbit I came across in a gassy biography of Whittington I skiimmed in preparing this reply: http://books.google.ca/books?id=D24BAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA5&dq=life+of+whittington#v=onepage&q=life%20of%20whittington&f=false

 

Thanks to it, I now know rather more about Whittington than I reasonably had time to learn. Still we remain at the mercy of our sources, so that while we know that he was born to a wealthy and influential, family (albeit not quite peers), we can never know for sure that his familly sent him to London to leverage the success of his maternal uncle. The speculative picture is that his uncle had no (legal) male heir, so Whittington apprenticed to his uncle, and married his cousin. Unfortunately, surviving Mercer company's Apprenticeship books only begin in 1648. Unlike, say, the fishmongers, from which we know when and to whom William Walworth was apprenticed.

Unfortunately, even if we had these sources, your general argument, which at this point strikes me as at best narrowly semantic, could be maintained. After all, it is unlikely that a Mercer guild list of apprentices would have him as anything other than "Dick Whittington, bound apprentice to Sir Hugh Fitzwilliam," rather than as, explicitly, a mercer. The clerk would get a cramp, or perhaps get a stamp that read "mercer" for the purpose. Or, more likely, just leave out the fact that apprentices of the guild of mercers were, in fact, apprentice mercers. For a listing of that kind we would need, say, a muster roll of the Trainbands of London. and we don't have that, allowing acrobatic arguments of this sort. (We could rule them out by using Walworth as a paradigm, instead. Care to shift the debate?)

By his mid-20s, Whittington could certainly present as country gentry, as by that time he had acquired a manor. If we had a tax list from Gloucestershire, we would have him as Richard Whittington, Lord of the Manor of [whatchamacallit.] But at the same time, he was selling clothes to the court. That's how social status and guild status interlinked in his day. The least of wimplerers sold veils out of their shops. Dick Whittington, Master Mercer and livery man of London, provided wedding dresses for princesses.

You will note that London had a great many guilds and livery companies, and that a great many registers and histories have been published. So while the lists of members of the Inns of Court, so far as I know, do not go back past 1521, you can satiate yourself on lists of medieval merchants of the City of London, online and in libraries: http://www.bl.uk/reshelp/findhelpsubject/history/history/historiesofbritishcompanies/companyhist/companyhist.html#selivco

 

Good luck sustaining your argument!

 

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worshipful_Company_of_Fishmongers

[teh bunneh]

Re: Medieval Diet

 

I cannot imagine any man who:

 

1. Had climbed above his birth station (born into a cheesemonger's family, became a mayor), and

2. Lived in a society as stratified as most of the ones in medieval Europe,

 

would advertise the fact that he was once a cheesemonger. I can certainly see it in a modern society. How often have we had Presidents who boasted of their simple, humble origins? But in a society as class-conscious as 1700s England? No way. He may have been born a cheesemonger, but if he had attained the lofty heights of political power and social standing he would call himself "Lord," "Sir," "Esquire," or whatever title he could manage -- and so would his kids.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Medieval Diet

 

I cannot imagine any man who:

 

1. Had climbed above his birth station (born into a cheesemonger's family, became a mayor), and

2. Lived in a society as stratified as most of the ones in medieval Europe,

 

would advertise the fact that he was once a cheesemonger. I can certainly see it in a modern society. How often have we had Presidents who boasted of their simple, humble origins? But in a society as class-conscious as 1700s England? No way. He may have been born a cheesemonger, but if he had attained the lofty heights of political power and social standing he would call himself "Lord," "Sir," "Esquire," or whatever title he could manage -- and so would his kids.

 

But that's because you're not putting yourself into a medieval mindset. Being a free master of a chartered city's guild or livery company of cheesemongers was social status. High social status. Whoever wrote the Wikipedia article on the Fishmongers of London did some lovingly detailed links, so we can see exactly who was proud to call themselves fishmongers:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Leman

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Askham

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lovekyn

Or take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Lord_Mayors_of_London

for guildsmen Lord mayors such as

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Brembre (a grocer, yay! Also a wealthy oligarch and friend to kings)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Large (the master to whom pioneering printer William Caxton was apprenticed)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_John_Norman (wrote naughty novels when he wasn't being a draper or Lord Mayor)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Boleyn (a mercer and great-grandfather of you-know-who)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Taillour

And this list is getting long and boring, right? So how about the list of aldermen of London, most with their trades noted?

http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/Documents/aldermen_of_london.htm

Thomas Walshingham, who didn't have time to be alderman, bargained his way out of it by offering to put in the windows at the guildhall.

(He obtained his discharge from serving as Alderman on account of his being "much occupied with the King's service," and in lieu of paying a fine he undertook to "glaze in the best manner the Eastern gable or window of Guildhall.")

I'm betting that he was a glazier.

[Markdoc]

Re: Medieval Diet

 

I cannot imagine any man who:

 

1. Had climbed above his birth station (born into a cheesemonger's family, became a mayor), and

2. Lived in a society as stratified as most of the ones in medieval Europe,

 

would advertise the fact that he was once a cheesemonger. I can certainly see it in a modern society. How often have we had Presidents who boasted of their simple, humble origins? But in a society as class-conscious as 1700s England? No way. He may have been born a cheesemonger, but if he had attained the lofty heights of political power and social standing he would call himself "Lord," "Sir," "Esquire," or whatever title he could manage -- and so would his kids.

 

Yep. You get the point I'm making. Lawnmower Boy seems to be under the impression I think that a cheesemonger couldn't become wealthy and influential, though I've already said that's definitely not the point. (Though if he did, he'd cease to be Cheesemonger - he'd become a Mercer, or an Alderman or something supporting his new dignity). And the case of the law court rolls, I specifically chose occupations for which there were no guilds, so that the argument that the person could have been a guildsman is insupportable - even given the fact that if he had been a guildsman he would have noted it, as the hundreds of other guildsmen on the rolls did.

 

The point is that having become wealthy and acquired social status, someone would not voluntarily degrade themselves by describing themselves as of a lower social status. Indeed, we have some legal statute books from the medieval period and describing someone of a higher social status by a name denoting lower social status was a specific crime in some areas. In Fabbriano, saying "You've eaten Fabbo soup" to a townsman was punishable by fine (Fabbo soup was a peasant dish) - so even implying a lower social status was a crime there.

 

That's not to say peasants could not become wealthy and influential - occasionally they did. Of course when they did ... they usually stopped being peasants, and accusing them of having eaten fabbo soup would then become an offense to their dignity!

 

Given all that, we can safely assume that those people who indicated a relatively modest status as their official profession, were in fact of a relatively modest status. To the medieval mind, status was important and a description of your occupation meant far more than simply describing your job.

 

cheers, Mark

[Markdoc]

Re: Medieval Diet

 

Thomas Walshingham, who didn't have time to be alderman, bargained his way out of it by offering to put in the windows at the guildhall.

 

I'm betting that he was a glazier.

 

You lose. He was in fact, Thomas Walsingham, courtier and gentleman (that's why no occupation is listed for him in the link you gave), and wealthy landowner. His family also had a largish import/export business. If you'd described him as a glazier to his face, you'd have been lucky to get away with a thorough beating from his flunkies.

 

You'd also be incorrect, as he was a master of the Worshipful Companie of Vintners Technically, if you want his profession (which he himself would almost certainly have given as "Gentleman" or "Courtier") he was a Vintner, but as he was of a higher social class than a guildmaster, he apparently did not deign to use the title much, if at all ... exactly as I would expect. All he did to get out of his duties as Alderman (note: he kept the title and presumably the income) was hire some people to do the glazing for him: if he was too busy and to exalted to attend council meetings, he was certainly too much of both to do manual labor. Indeed, his excuse was that he was much in attendance on the king ... not exactly something that manual labourers did a great deal, and both Walsingham and the King are listed together as supporters of a charity at the Worshipful Companie of Vintners.

 

So no, not a glazier.

 

cheers, Mark