By: Lindsey Keefer
There are many common roles feasts have served in every time period. Feasts generally assert dominance, convey finesse, and/or connect groups of people. However, there are some notable differences between the feasts of the Middle ages and those in the Renaissance. Generally, Medieval feasts were a show of wealth while Renaissance feasts were a demonstration of camaraderie.
Feast Layout
In the Middle Ages, the layout of the dining hall was important in asserting power. A guest’s position at the tables was highly significant. The workrooms and kitchen would sit at one end of the hall, while the lord’s chambers lay at the opposite end (Wells 69). This setup ensured a clear spatial distinction between social classes. The lord also sat at a High Table on a raised dais, with a cupboard of his finest plates accompanying him (Wells 70-1). Even within the High Table, there was a hierarchy, with the king or lord at the center. Other, lowlier guests sat at tables perpendicular to the High Table, decreasing in rank as they got further away (Brewer 136-7).
Food
Medieval feasts had an interesting relationship to the Eucharist. Cooks and, later, written accounts focused more on the aesthetic and entertainment aspects of these gatherings than the tastes. This is clear when they added dyes to food to enliven its color, even “at the expense of flavor” (Walker Bynum 60). The Eucharist is more about the symbolism of food than its structure or flavor, and secular meals reflected this by emphasizing other senses over taste. It was not immediately clear what a food was, so it changed in identity once it entered guests’ mouths – its own kind of transubstantiation (Walker Bynum 61). In the context of feasts, secular and religious contexts were deeply entwined. The focus on presentation and entertainment also connects with nobles’ desire to prove their generosity and wealth.
In the Renaissance, strange foods weren’t just a feast for the eyes or an allusion to the Eucharist. Preparing exotic meals from foreign lands showed that nobles were cultured. Somebody who refused to eat such meals did so to make a statement against those foreign lands (Albala “Setting” 2-3). Similarly, eating “lowly” food was a way to prove one’s security in their high status (Albala “Setting” 11). As in the Middle Ages, the use of sugar – a rarity – and a massive volume of food was a way of showing off one’s wealth (Albala “Setting” 8). However, it became less polite to eat massive amounts of food. Those in England were becoming more refined in their portions and habits, even though they were still just as prone to fighting and boisterousness (Albala “Setting” 8).
Roles
Youths had a specific reputation at medieval banquets. Young men were known for having terrible table manners. To learn etiquette and socialization was to grow into a man (Wells 73-4, 6).
Unlike the uncouth medieval youth, noble Renaissance boys were kept separate from servant boys, a way to separate the classes and assert noble manners for the boys (Albala “Staff” 150). There was also much rivalry among the cooks themselves, as cooks had access to quite a few job perks at this time. They were fed well and had freedom in their cooking (Albala “Staff” 146). Nobles also asserted superiority by serving as carvers, “one for each table of four, six, or up to eight guests” (Albala “Staff” 153). Carving was a grand gesture, showing off skill, hospitality, and power. This contrasts with the nobles of the Middle Ages, who asserted dominance simply by where they sat.
Social Purpose
Medieval feasts had a different view of alcohol from Early Modern ones. In the Middle Ages, Augustine advocated for the end of lavish feasts and drinking on festivals celebrating martyrs (Walker Bynum 48). He saw drinking as a crude and disrespectful act, but his peers drank as a show of wealth and celebration. Augustine’s qualms show just how common celebratory drinking was, as it was common enough for him to protest it.
On the other hand, the increasingly protestant early modernists revered the practice of drinking to one’s friends’ health, as a show of allegiance (Lemon 381). Between the two eras, there was a shift in focus from showing off power to showing camaraderie. Perhaps the most important part of Early Modern feasts was that they symbolized community and trust.
Jill Phillips Ingra looks at the Renaissance Shakespeare play The Winter’s Tale as an example of such feasts. The Catholic Church held gatherings, such as ales, to raise money (Ingra 67). Therefore, such festivities often had a motive of profit. Meanwhile, Early Modernists saw Protestant feasts as shallow and indulgent festivities, though some Catholics were unhappy with their own church’s focus on money and drinking (Ingra 67). In A Winter’s Tale, the character Atolycus violates the emphasis on trust by taking secular economic advantage at feasts. In fact, many “opportunists” came to feasts to make some money for themselves (Ingra 64). This reflects the growing emphasis on, and capacity for, economic upward mobility during the Renaissance. In the Middle Ages, feasts were a show of wealth. In the Renaissance, they also became a way to acquire it, even if feastgoers looked down on such actions.
Conclusion
Ken Albala summarizes these differences when he writes,
“One can easily go too far in imagining the… medieval warrior suddenly transformed by Renaissance culture into the graceful witty courtier. It was certainly not so simple as that… (H)ere the dishes are meant less to dazzle with mere spectacle than to get the diners thinking, conjuring associations, considering the many novel variations on a theme” (Albala “Setting” 10, 14).
There was a shift in emphasis from God’s suffering and power, to human skill and intellect. If medieval dining was about entertaining guests with beautiful food, the Renaissance meant serving literal food for thought.
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Works Cited
Albala, Ken, “Setting the Stage—Setting the Table.” The Banquet: Dining in the Great Courts of Late Renaissance Europe. University of Illinois Press, 2007, pp. 1-26. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/j.ctt1wn0rpz.6.
Albala, Ken, “Staff and Carving.” The Banquet: Dining in the Great Courts of Late Renaissance Europe. University of Illinois Press, 2007, pp. 139-158. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/j.ctt1wn0rpz.14.
Brewer, Derek, “Feasts,” A Companion to the Gawain-Poet, edited by Jonathan Gibson. Boydell & Brewer Ltd., 1997, pp. 129-142.
Brown, Katharine R., et al. “Medieval Europe.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, vol. 53, no. 2, 1995, pp. 22–27. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3269255.
Ingra, Jill Phillips. “‘You Ha’Done Me a Charitable Office’: Autolycus and the Economics of Festivity in the Winter’s Tale.” Renascence, vol. 65, no. 1, Fall 2012, p. 63. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=83392813&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
Walker Bynim, Caroline. “Fast and Feast: The Historical Background.” Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women, University of California Press, 1987, pp. 31–70. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt1pnb06.7.
Wells, Sharon. “Manners Maketh Man: Living, Dining and Becoming a Man in the Later Middle Ages.” Rites of Passage: Cultures of Transition in the Fourteenth Century, edited by Nicola F. McDonald and W. M. Ormrod, Boydell and Brewer, 2004, pp. 67-82. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.7722/j.ctt81wj0.9.