Thomas More published Utopia in 1516, when the Early Modern period was well under way. However, the land of Utopia is meant to be a new vision, a move away from the corruption of Renaissance times.
Specifically, More models Utopian feasts off medieval norms, as a call to return to them in reaction to the changes of the Early Modern period. Utopia is also a product of More’s Early Modern times, however, and aspects of these feasts reflect that.
Layout
One of the most obvious ways that Utopia’s feasts reflect medieval ideals is in their layout. The table set-up is extremely similar to that in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. In Utopia, the syphogrant – the leader of Utopia – takes the king’s place. In Utopia, “The syphogrant with his wife sits at the middle of the first table, in the highest part of the dining hall” (More 81). In the Middle Ages, “The lord’s table was often placed upon a raised dais, becoming quite literally a high table… All guests in the hall were seated strictly according to rank” (Wells 70). Although More doesn’t describe the head table as being specifically placed on a dais, it is still raised to the same effect, signifying the syphogrant’s status. That he and his wife sit at the middle of this table further emphasizes their power and shows just how rigid More’s – and the Middle Ages’ – rules were. Medieval sensibilities also appear in the layout of the other tables. The Utopians sit at tables “crosswise to” the high table, just as medieval eaters “sit at tables endwise to the High Table” (Brewer 137).
More subverts some medieval expectations, though, in the makeup of the tables. Firstly, Utopian company is mixed, not ordered by rank as in the Middle Ages. More writes, “those of about the same age sit together, yet are mingled with others of a different age… [so] that the dignity of the aged, and the respect due them, may restrain the younger people” (More 81). The serving of food also doesn’t reflect hierarchy, as it did in the Middle Ages: “Dishes of food are not served… in order from top to bottom, but all the old persons… are served with the best food” (More 81). However, “The oldest of every household… is the ruler,” so the order of service still follows a familial hierarchy (79). Additionally, Utopians populate both sides of each table, and “The men sit with their backs to the wall, the women on the outside” (More 80). This differs from feats in the Middle Ages, where “The other side of the table is unoccupied so that food may be served” (Brewer 136-7).
Food and Entertainment
In the Renaissance, preparing dishes from foreign cultures was a way to show finesse. However, Utopia is intentionally isolated from other countries. Most of the city’s food comes from within Utopia, and More emphasizes this self-sufficiency (More 79). This is yet another way in which More rejects the norms of his time.
Still, More accepts some Early Modern ways. In the Renaissance, dishes were meant to provoke thought more than to awe guests or assert dominance. Utopia combines medieval emphasis on entertainment with this introspection, as “No evening meal passes without music, and the dessert course is never scanted” and a “reading on an oral topic” takes place (More 81).
Social Role
Renaissance feasts also emphasized the possibility of upward mobility, as they focused on the raising of money and the skills of chefs. In Utopia, instead, “slaves do all the particularly dirty and heavy work” (More 80). Utopian dinners are not about money. Still, Renaissance feasts had a renewed purpose of strengthening communities, and Utopian feasts definitely fit this descriptor. The Utopians “take their meals in common” (80). Therefore, while More wants to break from current norms to revert to a medieval form of social gathering, he still captures the spirit of the Renaissance feast.
See Also
Works Cited
Brewer, Derek, “Feasts,” A Companion to the Gawain-Poet, edited by Jonathan Gibson. Boydell & Brewer Ltd., 1997, pp. 129-142.
More, Thomas. “Utopia.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Sixteenth Century, 10th edition, ed. Stephen Greenblatt. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, 2018, pp. 44-117.
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.