Life in a Medieval City (6 page)

Another fine example of
a thirteenth-century house
. Known as the Hôtel de Vauluisant, it is situated in Provins. (Archives Photographiques, Paris)

Though everything except soup and sauce is finger food, table manners are important.
²
Gentlefolk eat slowly, take small bites, do not talk while eating, do not drink with their mouths full. Knives are never put in the mouth. Soup must be eaten silently, and the spoon not left in the dish. One does not belch, lean on the table, hang over his dish, or pick his nose, teeth, or nails. Food is not dipped into the salt cellar. Bread is broken, not bitten. Blowing on food to cool it is commonly practiced but frowned upon. Because the wine cup is shared, one must wipe the grease from one’s lips before putting them to the cup.

When the family has eaten, servants and apprentices take their turn at the table. They are permitted to eat their fill but not to linger. Then the table is cleared; bowls, knives and spoons washed; and pots and kettles cleaned. One servant takes a pair of buckets and heads for the well down the street. Another collects the leftovers from the meal and takes them to the door, where a pauper or two generally waits; in bad times there will be a crowd. In the last century, beggars were permitted to enter great houses and solicit directly from the table, but now they are restricted to the doorstep.

After the solar, the principal room on the second floor is the large kitchen. Its focus is the fireplace, back to back and sharing the chimney with the main hearth in the solar. Tall enough for a man to walk into, the fireplace burns logs that are three and a half feet long. The fire is rarely allowed to die. If it does, the servants must start it again with a fire-iron, a three-inch piece of metal shaped like a flatiron, which is struck against a piece of flint to produce sparks.

On the hearth, a toothed rack supports an iron kettle where water is kept heating. Other kettles and cauldrons stand on trivets. Skimmers, spoons, shovels and scoops, pokers, pincers, spits and skewers, and a long-handled fork hang in front of the chimney. Nearby is the kitchen garbage pit, emptied periodically, and a vat which holds the water supply. Live fish swim in a leather tank, next to a wooden pickling tub On a long table against the wall are casseroles of varying sizes. Small utensils are stored on a shelf above: sieves, colanders, mortars and pestles, graters. Hand towels hang out of the reach of mice.

Next to the table stands a spice cupboard—locked, because some of its contents are fabulously expensive. Saffron, of which a rich man’s wife may hoard a minute quantity, is worth a good deal more than its weight in gold. Ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, and several other seasonings imported from the distant East are nearly as dear. Less prohibitive are clove, cannel, mace, cumin. Pepper is just costly enough to be a rich man’s table seasoning, as is mustard. Apart from these condiments, the housewife relies on the herbs from her own garden, which hang drying in bunches from the kitchen beams: basil, sage, savory, marjoram, rosemary, and thyme.

On the floor above the solar and kitchen are the family bedrooms. Master and mistress sleep on a great canopied bed as much as eight feet long and seven feet wide, the straw-filled mattress hung on rope suspenders, and covered with linen sheets, blankets of wool and fur, and feather pillows. Children’s beds are smaller, with serge and linsey-woolsey covers. Bedrooms are sparsely furnished—a washbasin on a stand, a table, a few chairs, a chest. Perhaps once a week a wooden tub for bathing is set up, and servants lug up buckets that have been heated over the kitchen fire. In the interval between baths members of the household may take shampoos.

Along the wall above the head of the bed runs a horizontal pole, or perch, for hanging up clothes at night. Modesty dictates that husband and wife get in bed in their undergarments, removing them after snuffing the candle and tucking them under the pillows. People sleep naked.

The toilet is usually a privy in the stable yard. A few city houses have a “garderobe” off the sleeping room, over a chute to a pit in the cellar that is emptied at intervals. Ideally such a convenience is built out over the water, an arrangement enjoyed by the count’s palace on the canal. Next best is a drainpipe to a neighboring ditch or stream.

Ceaseless war is carried on against fleas, bedbugs, and other insects. Strategies vary. One practice is to fold coverlets, furs, and clothes so tightly in a chest that the fleas will suffocate. A housewife may spread birdlime or turpentine on trenchers of bread, with a lighted candle in the middle. More simply, she may cover a straw mattress with a white sheepskin so that the enemy can be seen and crushed. Netting is used in summer against flies and mosquitoes, and insect traps have been devised, of which the simplest is a rag dipped in honey.

Even for a well-to-do city family, making life comfortable is a problem. But arriving at a point where comfort becomes a problem for a fair number of people is a sign of advancing civilization.

3.

A Medieval Housewife

He is upheld by the hope of his wife’s care…to have his shoes removed before a good fire, his feet washed and to have fresh shoes and stockings, to be given good food and drink, to be well served and well looked after, well bedded in white sheets…well covered with good furs, and assuaged with other joys and amusements…concerning which I am silent; and on the next day fresh shirts and garments
.

—
THE GOODMAN OF PARIS

A
t daybreak cathedral bells sound the first note in a clangorous dialogue that keeps time all day for the citizens of Troyes. The cathedral, as the bishop’s church, has the right to speak first—before the count’s chapel or Notre-Dame-aux-Nonnains—a precedence conceded to Bishop Hervée after an acrimonious dispute. Troyes has so many bells that a verse runs:

Where are you from? I’m from Troyes.

What do you do there? We ring.

The bells do not ring the hours, but at three-hour intervals,
¹
marking the offices of the Church. People do not care exactly what time it is; they want to know how much daylight is left. The bells are their only timekeepers. Monasteries, churches, and public buildings may have sundials or clepsydras (water clocks). The weight-driven clock has yet to be invented.

The dawn bells—“Prime”—launch the day’s activity. The men of the guard go off duty as thieves slink to their cellars and honest men begin work. Blacksmiths and butchers are among the first. Shutters rattle and shops open. Cows, sheep, and pigs, mooing and squealing their way out of stable yards to pastures outside the walls, meet sleepy maidservants going to the wells with buckets and basins.

In the tall houses, people crawl out of bed, grope for their underclothes beneath the pillow and their outer garments on the perch, and splash their faces and hands with cold water. An honest housewife completes her morning grooming by combing and plaiting her hair. She has heard more than one sermon censuring women who indulge in cosmetics. The preachers like to remind their lady parishioners that wigs are made of the hair of persons who are now likely to be found in hell or purgatory, and that “Jesus Christ and his blessed mother, of royal blood though they were, never thought of wearing” the belts of silk, gold, and silver that are fashionable among wealthy women. The bandeaux which some ladies employ to bind their bosoms are also frowned on; in the next world, the preachers say, these will be transformed into bands of fire.

The feminine ideal is a slender figure, blond hair, and fair skin—“white as snow on ice,” says a poet. To achieve this ideal some women use ointments that are guaranteed to lighten complexions, but sometimes take the skin off along with the pigment.

One of the housewife’s first chores in the morning is shopping for food, which must be done daily. In Troyes most of the food purveyors are clustered in the narrow streets that surround St.-Jean—the Rue du Domino, the Rue des Croisettes (Little Crosses), the Cour de la Rencontre (Meeting Court). Many street names designate the trade practiced there—the Rue de la Corderie (Ropemakers), Rue de la Grande Tannerie and Rue de la Petite Tannerie, Rue de l’Orfàvrerie (Goldsmiths), Rue de l’Epicerie (Grocers). The Rue du Temple runs past the commandery of the Knights Templar.

Signs furnish a colorful punctuation to the rows of wooden houses—a bush for the vintner, three gilded pills for the apothecary, a white arm with stripes of red for the surgeon-barber, a unicorn for the goldsmith, a horse’s head for the harness maker.

Shoppers must watch their step in the streets, which are full of unpleasant surprises. In the butchers’ quarter slaughtering is performed on the spot, and blood dries in the sun amid piles of offal and swarms of flies. Outside the poulterers’ shops geese, tied to the aprons of the stalls, honk and gabble. Chickens and ducks, their legs trussed, flounder on the ground, along with rabbits and hares.

The housewives pinching the fowl carry in their purses three kinds of coins. Two are of copper—oboles and half-oboles, the small change of the Middle Ages. The only coin of value is the silver penny, or
denier
. A fat capon costs six deniers,
²
an ordinary chicken four, a rabbit five, a large hare twelve.

Near the butchers’ and poulterers’ stalls are other food speciality shops. A pastry shop offers wafers at three deniers a pound. The spice-grocer displays a variety of wares. Vinegar comes in big jars at from two to five deniers. Most edible oils cost seven to nine deniers, although olive oil is double that price. Salt is cheap (five pounds for two deniers), pepper dear (four deniers an ounce), sugar even dearer. Even honey is expensive. Sweeteners appear on few medieval tables.

At the bakery, where an apprentice may be seen removing loaves from the oven with a long-handled wooden shovel, the prices of the different loaves are legally fixed. So are the weights, with variations permitted from year to year depending on the wheat crop. Bread is rather expensive this year. Some bakers cheat on quality or weight, and for this reason each baker must mark his bread with his own seal. A detected cheater ends up in the pillory with one of his fraudulent loaves hung around his neck.

The housewife is always on the lookout for poor quality or doubtful quantity—watered wine, milk or oil, bread with too much yeast, blown-out meat, stale fish reddened with pig’s blood, cheese made to look richer by soaking it in broth. Dishonest tradesmen are the butt of numerous stories. A favorite: A man asked the sausage butcher for a discount because he had been a faithful customer for seven years. “Seven years!” exclaimed the butcher. “And you’re still alive?”

Besides the food shops, there are the peddlers. About terce (nine o’clock) their cries augment the din of the streets. They sell fish, chicken, fresh and salt meat, garlic, honey, onions, fruit, eggs, leeks, and pasties filled with fruit, chopped ham, chicken or eel, seasoned with pepper, soft cheese and egg. “Good Champagne cheese! Good cheese of Brie!” cry the street vendors in Paris, and probably in Troyes as well. Wine and milk are also peddled in the street.

Marketing is only the first step in the preparation of food. All cooking is done over the open fire; there are no ovens in private houses. Food must be prepared and mixed by hand. Utensils are of iron, copper, pewter, earthenware—no steel or glass. There are no paper or paper products, no chocolate, coffee, tea, potatoes, rice, spaghetti, noodles, tomatoes, squash, corn, baking powder, baking soda, or gelatin. Citrus fruit is a rare delicacy.

Techniques for preserving food are limited. Fish are kept live or in pickling tanks, or salted and smoked; meat may be salted; winter vegetables can be stored in a cool cellar; some fruits, vegetables, and herbs are dried in the sun.

The dinner hour depends on the season and the trade of the household; one may dine as early as ten. Kitchen preparations begin early. Servants clean, mince, blanch, parboil, crush herbs in the mortar, fry and grill meat. To thicken sauces, bread crumbs ground with the pestle are used instead of flour. Recipes are characterized by a staggering complexity, except for roasts, which are turned on a spit over the fire. Vegetables must be blanched, rinsed and cooked for long periods in several changes of water; the mortar and strainer are in constant use; the lists of ingredients are endless. Menus in a prosperous household consist of a series of broths or brewets, thick soups, stews, roasts and fish dishes, followed by savories, fruit or pastries, spiced wine, and wafers. At feasts the last course is preceded by glazed and decorated
entremets
(eaten “between courses”). These are no trifles, but boars’ heads, or swans roasted in their feathers, carried around on platters for all to admire.

Many tasks besides those of the kitchen occupy the housewife and her servants, of which even modest households have a few. City women in any case are better off than the peasant wives of the countryside, who must spin their own thread with the distaff and make their own cloth.

Among the daily tasks are making the beds, accomplished with the aid of a long stick to reach across the vast breadth of the master’s bed. Covers and cushions must be shaken out and chamber pots emptied. Servants make up the kitchen fire in the morning, fill the water vat and the big iron kettle in the kitchen, sweep out the entrance and the hall, and occasionally lay fresh rushes.

There are laundresses in Troyes, but most households do their own laundry. From time to time, shirts, tablecloths, and bed linen are put in a wooden trough and soaked in a mixture of wood ashes and caustic soda, then pounded, rinsed and dried in the sun. Soft soap is also used, and is made at home by boiling caustic soda with animal fat. A much better hard soap is made in Spain from olive oil, but is too expensive for everyday use.