Richard's Ramblings

RICHARD BUSBY (16o6-1695)

Modern perceptions of the classical education available at the famous English Public schools of Eton and Harrow owe  alot to how those places evolved and established systems of education in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Yet one man above all can be argued to have done the most to influence the way that education at these establishemnts would evolve and he lived not in the 19th but the 17th century.

Richard Busby was an English clergyman, who went onto become headmaster of Westminster school. He was Born at Lutton in Lincolnshire in 1606 . He was actually educated at Westminster School himself and gained a King’s Scholarship – a mark of achievment and also funding for his education coming from a gift from the crown.

Busby went from Westmister to study at Oxford, where he was a graduate of Christ Church. He left the university in 1628 . Busby was an ardent supporter of the Stuart dynasty and the crown and and by the age of 33 he was rewarded for his services with the rectory of Cudworth in Somerset . He did not stay there long however because the next year saw him becoming head master of Westminster at a very young age. 

He set about reforming the school, He wrote and edited many works for the use of his scholars the best of which are his Greek and Latin grammars. He expected high standards and enforced his rules with iron discipline . Corporal punishment with a cane was a frequent part of this discipline and he himself once boasted that no fewer than sixteen of the current bishops had been birched with his ” little rod.”

One could argue (with modern eyes) against the severity of his regime BUT one cannot argue with the results. No other school in England at any point in its history produced so many famous and significant  men as Westminster did when Busby was headmaster there. The poet John Dryden, philosopher John Locke, scientist Robert Hooke composer Henry Purcell and architect Christopher Wren were all pupils at the school. 

As I have said, Busby was a staunch royalist and yet was able to remain in his post throughout the years of the English Civil War despite London being a parliamentarian stronghold through the war. He prayed publicly for the safety of the Crown, on the very day of Charles I’s execution but he thrashed Royalist and Puritan boys alike without fear or favour. Busby also took part in Oliver Cromwell’s funeral procession.

So, Busby remained in office throughout the Civil War and the Commonwealth, when the school was governed by Parliamentary Commissioners, and well into the Restoration.

Busby died in 1695, in his ninetieth year, and was buried in WestminsterAbbey .

In my book The Last Seal I portray Busby as many of his pupils remembered and wrote about him: prone to severe tempers and using corporal punishement at whim. He can come across as rather a 19th century public school headmaster but that is because public schools in the 18th centuy onwards owed so much to his approaches to education via rigourous disciplined teaching styles.

There is saying that the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton. Perhaps it should have been the play fields of Westminster.

For more on 17th Century London watch my Blog and read The Last Seal: you can read the first part on www.thelastseal.com

Part of the huge horde found in a Staffordshire field

£1.3 grant from National Lottery secures future of The Staffordshire Horde

It has been confirmed this week (article written March 20th) that a £1.3 grant from the National Lottery added to £2 already rasied by a public appeal is sufficient to safeguard this historic collection and keep it in the Midlands for the future generations. There are plans for the collection to be houses in a heritage centre and museum although many items are on loan to other museums including a permanent collection at the British Museum.

This gold strip carries the Latin inscription: "Rise up O Lord, and may thy enemies be dispersed and those who hate thee be driven from thy face." It has two sources, the Book of Numbers or Psalm 67, taken from the Vulgate, the Bible used by the Saxons.

Found by a Treasure hunter

In the summer of 2009 a treasure trove of 1500+ items comprising 5 Kg of Gold and 2.5Kg of silver was found in a field in Staffordshire. Mr Herbert, 55, of Burntwood in Staffordshire, who has been metal detecting for 18 years, came across the hoard as he searched land belonging to a farmer friend over five days in July 2009.

In pure scrap terms this find is worth over £100,000 for metal alone but its actual value has been priced at £3.2. This is the money that needed to be raised to purchase the horde  by Birmingham and Staffordshire Museums. Finally this has been secured.

In the heartlands of Mercia

The  location of the find is Johnson’s Farm near Brownhills, Staffordshire: about 4 miles west of Lichfield.

This location, close to the town of Tamworth the ancient capital of Mercia, is in the heartland of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Mercia. The items date from the 7th or 8th centuries during the hey day of that Kingdom between the reigns of Penda in the mid 7th century and Offa a century later.

More Important than Sutton Hoo?

The horde consists of stunningly beautiful items dating back – it is believed – to the 7th century. In total the horde is larger than that found at Sutton Hoo in East Anglia and represents a find of profound historical importance according to Leslie Webster, British Museum:

“This is going to alter our perceptions of Anglo-Saxon England… as radically, if not more so, as the Sutton Hoo discoveries. Absolutely the equivalent of finding a new Lindisfarne Gospels or Book of Kells.”

Treasure taken in battle?

According to experts who have the job of cataloguing the the find the treasure is not just of exceptionally high quality, it is also interesting it what it contains and what it does not. There is absolutely nothing feminine such as   dress fittings, brooches or pendants, which are the most common items found in these treasure hordes. Instead the majority of items in the hoard are war gear, especially sword fittings.

Could this represent the booty of war and raiding in the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms? Was this  a votive offering to the gods at the end of the Pagan era? Was it buried to avoid rampaging armies and forgotten about?

Many theories prevail but the Staffordshire Horde is likely to provoke great interest for years to come. I for one will be in the queue when the museum finally opens.

Read about a different treasure in my novel set in Dark Age Northumbria The Amber Treasure

The telling and guessing of riddles was a popular pass-time for the Anglo-Saxons. Often these riddles had double meanings – a blatant sometimes sexual one and a more subtle true answer.  The riddles became steadily more elaborate and some are very obscure.

Not many of these riddles exist today but The Book of Exeter survived Henry VIII’s destruction of the monasteries and lists about 60. Here are some of them with answers at the bottom:

1. Head down, nosing-I belly the ground. Hard snuffle and grub, I bite and furrow. Drawn by the dark enemy of forests, driven by a bent lord who hounds my trail. Who lifts and lowers me, rams me down. Pushes on plain, and sows seed. I am a ground-skulker, born of wood. Bound by wizards, brought on wheel. My ways are weird: as I walk one flank Of my trail is gathering green, the other Is bright black. Through my back and belly a sharp sword thrusts; through my head. A dagger is stuck like a tooth: what I slash falls in a curve of slaughter to one side if my driving lord slaves well.

2. I saw a creature with its belly behind huge and swollen, handled by a servant, A hard, muscled man who struggled so That the bulge in its belly burst through its eye: Its passion–gorge and spill through death, Then rise and fill with second breath To sire a son and father self.

3. A small miracle hangs near a man’s thigh, Full under folds. It is stiff, strong, Bold, brassy, and pierced in front. When a young lord lifts his tunic over his knees, he wants to greet with the hard head of this hanging creature the hole it has long come to fill.

4. The wind carries small creatures over hill-slopes and headlands: dark coated, black-bodied, bursting with song. They chirm and clamor like a troop on wing, winding their way to wooded cliff-walls, sometimes to the halls of men-singing a name-song.

5. Who am I who stand so boldly by the sea road: hightowering, cheek-bright, useful to men?

So how did you get on. Here are the answers:

Answers

1. Plough (OK that one seems clear enough) 2. Bellows (bit obscure if you ask me) 3.  A Key (what were you thinking?) 4. Swallows (or any of many other birds) 5. Lighthouse

Harvest time was a very important and serious point in the year associated with rituals and thanksgiving after it was completed.

There was no Asda or Wallmart to go to. Our ancestors lived much closer to and were far more dependant on the land than we are today.

How did they preserve food and store it through the long winter? Read on:

Grains crops

These included wheat, barley and corn.

Grain crops would be harvested and then taken to barns. Here there were thrashed with wooden or metal flails to bring off the grain. This winnowing was done on the floor of the barn in the early winter.

Milling:

Different technologies were used to grind grain into flour:

1. Pestles and mortar

2.Saddle querns: These consisted of an upper convex stones and lower concave or hollow stone. The two halves would fit together and by rocking the upper stones the grain was crushed.

3. Rotary querns with handle. These were two flat stones. Both round in shape which would rotate one upon the other.

4. Mills were introduced in 8th to 9th centuries. The mill stones were powered by water wheels or by animal power.

Butchery

Animals were typically killed in the winter as meat was easier to store in the cold months than the heat of summer. Because of the greater risk of infection pork was never eaten in the summer.

A smaller household might employ a professional to slaughter their animals. Animals would be killed using the spike on the rear face of an axe – this is the origin of the expression ‘poleaxeing’.  This butcher would usually be paid in meat from the animal.

Meat was usually hung for up to 3 weeks  for beef or 1 week for lamb.

Most of an animal would be used for food including the tongue, offal and brain. Even bone marrow was used in salves and ointments, soups etc.

Preservation and Processing of Food

There were various methods used to preserve food:

Drying

This was done in the sun, in open air, by a fire, in an oven or in a kiln. It was used for beans, cereals, herbs, mushrooms (threaded on string), seaweed, peas and even some meat and fish.

Smoking

Birchwood, oak, juniper wood or even seaweed was used to smoke hams, and some fish such as herring.

Pickling

Some fruit or vegetables were preserved this way in vinegar, alcohol or honey

Boiling

This method was used for fruit which was boiled down to mush and stored in sealed jars

Salting

Dry salting:

Mix of salt, pepper and honey was used for hams turned and rubbed in mixtures twice weekly for a month. Then they were hung up to dry

Wet:

Again hams could be soaked in brine

After salting the pork or ham might be smoked.

How to make Salt?

Lead Pots were used to dry out salt. Salt deposits were located in brine pits near sea inlets

Storage

How was food stored through the winter?

Cereals: Threshed in barn / granary pit. Flour and meal put in chest

Fruit: Boiled and the put in a crock jar sealed with greased lid – maybe using butter or wax.

Meat and Cheeses: hung up in “Bacon House”

Eggs stored in Ash or straw

Root vegetables in cellars/ dark storehouses

The Key Holder

The food would be locked away in a store room. The room was locked and the key kept by a key holder. This was a very important role. It was usually a woman. Sometimes women were buried with their keys and have been found by archaeologist which is how we know about this.

Problems of food storage.

Other than lack of refrigeration, pests were a real problem. These might include mice and  rats. The Anglo Saxons kept cats and even weasels  to keep the mice and rodent population low.

Flour and cereals could get infected by flour mites causing bowel disorders like diarrhoea.

The existence of the England we know today is rightly linked to the victories of Alfred the Great and his Kingdom of Wessex over the Vikings in the ninth century. Yet, three hundred years before Alfred’s time, it was the creation of the powerful kingdom of Northumbria and its emergence as the dominant power in Britain for about a century, where we can see the roots of that England.

This was the Kingdom of Bede, the great chronicler of the late 7th and early 8th century and author of Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum: The Ecclesiastical History of the English People. It is also the land of the great kings, Edwin and Oswald, as well as the location of the Council of Whitby that established the form that the Christian church in England would take: a form that lasted − more or less unchanged − until Henry VIII broke away from Rome some 900 years later.

Before Edwin and Oswald created this golden age, and made Northumbria briefly the most powerful of the old Saxon Kingdoms, one man: Edwin’s rival and Oswald’s father was the first to unify Northumbria. It was this powerful man who above all other put the Romano-British onto the back foot. This man was Aethelfrith the king of Bernicia and later of a united Northumbria.

When Aethelfrith was born in Bernicia (the most northerly Saxon kingdom based around the Bamburgh and Lindisfarne area) he was probably a long way down the line of succession. The twenty years before he became king are very confusing and no less than four men including his father Aethelric and (probably) his uncles Hussa, Theodric and Frithuwulf are listed as ruling. What is clearer is that around 593 – probably after civil war between various rivals – Aethelfrith finally secured the throne.

After becoming king Aethelfrith embarked on campaigns to extend his borders initially west and particularly northwards. This brought him into conflict with the Britons of Rheged, Strathclyde and Manau Gododdin. It seems likely that this aggression provoked the British to unite and attack the Saxons at a place called Catraeth, now identified with Catterick in Yorkshire, in around 597 to 600 AD. The battle – recorded in the poem called Y Gododdin was a disaster for the British and only increased Aethelfrith’s power. Further expansion west into what is now lowland Scotland provoked conflict with the Irish invaders of Dal Riata (who became the Scots). Aedann of Dal Riata lead a great army to oppose Aethelfrih but despite being outnumbered (apparently) Aethelfrith destroys this army at Degsastan in around 603.

Degsastan now removed the threat on Bernicia’s north and west and so it seems that at this time Aethelfrith turned his eyes south to Deira (the other half of what will become Northumbria). It seems that a weak or possibly elderly king called Aethelric was king in Deira at this time. He might be brother or uncle to Edwin of Deira. Either by invasion or some sort of power play Aethelfrith takes over Deira around 604 and Edwin flees into exile with Aethelric’s son Hereric (although Hereric is poisoned in Elmet, a British land the princes take shelter in, probably under the orders of Elmet’s king who is trying to appease Aethelfrith.) Edwin goes into extended exile in Mercia (where he marries a princess) and Gwynedd.

Aethelfrith secures his position by marrying Asha, sister to Prince Edwin and in so doing uniting the two houses. The future king Oswald is born of this union. Some versions suggest that he may have already been married to Asha and took advantage of a weak king to move in. Aethelfrith may have already been married at this time to a Bebba after whom Bamburgh is named. It is unclear if she was already dead by the time he married Asha.

Over the next decade Aethelfrith was fairly quiet – and was probably consolidating the gains in land his earlier reign had brought. However, in about 614, he is again on the move and leads an army west to Chester. It appears that Edwin had not been idle and had perhaps managed to unite the Welsh kingdoms of Gwynedd and Powys, possibly with Mercia, in an alliance that now threatened Aethelfrith. The results was a battle at Chester. The only feature we know is that supposedly a large number of monks from a nearby monastery came to pray for British victory over the Northumbrian army and were slaughtered by Aethelfrith. The result of this battle was that Edwin was again on the road and trying to find allies. In around 616 he ends up in East Anglia in the court of, the then overlord of the Saxon’s, Redwald. Aethelfrith sent offers to pay Redwald if he would kill Edwin. Instead Redwald agrees to send an army with Edwin to attempt to defeat Aethelfrith. At the battle of the River Idle, in 616, Edwin is finally victorious and Aethelfrith’s luck runs out and he is slain.

Edwin becomes king in Northumbria and the young Oswald flees to the north with his brothers and kin. The tables are turned and Aethelfrith’s line is now in exile – for the next 16 years.

Edwin goes on to build on the foundation that Aethelfrith laid, but it is the Bernician royal line that played and would later play the largest role in the establishment of the Kingdom of Northumbria as the most powerful Saxon land in Britain and Aethelfrith must be given credit for his part.

Aethelfrith and the battle of Catraeth does appear in my novel The Amber Treasure and would feature in any sequels.

Entertainment in Anglo Saxon times:

Feats in Anglo Saxon Times

No Ipods, no Internet, no TV, radio and not even newspapers and books (unless you were wealthy ). What do you do to keep from getting bored? Here are some ways that the Anglo Saxons had fun in the dark evenings.

Indoor entertainment and feasts

There was a high degree of ceremony connected with feasts. It would start outside the hall. A horn was blown to summon the guests to table and the host would great them at the door where there would be a hand washing ceremony at the door. The doors were shut to keep gate crashers away!

Then the guests would enter and sit at benches lining long tables. The king’s warriors or thegns could sit in his halls but only men of high rank would sit at the high table. Women of high rank would be cup bearers and pour drinks for the king and lords. In the Christian era bread was blessed and then broken in remembrance of the Eucharist or holy communion/ mass.

Feasts might go on all day and night: there were even some 3 day feasts.

It was considered a serious matter to commit an offense or undertake violence at a feast

Entertainment at feasts: These might include playing the harp, lyre, horn, trumpet, drums flute or cymbals. There would be accompanying signing: often songs recalling battles.

They enjoyed dancing and juggling, poets and stories and the asking of riddles. Here is a typical Anglo-Saxon riddle from the Exeter book which has many riddles. Some are obscure and some lewd and suggestive. This one is straighter forward.
On the wave a miracle: water turned to bone.
What is the answer? See at the end of this section.

Games:

A board game

Above: a game of Hnefatafl 
The Anglo-Saxons were fond of dice games. Dice were made from the knuckle bones of animals such as pigs. Boardgames were also popular and often recalled battles in a symbolic way. An example is Hnefatafl which is played using stone pieces on a carved wooden board.  One player’s pawns coming from the corners of the board would attack the other side’s kings and pawns which were positioned in the centre. The player with the King would be trying to get him off the board (to escape from the battle) whilst the other player would try and trap him. These un-even games – where the two sides were of different sizes and abilities – were very prevalent in Anglo-Saxon and later Viking cultures.

Outdoor Sports:
Horse racing  was mentioned in Beowulf  in 8th century and by the writer Bede in 7th. There are records of dog racing, hunting, ice skating, swimming, falconry, hawking, acrobatics wrestling and gymnastics.

Answer to the riddle: 
On the wave a miracle: water turned to bone.
Ice or iceberg.

The preparation for warfare, the rituals surrounding it and the actual conduct of battle were central to the world view of the Anglo-Saxons. Even if a man never fought a battle or the land was at peace it was expected that men would train to be ready. Just like today, reputation very important to men at this time. Reputation was gained by prowess in battle, by recalling the deeds of one’s ancestors and kin and by the creation of and the attitude of hereditary allies and enemies

Some concepts:
All warriors must be freemen. The right to bear arms was central to the status of a freeman in the way that one aspect of slavery was that they were banned from carrying weapons.

The Anglo-Saxons believed that a warrior or leader had secret knowledge he used to protect his men. The leader kept a band of men around him – his hearth company. They would eat with him, sleep in his halls, go where he went and fight for him. They were called thanes and they had a duty to protect and serve him

Some words:
Geoguo: a youth – the young warriors
Duguo: older veterans
In battle, older veterans stood at the rear – trying to bolster the men, the youths were in the middle whilst the seasoned warriors stood at the front.

Rituals

Gifts:
Another word: Gift stool (Grefstol) – Lord sat on it to dispense gifts
The kings gave out gifts to reward his followers and maintain their loyalty. Leaders might hold special gift days. Maybe these were celebrated on days linked to his to his predecessor’s triumphs to remind his followers of his inheritance.

Followers would promise duty and loyalty and leaders would give gifts: weapons, armour, rings, drinking vessels or land.

The value of an object was much more than just wealth: there would be sentimental value. The history of the object was critical i.e. who owned it before, when and for what was it used.

Ale Ritual
This was very symbolic and carried out in a defined manner.
The leader would hold feasts and provide ale and mead. The followers would drink from horns, goblets and beakers. Warriors would stand up individually and would be greeted by the leader. Then their valour and deeds would be celebrated.

The warriors would boast (Beot). This would involved committing themselves to perform a deed. This might be promising to serve their lord, never flinch in battle, slay a foe or die in attempt etc. They NEVER promised success – that was considered up to fate.

The Warrior and his king might embrace or kiss. The warrior might lay his head or hands on the lord’s knee

Ritual Combat
In the case of perceived insult or loss of honour, a challenge to single combat could be refused but would lead to loss of face and public ridicule. The Anglo – Saxons had a item called a scorn pole which could be put up outside their house.
They could expect to be shamed and excluded from society.
Some Words:
Einvigi: single combat – this was a less formal duel probably just outside a hall.
Holmgangi  “going to an island”. One method was to go to secluded spot. Often this was a ritual site used many times in the past.Often they would peg out area of ground to fight inside using hazel sticks. These duels would continue until the death of one or their incapacity. The combatants would take alternate strokes – which they could attempt to deflect with their sword or shield.

Sword Rituals
The sword was a potent symbol to the Anglo Saxons. A promise made on a sword was taken very seriously. Swearing of oaths was often done on a bare blade. The family sword was put in hands of new born sons to show their inheritance and by so doing, the luck of the family was passed on. The marriage oath might be made in front of naked sword.
Often a mother passed on the sword to a son: ie a father would give sword to a daughter to hand on to her son

Beasts of Battle/ Gods of war
Warriors would carry the motif of a god or an associated beast on their equipment. This is particularly so in the case of Kings and leaders and is mentioned in poems.
Here are some of the gods their symbols:
Raven: Cult of Woden (also sometimes a wolf)
Boars: Freyr
Spear: Odin – Tiw. He was the god worshipped by leaders.
Hammer: Thor. He was the god of the rank and file.

In researching the traditions and rituals of warfare for this blog as well as my novel  The Amber Treasure I consulted these books about Warfare:

The English Warrior: Stephen Pollington – Anglo Saxon Books
Warriors of the Dark Ages: Jenniffer Laing – Sutton
Anglo Saxon Weapons and Warfare: Richard Underwood – Tempus

For the Anglo Saxons the main meal of day was lunch time, whereas the evening meal more often broth (Briw)

A specialist Cook would be usually be a man: in Old English the word for Cook is a male word.

General methods of cooking

Fuel:

The cutting and gathering of wood was a summer occupation. Any crops would be growing and need little attention, but it was not yet harvest time. The villagers would take carts out into the nearby forests. Peasants would often have a “right to gather” fallen branches in woods.   Apart from their own needs fire wood bundles were often part of their Feorm or due they had to deliver to their Lord.

Where it was naturally available coal might be used as fuel and charcoal was certainly produced, but fire wood was by far the most commonly consumed fuel.

Fire Making and ovens:

Most men and women would have their own set of fire steels, flints and tinder boxes. There are occasionally found in pagan graves. Dependant on what was easily available; the hearth was lined with clay tiles or stones and was heart of each house. Commonly this would be a fire pit in the centre of the room. Smoke would escape through a hole in the roof or just be filtrating out through the thatch.

Sometimes heated stones were dropped in pots of water to boil it as a prelude to boiling food.

Larger brick ovens would often have been located in separate buildings and burnt wood faggots.  Sometimes they would consist of a chamber for fire with flues to carry hot air to another chamber where the food was cooked.

Earth Oven: This was created from a pit dug in the earth. Heated stones would be laid in them. Then meat covered with clay and leaves was laid in the pit and the food covered over with hot stones

Cooking Utensils

Pots and Cauldrons could be made from metals such as Iron, Bronze, Copper or Tin. Clay pots were used but soapstone was popular as it was tough and easier to clean than other crockery.

Methods of Cooking

Boiling and stewing was main method used by the Anglo Saxons. Often salted meat was later boiled.

e.g. Goose put in floured bag with milk or butter and lowered into cauldron. Beans, barley and vegetables might be in other bags in the same cauldron.

Roasting and Grilling was used for fresh meat and fish

Griddles and frying pans were in use e.g for cooking flat breads or omelettes.

Bread

For unleavened bread, flat bread and round cakes this was prepared by mixing meal (ground barley, wheat etc) with salt. This would then be cooked on a griddle or upon the hot heath stones near the fire.

Adding yeast produced leavened bread. Yeast could obtained from the dregs that remained after brewing ale – or even some forms of mould.

Bread was cooked in a pan, upon hearth stones or in the oven. Ovens could be single chambers or two chambers. In the single chamber you put in wooden faggots and burnt them. When the faggots where ash you would take out the ash and put in the dough. This bread would be blackened and discoloured so you would have to cut or break off the crust.

Alternatively, you could cover the bread with an upturned pot and then pile the hot embers ash on top.

Another method was the two chamber oven. Wood would be burnt in one chamber and the bread cooked in the adjacent chamber, which was heated by hot air from the other.

Milk, butter and cheese represented a significant part of the Anglo Saxon diet. They were also used as payments and dues: making up part of the Feorm handed over to a lord or King. Milk was frequently an ingredient in medicines as the basis for drinks, whilst butter was occasionally used to make oily poultices and cheese consumed to treat asthma.

Cows, Goats and Sheep

In Anglo-Saxon times, milk was frequently used not only from cows, but also sheep and goats. Milk from these animals is mentioned in many sources. One example listed the rights of a cowherd to the milk from a cow for seven days after she had calved; a shepherd to the milk of his herd for a week after the equinox; finally a goatherd could have the milk from his goats for a periodafter Martinmass and to a share of the whey beforehand

What is clear from this is that not only did milk get used from all these animals, but also just how tightly the Saxon’s lives were regulated by reference to rules laid down by Kings and others and to the dates and calendars of the year.

The animals were typically looked after in the fields by men who often milked their beasts.

A sour taste in the mouth

Even in the modern era we struggle to keep milk from going sour, especially in the warm summer months. Over a thousand years ago they had no refrigeration and the problem of sour milk was very pertinent. Indeed, such trouble did it cause, that St Columba once rebuked a follower for not casting out the devil at the bottom of the milking pail!

Various remedies were suggested, including putting bundles of herbs in the pail and hanging the pail up or standing it on a stool for a week. Perhaps the herbs had some antiseptic effect or maybe the pail just dried out

Butter

Making butter and cheese was usually done by the womenfolk. Indeed some charters and codes of law specify the payments these women had to make to sell their products at the markets around Christmas: e.g. a penny. This suggested it was common place for these women to be selling the cheeses at market.

The Saxons did not usually drink cream. Instead this became the basis of butter. The rest of the milk would be separated from the cream and the cream churned to make butter. Butter was usually salted for, as with all dairy products its life was short, so this helped to preserve it. This was accomplished but mixing the salt through the butter then pressing it down between layers of salt in a barrel to keep air away.

Cheese

The Saxons were quite advanced at the production of cheeses.

Walk milk would be curdled to make junket which was then cut up. The lumps of curds would make the cheese. The liquid whey was sometimes used for more butter.

The Saxons relied on different methods to curdle milk. Firstly, as they used wooden utensils which were not sterilised, the build up of bacteria upon them would assist this process. They also had access to a natural curdling agent still used today: rennet. This is produced in the stomachs of mammals e.g. cows. It is also present in certain plants such as thistles and safflower. Vinegar could also be used to help curdle milk.

Fresh cheeses were usually eaten by the poor, whereas mature cheeses, which needed more careful preservation, fetched a higher price making them mostly consumed by the wealthier members of society.

Although blue cheeses are mentioned in French records there is little evidence for them being made in quantity by the Anglo-Saxons.

As with many references I make to Food and Drink I am reliant primarily on the excellent books by Ann Hagen  and published by Anglo Saxon Books.

This article is one of a series of articles looking at life in Anglo Saxon times: An Anglo Saxon Survival Guide, if you like.  In writing The Amber Treasure I have tried to remain faithful to the historical facts. 

More on Food and Drink next week.

The Amber Treasure: Trechery in Dark Age Northumbria:http://www.richarddenning.co.uk/information.html

Food and Drink

Fifteen centuries is a long time and the average diet of men and women can change a lot. What then was typical food and drink consumed by our ancestors who lived in these islands around the 6th to 7th century and during the centuries following?

•Cereals: Barley, wheat, rye and oats were grown and made into bread and beer. A popular use was pottage: a stew of cereals, pulses and vegetables. This was called briw in Old English.

•Drinks: Beer, which was made from malted barley, was the main beverage consumed. This was really a type of ale, meaning it did not contain hops (later centuries would classify beer as ale made with hops). Mead was also produced along with cider  but more rarely. In Old English ale was called alu or ealu.Wine was very uncommon and only available to wealthy individuals. Milk was occasionally drunk but more often used for cheese and butter.

•Pulses: Beans and peas were commonly used in briw.

•Vegetables: Typically used again in briw, these included leeks, onions, garlic, cabbage, turnips, beets, parsnips, carrots. They did not include potatoes – a much later 16th century import.

•Herbs: Ginger, coriander, pepper and other herbs and spices were known, but were mainly used in medicines.

•Fruit: Very commonly used in diet, although often dried or boiled and stored for later use; these included apples, pears, plums, cherries, rasberries, strawberries and blackberries. Nuts such as hazelnuts were eaten.

•Eggs: were an easily available food which also included ducks and goose eggs as well as hens.

•Meat and Fish: Pretty much all of an animal would be consumed. Red meat was rarer in the diet; pork and chicken being much more common. Game and fowl was eaten much more than today. Shellfish, such as oysters, were a standard part of the diet: much more than is the case in our day, where they are considered an exotic luxury item (although maybe not as much as 20 years ago). Eels and other fish were often eaten on fast days when meat was off the menu.

Read more: For those wishing to find out more about food eaten at this time period, I refer you to Anglo-Saxon Food by Ann Hagen (published by Anglo-Saxon books).

I mention a number of Anglo-Saxon meals in The Amber Treasure

In my next Blog I will look at gathering,  harvesting and preparing of food at the time.