Alban Gautier

Butlers and dish-bearers in Anglo-Saxon courts: household officers at the royal table

In Anglo-Saxon courts, from the eighth century down to the Norman conquest, ‘officers of the mouth’, bore household titles and served the king and his guests during meals, at least on major occasions. Those butlers (pincernae) and dish-bearers (dapiferi, disciferi) were not mere ‘waiters’ but members of great aristocratic families; serving the kings table was an honour for them, with all the implications of that word in an early medieval context. Using a variety of sources, particularly the subscription lists of charters, this article examines their rank at court, social origin, degree of proximity to kings and queens, and the nature of their occupation.

Le Festin dans l'Angleterre anglo-saxonne

L’histoire du repas, et plus particulierement du festin, merite bien mieux qu’une approche anecdotique. Comme l’ont remarque de nombreux anthropologues, sociologues et historiens, le repas pris en commun occupe une place fondamentale dans les rapports sociaux, les attitudes religieuses et meme l’exercice du pouvoir, et ce dans des societes de natures tres diverses. Le present ouvrage explore l’histoire du festin en Angleterre pendant les siecles du haut Moyen Âge, de la fin de la domination romaine a la conquete du pays par les Normands en 1066. Grâce a des sources exceptionnelles, au premier rang desquelles ont peut ranger le poeme heroique Beowulf, l’Angleterre offre en effet un prisme original, souvent neglige par l’ecole historique francaise, pour l’etude des pratiques politiques, sociales ou religieuses, mais aussi des mentalites et des representations collectives de l’Occident chretien au debut du Moyen Âge. Car si aujourd’hui l’Angleterre n’est pas souvent reputee pour sa table, il en fut tout autrement aux premiers temps medievaux, quand les princes anglo-saxons, dans leurs halls de bois, abreuvaient leurs guerriers de biere et d’hydromel. Notre etude du festin anglo-saxon, bien que fondee sur le temoignage irremplacable de la poesie heroique, fait aussi une large place aux apports des sources narratives latines, des codes de lois, de l’iconographie, et surtout de l’archeologie.

Cooking and cuisine in late Anglo-Saxon England

Abstract This article tries to explore the question of whether the Anglo-Saxons in the tenth and eleventh centuries actually had an interest in elaborate and socially distinctive food preparations – whether, to use words that have been employed and defined by anthropologists and other social scientists, their food practices distinguished ‘cooking’ from ‘cuisine’, or even ‘gastronomy’. Through the study of written sources and archaeological data, we address several issues which can tell us about the Anglo-Saxons’ attitude towards food: the existence of proper kitchens and specialized cooks; the question of ‘privileged foods’ – categories of food widely recognized as suitable for social elites; and the ways by which recipes were transmitted. The answer is that the Anglo-Saxons may have known some forms of elaborate ‘cooking’, that ‘cuisine’ may have existed but cannot be identifi ed as such, and that ‘gastronomy’ was not a part of their thought world.

Food and Drink in Medieval and Renaissance Europe: an overview of the past decade (2001-2012)

The past decade has been a very productive one for the development of medieval and Renaissance food history, which can be said to have made its way into “mainstream” history. In all fields of research, we may notice the increasing dominance of a cultural version of food history. This is true for the histories of dietetic medicine, cooking, feasting, and wine, among many other fields. There has been also a widening of geographical and chronological horizons, especially into the early Middle Ages, thanks to the use of new kinds of sources, including the endlessly renewed resources offered by archaeology.

“Matériau de débauche et mère de tous les vices” : goinfrerie, démesure et luxure dans la littérature homilétique anglaise aux Xe-XIe siècles

In Late Antique and Early Medieval Christian literature, the sin of gula is presented as “Adam’s vice”, door of vices and origin of all other sins. This idea is taken up again by Late Anglo-Saxon writers : AElfric of Eynsham, Wulfstan archbishop of York, and other anonymous homilists, who wrote their sermons between the mid-10th and the early 11th centuries. What they have mainly done is to transfer to a lay audience, and in the vernacular, the ideas of their predecessors. But they have also developed a few original reflexions. The link between gula and lust (luxuria), which had been observed and affirmed for centuries, is no longer seen as purely genealogic, as it was exposed by the Fathers of the Church (even if this dimension does not disappear), nor is it explained in the broader context of medical and humour theories. It is included in a speech about galnes, an Old English word which could be translated by “immoderation” or even “misrule”. For them, gluttony, under its two main aspects, oferfyllo (lit...