Middle English Literature

6
Style and Spectacle
Feasts
Noble households were large socioeconomic enterprises, and meals were an
integral part of their owners’ desire to display their status both at home and
as they traveled around the countryside. Royal households employed any-
where from 300–800 indentured and other servants, while the households
of lords and clergy employed an average of between 20 and 150 servants
to perform the duties for the immediate family and its guests. In terms of
meals, breakfasts were not common until the fifteenth century, so the first
meal was usually lunch and then supper later in the day. These two meals
could occupy between four and six hours of the day in noble households.
Elaborate rituals accompanied each meal, from the sequence of entrance
and seating, the layout of the table, and the courses (usually three by the
fifteenth century), to the order and rites of service, entertainment, and
conversation.
British Library MS Harley 5086 is one of a number of anonymous trea-
tises on food and table manners to survive from the later Middle Ages.
These texts were in general aimed at younger men and women from noble
families (the meaning of “babee” here) and form a sub-genre of a larger
group of courtesy texts. They therefore share characteristics with and have
similar intentions as Fürstenspiegel, advice to princes, and even romances,
and many are French in origin. That several such tracts are written in verse
suggests a mnemonic function.

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Primary documents and further reading
Austin, T. (ed.) (1964) [1888] Two Fifteenth-century Cookery-books. EETS, o.s. 91.
London: Oxford University Press.
Caxton, W. (1998) [1868] Book of Curtesye, ed. F. J. Furnivall. EETS, e.s. 3.
Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell and Brewer.
Chambers, R. W. and W. W. Seton (eds.) (1914) A Fifteenth-century Courtesy Book
and Two Fifteenth-century Franciscan Rules. EETS, o.s. 148. London: Kegan Paul,
Trench, Trübner.
Dyer, C. (1989) Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages: Social Change in
England, c. 1200–1520. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Heal, F. (1990) Hospitality in Early Modern England. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Hieatt, C. B. and S. Butler (eds.) (1985) Curye on Inglysch: English Culinary Manu-
scripts of the Fourteenth-century (including the Forme of Cury). EETS, s.s. 8. Lon-
don: Oxford University Press.
Manzalaoui, M. A. (ed.) (1977) Secretum Secretorum: Nine English Versions. EETS,
o.s. 276. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rickert, E. and L. J. Naylor (trans.) (2002) [1908] The Babees’ Book: Medieval
Manners for the Young. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell and Brewer.
Woolgar, C. M. (1999) The Great Household in Late Medieval England. New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press.
British Library MS Harley 5086, fols. 86r–90r. “The Babees Book.” In F. J. Furnivall (ed.)
(1868) The Babees Book, etc. EETS, o.s. 32. London: N. Trübner, 1–9.
Language: English (West Midland)
Manuscript date: ca. 1475
In this tretys, the whiche I thenke to wryte
Out of Latyn in-to my comune langage,
He me supporte (sen I kan nat endyte),
The whiche only after his owne ymage
Fourmyd man-kynde. For alle of tendre age
In curtesye resseyve shulle document
And vertues knowe by this lytil coment.
And Facett
1
seythe the book of curtesye
Vertues to knowe, thaym forto have and use,
Is thing moste heelfulle in this worlde treuly.
Therfore, in feythe I wole me nat excuse
1
Facetus de moribus, attributed to John of Garland (fl. 1230), a conduct book used in schools.
5
10
Feasts
191

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192
Style and Spectacle
From this labour ywys, nor hit refuse,
For myn owne lernynge wole I say summe thing
That touchis vertues and curtesye havyng.
But, O yonge babees, whome bloode royalle
Withe grace, feture, and hyhe habylite