Early English Meals and Manners — A Reader’s Guide

The Editor's Double Role

Furnivall does not merely present the texts; he frames them with a vigorous editorial agenda. In the foreword, he laments that few English people care for the records of their own language, quoting 'Let the dead past bury its dead' as the prevailing attitude. His notes range from the practical—explaining that 'graines' means cardamom, or that 'manche' is a sleeve-shaped bag for straining hypocras—to the sociological: a footnote on the Percy household's spice purchases lists ginger, mace, cloves, sugar, cinnamon, almonds, dates, nutmegs, grains, turnsole, sanders, anise, rice, comfits, galingale, long pepper, blanc powder, and saffron. The editor's presence is constant, mediating between the reader and the archaic language. This dual authorship means the book is as much about Victorian philology as about medieval manners.

The Body at Table: Cleanliness, Discipline, and Danger

The excerpts repeatedly emphasize bodily control. One note defines 'snytyn a nese or a candyl' as cleaning the nose or candle, citing the Latin emungo. Another glosses 'glouting' as looking sullen, with citations from Chapman, Milton, and Garth. The preface includes a section titled 'Cleanliness, or Dirt, of Men, Houses, &c.,' signaling a preoccupation with hygiene. A dietary warning explains that butter is unwholesome between youth and middle age because 'through the heat of young stomacks, it is forthwith converted into choler.' The Dutch, it adds, have a verse: 'Eat Butter first, and eat it last, And live till a hundred years be past.' These details show how conduct literature linked physical discipline to moral and medical well-being.

A World of Objects: Utensils, Wines, and Spices

The poems and notes are dense with material culture. The 'surnape'—a cloth laid over the table after a meal—is described in a note referencing Henry VII's household ordinances. A 'portpayne' for carrying bread from pantry to table is defined as 'lintheum panarium.' Wines appear with technical notes: 'Rompney of Modoñ' is listed among sweet wines; 'rosa solis' is a liquor made from brandy, sugar, cinnamon, and other ingredients, originally prepared from sundew. The note on 'turnesole' explains how to use the plant to color potage a 'high murrey' (mulberry) shade. These annotations transform the poems into a catalog of everyday objects, each with a history and a purpose, grounding the moral advice in tangible practices.

Readers approaching Early English Meals and Manners should be prepared for a work that is as much about its editor as its original authors. Furnivall's notes often overshadow the poems, but they also unlock the texts for modern audiences. The volume rewards those interested in the history of food, domestic life, and the Victorian recovery of medieval literature. It is best read not as a continuous narrative but as a reference to be dipped into, following the editor's cross-references and marginalia.

That grey afternoon, Furnivall’s notes on medieval table manners made me linger over the oddness of a world where salt was status. His patient unraveling of old words felt less like scholarship, more like a hand passed over worn wood. Later, I stumbled onto the Spons' Household Manual A treasury of domestic receipts and a guide for home management — A Closer Reading, and found the same quiet care — someone else’s hands, smoothing the same worry, just a different century.