AN APPETITE FOR POWER
BBC History UK|May 2023
Wine, song and the finest food money could buy made medieval feasts a highlight of the courtly calendar. Yet more often than not, writes Charlotte Palmer, a thirst for influence and prestige lay behind the carousing
Charlotte Palmer
AN APPETITE FOR POWER

THE MENU
If you've got it... flaunt it

In 1491, Ercole I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara in northern Italy, threw a feast for his son's wedding. Among the highlights of this culinary extravaganza was a series of elaborately designed sugar sculptures. Yet before the guests could tuck in to them, attendants picked up the sweet artworks and promptly threw them into the diners' laps. Not to worry: another round of similar treats was served immediately.

To modern eyes, this may seem like a strange way to treat wedding guests. Yet the duke was making a statement: that he had the wealth to throw away eye-wateringly expensive delicacies and, in the blink of an eye, replace them with more of the same.

The duke's prank may strike us as extravagance at its very worst, yet it shines a light on to medieval attitudes to feasting. For the elite, food was seen as a tool for flaunting wealth and power - and, as such, serving (or merely displaying) highly elaborate dishes was a feature of banquets in the Middle Ages. The 14th-century English cookbook The Forme of Cury includes recipes for chickens dressed as knights and a cockatrice - a mythical dragon-like creature, in this case created by combining body parts from a pig and a cockerel. "Take a whole roasted cockerel, pull his guts and skin him all in one piece, save for the legs," run the instructions. "Take a piglet, cut him in half from the middle downwards. Sew them firmly together."

Other dishes might demonstrate that the host was dialled in to new tastes and trends - for example, the growing influence of Arab or other cuisines seen in foods and ingredients such as pasta or aubergine.

MUSIC
Flutes, bells and trumpets

Diese Geschichte stammt aus der May 2023-Ausgabe von BBC History UK.

Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.

Diese Geschichte stammt aus der May 2023-Ausgabe von BBC History UK.

Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.

WEITERE ARTIKEL AUS BBC HISTORY UKAlle anzeigen
The Long Road Back - The Election Was Tough for the Conservatives  but the Past Holds Clues on How Parties Can Return From the Brink
BBC History UK

The Long Road Back - The Election Was Tough for the Conservatives but the Past Holds Clues on How Parties Can Return From the Brink

It’s election night 1997, and Jeremy Paxman is grilling Tory grandee Cecil Parkinson. “You’re the chairman of a fertiliser firm,” the famously pugnacious broadcaster asked Parkinson. “How deep is the mess you’re in?” Twenty-seven years later, as the Conservative party comes to terms with another landslide defeat, it’s worth applying the same question to the present day. How does this result compare with previous devastating losses – not only those suffered by the Tories themselves, but also those experienced by the other major parties? And what can history teach us about the tools that politicians use to dig themselves out of the dung heap and set themselves back on the road to power?

time-read
7 Minuten  |
September 2024
"We Need a Meaningful Story for the New Generation - Our Composite Union"- There has been much talk of national renewal, and in due course we'll see what that means. But it felt like a watershed.
BBC History UK

"We Need a Meaningful Story for the New Generation - Our Composite Union"- There has been much talk of national renewal, and in due course we'll see what that means. But it felt like a watershed.

What a summer it’s been so far, with an astonishing election result. There has been much talk of national renewal, and in due course we’ll see what that means. But it felt like a watershed. The new prime minister’s dad was a toolmaker, his mum a nurse; the cabinet is majority comprehensive-educated, with more alumni of Parrs Wood High School than of Eton. Among commentators – not just on the left – there’s been a growing feeling that 14 years of Tory rule, compounded by Brexit, have undermined what the great medieval historian Ibn Khaldun called asabiyyah: group feeling – the glue that makes societies work. And watching TV on election night, I found myself wondering whether, like sediment settling in a glass, the time has finally arrived for a new national narrative

time-read
3 Minuten  |
September 2024
Parthian Chicken - Eleanor Barnett recreates an ancient Roman dish that borrowed flavours from a rival neighbouring empire in the Middle East
BBC History UK

Parthian Chicken - Eleanor Barnett recreates an ancient Roman dish that borrowed flavours from a rival neighbouring empire in the Middle East

According to ancient Roman natural philosopher Pliny the Elder, Apicius was “the most gluttonous gorger of all spendthrifts”. The cookbook attributed to him, known simply as Apicius or as De Re Coquinaria (On the Art of Cooking), is one of the oldest collections of recipes surviving from antiquity. Its author may have been Marcus Gavius Apicius, a Roman gourmet of the first century AD who reputedly travelled all the way from Campania to Libya on the hunt for the largest, juiciest prawns.

time-read
3 Minuten  |
September 2024
 Eastern Promises- Lured by rich trading prospects, from the 17th to the 19th centuries Britain attempted to cultivate relations with China
BBC History UK

Eastern Promises- Lured by rich trading prospects, from the 17th to the 19th centuries Britain attempted to cultivate relations with China

Lured by rich trading prospects, from the 17th to the 19th centuries Britain attempted to cultivate relations with China sometimes successfully, but often disastrously. Kerry Brown explores the troubled but ultimately vital links between two ambitious realms

time-read
10+ Minuten  |
September 2024
The King They Couldn't Kill -Want to know why Henry VII is remembered as an intensely suspicious king, wracked by paranoia? The answer, writes Nathen Amin, lies in his death-defying rise to power
BBC History UK

The King They Couldn't Kill -Want to know why Henry VII is remembered as an intensely suspicious king, wracked by paranoia? The answer, writes Nathen Amin, lies in his death-defying rise to power

Henry’s wary nature is typically attributed to his shaky claim to the throne. The first Tudor monarch was unable to escape the taunt that he was a usurper with no right to call himself king. In fact, his renowned paranoia was the inevitable consequence of a traumatic youth – a trait ingrained long before he harboured ambitions to wear a crown. If we delve deeper into Henry’s background, we can draw a fuller picture of one of our most circumspect of monarchs – one that might elicit sympathy for a long misunderstood king.

time-read
10+ Minuten  |
September 2024
The Spy Who Hoodwinked Hitler - Dummy tanks at El Alamein. Bogus generals in Algiers. Sham armies on D-Day. All were ruses masterminded by Dudley Clarke. Robert Hutton tells the story of the British soldier who made an art form of duping the Nazis
BBC History UK

The Spy Who Hoodwinked Hitler - Dummy tanks at El Alamein. Bogus generals in Algiers. Sham armies on D-Day. All were ruses masterminded by Dudley Clarke. Robert Hutton tells the story of the British soldier who made an art form of duping the Nazis

Examining the reconnaissance photos, Behrendt was convinced that the Allies weren’t in any hurry. They were constructing some kind of pipeline towards the southern end of their line, probably to carry water, which was barely halfway completed. There were supply dumps appearing in the south as well – always a telltale clue about where an attack would come. True, a large number of trucks were parked at the northern end of the line, about 25 miles back from the front, but they hadn’t moved for weeks.

time-read
10+ Minuten  |
September 2024
"People have achieved all kinds of crazy things at the age of 18″
BBC History UK

"People have achieved all kinds of crazy things at the age of 18″

ALICE LOXTON talks to Danny Bird about her book on 18 individuals who left an indelible mark on British history before they were out of their teens

time-read
10+ Minuten  |
September 2024
A Pole apart
BBC History UK

A Pole apart

ROGER MOORHOUSE is absorbed by a little-known but politically significant Polish princess whose life encompassed the major events of the later 18th and 19th centuries

time-read
4 Minuten  |
September 2024
Medieval England's p olitical miracle
BBC History UK

Medieval England's p olitical miracle

From Magna Carta to parliament, taxation to the law courts, the 13th and 14th centuries laid the foundations for the modern British state

time-read
9 Minuten  |
September 2024
THE GENIUS IN THE SHADOWS
BBC History UK

THE GENIUS IN THE SHADOWS

Æthelstan is one of the greatest of all Anglo-Saxon monarchs. So why, asks Michael Wood, does the first king of the English remain so fiendishly elusive?

time-read
10 Minuten  |
September 2024