Nooks and Corners of English Life, Past and Present Part 12

_Orange-Flower Water_ has been a favourite perfume in England since the reign of James I. It occurs in Copley's _Wits, Fits, and Fancies_, 1614; and in the _Accomplished Female Instructor_, 1719, is the following recipe:--Take two pounds of orange-flowers, as fresh as you can get them, infuse them in two quarts of white wine, and so distil them, and it will yield a curious perfuming spirit.--_Orange b.u.t.ter_ was made, according to the _Closet of Rarities_, 1706, by beating up new cream, and then adding orange-flower and red wine, to give it the colour and scent of an orange.[53]

DESSERT FRUITS.

The only kinds of fruits named in the Countess of Leicester's Expenses, are apples and pears: three hundred of the latter were purchased at Canterbury; probably from the gardens of the monks. It is believed, however, that few other sorts were generally grown in England before the latter end of the fifteenth century; although Matthew Paris, describing the bad season of 1257, observes that "apples were scarce, and pears scarcer, while quinces, vegetables, cherries, plums, and all sh.e.l.l-fruits, were entirely destroyed." These sh.e.l.l-fruits were probably the common hazel-nut, walnuts, and perhaps chestnuts: in 1256, the Sheriffs of London were ordered to buy two thousand chestnuts for the King's use. In the Wardrobe Book of the 14th of Edward the First, before quoted, we find the bill of Nicholas, the royal fruiterer, in which the only fruits mentioned are pears, apples, quinces, medlars, and nuts. The supply of these, from Whitsuntide to November, cost 21_l_. 14_s_.

1-1/2_d_. This apparent scarcity of indigenous fruits naturally leads to the inquiry, what foreign kinds besides those included in the term spicery, such as almonds, dates, figs, and raisins, were imported into England in this and the following century? In the time of John and of Henry the Third, Roch.e.l.le was celebrated for its pears and conger eels: the Sheriffs of London purchased a hundred of the former for Henry, in 1223.

In the 18th of Edward the First, a large Spanish s.h.i.+p came to Portsmouth; out of the cargo of which the Queen bought one frail of Seville figs, one frail of raisins or grapes, one bale of dates, and two hundred and thirty pomegranates, fifteen citrons, and seven ORANGES. The last item is important, as Le Grand d'Aussy could not trace the orange in France to an earlier date than 1333; here we find it known in England in 1290; and it is probable that this was not its first appearance. The marriage of Edward with Eleanor of Castile naturally led to a greater intercourse with Spain, and, consequently, to the introduction of other articles of Spanish produce than the leather of Cordova, olive-oil, and rice, which had previously been the princ.i.p.al imports from that fertile country, through the medium of the merchants of Bayonne and Bordeaux. It is to be regretted that the series of Wardrobe Books is incomplete, as much additional information on this point might have been derived from them. At all events it appears certain that Europe is indebted to the Arab conquerors of Spain for the introduction of the orange, and not to the Portuguese, who are said to have brought it from China. An English dessert in the thirteenth century must, it is clear, have been composed chiefly of dried and preserved fruits--dates, figs, apples, pears, nuts, and the still common dish of almonds and raisins.

The garden of the Earl of Lincoln, now in the midst of one of the most densely-peopled quarters of London, was highly kept long before the Earl's mansion became an Inn of Court. His Lords.h.i.+p's bailiff's accounts, in the reign of Edward I. (1295-6), show the garden to have produced apples, pears, hedge nuts, and cherries, sufficient for the Earl's table, and to yield by sale in one year, 135_l_., modern currency. The vegetables grown were beans, onions, garlick, leeks; hemp was grown; the cuttings of the vines were much prized; of pear-trees there were several varieties: the only flowers named are roses. In the previous reign (Henry III.) a considerable quant.i.ty was cultivated as gardens within the walls of the metropolis; and we read, from time to time, in the coroners' rolls, of mortal accidents which befel youths attempting to steal apples in the orchards of Paternoster Row and Ivy Lane, almost in the shadow of St. Paul's Cathedral.

ORNAMENTAL FRUIT TRENCHERS.

The usages of social life amongst our ancestors present us with several interesting instances of their ingenuity in keeping before them the rule of life by monitory inscriptions, or texts, placed over doorways, upon walls, and upon articles in daily domestic use, thus making it "plain upon the tables, that he may run that readeth it." We find this good advice upon the curiously-ornamented Fruit-trenchers in fas.h.i.+on during the sixteenth century. The only set of tablets, or trenchers, of this description, rectangular in form, hitherto noticed, are in the possession of Mrs. Bird, of Upton-c.u.m-Severn. They are twelve in number, formed of thin leaves of light-coloured wood, possibly lime-tree, measuring about 5-3/4 inches by 4-1/2 inches, and inclosed in a wooden case, formed like a book, with clasps, the sides decorated like bookbinding.

On removing a sliding-piece, the upper tablets may be taken out. They are curiously painted and gilt; every one presenting a different design, and inscribed with verses from Holy Writ, conveying some moral admonition. Each tablet relates to a distinct subject. These legends are inclosed in compartments, surrounded by various kinds of foliage, and the old-fas.h.i.+oned flowers of an English garden--the campion, honeysuckle, and gillyflower--each tablet being ornamented with a different flower. One trencher bears the oak-leaf and acorns, and the texts inscribed upon it relate to the uncertainty of human life. Upon the others are found admonitions against covetousness, hatred, malice, gluttony, profane swearing, and evil speaking; with texts in which the virtues of benevolence, patience, chast.i.ty, forgiveness of injuries, and so forth, are inculcated.

The following are the texts in the centre, relating to inebriety, the spelling modernized:--"Woe be unto you that rise up early to give yourselves to drunkenness, and all your minds go on drinking, that ye sit swearing thereat until it be night. The harp, the lute, the tabour, the thalme, and plenty of wine are at your feasts, but the Word of the Lord do ye not behold, neither consider ye the work of His hands." In the four compartments of the margin: "Take heed that your heart be not overwhelmed with feasting and drunkenness." "Through gluttony many perish." "Through feasting many have died, but he that eateth measurably prolongeth life." "Be no wine-bibber." The sides thus ornamented, were coated with a hard transparent varnish; the reverse, which probably was the side upon which the fruit or comfits were laid, is smooth and clear, without varnish or colour. These curious fruit-trenchers were found amongst a variety of old articles at Elmley Castle, Worcesters.h.i.+re, about forty years since. They were exhibited during the Meeting of the Archaeological Inst.i.tute at Winchester, in 1845, and brought to light other sets of fruit-trenchers. One of these, belonging to Jervoise Clarke Jervoise, Esq., of Idsworth Park, Hants, consisted of ten trenchers, in the form of roundels, ornamented like those just described, and inclosed in a box, which bears upon its cover the royal arms, France and England quarterly, surmounted by the Imperial crown.

The supporters are the lion and the dragon, indicating that these roundels are of the time of Queen Elizabeth. On each are inscribed a rhyming stanza and Scripture texts. Thus, under the symbol of a skull, is (modernized)--

"Content thyself with thine estate, And send no poor wight from thy gate; For why this counsel I ye give, To learn to die, and die to live."

These roundels have been described as trenchers for cheese or sweetmeats. Some antiquaries, however, consider them as intended to be used in some social game, like modern conversation-cards: their proper use appears to be sufficiently proved by the chapter on "Posies" in the _Art of English Poesie_, published in 1589, which contains the following:--"There be also another like epigrams that were sent usually for New Yeare's gifts, or to be printed or put upon banketting dishes of sugar-plate, or of March-paines, &c.; they were called Nenia or Apoph.o.r.eta, and never contained above one verse, or two at the most, but the shorter the better. We call them poesies, and do paint them now-a-days upon the back sides of our fruit-trenchers of wood, or use them as devices in ringes and armes."

It was customary in olden times to close the banquet with "confettes, sugar-plate, fertes with other subtilties, with Ipocra.s.s," served to the guests as they stood at the board after grace was said. The period has not been stated at which the fas.h.i.+on of desserts and long sittings after the princ.i.p.al meal of the day became an established custom. It was, doubtless, at the time when that repast, which, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, had been at eleven before noon, amongst the higher cla.s.ses in England, took the place of the supper, usually served at five, or between five and six, at that period.[54] The prolonged revelry, once known as the "reare supper," may have led to the custom of following up the dinner with a sumptuous dessert. Be this as it may, there can be little question that the concluding service of the social meal--composed, as Harrison, who wrote about the year 1579, informs us, of "fruit and conceits of all sorts,"--was dispensed upon the ornamental trenchers above described.

In the Doucean Museum, at Goodrich Court, there is a set of roundels, similar to the above, which appear, by the badge of the rose and the pomegranate conjoined, to be of the early part of the reign of Henry VIII. Possibly, they may have been introduced with many foreign "conceits" and luxuries from France and Germany, during that reign. In the times of Elizabeth, mention first occurs of fruit dishes of any ornamental ware, the service of the table having previously been performed with dishes, platters, and saucers of pewter, and "treens," or wooden trenchers; or, in more stately establishments, with silver plate.

Shakspeare makes mention of "china dishes;" but it is more probable that they were of the ornamental ware fabricated in Italy, and properly termed _Majolica_, than of Oriental porcelain. The first mention of "porselyn" in England occurs in 1587-8, when its rarity was so great, that a porringer and cup of that costly ware were selected as New Year's gifts presented to the Queen by Burghley and Cecil. Shortly after, mention is made by several writers of "earthen vessels painted; costly fruit dishes of fine earth painted; fine dishes of earth painted; such as are brought from Venice."

Those elegant Italian wares, which in France appear to have superseded the more homely appliances of the festive table, about the middle of the sixteenth century, were doubtless adopted at the tables of the higher cla.s.ses in our own country, towards its close.

The wooden fruit-trencher was not, however, wholly disused during the seventeenth century; and amongst sets of roundels which may be a.s.signed to the reign of James I. or Charles I. may be mentioned a set exhibited in the Museum formed during the meeting of the Archaeological Inst.i.tute at York, in 1846. They were purchased at a broker's shop at Bradford, Yorks.h.i.+re: in dimensions they resemble the trenchers of the reign of Elizabeth, already described; but their decoration is of a more ordinary character. On each tablet is pasted a line engraving, of coa.r.s.e execution, and gaudily coloured, representing one of the Sibyls.[55]

The common trencher which most of us have seen in use, was a wooden platter employed instead of metal, china, or earthen plates. It was even considered a stride of luxury when trenchers were often changed in one meal. "And with an humble chaplain it was expressly stipulated," says Bishop Hall, "that he never change his trencher twice." The term "a good trencher-man" was then equivalent to a hearty feeder (Nares's _Glossary_). Maple-wood, being soft and white, was formerly in great request for trenchers.

Fosbroke remembered when no other but wooden dishes of this kind were used in farm-houses in Shrops.h.i.+re. The general form of the trencher was round; yet the _trencher-cap_ of our Universities has a square top.

VEGETABLES.

Very few esculent plants are mentioned in the Accounts of the Middle Ages. Dried peas and beans, parsley, fennel, onions, green peas, and new beans, are the only species named. Pot-herbs, of which the names are not specified, but which served eleven days, cost 6_d_. There is much uncertainty upon the subject of the cultivation of vegetables, in this country, during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Cresses, endive, lettuces, beets, parsnips, carrots, cabbages, leeks, radishes, and cardoons, were grown in France during the reign of Charlemagne; but it is doubtful whether many of these varieties had penetrated into England at that early period. The most skilful horticulturists of the Middle Ages were ecclesiastics, and it is possible that in the gardens of monasteries many vegetables were reared which were not in common use among the laity. Even in the fifteenth century, the general produce of the English kitchen garden was contemptible when compared with that of the Low Countries, France, and Italy. Gilbert Kymer can enumerate only, besides a few wild and forgotten sorts, cabbage, lettuce, spinach, beetroot, trefoil, bugloss, borage, celery, purslane, fennel, smallage, thyme, hyssop, parsley, mint, a species of turnip, and small white onions. According to him, all these plants were boiled with meat. He observes also that some were eaten raw, in spring and summer, with olive-oil and spices, but questions the propriety of the custom. This is, perhaps, the earliest notice extant of the use of salads in England.

The subject of the supplies of the table with food is a very large one; and leaves us but s.p.a.ce to remark that the condition of food, an important point of its worth, must have suffered from the slow mode of conveyance in former times. The advantages which we enjoy in this age of rapid transit have been thus cleverly ill.u.s.trated by a contemporary:--"A little more than half a century ago it took about six weeks to drive the herds of cattle from the north of Scotland to the metropolis: now they can be whirled here in a few hours. Fish in great variety may be caught in the morning on the coast of Berwick and Coquet, and be boiling in the kitchens of Belgravia on the same evening for dinner. In exchange for the sheep and beeves from the highlands and Cheviot, the choice fruits and early vegetables of the south are rapidly pa.s.sed. By means of steams.h.i.+ps and other quick sailing vessels, the oranges of Spain and Portugal, the grapes of France and Italy, and the oxen, sheep, fruits, &c. of other foreign parts are brought in fine condition; and delicacies which were not easily obtained even by the rich are now common amongst the mult.i.tude. But for this increased facility of conveyance how would it be possible to feed the immense mult.i.tude of London, which, in half a century of time, will in all probability number 5,000,000?"

ANTIQUITY OF CHEESE.

Cheese and curdling of milk are mentioned in the Book of Job. David was sent by his father, Jesse, to carry ten cheeses to the camp, and to see how his brethren fared. "Cheese of kine" formed part of the supplies of David's army at Mahanaim during the rebellion of Absalom. Homer makes cheese form part of the ample stores found by Ulysses in the cave of the Cyclop Polyphemus. Euripides, Theocritus, and other early poets, mention cheese. Ludolphus says that excellent cheese and b.u.t.ter were made by the ancient Ethiopians. Strabo states that some of the ancient Britons were so ignorant that, though they had abundance of milk, they did not understand the art of making cheese. There is no evidence that any of these ancient nations had discovered the use of rennet in making cheese; they appear to have merely allowed the milk to sour, and subsequently to have formed the cheese from the caseous part of the milk, after expelling the serum or whey. As David, when too young to carry arms, was able to run to the camp with ten cheeses, ten loaves, and an ephah of parched corn, the cheeses must have been very small.

Thomas Coghan, in _The Haven of Health_, 1584, says: "What cheese is well made or otherwise may partly be perceived by an old Latin verse translated thus--'Cheese should be white as snowe is, nor ful of eyes as Argos was, nor old as Mathusalem was, nor rough as Esau was, nor full of spots as Lazarus.' Master Tusser, in his book of Husbandrie, addeth 'other properties also of cheese well made, which whoso listeth may reade. Of this sort, for the most part, is that which is made about Bamburie in Oxfords.h.i.+re; for of all the cheese (in my judgment) it is the best, though some prefer Ches.h.i.+re cheese made about Nantwich, and others also commend more the cheese of other countries; but Bamburie cheese shall goe for my money, for therein (if it be of the best sort) you shall neither tast the renet nor salt, which be two speciall properties of good cheese. Now who is so desirous to eat cheese must eate it after other meate, and in a little quant.i.ty. A pennyweight, according to the old saying, is enough; for being thus used it bringeth two commodities. First, It strengthened a weake stomache. Secondly, It maketh other meates to descend into the chief place of digestion; that is, the bosome of the stomache, which is approved in "Schola Salerni."

But old and hard cheese is altogether disallowed, and reckoned among those ten manner of meates which ingender melancholy, and bee unwholesome for sick folkes, as appeareth before in the chapter of Beefe.'"

The county of Chester was, ages since, famous for the excellence of its cheese. It is stated that the Countess Constance of Chester (reign of Henry II., 1100), though the wife of Hugh Lupus, the King's first cousin, kept a herd of kine, _and made good cheese_, three of which she presented to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Giraldus Cambrensis, in the twelfth century, bears honourable testimony to the excellence of the Ches.h.i.+re cheese of his day.

Ches.h.i.+re retains its celebrity for cheese-making: the pride of its people in the superiority of its cheese may be gathered from the following provincial song, with the music, published in 1746, during the Spanish war, in the reign of George II.

"A Ches.h.i.+re-man sailed into Spain, To trade for merchandise: When he arrived from the main A Spaniard him espies.

"Who said, 'You English rogue, look here-- What fruits and spices fine Our land produces twice a year!

Thou hast not such in thine.'

"The Ches.h.i.+re-man ran to his hold, And fetched a Ches.h.i.+re cheese, And said, 'Look here, you dog! behold, We have such fruits as these!

"'Your fruits are ripe but twice a year, As you yourself do say; But such as I present you here, Our land brings twice a day.'

"The Spaniard in a pa.s.sion flew, And his rapier took in hand; The Ches.h.i.+re-man kicked up his heels, Saying, 'Thou art at my command!'

"So never let a Spaniard boast, While Ches.h.i.+re-men abound, Lest they should teach him, to his cost, To dance a Ches.h.i.+re round!"[56]

Next to Ches.h.i.+re rank Gloucesters.h.i.+re, Wilts.h.i.+re, and Somerset, for their cheese. In the latter county they have the proverb:

"If you wid have a good cheese, and hav'n old, You must turn 'n seven times before he is old."

To curdle the milk in cheese-making was formerly used the _Galium verum_ of botanists, a wild flower with square stems, s.h.i.+ning whorled leaves, and loose panicles of small yellow flowers, popularly known as _Cheese Rennet_.

The practice of mixing sage and other herbs, and the flowers or seeds of plants, with cheese, was common among the Romans; and this led to the herbs, &c. being worked into heraldic devices in the Middle Ages.

Charlemagne once ate cheese mixed with parsley-seeds at a bishop's palace, and liked it so much, that ever after he had two cases of such cheese sent yearly to Aix-la-Chapelle. Our pastoral poet of the last century has noted this device:

"Marbled with sage, the hardened cheese she pressed."--GAY.

ALE AND BEER.

The virtues of Saxon ale have already been commemorated, at pp.

66-68. We return to the subject, at a later period.

"It may be remarked," says Mr. Hudson Turner, "that in the thirteenth century the English had no certain principle as to the grain best suited for brewing. A roll of household expenses of the Countess of Leicester shows that Beer was made indiscriminately of barley, wheat, and oats, and sometimes of a mixture of all. As the Hop was not used we may conjecture that the produce of their brewing was rather insipid, and not calculated for long keeping: it was drunk as soon as made. To remove the mawkish flatness of such beer it was customary to flavour it with spices and other strong ingredients: long pepper continued to be used for this purpose some time after the introduction of hops. The period at which the last-named plant became an ingredient of English beer is not precisely known. It was cultivated from a very early date in Flanders and Belgium, where it was both employed in brewing, and eaten in salads; and from those countries it was imported into England while the produce of our own hop-grounds was inconsiderable. It would appear, however, that Hops were used in this country for brewing, in the beginning of the fifteenth century, as Gilbert Kymer, in his _Dietary_, p.r.o.nounces beer brewed from barley, and well hopped, also of middling strength, thin and clear, well fined, well boiled, and neither too new or too old, to be a sound and wholesome beverage. It is pretty certain, nevertheless, that in his time the hop was not _grown_ in England. In ancient days brewing was almost solely managed by women, and till the close of the fifteenth century the greater part of the beer-houses in London were kept by females who brewed what they sold."

Ale, the favourite drink of our Saxon forefathers, has been described as a thick, sweet, _unhopped_ liquor, and as such distinguished from our modern _hopped_ "beer." Gerard says: "The manifold virtues in hops do manifestly argue the wholesomeness of _beer_ above _ale_;" and conjectures that the origin of this distinction may be due to the use of the word beer in the Low Countries, from which hops were introduced.

It would appear, however, that beer was known in this country, and specified as such, before the use of hops; which were not imported till 1524, other bitters having supplied their place.

There is an ancient rhyme which says,--

"Turkeys, Carps, _Hops_, Piccarel, and _Beer_, Came into England all in one year."

The year when all these good things are supposed to have been introduced, was somewhere in the early part of the reign of King Henry VIII. But it is evident that as early as 1440, when the _Parvulorum Promptorium_ was compiled, the use of hops was not altogether unknown.

Mr. Albert Way supposes that at that time hopped beer was either imported from abroad or brewed by foreigners. And this supposition is certainly supported by the _Promptorium_.