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Peters, Cherie N., “‘He is not entitled to butter’: the diet of peasants and commoners in early medieval Ireland”, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 115 C (2015): 79–109.

  • journal article
Citation details
Contributors
Article
“‘He is not entitled to butter’: the diet of peasants and commoners in early medieval Ireland”
Periodical
Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 115 C (2015)
FitzPatrick, Elizabeth, and James Kelly (eds), Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 115 C — Food and drink in Ireland (2015), Royal Irish Academy.  
abstract:

Though subjects of enduring interest in their own right, food and drink are still more revealing archaeologically and historically when they amplify and illuminate broader societal behaviours and trends. This multi-disciplinary collection of fourteen essays explores the collection, cultivation, consumption and culture of food and drink in Ireland from the beginnings of settlement in the Mesolithic to the present. Among its themes, it engages with what the first settlers gathered; how people ate in Neolithic times; cooking in the Bronze Age; the diet of rich and poor in the medieval era; the impact of conquest on culinary patterns; the differences in the diet of different classes in pre-Famine and the impact of the Famine; the history of haute cuisine in Ireland; the impact of modernisation in the twentieth century, and the changing role of drink in society.

Volume
115 C
Pages
79–109
BibTeX
Description
Abstract (cited)
Hospitality was an important part of early medieval Irish culture and one of the ways this was expressed was through the preparation of meals for guests. Old and Middle Irish law tracts, written mainly in the seventh and eighth centuries, described the types of foods to which each level of free society in early medieval Ireland was entitled during these social visits and, as can be seen from the quotation in the title of this paper, certain restrictions based on grade and status applied. The legal entitlements of commoners to vegetables, dairy products, breads and, on the rare occasion, meats while in another person's home was neither the full range of foods available in early medieval Ireland nor the totality of the foods an individual might consume in their own home or during feasts. An investigation into these law tracts as well as Old and Middle Irish sagas, poetry, other literary compositions and ecclesiastical descriptions of a penitential or hermetic diet suggest a wider range of available foods, including fruits, fish and wild game that both peasants and commoners were likely to have consumed on a seasonal basis.
Subjects and topics
Headings
early Irish law early Irish literature
Sources
Texts
Keywords
food drink status law commoners
web page identifiers
Contributors
Dennis Groenewegen
Page created
February 2023
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