Food in Medieval England: Diet and Nutrition

by C.M. Woolgar (Editor), Dale Serjeantson (Editor), Tony Waldron (Editor)

Food and diet are central to understanding daily life in the middle ages. In the last two decades, the potential for the study of diet in medieval England has changed historians have addressed sources in new ways; material from a wide range of sites has been processed by zooarchaeologists and archaeobotanists; and scientific techniques, newly applied to the medieval period, are opening up possibilities for understanding the cumulative effects of diet on the skeleton. In a multi-disciplinary approach to the subject, this volume, written by leading experts in different fields, unites analysis of the historical, archaeological, and scientific record to provide an up-to-date synthesis. The volume covers the whole of the middle ages from the early Saxon period up to c .1540, and while the focus is on England wider European developments are not ignored.

The first aim of the book is to establish how much more is now known about patterns of diet, nutrition, and the use of food in display and social competition; its second is to promote interchange between the methodological approaches of historians and archaeologists. The text brings together much original research, marrying historical and archaeological approaches with analysis from a range of archaeological disciplines, including archaeobotany, archaeozoology, osteoarchaeology, and isotopic studies.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

368 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2006

About the author

Christopher M. Woolgar is professor of history and archival studies at the University of Southampton and editor of the Journal of Medieval History. He lives in Hampshire.

Reviews

[Stephen Hopkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating and thorough overview of diet in Medieval England. I was particularly pleased at the interdisciplinary approach offered by the editors- we get to see what virtually every level of society ate from sources as diverse as archaeology, literature, historical sources, and even osteology. A must read for anyone who is serious about getting a handle on what daily (and seasonal) life was like in England after the conquest but before the Elizabethan period. Which might lead me to my only complaint: the lack of treatment for the Anglo-Saxon period. Granted, there isn't as much evidence for this period, but even a brief chapter addressing how the conquest may have changed the nation's diet would have been nice. As it is, a few of the chapters briefly mention such innovations as the Norman/Sicilian method of "par force" hunting (think Livre de Chasse) in lieu of the Anglo-Saxon style (which more closely resembled herding deer into a corral and then shooting them en masse). Regardless, I highly recommend this one to anyone who seeks to understand how food production, processing, distribution, and consumption actually took place a thousand years ago.