Of all the thankless, soul-destroying jobs in a rich medieval British kitchen—scullion, washpot, drudge—there can have been few worse than that of the turnspit or turnbroach, the person (usually a boy) charged with rotating the roasting spits. “In olden times,” wrote the great biographer John Aubrey, “the poor boys did turn the spits, and licked the dripping pans.”
