Chaucer's People Quotes

“Bread was normally made commercially. The bakers had been organized into a company as early as 1155. Each baker had to have his own seal, impressed on every loaf he sold.”
― Liza Picard, Chaucer's People: Everyday Lives in Medieval England

“There was a tendency for men following the same trade to live near each other, so some wards drew their wealth from plutocratic residents, such as the goldsmiths or the mercers, while others were home to poor artisans such as the tallow chandlers.”
― Liza Picard, Chaucer's People: Everyday Lives in Medieval England

“A servant who killed his master, a wife who killed her husband, a clergyman who killed his prelate were all guilty of ‘petty treason’, for which the penalty was death but without the gruesome quartering.”
― Liza Picard, Chaucer's People: Everyday Lives in Medieval England

“Magna Carta, the Great Charter of 1215, enshrining the freedom of the Church in England and the liberty of Englishmen. It is now revered all over the world, regardless of the facts that it applied only to free men, leaving women and serfs to live as best they could, and that it was designed to safeguard the interests of the barons who forced King John to sign it, after years of friction between them and the monarch. It was reissued in an amended form in 1225, and at frequent intervals thereafter, but ever since it has been regarded as the bastion of English liberty and the rule of law.”
― Liza Picard, Chaucer's People: Everyday Lives in Medieval England

“The Pestilence recurred at intervals throughout the fourteenth century, in 1361, 1369, 1375 and 1390, at times when the country was already under the stress of the French War. Cities were emptied of population, the countryside was desolate. Life did not begin to return to normal until about the time of Chaucer’s death in 1400.”
― Liza Picard, Chaucer's People: Everyday Lives in Medieval England

“In 1348 a pandemic swept the known world. The Victorians, ever handy with a snappy caption, called it the Black Death. At the time, the English knew it as the ‘Great Pestilence’. A contemporary chronicler, Henry Knighton, wrote that ‘there was a general mortality of men throughout the world. It first began in India, then spread to Tarsis [Persia] thence to the Saracens [Muslims], and at last to the Christians and Jews.’ It was the more terrifying because God was clearly angry, but with Christians as much as with infidels. No one, or everyone, was to blame. There was no remedy. Death came quickly, horribly and agonizingly.”
― Liza Picard, Chaucer's People: Everyday Lives in Medieval England

“The Muslim therapy prescribed peace, quiet and the sound of running water, which seems enviable compared to the western technique. There is an unnerving picture in one of the windows in Canterbury Cathedral of a madman being brought there for the saint to cure him. As he staggers along, his ‘friends’ are beating him energetically, in no doubt well-meaning efforts to rid him of his affliction. Alternatively the shock of having a freshly killed bird upended on his head might be salutary as the blood ran down the sufferer’s face, but could have tipped him into further madness.9”
― Liza Picard, Chaucer's People: Everyday Lives in Medieval England

“In big fourteenth-century houses the kitchen was sometimes in a separate building, to lessen the risk of fire. Otherwise it might be next to the main dining hall, on the first floor. Its windows were unlikely to be glazed. The wooden shutters and louvres kept the worst of the winter weather out and let out some of the smoke, but hardly helped with the light level. When daylight faded, candlelight and firelight had to suffice.”
― Liza Picard, Chaucer's People: Everyday Lives in Medieval England

“Perhaps, if he had a choice, he would have preferred a stay in London’s only dedicated mental hospital, out beyond Bishopsgate. It had been founded in 1247 as the Priory of St Mary of Bethlehem as a hostel for pious travellers, probably with a small infirmary for the sick. It was soon renamed by Londoners ‘Bethlem’, or ‘Bedlam’. By 1377 its patients included ‘distracted’ people, who were receiving the standard medieval treatment for mental illness – shackles, whips and ducking, a regime which will surely have ended their miserable lives prematurely. By 1403 most of its inmates were mentally ill, but when the changeover occurred, from the original purpose of the foundation to the exclusive care of the mentally ill, is not possible to trace. The alternative to Bedlam, custody within the family circle, may not always have been a good idea. Sometime in 1340 Alice, the wife of Henry de Warewyk, ‘who for the last half year had been non compos mentis . . . opened the door and ran by herself in a wild state to the port [quay] of Dowgate and threw herself into the Thames and was drowned’.”
― Liza Picard, Chaucer's People: Everyday Lives in Medieval England

“A surgeon should always be soberly dressed . . . rather after the manner of a cleric, for any discrete man clad in cleric’s dress may sit at a gentleman’s table. A surgeon must also have clean hands and well-shaped nails, free of dirt . . . It is also expedient for the surgeon to be able to tell good honest tales that may make the patient laugh.”
― Liza Picard, Chaucer's People: Everyday Lives in Medieval England

“He subscribed to the medieval policy of polypharmacy – chucking in sometimes dozens of ingredients on the principle that some of them were bound to do you good, ignoring the possibility that some of them might be toxic. As well as ‘fistfuls’ and ‘half-handfuls’ of miscellaneous greenery, ivory shavings cropped up quite often, sometimes having been burned first. The genitals of a cockerel might come in useful, if you could find them. Breast milk should be drunk ‘from the breast by sucking, and if this be loathsome to the patient [regardless of the feelings of the donor] let him take it as hot as possible’. Cat lovers would be horrified by Gaddesden’s recommendation of an ‘astringent bath: take young cats, cut their entrails out, and put their extremities [paws and tail?] with [various herbs], boil in water and bathe the sick man in it’. Another feline recipe: put ‘the lard’ of a black cat, and of a dog, into the belly of a previously eviscerated and flayed black cat, and roast it; collect the ‘juice’ and rub it on the sick limb. ‘The comfort derived therefrom is marvellous.’ A specific for nervous disease is the brain of a hare. If the hunting party kills a fox instead, they could boil it up and use the resulting broth for a massage. Treatment for a paralysed tongue sounds more cheerful: rub it with what the translator called ‘usquebaugh’, i.e. whisky; ‘it restores the speech, as has been proved on many people’. Animal and avian droppings found many uses, such as peacocks’ droppings for a boil. A cowpat made a good poultice, with added herbs. For those who could afford them, gold and silver and pearls, both bored and unbored, were bound to increase the efficacy of the medicine. Gaddesden recommended his own electuary, using eighteen ingredients including burnt ivory and unbored pearls, with a pound of (very expensive) sugar; ‘I have often proved its goodness myself.’ In a final flourish, he suggests putting the heart of a robin redbreast round the neck of a ‘lethargic’ patient, to keep him awake, or hanging the same heart, with an owl’s heart, above an amnesiac patient; it will ‘give [his memory] back to him’. Even better, the heart of a swallow cooked in honey ‘compels him who eats it to tell all things that happened’ in the past, and to predict the future.”
― Liza Picard, Chaucer's People: Everyday Lives in Medieval England

“Chaucer added three Europeans, Bernard de Gordon, a Scot, who had taught medicine in Salerno, the leading medieval university, in 1300;”
― Liza Picard, Chaucer's People: Everyday Lives in Medieval England

“There were four ‘humours’, choler, sanguine, black bile and yellow bile, which in the ideal man were perfectly balanced. It was the task of the expert physician to adjust any imbalance. This may explain the fondness of medieval doctors, and their successors for generations to come, for blood-letting: ridding the body of an excess of blood could do nothing but good. ‘Purging’ by laxatives could be useful too, and drugs to induce vomiting.”
― Liza Picard, Chaucer's People: Everyday Lives in Medieval England

“Once a physician knew the time of his patient’s birth he knew where to start, by computing the position of the heavenly bodies at birth and at the onset of the ailment. He might have with him, slung from his belt (pockets hadn’t yet been invented), a neat little ready reckoner of folded parchment, correlating the position of the sun and moon at the onset of the illness with the planet governing the part of the body affected. A headache should be referred to Aries. Taurus governed the neck, Gemini the chest, Cancer the lungs, Leo the stomach, Virgo the abdomen, Libra the lower abdomen, Scorpio the penis and testicles, Sagittarius the thighs, Capricorn the knees, Aquarius the calves and Pisces the ankles. The colour of the patient’s urine could also be relevant – any physician worth his salt would carry a shade card to match against the patient’s sample. Thus armed, the physician could make his diagnosis and advise on treatment, including the best day for blood-letting.”
― Liza Picard, Chaucer's People: Everyday Lives in Medieval England

“The days of recording family births, deaths and marriages in the family Bible were far distant.”
― Liza Picard, Chaucer's People: Everyday Lives in Medieval England

“A medieval physician needed the patient’s astronomical details, just as a modern GP would check his or her blood pressure.”
― Liza Picard, Chaucer's People: Everyday Lives in Medieval England

“Pers was another costly cloth, dyed either dark blue or a purplish blue. Taffeta and sendal were silk fabrics of different weights.”
― Liza Picard, Chaucer's People: Everyday Lives in Medieval England

“Sanguine was an expensive cloth dyed blood-red –”
― Liza Picard, Chaucer's People: Everyday Lives in Medieval England

“Figs were imported from Malta, dates and raisins from Damascus. Sugar from Sicily was preferable to honey as a sweetener in aristocratic kitchens, since it could be confected into those impressive ‘subtleties’. Anything grown in England was sold only in its natural season. Green peas were eaten raw and delicious – no one thought of cooking them. Other vegetables were being grown in a garden in Stepney by Henry Daniel, a contemporary of Chaucer. He recommended turnips, borage, mallows and orach for pottage, the kind of food the ordinary man depended on. Chestnuts could be roasted, and parsnip, that ‘wholesome food’, could be both baked and fried.”
― Liza Picard, Chaucer's People: Everyday Lives in Medieval England

“Almonds and walnuts made a liquid ‘milk’ which was much more amenable than cow’s milk, and could be ingested by even the most rigorous faster. Almonds were imported from southern Europe in vast quantities. They were shelled, blanched and skinned, then ground up with wine, water or light stock. Three ounces of blanched almonds would make a pint of almond milk.”
― Liza Picard, Chaucer's People: Everyday Lives in Medieval England

“The principal spice of the Middle Ages was certainly pepper. It had the merit of being light for its value, and easily packed in camel bags and seagoing vessels – an ideal stuff to smuggle, well known to those Luccese merchants. It always found a ready market, since as well as adding a tang to otherwise bland food, it offset the salt which was so widely used to preserve foodstuffs. It had been imported from India to the west for 4,000 years.”
― Liza Picard, Chaucer's People: Everyday Lives in Medieval England

“Spices were an important part of medieval cookery. We take them for granted, and often taste them ready-mixed in our commercially produced food. The Middle Ages saw them as mysterious and precious.”
― Liza Picard, Chaucer's People: Everyday Lives in Medieval England

“On 12 May 1366, for example, Edward III entertained the great officers of his Council to breakfast. The ceremonies would have begun with hand-washing. A page would present to each guest a bowl of warm water scented with rose petals or some other sweet-smelling perfume. With considerable dexterity he would pour the water over the diner’s hands, catching it in the bowl below them. Then the diner could dry his hands on the towel slung over the page’s shoulder, and take his proper place at table.”
― Liza Picard, Chaucer's People: Everyday Lives in Medieval England

“Bread was the staple of a medieval diet. In lordly English households a standard daily food ration for every individual was between two and three pounds of wheat bread, and about a gallon of ale.”
― Liza Picard, Chaucer's People: Everyday Lives in Medieval England

“cheap, thin ale selling at the controlled price of a halfpenny a gallon should be kept separate from thicker, more expensive ale selling at twice that price. This embargo may not have been strictly observed.”
― Liza Picard, Chaucer's People: Everyday Lives in Medieval England

“The general drink was ale. Most households of any size made their own, every few days. The advantage of adding hops was that it produced a longer-lasting brew, but that was still in the future.”
― Liza Picard, Chaucer's People: Everyday Lives in Medieval England

“In a separate ‘pantry and buttery’ there were: two cupboards, two candlesticks, miscellaneous table linen, two iron funnels, a pair of table knives [for carving], two ‘chargers’ [big serving dishes], ten ‘dishes’, eleven saucers [small dishes for sauces, to be put between diners at table], nine ‘trenchers’, two half-gallon pots each holding four pints, three quart pots each holding two pints, and one pint pot, salt-cellars, a holy water stoup, two shallow pewter bowls, a bottle [probably made of leather, certainly not glass], a hamper, a box, three round basins, one jar for ale, an earthenware pot, and various broken bits.”
― Liza Picard, Chaucer's People: Everyday Lives in Medieval England

“An inventory of the items in the kitchen of Richard Toky, a member of the prosperous Grocers’ Company, in 1391 gives some idea of fourteenth-century kitchen equipment. It included: for food preparation – two mortars and two pestles, two meat-hooks, two pairs of tongs, two axes and two hatchets, four ‘tables’ [abacuses: calculators], a ‘dressing-knife’, a skimmer, two ladles, and a kneading tub for cooking – three brass pots, two little pans, two frying pans, one chafing pan [used over a charcoal fire for small, delicate dishes], two kettles, four copper pans, three iron spits and a rack, two grid-irons for grilling, two tripods, a grate, a bellows, and some wood and coal for laundry – a water-tankard [the kind of big hod used to deliver water to the household by the tankard-bearer], two washing tubs and a barrel.”
― Liza Picard, Chaucer's People: Everyday Lives in Medieval England

“By Chaucer’s time the cooking fire had usually moved from the centre of the ground-floor hall to the side wall of the kitchen, with a chimney and a flue. There might be a bracket let into the wall beside the fireplace with a horizontal arm, so that a cauldron could be swung over the fire. In front of the fire would be a rack holding one or more spits, probably of different sizes. Ovens were separate structures from the cooking fires, although they might be built into the side of the chimney. The heat source was logs from the fire, put into the oven while burning and removed once the clay walls of the oven were hot right through, so that they retained the heat for bread-baking. Once the loaves were done the residual heat could be used for other things, such as pies and joints brought in for baking by paying customers. Where we wrap a joint in foil, to keep it tender and retain the juices, the medieval cook achieved the same result by enclosing the joint or bird in a ‘chest’ or ‘coffin’ of plain flour and water, which was not meant for eating.”
― Liza Picard, Chaucer's People: Everyday Lives in Medieval England

“Every proper London cook would belong to a professional body. The Guild of Cooks had been formed in 1311, although it did not get a charter until 1482. The Guildsmen’s cook must have served the usual seven years’ apprenticeship, learning by example and practice. He would certainly know how to ‘roast and boil and broil and fry’, and much else besides.”
― Liza Picard, Chaucer's People: Everyday Lives in Medieval England