Re: Confronting Mythology in Genealogy
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In reply to:
Re: Confronting Mythology in Genealogy
Dorothy Drake 5/15/10
When I was in school, back in the last millennium, they taught us that people in the Middle Ages ate rotten meat but disguised the taste with spices from the Far East.
This is a complete myth. In the first place, even a poor peasant had chickens, sheep and pigs, and knew how to preserve the meat by smoking or salting it. And a poor peasant couldn't afford to buy expensive spices imported from Asia.
In the "Letter Books of the City of London", available at British History Online, there are many examples of people who were punished in the pillory for selling spoiled meat - and there would have been no point in punishing people if they had the attitude that eating rotten meat was normal and you could just add a little pepper. Here a couple of examples:
In 1378, John Bakere was charged with selling to John, son of William Burle, a putrid partridge. The said John Bakere being brought before John Phelipot, the Mayor, and the Aldermen, upon a jury being summoned, confessed the sale. Adjudged to stand half an hour in the pillory, the bird to be burnt under him.
In 1348, John, son of John Gylessone de Refham, adjudged punishment of the pillory for selling bad meat to Agnes la Ismongerer.