Antiquitates culinariae, or, curious tracts relating to the culinary affairs of the old English / with a preliminary discourse, notes and illustrations by Richard Warner.

Date:
1791
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Antiquitates culinariae, or, curious tracts relating to the culinary affairs of the old English / with a preliminary discourse, notes and illustrations by Richard Warner. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    “ with certeine other perfons appointed for that purpofe. And within a little while after there came in a drum and a fife, apparelled in white damafke and greene “ bonnets, and hofen of the fame fute. Then certeine gentlemen followed with “ torches, apparelled in blue damafke, purfelled with amis graie, faflfioned like “ an albe, and hoods on their heads, with robes and long tippets to the fame, “ of blue damafke, in vizards. Then after them came a certeine number of gen- tlemen, whereof the king was one, apparelled all in one fute of fhort garments, “ little beneath the points, of blue velvet and crimfin, with long fleeves, all cut and lined with cloth of gold. And the utter part of the garments were powdered “ with caftles and fheafes of arrowes of fine ducket gold the upper parts of their “ hofen of like fute and fafliion, the nether parts were of fkarlet, powdered with “ timbrels of fine gold, on their heads bonnets of damafke, with filver flat woven “ in the dole, and thereupon wrought with gold, and rich feathers in them, all “ with vizors||. After this, fix ladies entered, all fuperbly drefled, and having danced fome time with the king and his party, they all retired. We may form fome idea of the expence of thefe royal amufements, from the following account of a pageant and mafke, exhibited at court, on the birth of the princefs Mary. “ Againft the twelfe daie, or the daie of the Epiphanie at night, before tc the banket in the hall at Richmond, was a pageant devifed like a mounteine, “ gliftering by night, as though it had beene all of gold, and fet with Aones, on the top of which mounteine was a tree of gold, the branches and boughes frized <( with gold, fpreadinge on everie fide over the mounteine with rofes and pome- “ granats3 the which mounteine was with vices brought up towards the king, “ and out of the fame came a ladie apparelled in cloth of gold, and the children €t of honor called the Henchmen which were frelhlie difguifed, and danced a “ morice before the king3 and that doone re-entered the mounteine, which then “ was drawen backe, and then was the waflail or banket brought in, and fo brake fe up Chrifimafle I fhall produce one more extract from the accounts we have of Henry’s mafkes. “ In this yeere (the 8th of his reign) the king kept his Chriftmafle at his “ manor of Greenwich, and on the twelfe night, according to the old cuftome, he “ and || Holl. Chron. p. 804. * Many of our monarchs formerly, kept an open table during the Chriftmafs tide, as Richard II. in par- ticular. Henry VIII. alfo during this feftival gave repeated banquets, and fome of his moll fplendid pageantries, and mafkes were played off then. This period of revelry, was looked forward to by his fubjeds with anxious expeflation. In the year 1526 during the winter, a dearth happening in London, which prevented Henry from keeping his Chriltmas there ; he retired to his palace at Eltham, and palled it in the company of a few particular favorites. In confequence of which, this Chriltmas was called a Jiill Chriftma/fe, as it was kept without that magni- ficence and hofpitality, which Henry always difplayed on thefe occafions. Holling. p. 892. b. 34. The curious reader, who is defirous to fee more relative to thefe gorgeous abfurdities, will be greatly amufed by the account of a grand pageant defcribed by Hollinglhead, p. 812. by another, p. 921. in which the king bore a part, and played a trick on Cardinal Wolfey. It mull be obferved, that thefe mummeries were all in dumb lhew. To this note, I beg leave to add, that according to Polydore Virgil, the Englilh cultom of celebrating Chriltmas with jollity, malkes, pageantry, Sec. was not conformable to the manners of the other European nations, who omitted thefe diverfions at Chriltmas, but pradifed them a few days before Lent. Pol. Virg. Hill. Ang. lib. 13. f. 2x1. Bafil 1534.