Now! Then! 2025! - Yorkshire On This Day

A Yorkshire Almanac Comprising 365 Historical Extracts, Red-letter Days and Customs, and Astronomical and Meteorological Data

22 September 1465: A (perhaps exaggerated) menu for the enthronement at Cawood Castle of George Neville as Archbishop of York

Gluttony, from Hieronymus Bosch’s 1500-ish <em>The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things</em>

Gluttony, from Hieronymus Bosch’s 1500-ish The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things (Bosch 1500ish).

William Noy, Ed. 1645. The great feast, at the inthronization of the reverend father in God, George Neavill Arch-Bishop of Yorke, Chancellour of England, in the sixt yeere of Edward the fourth. London: Edward Husbands. Get it:

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Excerpt

Wheat: 300 quarters. Ale: 300 tuns. Wine: 100 tuns. Hypocrisy: 1 pipe. Oxen: 104. Wild bulls: 6. Muttons: 1,000! Veal calves [“vedles”]: 304. Pigs [“porks]: 304. Swans: 400. Geese: 5,000. Capons: 7,000. Young pigs [“pigs”]: 3,000. Plovers: 400. Quails: 1,200. Fowls called rays [?]: 2,400. Peacocks: 400. Mallards and teals: 4,000. Cranes: 204. Kids: 204. Chickens: 3,000. Pigeons: 4,000. Rabbits [“coneys”]: 4,000. Bitterns: 200. Herons [“hernshawes”]: 400. Pheasants: 200. Partridge: 500. Woodcocks: 400. Curlews: 100. Egrets: 1,000. Stags, bucks and roes: 504. Pasties of venison, cold: 103. Pasties of venison, hot: 1,500. Pikes and breams: 508. Parted dishes of jelly: 3,000. Plain dishes of jelly: 3,000. Cold tarts: 103. Hot custards: 2,000. Porpoises and seals: 12. Cold custards: 3,000. Of all kinds of sweetmeats abundance.

To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Abbreviations

Comment

Comment

Various moderns give the date as 22 September 1465 on bases unknown to me. What are “fowls called rayes” and “hernshawes”? Item 4 was presumably added by William Noy, and, though the table plan suggests something approaching 3,000 guests, I think it fair to suggest that “it is very doubtful if Master Noy did not get it up as a firebrand against the clergy” (Thorpe 1843).

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Original

  • Wheat, three hundred quarters.
  • Ale, three hundred Tunne.
  • Wine one hundred tunne.
  • Hypocras, one Pipe.
  • Oxen, one hundred and foure.
  • Wilder Bull, six.
  • Muttons, one thousand!
  • Vedles, three hundred, and foure.
  • Porkes, three hundred and foure.
  • Swanns, foure hundred.
  • Geese, five thousand.
  • Capons, seven thousand.
  • Piggs, three thousand.
  • Plovers, foure hundred.
  • Quailes, one hundred dozen.
  • Fowles called Rayes, two hundred dozen.
  • Peacocks, foure hundred.
  • Mallards and Teales, foure thousand.
  • Cranes, two hundred and foure.
  • Kidds, two hundred and foure.
  • Chickens, three thousand.
  • Pigeons, foure thousand.
  • Conyes, foure thousand.
  • Bytternes, two hundred.
  • Hernshawes, foure hundred.
  • Pheasants, two hundred.
  • Partridge, five hundred.
  • Woodcocks, foure hundred.
  • Curlews, one hundred.
  • Egritts, one thousand.
  • Staggs, Bucks, and Roes, five hundred and four.
  • Pasties of Venison cold, one hundred and three.
  • Pasties of Venison hot, one thousand five hun∣dred.
  • Pikes and Breames, five hundred and eight.
  • Parted Dishes of Illy, three thousand.
  • Plaine Dishes of Ielly, three thousand.
  • Cold Tarts, one hundred and three.
  • Hot Custards, two thousand.
  • Porpisses and Seales, twelve.
  • Cold Custards, three thousand.
  • Of all kindes of sweet meates abundance.

267 words.

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