SC - Food TV

[LrdRas@aol.com]

I have received the following references lending support to my position on 
the feeding of chickens in period. Some are less than ideal but at least one 
is very specific regarding not only the food being given but the age of the 
birds being fed and what they were being fed. Special thanks to Thomas of 
this list and Melanie Wilson of the SCA-arts list for 'refreshing' my memory 
and providing the specifics. Thanks also to Elysant who proofread the text 
for me.


1) Piers plowman writes of a capon cote, where the capons were fattened for 
the
table (I presume grain. More importantly this passage indicates that chickens 
did receive supplemental feeding of some sort under certain circumstances 
such as the raising of capons for the table).

2) 'According to Hartley many manuscripts show hens being fed by old ladies,
unfortunately she doesn't say on what'. (again I presume grain as does 
Melanie who opined that if other than grain were meant it probably would have 
been mentioned))

3) 'There is an illustration in the Lutrell Psalter which appears to be a
women feeding grain to fowl.'

4) 'Gleaning-is an old English tradition, whereby the church bell was rung
after harvest, whereby all villages (non farmers) could go & collect the
grain in the fields missed by the harvesting process. ...... in living memory 
this
practice saw poor families' poultry through the winter. How old this is I 
don't
know.'

5) 'One such picture is in the Vienna Tacuin Sanitatis (AKA 'Four seasons of
the House of Cerruti', mentioned a few digests ago) under the heading
"Galli" (cocks), where hens are also treated. The picture shows a woman
with a basket feeding the hens with something I could not identify. The
text is somewhat more explicit: "To prefer: young ones (i.e. hens) that
are being fed with good grain".'

The text here definitely states that not only was grain being fed to the 
poultry but that this grain was 'GOOD' grain. Since the translation specifies 
young 'hens' (which I assume is a feminine word form in the original 
language), this shows us that not only capons were fattened on supplemental 
feeding but also that immature poultry were also fed with good grain. It is 
not to much of a step to conclude that poultry of every age received at least 
some form of supplemental feeding and that the form of the supplement was 
most likely grain.

Ras
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