SC - Re: Egg Sizes

[LrdRas at aol.com]

In a message dated 12/16/99 2:34:07 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
stefan at texas.net writes:

<< Water was  not that common,>>

Where did you get this idea from?

<< especially ponds and watercourses, >>

?. Fish ponds were very much common with monasteries, manor houses and 
castles having them. 

<<for many, particularly the  lower classes. >>

Since the extant cookeries manuals that we have deal specifically with the 
upper classes and nobility, I fail to see what this has got to do with 
anything.

<<And particularly for those in towns. Whereas a couple of chickens could 
easily be raised in a small town yard. >>

We successfully raised both ducks and geese without benefit of a pond nearby. 
Since the vast majority of the population lived in a rural setting this 
hardly is a factor. Literally thousands of animals and their byproducts were 
sold in the market places in the towns daily. There would not have been a 
lack of any of the products we are discussing in towns because of an 
inability of townsmen to raise them themselves except in times of famine and 
crop failure or animal disease. 

We little concern ourselves with the feeding and clothing if the poor in the 
CMA but in medieval society this was an obligation. Certainly people in 
general were poorer but prices were lower also. There were no massive gangs 
of poor people groveling in the streets as you seem to suggest. Such a view 
of the middle ages is a result of Victorian and Hollywood influence and has 
no basis in fact.

Ras
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