SC - Vegetarianism

[Cindy Renfrow]

>
>Then too, I've heard (note: I have NO proof of this!) that geese were not
>considered meat in the MAs because they were thought to "hatch" from goose
>neck barnacles...  Of course, anyone who raised geese would surely know
>that wasn't the case!
>
>You know, if I could just find documentation for *half* the things I've
>"heard" about the Middle Ages, I would be such an expert...
>
>Violente de San Sebastiano de la Frontera

This story appears in Gerard's Herball, and also in The Book of Beasts, (a
12th c. latin bestiary) tr. by T.H. White.
>From the latter, pp 267-8:
"The Barnacle or Tree Goose deserves a paragraph of its own.  It was
invented to account for the facts that (a) some geese, being migratory,
were not seen to breed in the south and (b) shellfish like mussels do have
the general tulip shape and some of the coloration of wild geese with their
wings folded.  There is also an etymological muddle about wings, for
translators had been liable to render the two shells of an oyster as
'wings'.
'Ther are likewise here many birds called barnacles,' wrote Giraldus
concerning Ireland in 1187, 'which nature produces in a wonderful manner,
out of her ordinary course.  They resemble the marsh-geese, but are
smaller.  Being at first gummy excrescences from pine-beams floating on the
waters, and then enclosed in shells to secure their free growth, they hang
by their beaks, like seaweeds attached to timber.  Being in process of time
well covered with feathers, they either fall into the water or take their
flight in the free air, their nourishment and growth being supplied, while
they are bred in this very unaccountable and curious manner, from the
juices of the wood in the sea-water.  I have often seen with my own eyes
more than a thousand minute embryos of birds of this species on the
seashore, hanging from one piece of timber, covered with shells, and
already formed.  No eggs are laid by these birds after copulation, as is
the case with birds in general; the hen never sits on eggs in order to
hatch them; in no corner of the world are they seen either to pair or build
nests.  Hence, in some parts of Ireland, bishops and men of religion make
no scruple of eating these birds on fasting days, as not being flesh,
because they are not born of flesh.  But these men are curiously drawn into
error.  For, if anyone had eaten part of the thigh of our first parent,
which was really flesh, although not born of flesh, I should think him not
guiltless of having eaten flesh.'
Giraldus, like St. Jerome, was fond of the theory that the Irish were
cannibals in any case."

HTH,


Cindy Renfrow/Sincgiefu
renfrow at skylands.net
Author & Publisher of "Take a Thousand Eggs or More, A Collection of 15th
Century Recipes" and "A Sip Through Time, A Collection of Old Brewing
Recipes"
http://www.alcasoft.com/renfrow/



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