SC - Charlemagne's Cheese [long]

[Mark.S Harris]

The following message was posted on the Rialto within this past month
by Tangwystyl, a noted scholar especially in Welsh studies in the
SCA. This is long, but I thought the information highlighted here
both on the problems in dealing with secondary sources and as a source
of information on period cheeses made it worthwhile to post here.

This message and several other messages from this thread will be
in the cheese-msg file in my Florilegium, shortly.

Stefan li Rous
stefan at texas.net
- ----------
> From: hrjones at socrates.berkeley.edu ()
> Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
> Subject: Charlemagne's Cheese [long]
> Date: 4 Sep 1999 20:31:44 GMT
> Organization: University of California at Berkeley
> 
> Charlemagne's Cheese: a study in the un/reliability of sources.
>  
> There was an interesting thread recently on cheese in period:
> what varieties were used when and where, and what sort of
> evidence we have for this.  In the course of the thread, it was
> mentioned that Charlemagne was (according to his biographer
> Eginhard) fond of Brie and blue sheep's cheese, and was supplied
> with significant quantities of both.  Further information was
> provided that the proximal source of this information was Anthea
> Bell's translation of Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat's "History of
> Food".  (I'm working from a screen-print, so I'm afraid I've lost
> the names of the posters involved.)
>  
> The relevant quote from Toussaint-Samat is as follows:
>  
> "After the fall of the Roman Empire ... the monks of the
> Benedictine and Cistercian monasteries, thanks to whom the
> population did not starve to death entirely during the Dark Ages,
> were the pioneers of the new cheese-making industry of medieval
> times.  If the chronicles of Eginhard, Charlemagne's biographer,
> are to be believed, it was in one of these monasteries --
> probably the abbey of Vabres near Roquefort -- that the Emperor,
> another lover of cheese, was given a sheep's milk cheese veined
> with mould.  Much to his surprise, he liked it.  He made the
> prior promise to send two crates of this cheese a year to Aix-
> la-Chapelle, thus nearly ruining the poor community.  Charlemagne
> was equally enthusiastic about the cheese of Reuil in Brie.  A
> man of discernment, he pronounced it 'one of the most marvellous
> of foods', and requisitioned two crates of this cheese as well,
> to round off his dinners at Aix."
>  
> Toussaint-Samat is an entertaining and engaging writer, full of
> detailed anecdotes -- the sort who enables you to enjoy yourself
> thoroughly while learning something.  The problem is, you just
> learned something that ain't so: that's not what the biography
> says, and it wasn't Eginhard who said it.
>  
> There are two contemporary biographers of Charlemagne. Eginhard
> is the better known and was a member of the emperor's circle. 
> The other biography is by the anonymous "monk of Saint Gall",
> sometimes identified with Notker the Stammerer.  Eginhard's work
> contains no mention of cheese (that I could find, but it's a
> fairly short work and I read through the whole of it).  The monk
> of Saint Gall's work contains an anecdote about cheese that is
> clearly the source of Toussaint-Samat's assertions, but just as
> clearly overlaps them very little in content.
>  
> The anecdote makes up chapter 15 of the first book of the work. 
> I here give A.J. Grant's translation, with relevant vocabulary
> from the original Latin included in brackets.
>  
> "In the same journey [as mentioned in chapter 14 -- the location
> and course of the journey are not specified] he came to a bishop
> who lived in a place through which he must needs pass.  Now on
> that day, being the sixth day of the week, he was not willing to
> eat the flesh of beast or bird; and the bishop, being by reason
> of the nature of the place unable to procure fish upon the
> sudden, ordered some excellent cheese, rich and creamy [optimum
> illi caseum et ex pinguedine canum -- a more literal translation
> might be 'excellent ... oily and whitish/grayish-white'], to be
> placed before him.  And the most self-restrained Charles, with
> the readiness which he showed everywhere and on all occasions,
> spared the blushes of the bishop and required no better fare: but
> taking up his knife cut off the skin [erugine -- apparently
> 'tarnish' in a literal sense], which he thought unsavoury
> [abhominabili -- more literally 'abominable'], and fell to on the
> white of the cheese [albore casei].  Thereupon the bishop, who
> was standing near like a servant, drew closer and said, 'Why do
> you do that, lord emperor?  You are throwing away the very best
> part."  Then Charles, who deceived no one, and did not believe
> that anyone would deceive him, on the persuasion of the bishop
> put a piece of the skin [eruginis illius partem -- lit. "that
> tarnished part"] in his mouth, and slowly ate it and swallowed it
> like butter [in modum butyri].  then approving of the advice of
> the bishop, he said: 'Very true, my good host,' and he added: 'Be
> sure to send me every year to Aix two cart-loads [duas carradas]
> of just such cheeses."  The bishop was alarmed at the
> impossibility of the task and, fearful of losing both his rank
> and his office, he rejoined: 'My lord, I can procure the cheeses,
> but I cannot tell which are of this quality and which of another. 
> Much I fear lest I fall under your censure.'  Then Charles from
> whose penetration and skill nothing could escape, however new or
> strange it might be, spoke thus to the bishop, who from childhood
> had known such cheeses and yet could not test them.  'Cut them in
> two [incide ... per medium],' he said, 'then fasten together with
> a skewer [acuminato ligno -- 'a sharp stick'] those that you find
> to be of the right quality and keep them in your cellar for a
> time and then send them to me.  The rest you may keep for
> yourself and your clergy and your family.'  This was done for two
> years and the king ordered the present of cheeses to be taken in
> without remark: then in the third year the bishop brought in
> person his laboriously collected cheeses.  But the most just
> Charles pitied his labour and anxiety and added to the bishopric
> an excellent estate whence he and his successors might provide
> themselves with corn and wine."
>  
> The immediately following chapter begins, "As we have shown how
> the most wise Charles exalted the humble, let us now show how he
> brought low the proud."  This is pertinent in understanding the
> purpose of the telling of the cheese incident.
>  
> We can now compare the details of the original with the retelling
> in Toussaint-Samat.  The first thing to note is that the single
> cheese incident in the biography has been multiplied (perhaps
> miraculously like the loaves and fishes) into two different, but
> parallel, cheese incidents.
>  
> supplier of cheese
> S. Gall: bishop of an unspecified region
> T-S #1: a monastery, probably abbey of Vabres near Roquefort
> T-S #2: Reuil in Brie (another monastery implied?)
>  
> nature of cheese
> S. Gall: oily (creamy?), whitish or grayish-white, with a white
> interior and a 'tarnished' exterior that at first appears
> 'abominable' but is judged to be the best part of the cheese
> T-S #1: a sheep's milk cheese veined with mould [sic]
> T-S #2: unspecified (but readers have clearly interpreted the
> passage as referring to the type of cheese modernly known as Brie
> -- and this may have been the author's intent)
>  
> other aspects of the cheese
> S. Gall: the cheese is tested by being cut open, after which it
> is fastened back together with a sharp stick; the cheeses are
> collected during the course of the year and then shipped.
> T-S #1: no mention of this aspect
> T-S #2: no mention of this aspect
>  
> Charlemagne's opinion of the cheese
> S. Gall: considers cheese a dispreferred alternate to fish for a
> fast day; after sampling, agrees with the bishop that the
> unsavory-looking rind is "the best part"
> T-S #1: a lover of cheese, is surprised to like the moldy cheese
> T-S #2: equally enthusiastic about this cheese; quoted as
> pronouncing it 'one of the most marvellous of foods'
>  
> amount supplied
> S. Gall: two carts
> T-S #1: two crates
> T-S #2: two crates
>  
> frequency of supply
> S. Gall: every year
> T-S #1: every year
> T-S #2: unspecified
>  
> difficulty involved in procuring the cheese
> S. Gall: difficulty in identifying cheeses of the same type and
> quality, they must be "laboriously" tested and collected; fear of
> displeasing the emperor in this
> T-S #1: provision of cheese nearly ruins the "poor community"
> T-S #2: no difficulties mentioned
>  
> We cannot know if the interpretations are Toussaint-Samat's own
> or if he has taken them from intermediary sources -- he remains
> silent on that point.  (He appears to decline to provide
> citations for much of any of his material.  We are lucky, in this
> case, that Eginhard's name gave us a clue to the actual source of
> the material.)  To me, the most plausible explanation would be
> that he has worked from two different intermediary sources, each
> of whom claimed Charlemagne's cheese as identical to their own
> local specialty and affixed details to that effect to the story. 
> At any rate, he has either been an extremely uncritical user of
> secondary sources that involved a great deal of invention, or he
> has been an enthusiastic inventor himself (including the
> invention of the quote attributed to Charlemagne).
>  
> From the description in the original, some cheese in the general
> brie/camembert family would certainly be consistent with what we
> know: i.e., a soft, "oily" white interior, and a "whitish or
> grayish-white" exterior that can be removed with a knife, appears
> distasteful, but is actually quite tasty.
>  
> The interpretation of the cheese as a blue sheep's milk type
> (e.g., a roquefort-type) would appear to be inspired by the bit
> with the skewer.  That is, some intermediary source may have
> fastened upon the process of cutting the cheese open and piercing
> it with a skewer, then storing it subsequently before
> consumption, as the origin of a bluing process.  The major
> conceptual problem with this interpretation (setting aside that
> blue/sheep cheeses cannot really be described as "oily/creamy"
> and one might balk at describing their interior as "white") is
> that Charles ordered the bishop to supply "just such cheeses"
> [talibus caseis] as he had just eaten.  The cheese he had just
> eaten had not undergone the cutting and skewering.  If the
> cutting and skewering produced a blue cheese, then the bishop
> would be supplying cheeses radically different from what Charles
> had requested.
>  
> In summary, we see an original text, which actually supplies
> useful details about the nature of the cheese being described,
> but which has been rendered functionally useless in the secondary
> (and presumably tertiary) sources by over-zealous interpreters
> who (possibly in a spirit of local chauvinism) have added details
> and specifics to the bare facts until we cannot know truth from
> invention.  Fortunately, in this case, the original is fairly
> easy to identify and access, but in all too many cases of this
> sort, we are left with intriguing but de-contextualized
> assertions of the sort that fill Toussaint-Samat's book, of which
> we _must_ be skeptical (because cases like the above happen all
> the time in books of this sort), but which we have no way of
> verifying.
>  
> It's an object lesson in why one should never stop at tertiary
> and secondary sources, and why one should be _extremely_ wary of
> sources that don't tell you where they got _their_ information. 
> It may be wrong.
>  
> Tangwystyl
>  
> Bibliography
>  
> Grant, A.J.  1926.  Early Lives of Charlemagne by Eginhard & the
> Monk of St Gall.  Chatto & Windus, London.
>  
> Einhard.  1972.  Vita Karoli Magni: the Life of Charlemagne.
> Trans. Evelyn Scherabon Firchow & Edwin H. Zeydel.  University of
> Miami Press.
>  
> Latham, R.E.  1965.  Revised Medieval Latin Word-List.  Oxford
> University Press.
>  
> Lewis, Charlton T. & Charles Short.  1907.  A New Latin
> Dictionary.  American Book Company.
>  
> Monachus Sangallensis (Notkerus Balbulus).  1918.  De Carolo
> Magno.  Fehr'sche Buchhandlung, St. Gallen.
>  
> Toussaint-Samat, Maguelonne (trans. Anthea Bell).  1987. A
> History of Food.  Blackwell.
> *********************************************************
> Heather Rose Jones         hrjones at socrates.berkeley.edu
> **********************************************************
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