[Sca-cooks] Re: German book

[Susan Fox-Davis]

johnna holloway wrote:

> It may or may not have a great deal of food related things
> in it.
>
> The subject cataloguing in OCLC reads:
> Papal courts -- France -- Avignon -- History.
> Papal courts -- Accounting.
> Papacy -- History -- 1309-1378.
>
> It's not under a food heading or even Dining.
> Held by 16 US, 1 Canadian, 3 European libraries.
>
> Johnna

A review just came through on the Caid list,
with much more detail.  Baron Aldred says
he will probably buy a copy.

>
>Weiss, Stefan. <i>Die Versorgung des paepstlichen
>Hofes in Avignon mit Lebensmitteln (1316- 1378):
>Studien zur Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte eines
>mittelalterlichen Hofes</i>. Berlin: Akademie
>Verlag, 2002. Pp. 725. Euro 84.80 (hb). ISBN:
>3-05-003640-0.
>
>    Reviewed by Melitta Weiss Adamson
>         The University of Western Ontario
>         melitta at uwo.ca
>
>Where does one begin to review a book that is so
>rich in information that it should be required
>reading for anybody working in the history of food?
>Stefan Weiss' in-depth study of the food supply at
>the papal court in Avignon is the revised version
>of his inaugural dissertation (Habilitation)
>accepted at the University of Augsburg in 2000. By
>focussing on the biggest and most important court
>in Europe, this monumental work of 725 pages fills
>a void in the historical scholarship of medieval
>courtly society.
>
>Given that the shared meal is the most basic form
>of socialization, and that in every mass Christians
>recreate the Last Supper Jesus shared with his
>disciples, it is all the more surprising that food
>has never been used before as the vantage point for
>a large-scale study of the social and economic
>history of the papal court. The time frame chosen
>by the author is the period between 1316 and 1378,
>the former being the year Pope John XXII chose
>Avignon as the permanent seat for the curia, and
>the latter the year Pope Gregory XI returned to
>Rome; all in all it covers six pontificates. To
>account for the changing historical realities
>brought on by such calamities as the plague, and
>the Hundred Years' War, and to do justice to the
>individuality of each of the six popes, Weiss tries
>as much as possible to discuss the material within
>each chapter chronologically by pontificate. By
>mining his sources for information on the purchase,
>donation, transport, preparation, distribution, and
>consumption of food, he is able to show the
>structure and inner workings of the papal court,
>the role food played in cementing the social and
>political status of individuals, the pope's
>relationship with his cardinals, his relatives, and
>rulers from across Europe, and the economic impact
>the curia had on Avignon and the surrounding area.
>
>Following a general introduction (Chapter 1), Weiss
>begins his investigation with a discussion of his
>source material (Chapter 2). His data are based on
>the Avignon records of the apostolic chamber that
>are now housed in the Vatican Archives. The records
>allow him to reconstruct the intricate bookkeeping
>technique of the six popes, whose financial
>administration spanned much of medieval Europe from
>Scandinavia to the Mediterranean, from the Atlantic
>to Poland. Even for non-experts in accounting,
>medieval or modern, this is a fascinating read.
>Pieces of paper and simple logs were compiled into
>more and more comprehensive ledgers, a process that
>reveals a hierarchical and highly systematic
>bookkeeping for which the correct transfer of
>entries was essential. To Weiss, the apostolic
>chamber with its limited personnel and low
>technology compares well with any modern tax
>office. From a brief description of Avignon's place
>in the financial administration of Provence the
>author then moves on to a discussion of the
>different currencies, weights, and measures used in
>the records.
>
>In Chapter 3 Weiss provides an overview of the
>chamber and court offices that existed prior to
>Pope John XXII's decision to take up residence in
>Avignon. Using the court regulations of Pope
>Clement V as his source, he identifies the offices
>that were directly involved in the procurement,
>payment and handling of food. Of particular
>interest to food historians will be the sections on
>the structure and responsibilities of the papal
>kitchen, the wine, bread, and alms office. When the
>papacy settled in Avignon, the effects on the local
>population were both positive and negative, as
>Weiss illustrates at the end of the chapter. The
>influx of such a large group of wealthy consumers
>created opportunities, but it also led to price
>hikes, a housing shortage, and put stress on the
>municipal infrastructure that was not offset by
>additional revenue since the pope and his entourage
>were exempt from city taxes and tolls. Because
>Avignon was the main, but by no means the only,
>residence during the six pontificates, the author
>concludes this chapter with a look at the minor
>papal residences and estates, among them Sorgues,
>Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Noves, and Villeneuve.
>
>In Chapter 4 the author shifts from normative
>sources to the actual organization of the food
>supply based on his records. While they give a
>detailed picture, they do not allow the
>reconstruction of the curia's total food
>consumption, as Weiss concedes (131). Some
>foodstuffs, for instance, were received as presents
>or came from episcopal estates, and therefore do
>not appear in the sources in which extraordinary
>purchases, usually bulk purchases of durable goods,
>were better documented than ordinary ones made
>locally. In addition, the quality and completeness
>of the bookkeeping is higher in the beginning than
>the end of the Avignon papacy. The food that was
>bought is listed under the three categories
>"miscellaneous," "meat," and "fish." Those readers
>who assume that "miscellaneous" here means fruit
>and vegetables had better think again. On page 128
>Weiss explains that the term referred to small
>animals such as chickens, hens, partridges,
>pigeons, rabbits, capons, bacon, ingredients for
>soups, oil, eggs, cheese, salt, expenses for the
>transport of firewood, and for washing tablecloths.
>The category "meat" referred only to big animals,
>i.e. oxen, calves, pigs, and sheep. This taxonomy
>underlines the central role of meat in the diet of
>the curia in Avignon.
>
>In his discussion of the tasks, personnel, and
>location of court offices under Pope John XXII and
>the minor reorganizations that occurred under
>subsequent popes, Weiss naturally focuses on the
>kitchen, bread, and wine office, but other offices,
>such as the wax office and apothecary, hunters,
>water and wood office, the keeper of silverware,
>hall master, and alms office are also mentioned.
>The responsibility for the purchase of spices
>shared by the kitchen and apothecary illustrates
>their dual nature as seasoning and medicine. Aside
>from the procurement of food, Weiss addresses the
>questions: Who did the court offices supply? How
>were they staffed? Where in or outside the palace
>were these offices located? and who did the papal
>kitchen supply? The relatively small number of ca.
>100 persons entitled to get food from the Pope's
>kitchen he explains with the existence of a number
>of separate (sub-)households in and outside the
>palace by high-ranking officials such as
>chamberlains, treasurers, and cardinals.
>
>For food historians, chapters 5 and 6, which deal
>with food on regular days and special occasions,
>are the heart of Weiss' study. From annual expenses
>for foodstuffs under the different popes, the
>quantities and types of food eaten on lean and meat
>days, the author moves on to the technical
>equipment in the kitchen. In his sources he finds
>mention of a <i>trapa</i> which he interprets as a
>cake-tin or mold of some kind. In fact, it is a
>type of portable oven typical of the south of
>France in which pies and "tourtes" were baked, as
>Carole Lambert has shown (Adamson, ed., <i>Regional
>Cuisines of Medieval Europe</i>, 73). Also typical
>of the south is <i>agresta</i>, Provencal for
>verjus, a popular ingredient in soups and sauces
>prepared or bought in bulk by the papal kitchen. To
>answer the question "What was eaten at court?",
>Weiss compares the information in his sources with
>a handful of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century
>cookbooks from France and Italy, and finds
>parallels in the types of dishes and the order in
>which they were served. Unfortunately he did not
>consult the only Provencal cookbook that has come
>down to us, the <i>Modus viaticorum preparandorum
>et salsarum</i>. It consists of 51 recipes and
>dates from the last decades of the fourteenth
>century, and hence falls in the time frame of his
>study. The cookbook was edited by Carole Lambert as
>part of her 1989 dissertation. Chapter 5 concludes
>with a radical shift from luxury foods to the food
>of the poor as reflected in the records of the alms
>office.
>
>In chapter 6, Weiss puts dining in the context of
>courtly life. He describes who dined with the pope
>and his cardinals on regular days and special
>occasions, and how high-ranking guests were treated
>upon arrival and at table. With the papal court
>being in essence a womanless court (with the
>exception of a washer woman under Pope Clement
>VI!), the wives of visiting dignitaries posed a
>problem since they were not allowed at banquets. In
>most other respects, however, these banquets seem
>not too dissimilar from their worldly counterparts
>with their multitude of luxurious dishes, special
>presentations, and entertainment. To characterize
>the relationship between the pope and his
>household, Weiss uses the term <i>familia</i>,
>normally applied by historians to the households of
>medieval rulers. Based on the <i>vita communis</i>
>rather than marriage, it is nevertheless a
>comparable network of persons bound by emotional,
>economic, and power relations, according to the
>author. In the section on court festivities he
>includes a list of weddings of the popes'
>relatives, male and female, and gives a detailed
>account of their costs, preparation, and the role
>of ladies and husbands. On page 297, in connection
>with the feasts of Clement VI, a pope known for his
>lavish lifestyle, Weiss mentions a <i>salsa
>alliace</i> whose meaning he was unable to
>establish. It is probably the <i>aillade</i>, a
>garlic sauce made with walnuts that is found in the
><i>Modus</i> edited by Carole Lambert, and still
>popular in Languedoc.
>
>In the following two chapters the author ventures
>beyond the palace gates, first to the bishopric of
>Avignon whose role in the food supply he explores
>(chapter 7), and eventually much further afield, as
>far away as the Atlantic Ocean, Switzerland, and
>southern Italy, in an attempt to show to what
>lengths the curia went in order to procure certain
>necessities and luxuries it was unable or unwilling
>to purchase locally (chapter 8). What he observes
>in the course of the six pontificates is a trend
>towards self-sufficiency which manifested itself,
>for instance, in an increasing reliance on the
>diocese of Avignon and neighboring dioceses for the
>supply of food, the raising of animals in the
>palace stables, and the establishment of
>fish-ponds, vegetable gardens, deer parks, game
>preserves, and the like in and around Avignon. As
>an economic enterprise the papal palace thus
>resembles a hybrid of castle, monastery, and farm
>whose surplus was used to acquire luxury goods for
>the enjoyment of the pope, his inner circle, and
>high-ranking guests. To ensure the highest quality
>and lowest price for these extraordinary purchases,
>the curia sent out its own buyers who were exempt
>from paying tolls, and often followed the
>traditional trade routes, especially those along
>the Rhone and Saone rivers, as Weiss shows in
>chapter 8. From the variety of goods mentioned in
>the records, he chooses grain, wine, meat, fish,
>firewood and coal, as well as spices and
>confections for his detailed analysis. Among the
>author's many fascinating findings in this chapter
>are the preference so as not to say addiction of
>the papal court to wine from Burgundy which tempts
>him to describe it as "a form of alcoholism" (436),
>the logistics of transporting live fish over great
>distances, the rapid rise of coal purchases in
>1349/50 when, as is well known, Pope Clement VI had
>been advised by his physician, Guy de Chauliac, to
>sit between basins of burning coals as a
>prophylactic against the plague, and the importance
>of Montpellier for the trade in exotic spices and
>confections.
>
>In chapter 9, Weiss gives some impressions and
>outlooks based on his study. He points out that
>luxury and waste, usually associated with the
>Avignon popes, were even more endemic in cardinals'
>households. The popes themselves display a
>considerable degree of individuality, with John
>XXII and Benedict XII being examples of frugality,
>while Clement VI and his nephew Gregory XI broke
>all records in conspicuous consumption. Guest lists
>from four pontificates, tables of the bulk
>purchases from all six pontificates, a
>bibliography, name and place index, and seven maps
>round out this amazing book.
>
>Weiss' study is a tremendous resource for the ever
>increasing number of food historians coming from a
>variety of disciplines, and an enjoyable read for
>the general public interested in courtly life and
>food in the Middle Ages. In order to make it
>accessible to an international audience, which it
>fully deserves, I hope that the book will soon be
>translated into English or French. This would also
>be an opportunity to correct some of the minor
>flaws. The manuscript would have benefited from
>thorough proofreading since it contains a number of
>syntactical errors and misspellings. Also, some of
>the information discussed in several different
>contexts becomes a bit repetitive. And finally, the
>occasional factual errors and omissions when it
>comes to neighboring disciplines such as
>archaeology (<i>trapa</i>), history of medicine
>("Diaetik" for "Diaetetik"), and cookbook research
>(omission of <i>Modus</i>) underline yet again the
>special position of food research at the
>cross-roads of a multitude of disciplines, and the
>need for scholarly collaboration.


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