[Sca-cooks] Funeral foods ...

[King's Taste Productions]

A bit of a morbid question, but having just attended a funeral for a
friend (only 45, gods rest her soul), and the family-hosted gathering
afterwards, I got to wondering about food traditions associated with
mourning in the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

These days in the United States, it's all about potlucks and sweets,
comfort foods. Not really ritual foods, but everyone knows someone in
their families or among their friends who can be counted on to sustain
the mourners with food. It's inevitable: if you're having a memorial
gathering, suddenly you have enough food to feed an army.

Gianotta




I have had the opportunity (?) to hold a couple of period funerals, one
for my late husband and one for another dear friend, both of whom were
Kingdom Heralds at one point in their lives.  Below is the research I
cobbled together, some of it is food related. 
Christianna



I did some research on period funeral practices.  Here are some of the
less gruesome:

place a coin(s) on the bier
deceased presented with their finest clothes, weapons, war horse
small pottery jars in white, red, and black containing food and beer
(these are placed with a buried body, or also placed on the bier)
an absolution cross, made of silver, lead, tin, or other base metal,
inscribed with the absolution formula and their name, placed on the
breast or on the box

Absolution formula (in English, should be done in Latin)
"May God absolve thee from all thy sins, and through the penance imposed
mayst thou be absolved by the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost, by the
Angels, by the Saints, and by me, a wretched sinner"

for the ceremony:
a crier leads the procession, ringing a bell and crying the deceased
name, along with "Pray God for the dead". We could probably just have
them say "Pray for the dead", and loose some of the overt Christian
reference (isn't the Current Middle Ages fun? We should probably have a
disclaimer in the program or posted somewhere that this ceremony
contains religious elements)

all parties in the procession carrying bells and ringing them while they
walk

candles for all parties in the procession, along with extras (wealthy
personages paid for extra mourners to carry candles, the equivalent of
prayer wheels)

One person carrying a wine ewer and another with goblets, pouring wine
for all comers (done when a procession stops at a crossroads, all
travelers encouraged to partake)

Add to this the heraldic display that we discussed:

Funeral bier with bier cover - roundels on the cover with badges
representing offices and awards of the deceased.

Canopy to be borne over the bier during the procession.  The cover
should have a representation of the surviving spouse’s arms on the
center inside surface, facing the body or cremains.  

Marshalled arms of the deceased and the spouse - ½ of the surviving
spouse’s arms on the dexter side, ½ of the deceased spouse’s arms on the
sinister side - done on a diamond shape.  A white background is behind
the surviving arms, a black background behind the deceased’s arms.  

Bearers during the procession include 4 on each corner of the canopy, 2
or 4 on the bier.  The procession should also include the banner of the
deceased’s arms, banners of offices, surviving spouse, and other
representations of other significant portions of the deceased’s life.  

-all from "Military and Religious Life in the Middle Ages and the
Renaissance" - Lacroix



 
Viking Funeral prayer from “The 13th Warrior” by Michael Crichton

Lo there do I see my father. 
Lo there do I see my mother, my sisters, and my brothers. 
Lo there do I see the line of my people, back to the beginning. 
Lo they do call me. They bid me take my place among them in the Halls of
Valhalla. Where the brave, may live forever.



The tradition of spice + fruit cake for Hallowe¹en and Funerals. It
seems widespread in the North Country and Scotland. An old Yorkshire
saying I heard once: ³It looks like a case of currant cakes and slow
walking² means someone is extremely ill or doomed to die.


Wakes and sin eaters 
Apr 4 2003 - The Western Mail - The National Newspaper Of Wales
WELSH funerals have been associated strange and melancholy customs
mingled with feasts, convivial get-togethers, song and above all
speech-making.
Nearly all the old funeral customs have died out, but some include:
* A spirit called Margan was said to conduct the soul from the body to
the other world.
* The Gwylnos, or wake-night was held on the evening before the corpse
was buried and relatives and friends mounted an all-night vigil around
the open coffin in the parlour.
* On the way to the church the coffin was laid on the ground at every
crossroad, and the funeral processions knelt in prayer. The route was
often swept and sanded and strewn with evergreens, ivy and flowers -
white for those under 30 and red for anyone considered of good
character.
* Everyone who attended a funeral was expected to place a coin on the
coffin or on a table near at hand for the benefit of the bereaved
family.
* A "month's end" service is still sometimes held on the last Sunday in
the month or the Sunday after the funeral where relatives and friends
gather for a funeral sermon.
* In parts of Carmarthenshire a specialist sin-eater would be called in
to consume a piece of salted bread laid on the breast of the dead
person.
* At Rhayader mourners carried small pebbles from the house to the
church. On the way they would add the pebble to a large heap accumulated
from previous processions.
* Every village and rural town in Wales once had a traditional funeral
route, called "the burying lane" or "death road" and it was thought that
if the procession went along any other road, the soul of the deceased
would have no peace.
* Graves are planted with fragrant flowers, traditionally gilly-flowers,
white pinks, polyanthus, mignonette thyme, hyssop, camomile, rosemary,
and balsam. A white rose bush always used to be planted on the grave of
a girl who died in her teens.