[Sca-cooks] Pigs help New Forest ponies

[Stefan li Rous]

  Jadwiga exclaimed:
> Ha! HA! HA! I WIN! Ras was wrong, and I was right, and pigs WERE set
> loose to graze in the forest, dammit!
>
> *Funky Victory Dance!*
>
> (Yes, my dears, I've been collecting research on herding because I  
> once,
> way back 3 incarnations of the list ago, had an argument with Ras  
> about
> whether pigs were raised exclusively in pens, as they are now, or
> allowed to forage in the forests at will in the middle ages, then
> rounded up and fattened for the winter kill. Research Weenie  
> grudges are
> immortal.)

Hmmm. Okay, but I don't remember that being the argument. Ras made  
some statement about medieval pigs being raised primarily for their  
fat. I replied to him that I didn't think this was so, and that the  
pigs were mostly set free to forage on what they could find and that  
they weren't as fat as today's pigs. At which point, we both started  
throwing examples into the ring. In the end, he did come up with  
several examples of pigs being penned and fattened up, but this was  
being done by the nobles, not the peasants. The peasants didn't have  
the forage and grain for this. So, I guess we both won/lost although  
it again showed that making blanket statements about the Middle Ages  
will get you in trouble.

See:
p-pigs-msg        (34K)  3/27/01    Medieval pigs. Differences from  
modern pigs.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/ANIMALS/p-pigs-msg.html

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas           
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****