[Sca-cooks] Sundays in Lent

[JIMCHEVAL at aol.com]

As I've previously mentioned, in France the situation was more nuanced.  
People ate birds for a long time, since they were created on the same day as  
fish in the Bible. Charlemagne found it perfectly normal to eat cheese on a 
fast  day.

In response to Greek critiques of French fasting, Hincmar wrote in  867 
(when French observance was already more strict): “They try to fault us  
because we do not abstain from eating meat eight weeks before Easter or cheese  
and eggs seven weeks before, as they do.”

Le Grand d'Aussy:

"Eudes advances, to excuse us, that Christian abstinence is a custom  which 
varies according to the place and church. "In Italy, he says, one  
abstains, for three days of the week, from all food cooked with fire because  this 
country abounds in excellent fruit of every sort. In regions which do not  
have available their excellent fruits, all foods are cooked by fire. In 
Germany,  one cannot do without eggs, milk, butter and cheese; although some 
people  deprive themselves of these voluntarily. Finally, there are people who, 
even on  Friday and Holy Thursday, eat eggs and dairy as usual."

In regard to eggs, it is not surprising that people ate them without  
scruple. Opinion having established that fowl were meager [that is, not meat],  
of the same nature as fish, it was considered as a result that the egg too 
laid  by this fowl was meager. The certificate of Charles the Bald [823 – 
877], in  favor of the St. Denis Abbey, allows this Monastery, among other 
things, eleven  hundred eggs, annually, on the three great feast-days of the y
ear; and we know  that the Benedictine Order always abstains from meat. " "


The principle on Sundays seemed to be not so much a relaxation as  the idea 
that it should be a day for rejoicing because it was the Lord's  Day.

Le Grand d'Aussy:
"Today, we do not fast on Sundays or Lent, out  of respect for this day 
which we regard particularly as a day of rejoicing. Then  not only did one not 
fast on Sundays, but what is more one ate meat. A life of  St. Sor [?], 
printed by F. Labbe in his Bibliothèque, proves that in the tenth  c. this 
custom continued; since the Saint, on this day, ate stag with his own  people."

Jim Chevallier

Comparing early and late medieval food in  France
http://www.chezjim.com/food/pre-v/comparisons.html

In a message  dated 7/17/2013 3:09:00 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, 
lcm at jeffnet.org  writes:
The general rule set in 
the 5th c was basic- no meat, no eggs, no  dairy. There is some 
contention as to the nature of a relaxation of the  rules for Sunday 
(sometimes including Saturdays and Saints' days).