FOOD AND DRINK 235
together with other contemporary and earlier testimony,1 cannot
be ignored. Doubtless the aristocracy of the peasants "lived in
ordinary times in coarse plenty'*; but, as we have already seen,
there were many others besides these people on the manor, and
their lot was much as Langland has pictured it.
When we turn to the documents themselves, we find how very
limited was the range of foodstuffs available. Our best evidence,
perhaps, comes from the lists of food provided by the lord for his
serfs engaged in the hard work of harvesting and the like. We
may summarise many hundreds of such lists by saying that the
serf was given bread, ale or cider, a mess of pottage, followed by
a dish of fish or flesh and perhaps a lump of cheese. The re-
searches of Sir W. Ashley have suggested that in general the
bread was of rye, or at best, of a mixture of rye and wheat
(maslin)? If otherwise, this was plainly stated in the customal
or elsewrhere.3 The size of the loaf handed over to the workers
varied, and sometimes no ale but only water was given. The
pottage was "a grewell without flesh boiled in it*',4 and often
made with peas or beans.5 Herrings or dried fish were commonly
supplied for the harvesters on fast days, while "a dish of meats>
formed \htpiece de resistance on other days.6 Meat was expensive
for the serf, and only seldom came his way, except as a feast or
when he fed at his lord's costs. We can get a little nearer the
day's rations by noting the practice on some of the Abbot of
Battle's manors where the workers get two or three meals during
the day: at Craumarey in Oxfordshire at nonam (noon) they got
wheaten bread, ale and cheese, and at vespers, bread, ale, pot-
tage, flesh or herrings and cheese.7 On other manors something
of the same is found: the carters of Ferring in 1289 §ot a morning
meal of rye bread, with beer and cheese; at noon they had bread
and beer, with pottage and the usual dish of fish or flesh, and in
the evening a drink before leaving the manor hall.8
1 Med. Village, 311-20, summarises the English and foreign evidence.
2 The Bread of our Forefathers, passim; Econ. Journ. xxxi, 285.
8 Sussex Rec. Soc. xxxi, 72, 89, 107; cf. pp. 34, 43, 81.
* Dugdale, Warwick, p. 177 a. 6 V.C.H. Middlesex, n, 67.
6 Sussex Rec. Soc. xxxi, passim; Camb. Univ. Lib. MS. Kk. v. 29,
ff. 26 Z», 326, 103, 104; Battle Customals, 5, 20, 87, 89. Min. Accounts,
1030/3-6; 998/21.
7 Battle Customals, 87, 89. 8 Camb. Univ. Lib. MS. Kk. v. 29, f. 104,