Dear Motley Officers, Crew and Friends, as you are preparing for entertaining during the festive season, I thought I would give you some ideas, by writing about some feasts from the past.
Of course, one of the most famous feasts of all is the Last Supper. ‘On the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Where do you want us to make preparations for you to eat the Passover?” He replied, “Go into the city to a certain man and tell him, ‘The Teacher says: My appointed time is near. I am going to celebrate the Passover with my disciples at your house.’” So, the disciples did as Jesus had directed them and prepared the Passover’. Matthew 26:17-19 New International Version.
If you ever visit Milan in Italy, I urge you to visit The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci. The mural was painted on the wall of the dining room of the former Dominican convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, using the perspectives of the room to add to the impact of the painting. It is a wonderful experience to see the painting as Leonardo intended.
Food was important to wealthy Romans, but I imagine you would rather hear about the more extravagant feasts, such the ones given by the infamous Emperor Nero (37 to 68 CE). He hosted 12-hour banquets1, including one where he and his favoured guests dined aboard a float, on a man-made lake lined with brothels, for the use of his guests who roamed along the shoreline. Nero’s death resulted in a scramble for power, with four emperors in one year.
Vitellius (15 to 69 CE) who was the third, only remained emperor for a few months before he was killed. But during that time he attended many feasts (up to three a day), and triumphal parades that drove the imperial treasury close to bankruptcy. At a feast given by his brother, two thousand fishes and seven thousand birds were served. Vitellius designed a dish called ‘The Shield of Minerva’. This vast dish included the livers of char-fish, the brains of pheasants and peacocks, with the tongues of flamingos, and the entrails of lampreys, which had been brought in ships from the Carpathian Sea.
In 1453, the Islamic Ottoman Turks captured Constantinople. Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy proposed a crusade to ‘rescue’ the city and restore it to Christianity. To promote this cause, on 17 February 1454, Philip hosted a feast in Lille, now in France. Nobles attended but it was also open to the public.
There are few reports of the food, but many descriptions of the decorations and entertainments. There were vast centrepieces on the tables. One was built to look like a pie and inside two dozen minstrels performed (big table!). Another was a church which contained bells, an organ, and a quartet of singers. At one point in the entertainment a woman in white clothes, personifying the Church of Constantinople, entered the hall riding on an elephant. The duke and the nobles attending the feast took a vow to support the crusade, standing around a live pheasant. The vow was called the ‘vœux du faisan’ (oath of the pheasant), hence the feast was called the Feast of the Pheasant.2
Queen Christina of Sweden (1626 to 1689) was a rebel. She became queen aged 7, when her father died, though she did not rule until she was 18. Christina refused to marry, brought the country to the brink of bankruptcy with her extravagances, and showed an interest in Catholicism (Sweden was resolutely Protestant). In June 1654 Christina abdicated. Later that summer she left Sweden, dressed in men’s clothing, and travelled to southern Europe. She had already packed and shipped abroad valuable books, paintings, statues, and tapestries from her Stockholm castle, leaving its treasures severely depleted. Christina formally converted to Catholicism and travelled to Rome to meet the Pope (with her entourage of 255 people). The conversion of a (former) monarch to Catholicism was a coup for the Pope.
Pope Alexander VII welcomed Christina with several splendid Baroque feasts in her honour. Everything was lavish and vastly expensive, including many Trionfos, elaborate sugar sculptures that decorated the tables. For example, at one feast the Trionfo included a model of Mount Olympus with the altar of faith. At the summit two putti (child angels) held a crown above the royal coat of arms. Around this were four silver vases with orange trees made of gelatine and arcaded galleries with warriors and fabulous beasts made of sugar.
This is a talk about feasts, but it is rather lacking details about food. So, here is a 17th Century recipe for Sauce of Muscat Pears3. ‘Take four pounds of muscat pears not too mature, well cleaned and the seeds removed, and that little bit of toughness they have inside, take one pound and a half of fine sugar, nine ounces of rose water, six ounces of white wine, and put everything to boil with the pear, use always a low heat and when it is half cooked, and begins to get stringy, then begin to mix it, without its being completely cooked. This sauce will last all winter, when it is cooked well; pass it through a strainer and serve cold, sprinkled with cinnamon’.
Weddings are great occasions for feasts. This painting shows a wedding in the 16th or 17th Century Russia. A Boyer was a member of the old aristocracy in Russia, next in rank to a prince. This is towards the end of the wedding, when the roast swan is being brought to the table. The bridegroom is trying to persuade the bride to give him a kiss, with the elderly Lady of Ceremonies also encouraging her.
In Britain royalty seemed to go to extremes. King George III was a shy, devout, thrifty family man. He was not a man to give ostentatious displays. His son, who became Prince Regent when his father became ill, and later King George IV, led an extravagant lifestyle. He loved food & wine and became very overweight. He also spent lavishly, loved parties, and hosted many feasts. George IV was often in debt.
George IV’s coronation banquet on 19th July 1821, after his Coronation, was extravagant even for him. It was held in the magnificent Westminster Hall. Over 2,000 noble guests ate at the banquet, but many more sat in the galleries to watch. The occasion was full of pomp & ceremony, including the traditional role of the King’s Champion, who entered the hall riding on a horse in full armour, heralded by trumpeters. A herald then asked if there were any challengers or doubters of the newly crowned King, and declared that the Champion would defend the King in combat if there were. Obviously, no challenges were forthcoming4.
The King retired at 8pm, after what must have been an exhausting day. The banquet then descended into mayhem. The guests who had been sitting in the galleries, without food, descended into the hall. They started to eat the leftover food, and some tried to steal some of the table decorations, ornate plates and cutlery. Since the guests who had sat at the banquet were trying to leave at the same time, it became a confused, undignified scramble.
I hope these accounts inspire you to host your own, though perhaps more modest, feast. There will be no Motley Talk for the next two weeks, though if you do miss your dose of lighthearted history, visit my Motley Talk page over the holidays, as I will be posting some old articles, written before I joined Substack.
I would like to take this opportunity of wishing you all the best for the Festive Season, and for 2023. See you in January.
As always, any links are provided to give the reader more information. I do not make any money from these links. Where possible permissions have been sought for the use of images and text, unless they are in the Public Domain. If there is an issue with copyright, please contact me. I am an amateur historian covering a wide range of subjects. I do careful research using secondary sources (books, articles, videos and a little bit of Wikipedia). If there are any mistakes I apologise, and please let me know.
The old English term for a lavish meal was a feast. As sugar became available in the 16th Century, a ‘banquet’ originally meant a specific and different kind of meal, of sweet foods of various kinds, often following a feast. It was held in a different room or even building. Nowadays the term feast and banquet seem interchangeable.
The crusade to Constantinople never took place.
Sauce of Muscat Pears, from Bartolomeo Stefani's Le Arte di Ben Cucinare (The Art of Cooking Well) c.1662, adapted by K. Albala
The Honourable The King's (or Queen's) Champion is an honorary and hereditary office in the Royal Household of the British sovereign. The champion's original role at the coronation of a British monarch was to challenge anyone who contested the new monarch's entitlement to the throne, to trial by combat. Although this function was last enacted at the Coronation of George IV in 1821, the office continues to descend through the Dymoke family.