Cattle, sheep and pigs provided the common red meats in medieval times with game and poultry making up the remainder of meat eaten.

One interesting point is that cows, sheep and pigs were smaller than they are today, so they actually offered less meat for consumption.

MEDIEVAL MEAT

The most popular meat eaten in medieval times came from domesticated animals – animals that people could keep easily as opposed to having to hunt. Cattle and sheep could not feed themselves in winter, so to avoid the cost of providing fodder, it was the accepted rule that they were slaughtered at that time of year and joints salted or smoked to preserve them. Pigs on the other hand could forage for themselves and were capable of fending off attacks from predators, so they became the favoured animal kept by poorer people.

Red meat – this was the most commonly eaten meat with beef at the top of the list followed by mutton and pork. Fresh meat was usually roasted and older meat boiled. Pickled pork or bacon was generally the poor people’s only meat through the winter. The word mutton was derived from the French ‘mouton’ after the Norman Conquest in 1066. Goats were kept as much for milk as for their meat.

Game – with the Norman conquest came the practice that all game animals belonged to the nobles of the day. Poaching was regarded as an offence – serious enough to sometimes warrant execution if the poacher was caught. Nobles would often hunt wild boar, deer and sometimes wild bull. Roasted cuts of venison and wild boar were deemed fare fit for any nobleman. The only game that poorer were able to hunt for themselves included hares and rabbits.

Poultry – hens, pheasants, partridges, ducks and geese were the most common small birds and game birds eaten in medieval times. Wealthy landowners would enjoy hunting wildfowl using falcons and they often had their own dovecote and poultry yard to breed their own birds. For special celebrations they would serve much more ‘exotic’ birds such as the bustard, swan and peacock and at a lavish feast the range was sometimes even more unusual – including crane, curlew, heron, plover, blackbird and lapwing.

The traditional nursery rhyme ‘Sing A Song Of Sixpence’ takes its origins from just such lavish medieval banquets. It refers, it is believed, to a pie that was baked beforehand, allowed to cool, then had live blackbirds placed inside and was resealed so that on opening the birds all flew out – much to the amazement of the banquet guests!

Poorer people generally kept hens; they were easy to look after and feed. They kept them mainly for their eggs. Eggs were deemed precious, so they generally refrained from eating their own chickens, preferring to catch wild birds instead for their meat.