Massimo Montanari
Traditionally the Middle Ages are considered a homogeneous historical period, endowed with an intrinsic unity. However, for the purposes of this book, the period has been divided into two distinct parts to reflect the marked differences in modes of production and models of consumption between the two epochs. The tenth and eleventh centuries were a turning point. Balances that had been established with such difficulty during the early Middle Ages were overturned; instead we encounter new historical phases that laid the foundations for many aspects of the modern world.
The most significant factor in this shift was that most people started to depend on an agrarian economy for their sustenance. The silvipastoral system, which had been possible in the early Middle Ages owing to low populations, gradually declined and became, with the exception of a few predominantly highland areas, ever more insignificant. This was the result not only of an increase in population throughout Europe, and thus a greater demand for food, but also of changes in economic and social structures. Decisive factors in this transformation included the shift from a subsistence economy to one based on the market and an increase in commercial activities, initially in the country and later in the towns. More land was cultivated, and this trend was the consequence of two distinct but linked developments: the growth of demand as populations grew and the pressure put on peasants by landowners—feudal lords and, in Italy, the urban middle classes—to exploit their property to the full in order to accumulate surplus produce for the market.
In the early Middle Ages the silvipastoral system had played an essential role in integrating the meager harvests, providing food for immediate consumption. The development of an agrarian economy, which enabled such products as grain to be accumulated and stockpiled, paved the way for the revival of trade routes in the centuries that followed. This had already begun toward the end of the early Middle Ages in the context of courtly landholdings. It was, however, from the tenth century onward that landowners became a significant social force, sustained by the administrative and judicial powers that they had wrested from centralized authorities. The typically feudal distribution of power that took place in rural areas from the tenth century to the twelfth century was mirrored, especially in the towns of central and northern Italy, by a shift in political and economic control favoring the urban middle classes.
These factors radically transformed the European landscape from the eleventh century on. Forests were cut down to make room for fields—in the plains, the hills and, finally, in the mountains. At first, small holdings nibbled away at the edge of woodland. This was followed by systematic plowing to create collective farms over large areas and by large-scale farming ventures encouraged by people in power, such as those established in Germany to the east of the Elbe. In all cases, these developments helped to define the epoch, introducing the understanding that—as a twelfth-century chronicler noted—“we cannot survive without farming the land.”
The concept of “dearth” underwent a significant change. In the early Middle Ages it had referred to many things—from a shortage in agricultural products to a lack of natural resources. Later the meaning shifted to indicate a bad harvest or a limited availability of cereals. The monetary connotation of “dearth” also developed as market deficiencies forced prices up. Cereals became a staple of the peasant diet as natural resources became harder to find: wooded areas declined and hunting and grazing reserves were the domains of the powerful. Now that peasants could no longer gather or hunt, the meat in their diet was replaced by cereals, pulses, and vegetables, widening the gap in diet between the rich and the poor.
From the mid-1300s to the mid-1400s, the population fell dramatically once again, following the Black Death (1348–50) and the famines that preceded and accompanied it. As a result, forms of silvipastoral economy returned, although common land continued to be enclosed by the rich. There is evidence that meat production increased considerably and that the peasant’s diet improved as a result. The urban middle classes, however, were the ones to benefit most since the market satisfied their dietary needs. Following this period, however, the situation returned to normal. Peasants went back to eating vegetables, and the divide between rich and poor continued to widen.
By the end of the Middle Ages, two main social groups enjoyed a privileged diet. The first was the aristocracy, which continued to see itself—both in practice and symbolically—as a class of meat eaters, treating the vegetables and pulses of the poor with disdain. The second was composed of town dwellers of all classes who were guaranteed the presence of foodstuffs on the market as a result of the local authorities’ food policies. Unlike the three traditional orders (the aristocracy, the church, and peasants), the fourth “urban” order continued to develop, becoming a protected and privileged social group. This contrast between rural and urban models of food consumption has been, in both concrete and symbolic terms, the biggest novelty in the European diet since the Middle Ages. It first appeared in countries with a developed urban culture, such as Italy, becoming more generalized as time went by.
A subsistence economy versus a market economy was not the only distinction. Another contrast was the domestic preparation of food (typical of rural areas) compared to the specialization of trades that characterized urban society in food as in other sectors. The opposition between city and country was symbolized gastronomically by wheat bread, on the one hand, and the dark bread, polentas, and cereal-based soups, on the other. This distinction was already present in the early Middle Ages, when it served to indicate the identities of the aristocrat and the serf. In the same way, fresh meat from the city markets was in contrast to the salted meats found in the countryside. It is no accident that salted meats played no part in the town dweller’s diet, which was based on spicy, sweet, and sharp flavors rather than salt, as can be seen from the recipe books of the later Middle Ages. The unexpected popularity of lamb in the urban diet of this period (despite the fact that it was not recommended in the food literature of the time) seems to indicate a desire for novelty and an explicit opposition to the rural fondness for pork. This and other dietary fashions reveal, above all, the will to reject the rural world in favor of new models of consumption. This is confirmed by the fact that, in those regions where lamb played an integral part in the traditional rural diet, it failed to make any headway in the towns.
The pride that town dwellers felt in their new identity (especially among the lower orders) was such that any risk of being forced to return to rural conditions was seen as a sign of social regression, immediately provoking waves of protest. When there was no wheat and the town markets offered only inferior cereals, the people rose in fury and the authorities were forced to find some way to placate them—by importing grain from afar, requisitioning local markets, and so on. These revolts were caused less by hunger than by humiliated pride.
The development of table manners, which occurred at the height of the Middle Ages in both cities and courts, played a part in the cultural establishment of privilege, defining its style as much as its content. Courtly and urban manners were defined, first and foremost, by exclusion—a rejection of anything rustic—and nowhere was this more evident than at table. Tableware, and the way the table was laid, also served to distinguish one class from another, as did the art of cooking itself.
In the final centuries of the Middle Ages, this became increasingly refined. Its social significance was due not only to the greater care taken in food preparation or the “quality” of the food but also to the powerful link that was forged between gastronomy and dietetics. In the Middle Ages, as in the classical world, these two bodies of knowledge advanced hand in hand, with the preparation of food being regarded primarily as a way to meet the need for nutritional balance. Medieval culture, however, interpreted this need in an explicitly social sense, defining it not as an attribute of the person—as Greek dietetics had done—but as an attribute of class. The aristocracy had their own dietetics, gastronomy, and etiquette, as did peasants. Food and table manners became the most effective way to confirm and consolidate the established order.
