A Christmas Feast at Westminster Hall

In the year that William Langland made the first mention of ‘rymes of Robyn hode’ in English literature, (1377) the ten year old Richard II ascended the English throne. The grandest and most famous of young Richard’s commissions was the rebuilding of Westminster Hall. The 11th century original, built for William Rufus-son of William the Conqueror, had been the largest hall in Europe. With a floor size of about 1850 square yards the Hall was the traditional venue for coronation banquets. It had also been the scene of the trial of William Wallace and the historic assembly of Henry III’s barons and bishops in 1265 when England’s first parliament was called.

The mason/architect of the re-building, Henry Yevele, reused much of the original masonry and was responsible for the gable walls, with their vast windows which provided the only source of external light. But it was the royal carpenter, Hugh Herland’s fine timbered roof, unsupported by pillars, that became an architectural masterpiece. The early wooden one, like the roofs of other vast halls, had been supported by twin arcades of columns. Herland boldly dispensed with the supportive arcades and covered the vast span of the hall with the present magnificent, braced hammerbeam roof. This largest medieval unsupported timber roof can still be seen today.

An account survives of the first banquet at Westminster Hall held after the re-building work was finished:

“This hall being finished in the year 1399, the same King [Henry IV] kept a most royal Christmas there, with daily jousting, and runnings at tilt, whereunto resorted such a number of people that there was every day spent twenty-eight or twenty-six oxen, and three hundred sheep, besides fowl without number: he caused a gown for himself to be made of gold, garnished with pearl and precious stones, to the value of 3000 marks: he was guarded by Cheshire men, and had about him commonly thirteen bishops, besides barons, knights, squires and other more than needed: insomuch, that to the household came every day to meat 10,000 people, as appeareth by the messes told out from the Kitchen to 300 servitors.”

Stow’s Survey of London (ed. Kingsford), II, 116.

Malmsey Wine

'Come sing low, come sing high;
Come change thy name to mine
And you shall eat my Capon pie
And drink my Malmsey wine.’

I have used this film and its contents as a springboard to finding out many things associated with the Robin Hood legend. So I have often wondered what was the “Malmsey Wine” that Friar Tuck merrily sings about?

The Greek author Didorus Siculus, living during the 4th century BC., described it (Malvasia delle Lipari ) as ‘the nectar of the gods!’ And it is the high yielding ‘Malvasia’ grape, cultivated in those days of Ancient Greece that makes the popular fabulously rich, sweet, wine, that is seeped in history. It was produced by twisting the bunches of the late– ripening grapes, by their stalks and leaving them to shrivel on the well drained soil, before pressing.

Monemvasia or Malvasia, as it was called by the Franks, was a small rocky island fortress and important Greek commercial port. From here the popularity of the wine rapidly spread all around the Mediterranean and was soon produced in almost every vine growing district; Candia, Chios, Lesbos, Tendos, Tyre, Italy, Spain and the Canary Islands, an important destination on the European trade route. The name ‘Malvasia’ was corrupted in Medieval Latin into Malmasia, by the traders, whence the anglicised ‘Malmsey’ originated. The names Malvasia, Malvazia and Malmsey became interchangeably linked.

Vines had been grown in England since the Roman times, but gradually the climate was cooling and by the 14th Century the practice had died out. So expensive wine (costing twelve times more than ale) was imported from France, Germany and the Mediterranean. The best in the world were considered to be produced by the vineyards in the Canary Islands, where the white, robust, fortified ‘Malmsey’ wine was said to travel well. In 1519 trade relations were established between Bristol and the Canaries and soon after, ‘Malmsey wine,’ was found in the cellars of rich households and royal courts across Britain and Europe.

In England, Malmsey or ‘Canary’ wine, as it was often called, became particularly popular, where it was said to ‘cheer the senses and perfume the blood.’ A ‘barrel of Malmsey wine’ was part of William Shakespeare's annual salary and the great poet and playwright makes numerous references to ‘Canary’ through his various characters.

In ‘Twelfth Knight’ Sir Tobias asks Sir Andrew Aguecheek , “ Oh! Knight, thou lackest a cup of Canary.”

The Bard has Mistress Quickly say to Doll Tearsheet at the Boars Head Tavern in Henry IV Part II Act 2:

“I’faith, sweetheart, methinks now you are in an excellent temperality: your pulsidge beats as extraordinarily as heart would desire; and your colour, I warrant you, is as red as any rose, in good truth, la! But , i’faith, you have drunk too much cannaries and that’s a marvellous searching wine, and it perfumes the blood ere one can say ‘What’s this?’ How do you know?’

It was also William Shakespeare who dramatised the legend of the bizarre execution, in a barrel of Malmsey wine, of George Plantagenet, the Duke of Clarence, at the Tower of London in his ‘Tragedy of Richard III’ Act I Scene IV.

First Murderer: Take him over the costard with the hilts of thy sword, and then we will chop him in the Malmsey butt.

Second Murderer: O excellent devise! Make a sop of him.

First Murderer: Hark! He stirs: shall I strike?

Second Murderer: No, first lets reason with him.

Clarence: Where art thou, keeper? Give me a cup of wine.

Second Murderer: You shall have wine enough, my lord, anon.

The word ‘butt’ is derived from two sources, the Anglo-Saxon ‘bytt’ a wine skin made form ox’s hide and the Danish ‘butt’, a wooden tub or container. Both of these would have held approximately 115 imperial gallons.

The expense books of the great households, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, detail the outlay for huge varieties of different wines. In the sixteenth century fifty-six sorts of ‘small wines’ were recorded, besides thirty kinds of Italian, Grecian, Spanish and Canary. Lady Anne of Cleves did not live extravagantly, yet in 1556 her accounts show that her household had:

'Gascon wine at 18s. the tun, to the value of £6. In the cellar, three hogsheads of Gascon wine at £3 the tun; of malmsey, ten gallons at twenty pence the gallon; and of muscadel eleven gallons at 2s. 2d. the gallon.'

At the feast for the enthronement of William Warham as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1504, the records show that wine, ale and beer were provided in incredibly vast quantities:

‘Six pipes of red wine, four of claret, one of choice wine, one of white wine for the kitchen, one butt of Malmsey, one pipe of wine of Osey, two tierces of Rhenish wine, four tuns of London ale, six of Kentish ale, and twenty of English beer.’

I’m sure a merry time was had by all!

© Clement of the Glen 2006-2007