FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES. 59 



the records of expenditure, especially in the case of opulent 

 or at least well-to-do corporations, would generally be expen- 

 diture on the best kinds of food. It must be remembered, 

 that even the gentlefolks of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries 

 had few wants, and very few opportunities for gratifying these 

 wants. The furniture of their houses was scanty and mean, 

 and respectable expense was mainly incurred on churches, 

 though even here the efficiency of labour was so remarkable, 

 that great structures were built at prices which are exceedingly 

 difficult of interpretation. The chief and the most permanent 

 pleasures of the fifteenth-century esquire or yeoman were those 

 of the table, and consisted, even then, more in abundance 

 and variety than in any refinement of cookery. Not rarely 

 the records of monasteries and colleges supply us with infor- 

 mation as to the bill of fare at the abbot's, or prior's, or master's 

 high table, where the principal officers of the monasteries or 

 the fellows of the college dined. The increasing wealth was 

 generally expended in ' gulosa fercula,' and the insatiable greedi- 

 ness of the older monastic orders anticipated such enjoyments 

 as Gascoigne 1 indignantly asserts. Hence the corporations 

 were willing to give a good price for the best. When capon's 

 grease is held to be the best thing for mixing with tar, in 

 order to make sheep-dressing, there is good reason to believe 

 that a great many capons were consumed, and that these sales 

 of the kitchen, which go under the names of flotas, cepum, and 

 pinguedo, represented the waste of an unctuous diet. Henry 

 the Sixth's and Waynflete's beneficiaries were well-to-do, and 

 were in plenty when the royal saint was hard pressed for 

 money; and the bishop of Winchester, who succeeded the 

 magnificent Beaufort, was not so liberal to his royal patron 

 as the kind uncle had been, who aided Henry's expenses 

 prodigally, and having had the ill-luck to be obliged to 



1 See Gascoigne, p. HI. I do not know how far it is a mere tradition, or whether 

 the fact was known, but the oldest printed book on English history, the Chronicle of 

 England (1482, Wynkyn de Worde), states that, while the knight's fees in England were 

 75,000, the men of religion, i.e. the monasteries, had 27,015 of them. 



