FISH -EATING MANKIND 267 



way, />., stuffed, well basted with butter, and 

 baked. 



In marked contrast was the coronation feast 

 of Henry V., in 1414, held during Lent, when 

 the only meat was brawn, served with mustard, 

 the other courses consisting of various fresh-water 

 fish, besides royal sturgeon, porpoise, salmon, turbot, 

 halibut, conger, gurnard, codlings, plaice, sea- 

 bream, lobsters, prawns, shrimps, and the plebeian 

 whelk ! But when the Mayor of Norwich feasted 

 the Duke of Norfolk, in 1561, there was no fish 

 of any kind. 



Samuel Pepys, a lover of good eating and 

 drinking, seldom refers to fish, but he describes 

 a grand dinner he once gave when there figured 

 in the menu " three carps in a dish ; a dish of 

 lobsters ; a lamprey pie (a most rare pie ! ) and a 

 dish of anchovies." Evidently, in the Merry 

 Monarch's days, fish was not fashionable. Pos- 

 sibly after the Reformation it became associated 

 with Popery, with the enforced dietary of insipid 

 fresh-water fish on Fridays and other fast days, 

 and the highly salted stock-fish or dried herrings 

 of Lent, and thus popular taste was set against it. 



Kngland, however, abounded with moats and 

 "stews," reminiscences of the Roman Catholic faith 

 and abstinence from meat. Every monastery was 



