SIXTEENTH CENTURY 107 
Fowls and Capons.—Capons as distinguished from 
chickens, well fatted, were in constant demand, being a very 
favourite dish, and Thorold Rogers remarks that they were 
dearer during the fifteenth century than they were in the 
fourteenth, when the average price was threepence. In 
1510 it was ninepence halfpenny, and in the following decade 
a shilling and a halfpenny. ‘ Frequently,’ he observes, 
“these capons are purchased for royal and noble persons, or 
for banquets, when exceptional outlay was expected and 
incurred. A distinction is drawn towards the latter end of 
the period [circa 1582], between coarse capons and capons of 
grease |7.e., well fatted], the latter being the choicest produce 
of the farm-yard. The latter quality is also described as 
Kent capons.”’* 
The Peacock.—Peafowl continued to be in favour for 
civic feasts, and must have been rather generally kept, for 
William Harrison (1577), who has a good deal to say about 
domestic fowls, geese and ducks, makes no distinction in 
this respect between them and the “peacocks of Inde.” 
Andrew Boorde (1562), the author of one of the earliest 
Dietaries, says: “‘ Yonge peechyken of halfe a yere of age 
be praysed. Olde pecockes be harde of dygestyon.” Arch- 
bishop Neville ordered a hundred and four for his great 
feast,f but we are not told if that number actually came up 
to table. The following is a recipe for cooking them :— 
“A peacock flayed, parboiled, larded, and stuck thick 
with cloves; then roasted, with his feet wrapped up to keep 
them from scorching ; then covered again with his own skin 
as soon as he is cold, and so underpropped that, as alive, he 
seems to stand on his legs.’ Thus prepared and placed on 
the table, and served in a large dish, the Peacock might with 
good reason be termed, as John Cotgrave has it, a gallant 
and dainty service—it was, in effect, a ‘‘ peacock enhakyll,” 
that is to say, a dressed Peacock; hakyl or hakel being an 
old English word for clothing. Other cookery books also 
commend the Peacock. 
* “ Asriculture and Prices in England,’ IV., p. 342. Polydore Vergil 
alludes to Kentish hens as being the largest, as does Dr. Muffett in 1595. 
t+ Supra, p. 87. 
+t Supra, p. 85. 
