THE TURKEY HISTORIC 71 



nearly everywhere. In one of the Constitutions 

 of Archbishop Cranmer it was ordered that of 

 fowls as large as swans, cranes, and turkey- 

 cocks, "there should be but one in a dish." 1 



When in 1555 the serjeants-at-law were 

 created, they provided for their inauguration 

 dinner two turkeys and four turkey chicks at a 

 cost each of only four shillings, swans and cranes 

 being ten, and half a crown each for capons. At 

 this rate, turkeys could not have been so very 

 scarce in those parts. 2 "Indeed they had be- 

 come so plentiful in 1573," continues Bennett, 

 "that honest Tusser, in his 'Five Hundred 

 Points of Good Husbandrie,'" enumerates them 

 among the usual Christmas fare at a farmer's 

 table, and speaks of them as " ill neighbors " both 

 to "peason " and to hops. (pp. 212, 213.) 



"A Frenchman named Pierre Gilles has the 

 credit of having first described the turkey in this 

 quarter of the globe, in his additions to a Latin 

 translation of Aelian, published by him in 1535. 

 His description is so true to nature as to have 



^eland's Collectanea, (1541). 

 2 Dugdale. "Origines Juridiciales.' 



