A
few words on the natures and habits of the European peoples
from Andrew Boorde who travelled about Europe in the early
sixteenth century.
Printed
in An Introduction to Knowledge, Frederick J. Furnivall,
ed.
(London,
1870)
p.
147, regarding the people of Flanders:
Flanders is a plentiful country of fish and flesh and wild fowl.
There shall a man be cleanly served at his table, and well ordered
and used for meat and drink and lodging. The country is plain,
and somewhat sandy. The people be gentle, but the men be great
drinkers; and many of the women be virtuous and well disposed
.... In Flanders ... the people will eat the hinder loins of
frogs, and will eat toadstools.
p.
149, regarding the people of Holland:
In Holland is a good town called Amsterdam; and yet right many
of the men of the country will quaff till they be drunk, and
will piss under the table where they sit. They be gentle people,
but they do not like Scottish men. The women in the church be
devout, and often are confessed in the church openly, laying
their heads in the priest's lap, for priests there do sit when
they hear confessions, and so they do in many provinces annexed
to [Holland]. The women be modest, and in the towns and the
churches they cover themselves and part of their face and head
with their mantles ...
pp.
156-157, regarding the people of 'Low-Germany', or the Netherlands:
The people be gentle and kind-hearted. The worst fault that
they have: many will be drunken; and when they fall to quaffing,
they will have in divers places a tub or a great vessel standing
under the board [table], to piss in, or else they will defile
the house, for they will piss as they do sit, and the other
while the one will piss in another's shoes. They do love salt
butter that is resty, and barrelled butter.
p.
160, regarding the people of Germany:
The people of High Almain [Germany], they be rude and rusticall,
and very boisterous in their speech, and humbly in their apparel
.... they do feed grossly, and they will eat maggots as fast
as we will eat comfits. They have a way to breed them in cheese.
Maidens there in certain places shall drink no other drink than
water, unto the time she be married; if she do, she is taken
for a common woman .... the country is plentifull of apples
and walnuts; the mountains is very barren of all manner of victuals
...
p.
163. of the people of Denmark:
The Danes have been good warriors; but for their poverty I do
marvel how they did once get England; they be subtle-witted,
and they do prowl much about to get prey. They have fish and
wildfowl sufficient. Their lodgings and their apparel is very
simple and bare:
In
my apparel I was never nice,
I am content to wear rough fryce. [frieze]
(Boorde occasionally wrote little bits of doggerel to illustrate
his case.)
pp.
168-169, of the people of Poland:
The people of the country of Poland be rude [Boorde means simple],
and homely in their manners and fashions, and many of them have
learned craftiness in their buying and selling; and in the country
there is much poverty and evil fare in certain places. The people
do eat much honey in those parts, they be peacable men; they
love no war, but love to rest in a hole skin.
p.
197, of the people of Lombardy:
In Lombardy there be many vengable cur dogs, the which will
bite a man by the legs if he [be not] ware. They will eat frogs,
guts and all. Adders, snails, and mushrooms, be good meat there.
In divers places of Italy and Lombardy they will put rosemary
into their vessels of wine.
pp.
198-199, of the people of Spain:
Spain is a very poor country .... I know nothing within the
country of riches, but corn. Biscay and Castile is under Spain.
These countries be [full] of wine and corn, but scarce of victuals;
a man shall not get meat in many places for no money; other
while you shall get kid, and bacon, and salt sardines, which
is a little fish as big as a pilchard .... And all your wine
shall be kept and carried in goat skins, and the hair shall
be inward, and you shall draw your wine out of one of the legs
of the skin. When you go to dinner and supper, you must fetch
your bread in one place, and your wine in another place, and
your meat in another place; and hogs in many places shall be
under your feet at the table, and lice in your bed.
p.
200, of the people of Castile:
Castile is a kingdom lying betwixt Spain and Biscay; it is a
very barren country, full of poverty. There be many fair and
proper castles, plenty of apples and cider, and there be water
mills to forge iron, and there be mountains and hills, and evil
fare, [and] lodging; the best fare be in priests' houses, for
they do keep tippling houses .... if any man, or woman, or child,
do die, at their burying, and many other times after that they
be buried, they will make an exclamation saying, "why didst
thou die? haddest not thou good friends? mightest not thou have
had gold and silver, and riches and good clothing? for why diddest
thou die?" crying and clattering many such foolish words;
and commonly every day they will bring to church a cloth, or
a pillow carpet ["pilo carpit"], and cast over the
grave, and set over it, bread, wine, and candlelight; and then
they will pray, and make such a foolish exclamation, as I said
afore, that all the church shall ring; this they will do although
their friends died seven year before, and this foolish use is
used in Biscay, Castile, Spain, Aragon and Navarre.
