Portrayals - Household Department:
The Household Kitchen

The Kitchen started its humble beginnings as a building separate from the main hall.  It was often of timber construction, with a thatched roof and wattle and daub walls.  Fears of the kitchen catching fire and burning down the main hall kept the kitchen separated from the main house for many years.

As the architecture and styles of building changed slowly the kitchen became more incorporated into the main building of the house.  It started with a more square or oblong footprint to facilitate the construction of the kitchen and the main building at the same time.  The walls were stone and or brick construction as were the floors.  Thatching was replaced by a tiled roof. Although kitchens were being incorporated into the main building there were those that were semi detached - sharing a wall or hallway to the main hall such as the tower kitchen in Gainsborough Old Hall c1480.  It is connected to the main, timber framed, Hall by a passage between the Butteries. 

It would be this position either between the butteries or behind them that would be standard for kitchen locations in manor houses in the 15th and subsequent centuries.  A further development was to place the kitchen as an extension of the butteries and at a right angle to the main building forming an “L” floor plan.  The main hall was reached through a side door in the buttery as well as a back entrance from the hall.

The kitchen itself was often an elaborate establishment.  It was a room or series of rooms that were big enough to allow upwards of 50 people to work at once at their tables mortars and sinks.  Depending on the size of the household it could have 2 or 3 great fireplaces.  The Duke of Burgundy’s kitchen was large enough to accommodate 6 large stone hooded hearths.    One such kitchen, in the monastery of Glastonbury, had fireplaces large enough to roast whole oxen.  More modest dwelling would have fireplaces large enough to roast several joints of the animals and anything larger would be roasted in the main yard.

Fireplaces of the kitchen 

There were several great tables in the kitchen for the preparation of the food.  Huge cauldrons usually of bronze sat on shelves and under tables.  Assorted pots and pans hung upon the walls.  Other areas held utensils such as strainers, knives, ladles, flesh-hooks and the like.

The kitchen was a hot, sweaty, and extremely busy place to work.  It was said that if you wanted to enjoy your meal that you were never to go into the kitchen. Cooking and butchering happened in the same areas in the smaller houses. .  Scullery workers ran about half clothed most of the time due to the heat of the kitchen in the Duke of Burgundy’s kitchen nearly 50 percent of the workers were involved with the tasks associated with cleaning It was always a race to get the dishes out in time and hot, making sure all the sauces were corrected and balanced for the dish being served.  Fresh air as well as light was a much sought after necessity in the kitchen.

Supervising the kitchen was the Chief Cook or Kitchener.  He was often a person of wealth and status appointed to the financial organization and running of the lord’s Kitchen.  He saw to the day to day activities of importing the necessary foodstuffs to keep the manor well fed and his lord happy keeping in mind the church requirements for fast days as well as balancing the foods so as not to upset the delicate balance of the natures in the body of his lord and his lord’s guests. He was also responsible for the inventory of foodstuffs and equipment as well as the budget for the kitchen.  The Kitchener occasionally joined the procession into the great hall and had the honor of carrying in the first dish to the table.  He had the best seat in the kitchen in the chimney corner.  In earlier time the Kitchener carried a large spoon as a symbol of his authority.  It served a duel purpose of tasting the dishes and chastising those who did not follow orders. While he may not be directly preparing all the dishes, the Kitchener’s supervision, knowledge and ultimately his good name and reputation that are judged as the meals are served to his lord and his guests.

Under the Kitchener were various Sub-kitcheners in charge of their respective areas of expertise.  A quick look at the diagram shows that the medieval kitchen was subdivided much like today’s modern kitchen in a famous restaurant.  There were people in charge of the confectionary, who were responsible for sweets and desserts.  Other kitchen departments were responsible for the butchering of the animals, for the roasting of meats, the preparation of fish, boiling of various dishes, and pottages and soups and even pastries.  These sub-kitcheners were the hands on inspectors of the day to day meals.  Under them were the various preparation people and the various cooks from other departments of the kitchen. Below these workers were the scullery workers in charge of washing dishes, the fire tenders, and the water bearers.  There were also those that acted as messengers and runners to pick up items needed by the kitchen or the food stuffs that were ordered prepared outside of the lord’s house.  Men ran from the kitchen with the hot meals to the serving hatches in the main hall to deposit the food to be served to the lord and his guests.

Serving Hatchs

The overall idea of the importance of the kitchen is obvious, to feed the lord and the people of his household in the household as well as in the field when necessary.     It is through the elaborate meals that the lord of the household can impress others of equal or greater status and hopefully increase his standing, status, and social connections. It is the skill of the Kitchener that can seal the deal for is lord.  The Kitchener also had to be aware of the various contracts held by those in the household.  Some of those contracts specified food and drinks amounts. The kitchen is also faced with the task of making sure that the household follows the strict flesh and fast days set down by the church   

Also the kitchen was in a way responsible for the good health of the household.  The current philosophy of health was concerned with the humours of the body.  The humours or temperamental agents were blood, choler, phlegm, and melancholy.  The blood or sanguine temperament combines warmth and moistness and is the essence of air.  The choleric or bilious temperament results from a mixture of warmth and dryness and is realized by fire.  Phlegmatic persons are both cold and moist as is water and melancholic temperament mixes coldness and dryness as in the qualities of earth. Sickness was caused by a surplus or lack of one or a combination of these humours.  Not only were these characteristics present in a person they were also present in everything the person ate or drank.  They were present in the air the person breathed and the clothes he or she wore.  They were present in the wind and in the activities preformed by the person.  The Kitchener and his cooks must keep in mind the essences of each food they prepare and seek to balance the nature of the dish to come as close as to the natural state of the human body  as is possible so as to not cause an imbalance and subsequent sickness. 

The Kitchen played an important role in not only providing the household with food, but also maintaining its health, and hopefully raising the status of the lord himself.

The Art of Cookery in the Middle Ages, Terence Scully, The Boydell Press 1995.

The Great Household in Late Medieval England, C.M. Woolgar, Yale University Press, 1999.

Fast and Feast: Food in Medieval Society, Brigit Ann Henisch, The Pennsyvania  State University Press, 1976.

The Medieval Health Handbook, Trans. Oscar Ratti and Adele Westbrook, George Braziller, 1976.

The Medieval Kitchen: Recipes from France and Italy,  Odile Redon, Francoise Sabban, and Silvano Serventi, University of Chicago Press, 1998.

The English Medieval House, Margaret Wood, Bracken Books, 1983.

The Medieval English Feast, William Edward Mead, Barnes and Noble Inc., 1967

 

The pictures are from the website of The Hampton Court: http://www.peartree12.freeserve.co.uk/hamptonkit.htm