Christmas is coming in just a few day’s time. Along with the new year celebrations that follow it, it is in Britain the most important festival and holiday of the year. Families get together, give and receive presents, eat and drink and have a good time. Many businesses close down for almost 2 weeks and very little work gets done even in those places that are actually open. Unless of course they are pubs and restaurants!

In celebrating this time of year we recreate festivals that predate even the coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England. For here it is deep winter. It is a time of long nights and short days. It is cold and dark and not a time to be out. This is a time to feast and create our own light and warmth and to look forward with hope to the return of the sun.

That at least is how our ancestors saw things. Christmas coincides with Yuletide – the ancient celebration that occupied midwinter. Here in England it was celebrated for a number of days running on from the 25th of December. At that time, under the old Julian calendar, December 25 was also the winter solstice. (Today it is 20th or 21st December of course).

How do we know that the early Saxons celebrated Yuletide at this time? Well the 8th century scholar, Bede, tells us this in an essay he wrote on the Saxon calendar:

They began the year with December 25, the day we now celebrate as Christmas; and the very night to which we attach special sanctity they designated by the heathen mothers’ night — a name bestowed, I suspect, on account of the ceremonies they performed while watching this night through. 

The very name for the months that straddled Yuletide -December and January – were considered “Giuli” or Yule by the Anglo-Saxons.  The Anglo-Saxons celebrated the beginning of the year on December 25th,which they called Modranect”— that is, Mothers’ Night. This celebration was linked to the rebirth of ‘Mother’ Earth and the whole idea of ceremonies conducted at the time was to ensure fertility in the coming spring season.

As the Saxon gods of fertility were Freyja, who governed love and fertility and her twin brother Freyr then they may well have been linked to the celebrations.

Forget the Turkey – bring out the boar

It is probable that the feasts involved boars. Freyja and Freya were associated with the boar. This was the primary animal represented in Yuletide customs and indeed in Anglo-Saxon culture in general. It is mentioned in epic warrior poetry like Beowulf. A boar’s head may well have been sacrificed to appease the gods and the boar continued to ornament brooches, bowls and jewelry as well as more military objects for centuries.

The missionaries arrive

In the year 597 the pope at the time sent Augustine to England to try and convert it to Christianity. The process would take centuries but quite early on it appears that a decision was made to amalgamate the pagan festival of Yuletide with Christianity. Christmas as a festivity celebrating the birth of Jesus originated in Egypt sometime in the second century: here it took over a previous festivity, most likely the birth of Osiris. In Europe, Christianty encountered the Roman cult of Mithras.  The 25th of December is now universally accepted as Mithras’ bithday. Mithras was an Iranic deity associated with Sun worship whose cult became so widespread in the Roman Empire as to become a serious threat for Christianity.

In 567 AD, in order to encourage the people to abandon pagan holidays, The Council of Tours declared the 12 days of Christmas to be a festival. Historically, the 12 days of Christmas followed-did not precede-December 25th. These dozen days ended the day before Epiphany (the coming of the Magi), which was celebrated on January 6th.

Christian influence, however, remained superficial until the time of the Norman Conquest. Rites included yule logs, use of evergreens, mistletoe, eating, drinking. Games such as leap frog and blind man’s buff were played at the time and actually originated in ancient fertility customs – an echo of mother’s night.

Gradually old Germanic Yule celebrations combined with nativity feasts, and the English Christmas began to take shape. Alfred The Great insisted that no business was done during the Twelve Days. By 1066 the Christianisation of England was complete and the Twelve Days were the main annual holiday.

So when we sit down to our Christmas lunch we recreate tradition that stretched back through fifteen and more centuries.

Merry Christmas and Happy Yuletide!

Harvest time was a very important and serious point in the year associated with rituals and thanksgiving after it was completed.

There was no Asda or Wallmart to go to. Our ancestors lived much closer to and were far more dependant on the land than we are today.

How did they preserve food and store it through the long winter? Read on:

Grains crops

These included wheat, barley and corn.

Grain crops would be harvested and then taken to barns. Here there were thrashed with wooden or metal flails to bring off the grain. This winnowing was done on the floor of the barn in the early winter.

Milling:

Different technologies were used to grind grain into flour:

1. Pestles and mortar

2.Saddle querns: These consisted of an upper convex stones and lower concave or hollow stone. The two halves would fit together and by rocking the upper stones the grain was crushed.

3. Rotary querns with handle. These were two flat stones. Both round in shape which would rotate one upon the other.

4. Mills were introduced in 8th to 9th centuries. The mill stones were powered by water wheels or by animal power.

Butchery

Animals were typically killed in the winter as meat was easier to store in the cold months than the heat of summer. Because of the greater risk of infection pork was never eaten in the summer.

A smaller household might employ a professional to slaughter their animals. Animals would be killed using the spike on the rear face of an axe – this is the origin of the expression ‘poleaxeing’.  This butcher would usually be paid in meat from the animal.

Meat was usually hung for up to 3 weeks  for beef or 1 week for lamb.

Most of an animal would be used for food including the tongue, offal and brain. Even bone marrow was used in salves and ointments, soups etc.

Preservation and Processing of Food

There were various methods used to preserve food:

Drying

This was done in the sun, in open air, by a fire, in an oven or in a kiln. It was used for beans, cereals, herbs, mushrooms (threaded on string), seaweed, peas and even some meat and fish.

Smoking

Birchwood, oak, juniper wood or even seaweed was used to smoke hams, and some fish such as herring.

Pickling

Some fruit or vegetables were preserved this way in vinegar, alcohol or honey

Boiling

This method was used for fruit which was boiled down to mush and stored in sealed jars

Salting

Dry salting:

Mix of salt, pepper and honey was used for hams turned and rubbed in mixtures twice weekly for a month. Then they were hung up to dry

Wet:

Again hams could be soaked in brine

After salting the pork or ham might be smoked.

How to make Salt?

Lead Pots were used to dry out salt. Salt deposits were located in brine pits near sea inlets

Storage

How was food stored through the winter?

Cereals: Threshed in barn / granary pit. Flour and meal put in chest

Fruit: Boiled and the put in a crock jar sealed with greased lid – maybe using butter or wax.

Meat and Cheeses: hung up in “Bacon House”

Eggs stored in Ash or straw

Root vegetables in cellars/ dark storehouses

The Key Holder

The food would be locked away in a store room. The room was locked and the key kept by a key holder. This was a very important role. It was usually a woman. Sometimes women were buried with their keys and have been found by archaeologist which is how we know about this.

Problems of food storage.

Other than lack of refrigeration, pests were a real problem. These might include mice and  rats. The Anglo Saxons kept cats and even weasels  to keep the mice and rodent population low.

Flour and cereals could get infected by flour mites causing bowel disorders like diarrhoea.

Read The Amber Treasure

For the Anglo Saxons the main meal of day was lunch time, whereas the evening meal more often broth (Briw)

A specialist Cook would be usually be a man: in Old English the word for Cook is a male word.

General methods of cooking

Fuel:

The cutting and gathering of wood was a summer occupation. Any crops would be growing and need little attention, but it was not yet harvest time. The villagers would take carts out into the nearby forests. Peasants would often have a “right to gather” fallen branches in woods.   Apart from their own needs fire wood bundles were often part of their Feorm or due they had to deliver to their Lord.

Where it was naturally available coal might be used as fuel and charcoal was certainly produced, but fire wood was by far the most commonly consumed fuel.

Fire Making and ovens:

Most men and women would have their own set of fire steels, flints and tinder boxes. There are occasionally found in pagan graves. Dependant on what was easily available; the hearth was lined with clay tiles or stones and was heart of each house. Commonly this would be a fire pit in the centre of the room. Smoke would escape through a hole in the roof or just be filtrating out through the thatch.

Sometimes heated stones were dropped in pots of water to boil it as a prelude to boiling food.

Larger brick ovens would often have been located in separate buildings and burnt wood faggots.  Sometimes they would consist of a chamber for fire with flues to carry hot air to another chamber where the food was cooked.

Earth Oven: This was created from a pit dug in the earth. Heated stones would be laid in them. Then meat covered with clay and leaves was laid in the pit and the food covered over with hot stones

Cooking Utensils

Pots and Cauldrons could be made from metals such as Iron, Bronze, Copper or Tin. Clay pots were used but soapstone was popular as it was tough and easier to clean than other crockery.

Methods of Cooking

Boiling and stewing was main method used by the Anglo Saxons. Often salted meat was later boiled.

e.g. Goose put in floured bag with milk or butter and lowered into cauldron. Beans, barley and vegetables might be in other bags in the same cauldron.

Roasting and Grilling was used for fresh meat and fish

Griddles and frying pans were in use e.g for cooking flat breads or omelettes.

Bread

For unleavened bread, flat bread and round cakes this was prepared by mixing meal (ground barley, wheat etc) with salt. This would then be cooked on a griddle or upon the hot heath stones near the fire.

Adding yeast produced leavened bread. Yeast could obtained from the dregs that remained after brewing ale – or even some forms of mould.

Bread was cooked in a pan, upon hearth stones or in the oven. Ovens could be single chambers or two chambers. In the single chamber you put in wooden faggots and burnt them. When the faggots where ash you would take out the ash and put in the dough. This bread would be blackened and discoloured so you would have to cut or break off the crust.

Alternatively, you could cover the bread with an upturned pot and then pile the hot embers ash on top.

Another method was the two chamber oven. Wood would be burnt in one chamber and the bread cooked in the adjacent chamber, which was heated by hot air from the other.

Find out more about this period in The Amber Treasure

http://www.richarddenning.co.uk/theambertreasure.html

Milk, butter and cheese represented a significant part of the Anglo Saxon diet. They were also used as payments and dues: making up part of the Feorm handed over to a lord or King. Milk was frequently an ingredient in medicines as the basis for drinks, whilst butter was occasionally used to make oily poultices and cheese consumed to treat asthma.

Cows, Goats and Sheep

In Anglo-Saxon times, milk was frequently used not only from cows, but also sheep and goats. Milk from these animals is mentioned in many sources. One example listed the rights of a cowherd to the milk from a cow for seven days after she had calved; a shepherd to the milk of his herd for a week after the equinox; finally a goatherd could have the milk from his goats for a periodafter Martinmass and to a share of the whey beforehand

What is clear from this is that not only did milk get used from all these animals, but also just how tightly the Saxon’s lives were regulated by reference to rules laid down by Kings and others and to the dates and calendars of the year.

The animals were typically looked after in the fields by men who often milked their beasts.

A sour taste in the mouth

Even in the modern era we struggle to keep milk from going sour, especially in the warm summer months. Over a thousand years ago they had no refrigeration and the problem of sour milk was very pertinent. Indeed, such trouble did it cause, that St Columba once rebuked a follower for not casting out the devil at the bottom of the milking pail!

Various remedies were suggested, including putting bundles of herbs in the pail and hanging the pail up or standing it on a stool for a week. Perhaps the herbs had some antiseptic effect or maybe the pail just dried out

Butter

Making butter and cheese was usually done by the womenfolk. Indeed some charters and codes of law specify the payments these women had to make to sell their products at the markets around Christmas: e.g. a penny. This suggested it was common place for these women to be selling the cheeses at market.

The Saxons did not usually drink cream. Instead this became the basis of butter. The rest of the milk would be separated from the cream and the cream churned to make butter. Butter was usually salted for, as with all dairy products its life was short, so this helped to preserve it. This was accomplished but mixing the salt through the butter then pressing it down between layers of salt in a barrel to keep air away.

Cheese

The Saxons were quite advanced at the production of cheeses.

Walk milk would be curdled to make junket which was then cut up. The lumps of curds would make the cheese. The liquid whey was sometimes used for more butter.

The Saxons relied on different methods to curdle milk. Firstly, as they used wooden utensils which were not sterilised, the build up of bacteria upon them would assist this process. They also had access to a natural curdling agent still used today: rennet. This is produced in the stomachs of mammals e.g. cows. It is also present in certain plants such as thistles and safflower. Vinegar could also be used to help curdle milk.

Fresh cheeses were usually eaten by the poor, whereas mature cheeses, which needed more careful preservation, fetched a higher price making them mostly consumed by the wealthier members of society.

Although blue cheeses are mentioned in French records there is little evidence for them being made in quantity by the Anglo-Saxons.

As with many references I make to Food and Drink I am reliant primarily on the excellent books by Ann Hagen  and published by Anglo Saxon Books.

This article is one of a series of articles looking at life in Anglo Saxon times: An Anglo Saxon Survival Guide, if you like.  In writing The Amber Treasure I have tried to remain faithful to the historical facts.

More on Food and Drink next week.

I am the author of  The Amber Treasure: Treachery in Dark Age Northumbria.