IMC 2016: Sessions

Session 713: Perspectives on Medieval Diet, III: Diet, Status, and Identity in Britain and Ireland

Tuesday 5 July 2016, 14.15-15.45

Sponsor:	Medieval Diet Group
Organiser:	Chris Woolgar, Department of History / Centre for Medieval & Renaissance Culture, University of Southampton
Moderator/Chair:	Christopher Dyer, Centre for English Local History, University of Leicester
Paper 713-a	Of Flesh Meat and Milk-Meats: Exemptions from Fasting and Abstinence Requirements in Late Medieval Britain (Language: English) Allison Fizzard, Department of History, Campion College, University of Regina, Saskatchewan Index terms: Daily Life, Ecclesiastical History, Medicine, Social History
Paper 713-b	Diet, Status, and Ethnicity in Medieval Ireland: The Documentary Evidence (Language: English) Margaret Murphy, Carlow College Index terms: Archaeology - General, Daily Life, Mentalities, Social History
Paper 713-c	Diet, Status, and Ethnicity in Medieval Ireland: The Zooarchaeological Evidence (Language: English) Fiona Beglane, Department of Environmental Science, CERIS, Institute of Technology, Sligo Index terms: Archaeology - General, Daily Life, Mentalities, Social History
Abstract	The practice of group diets, of individuals choosing to eat the same foods as a matter of identity, is one that is prominent in the Middle Ages. The Church expected conformity in patterns of abstinence, but there might be other drivers, such as status, sumptuary questions, ethnicity, or health - or simply availability or preference for particular foodstuffs. The papers in this session look at these distinctions through the lens of exemptions to the dietary pattern formally agreed by the Church authorities and the evidence for the diets of the Gaelic Irish and the English in Ireland.