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 |
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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) Index terms: Daily Life, Ecclesiastical History, Medicine, Social History |
Paper 713-b | Diet, Status, and Ethnicity in Medieval Ireland: The Documentary Evidence (Language: English) Index terms: Archaeology - General, Daily Life, Mentalities, Social History |
Paper 713-c | Diet, Status, and Ethnicity in Medieval Ireland: The Zooarchaeological Evidence (Language: English) 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. |