Here is an actor who will play the main protagonist Henry. Can someone recognize him?

9/10? Never. Traditional payment for church was 1/10, and lords used rather unpaid workers than direct payment. The forced work was not too much, so they could keep their own farms and fields and do enough work for themselves. They did not like it of course, but overall taxes including the forced work were far lower than we have today.

How much they ate - we do not know exactly, but there are some sources from 16th century; not very exact, but it gives the idea. So the workers on farm (not the farmer’s family itself, but hired workers) shoud get three times a day the cooking (which means meals from boiled peas, pearl barley etc. - very common type of meal in Bohemia), a piece of meat (3 times a day!) and a piece of bread. The same was common for mill workers later, it was probably generally accepted practice.

We also know something about priest’s meal, which is interesting, but of course different from peasants. In 12th century priests from Vysehrad (in Prague) had their own fields for growing wheat. Apart from that each of them recieved weekly 12 chicken, 6 pigs (small ones … don’t know correct translation, maybe “piglets”?) and 1 young cow. If the cow was not available in winter, they recieved two 3 years old pigs instead.

Every week? That seems like a ton of animals.

Seems to me too. But I have it from the book of Czech historian and experimental archeologist Magdalena Beranova. It is based on some medieval records, so it is probably true.

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Are you asking about the median or average meat consumption between 5th and 15th century at the area of entire Europe?[quote=“TheKnightinBlack, post:169, topic:29675”]
I would imagine very little considering 9/10 of everything goes up to knight, Lord, Duke, King and Church and that poaching would end in death cause I doubt they’d be able to pay the fine for it, but at the same time they had pigs, eels, cows, chickens, bird, rats/mice if they’re particularity hungry. They might have ate lots of meat, they might not have. I can’t give you a real answer but alas just speculation from my learning.
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Well given that the game takes place in the Kingdom of Bohemia were up until the 30 year war vast majority of people were free small farm owners, your 9/10 taxation is not fitting.

The average (per week I guess), but of the peasants only.

9/10 taxation is not fitting.

Blame the books I read, not me. I DID say that’s what I learned, but I wasn’t sure if it was right or not.

And I’m defending myself for my mistake. I don’t mean to start any flamewars over this. Seen waaaaayyyy too many of those to be involved in one.

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Little to none, they couldnt hunt, so only what they were able to find near villages, maybe old horses from time to time

Fresh? Do you even know how feudal system works ?

You know they had farm animals, right? I don’t know how much meat they ate, but they did breed animals.

I’m also pretty sure the people making the food woudln’t wait to eat some of it until it was old. Why would they? Did the nobles order them to hold off until it grew mold?XD

No but they didnt harvest food daily, they harvested it few times a year, so imagine out of 100% of food you took, that you get 5% ? They could have eaten it in a day and starve untill next harvest
As for farm animals, that was hardly a thing. The villagers-serfs had plenty of feudal obligations to their liege, out of which mantaining animals was one of them, but would you eat your liege lords cow, because I wouldnt… Maybe they had a chicken of their own ?

Yeah, they didn’t harvest daily, but they had a very good knowledge of preserving food. And sometimes you don’t need anything special - for example grain, if you can keep it dry, will after a year be as good as it was after harvest - you always can have freshly baked bread from it. Then you have many foods that does not have to be fresh, because they are meant to be old. A cheese for example. Sausages and smoked meat. Salted fish. Sauerkraut. Honey and plum jam. Everything very typical for Bohemia, and not a bad food, although it is not fresh.

As for fresh meat - there was a common practice (and still kept in some places of Czech rep.) to do winter slaughters of pigs. Every family in the village raises a pig. When winter starts, One family slaughters it. Whole the village comes to help (slaughtering, making typical pig meals etc. - there is a lot of work around it), and everyone recieves some meat, sausages, soup etc. in exchange for help. Whole the village thus have a fresh meat and meat products for one or two weeks, until everything is eaten. Then another family does the slaughter and again everyone comes to help in exchange for a meat. In this way you have enought of fresh meat during whole winter.

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On one supermarket in our town there is a static billboard where they boast they have a fresh cheese or sausages every day. It always seems funny to me. Would a Scot boast that he is selling just recently freshly made whiskey? Or French winemaker that he sells always fresh wine? Many types of cheese need to be old, they are better when not fresh. And the same for smoked products.

That is luxurious goods, if a medieval serf did have meat it would be some dried salted meat as for cheese maybe that ugly white cheese, i think they have ir in Prague as well

What are you basing this on? And which period/area are you talking about?

Feudal middle age, in rural parts of Europe. Since cities were a lot more advanced in 15th century tjan 14th and so on, while rural areas remained the same untill 17th or 18th century

What about this one?^

I was starting to like his old face so much more.

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I was starting to like his old face so much more.

This comment just made me burst out laughing. Here we are talking about food in the medieval period and suddenly this just appears at the end of it all, bringing back to the original topic.

Practical showcase of thread hijacking. Never seen one? :wink: :smiley: