Medieval Masterpiece

Host: Richard III of England
Year: 1483
Occasion: Coronation

You had to be there:

Richard III is mostly associated with the bitter, conniving central character of a Shakespeare play that bears his name. However, for those with an interest in medieval celebrations, there is copious documentation about his coronation banquet.

Like all coronation banquets held between 1189 and 1821, the feast was held in Westminster Hall, a huge room that is part of London’s Palace of Westminster, the city’s largest venue for centuries.

Guest list:

Guests sat at one of several extremely long tables that stretched the length of the hall. No guest list exists, and the estimation of 3,000 attendees is based on the number of wooden cups used at the affair. This figure is backed up by what is known about the portions, known as messes.

Instead of individual portions, messes were distributed collectively, with the number of people sharing varying by rank. Bishops, marquesses, or those of equal rank were served two to a mess; knights three to four to a mess; and squires four to a mess. Records show that chefs prepared 1,000 to 1,200 messes for the crowd.

On the menu:

Three courses were prepared for the meal, though the small number misrepresents its grandeur, as each course contained 16 or 17 separate dishes. Records list the vast amount of ingredients used to prepare the meal: 30 bulls, 100 calves, 140 sheep, 148 peacocks, and 156 deer. Seasonings included 32 pounds of pepper, 150 pounds of almonds, and 150 pounds of Portuguese sugar.

The first course included a full pike in sour-sweet sauce, a sliced multiflavored jelly, a pheasant with its feathers, and eight other types of meat and poultry. Some medieval jellies were sweet, fruit-based dishes, but more often they were gelatinous creations from fish (like fish zafts, the jelly that can be produced from gefilte fish ingredients) or meat (like galleh/p’tcha).

Each course included an item known as a subtlety, an elaborate highly decorative dish. The menu says subtleties were served but does not detail what they were. It was common to use large birds such as peacocks or swans with their feathers artfully displayed, as in at Henry V’s coronation banquet in 1413, when they served a large swan surrounded by smaller ones, each decorated with lines of poetry and mottoes about good governance and chivalry.

Dinner and a show:

A unique feature of English coronation banquets was the arrival of the king’s champion, charged with challenging any guests disputing the king’s appointment. The Dymocks served as royal champions dating back to the coronation of Richard II in 1377; they held their distinction until modern times. True to tradition, Sir Robert Dymock rode into the hall during the second course, clad in full battle armor. Sitting atop a horse bedecked in white silk, he threw down his gauntlet and dared anyone in attendance who disputed Richard’s legitimate ascendance to the throne to present their claim. No objections were raised, and the champion was served wine in a golden goblet, which he was allowed to keep as a sign of appreciation from the king.

Just desserts:

Unfortunately for his guests, they were never served the third course. Historians speculate that the king spent a very long time speaking with guests, possibly delivering a formal speech, and it got too late.

Perhaps the missing dessert was an omen; after the exhilarating party, things went downhill. Richard was killed after only two years as king during the Battle of Bosworth Field, part of the War of the Roses, a series of dynastic struggles between the houses of York and Lancaster.

Richard was the last English monarch to die in battle, and while historic accounts claim he was far less sour or murderous than Shakespeare made him out to be, the image immortalized by him as dying after his horse was killed in action is considered accurate.

Field of Golden Festivities

Hosts: Henry VIII of England and Francis I of France
Year: 1520
Occasion: Celebrating a peace treaty (which lasted barely longer than the party)

You had to be there:

One of history’s splashiest diplomatic meetings took place between English King Henry VIII and his French counterpart Francis I, at a gathering that become known as the Field of the Cloth of Gold. The party ran 18 days and featured an array of ornate tents, temporary structures bedecked in gold, and violent sports.

For more than two hundred years, rulers of England and France fought intermittent wars. In 1518, at the urging of Pope Leo X, the major powers of Europe agreed to a nonaggression pact, largely motivated by a desire to present a united Christian front against the Ottoman empire. In addition to achieving peace, the agreement (signed in London) elevated Henry’s international image and would also become a stage for him to display English wealth and power.

To solidify their newfound alliance, the two monarchs agreed to meet, a gathering arranged by Henry’s High Lord Chancellor and the treaty’s key architect, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey. The meeting site, about ten miles from the landing spot at the French port city of Calais, was deliberately selected to maintain an atmosphere of equality; it was an English-controlled town surrounded by French-ruled areas.

Although most associate Henry with the painting from his later years, where he appears bearded and obese, at the time of the meeting he was still athletic and clean-shaven, apparently forgetting the pledge between the two monarchs not to shave until the meeting took place.

Guest list:

In June of 1520, Henry and Queen Catherine (the first of his six wives) arrived in France with five to six thousand people in tow. Francis is believed to have come with a similar size entourage, making for 10,000 to 12,000 attendees.

The two kings rode toward each other, dismounted, embraced, and walked arm-in-arm to their first conference in one of the many golden tents. Between Henry and his horse, the armor worn at the initial meeting combined contained 2,000 ounces of gold and 1,100 pearls.

Each camp did their best to outdo the other with structures constructed at the site. The French centerpiece was a 120-foot-tall tent entirely covered in gold. Besting that was the temporary 12,000-square-yard palace built for Henry, which boasted a brick base, canvas walls painted to look like the stones, and ornate glass windows, as well as a gilded fountain through which a variety of white and red wines flowed constantly, all available for guests to imbibe.

Dinner and a show:

Days were filled with jousting and other battle-based tournaments. Both kings were able horsemen and participated in contests, but fought on the same team. At one point, Henry challenged Francis to a wrestling match. He came to regret the decision after the French king quickly bested him. Henry’s partial revenge was beating him at an archery contest.

Henry brought with him two live monkeys covered in gold leaf, gifts from the Ottoman Sultan. Francis was very taken with the animals and requested their presence at the many festive meals. But the most fantastic entertainment of the affair was a huge dragon-shaped kite pulled by a carriage which was decorated with the emblems of the two royal houses. The wooden and canvas structure was rigged so that its eyes blazed and its mouth hissed while flying through the air.

On the menu:

English records show that 200,000 liters of wine and 66,000 liters of beer were used for the English party alone. Over the course of the festival, the English used 98,000 eggs and slaughtered over 2,000 sheep. The guests ate two meals each day, one in the late morning and another in the late afternoon. A list of fare from another feast Henry threw included a medieval-style bread known as “cheat,” a heavy meat-based broth, beef, veal, and venison. Desserts were as varied as almond creams, tarts, and pheasant.

Just desserts:

While by all accounts a good time was had by all, celebrating a lasting peace was premature. By the next year, France and England were at war again in a fight that also involved the continent’s other superpower, the Hapsburg-controlled Holy Roman Empire.

Years later, the festival’s high bill came to haunt its organizer, Cardinal Wolsey. After years of power, Wolsey fell from grace after he failed to get Henry’s marriage to Catherine annulled. One of the many criticisms he faced then was the exorbitant amount of royal funds spent at the Field of the Cloth of Gold.

Party’s Over

Host: French Finance Minister Nicolas Fouquet
Year: 1661
Occasion: Housewarming

You had to be there:

Haman was not the first and hardly the last high-ranking minister whose ascent to power ended at a royal party. An opulent affair thrown by French Finance Minister Nicolas Fouquet would set off his dramatic fall from grace.

While yet in his early twenties, Fouquet gained favor with France’s powerful First Minister Cardinal Richelieu, and later with his successor Cardinal Mazarin. By 38, he was appointed head of the court’s finances and charged with overseeing tax collection and expenditures. The job was challenging as the court was rife with corrupt tax collectors and ministers who liberally dipped into royal coffers to finance their luxurious lifestyles.

Fouquet lived large. His grandest personal project was the construction of his palatial chateau, Vaux-le-Vicomte. The house and its furnishings were opulent even by the extravagant standards of 17th century French aristocrats, though it remains unclear whether Fouquet joined his peers in skimming off the top to finance the chateau.

Dinner and a show:

After three years of construction, Vaux-le-Vicomte was completed. Wanting to open it in style, Fouquet planned a party for the ages. He invited over 6,000 guests including King Louis XIV and his mother, Anne of Austria. Carriage traffic en route to the fete slowed to a crawl.

Guests were given tours of the elaborate gardens, replete with fountains, and the magnificent house. Men dressed as gnomes emerged from behind bushes, presenting ladies with diamonds. A mock naval battle took place in the chateau’s grand canal, and the evening included an elaborate display of fireworks and rockets. A production by the playwright Moliere premiered at Fouquet’s party for his guests.

On the menu:

No records of the menu exist, but we know favorites in Louis XIV’s court included pâté-filled pastries, chestnut soup with truffles, salmon served on a block of salt, and breaded, fattened goose liver with rice.

The meal was served on china settings with solid silver cutlery, while the king and his immediate family were served on gold.

Just desserts:

As intended, the king and his other advisors were thoroughly impressed, but that did not work in Fouquet’s favor. For some time before the party, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Fouquet’s court rival, spread accusations that the finance minister was using royal wealth to line his own pockets. Though historians believe the King turned on Fouquet even before the party, the fete at Vaux-le-Vicomte served as Exhibit A for these accusations.

Three weeks after the event, Fouquet was arrested. He was convicted and spent the rest of his life in an alpine prison fortress, where he died in 1680. Colbert would become Louis’ first minister. Vaux-le-Vicomte, which was acquired by the king and later returned to Fouquet’s wife, remains a popular tourist attraction.

Over the Top

Host: George IV of England
Year: 1817
Occasion: Visit of Grand Duke Nicholas of Russia

You had to be there:

George IV of England was not much of a king. Unsurprisingly, what the undisciplined, spendthrift monarch did excel at was throwing a party.

George lived an immoral life racked by public scandals. He was never especially popular among his people, who found him wanting in comparison to his father, George III, who in contrast to his reputation in America as the stubborn antagonist of the Revolution, was viewed in England as an industrious king with who cared for the commoner.

While George IV’s monarchy spanned only ten years, from 1820 to 1830, for nine years prior he reigned as Prince Regent during his father’s illness.

In January 1817, Grand Duke Nicholas of Russia (later Tsar Nicholas I) visited England, and George, as regent, threw one of the period’s most extravagant banquets.

On the menu:

George hired Europe’s most celebrated chef at the time, Marie-Antonine Carême, to cater the affair. Carême created over 100 dishes for the banquet, including pigeon pies and the head of a large fish in champagne.

Carême, who had already cooked for many of Europe’s most powerful houses, would go on to be credited as a leader in French-style high cuisine.

The reception was held in Brighton Pavilion, an elaborate palace near the seaside on whose construction George spent huge sums of money, and two especially memorable Carême creations were a four-foot-tall mosque made of marzipan and a pastry model of the Brighton Pavilion itself.

Carême returned for George’s coronation banquet in 1821, once again winning accolades for large desserts modeled after famous buildings. It was the last coronation banquet held in Westminster Hall. The affair is thought to have been the most expensive coronation ceremony in history, with 2,000 guests.

Just desserts:

George ordered a crown containing 12,000 diamonds, but Parliament refused to pay for the item after the coronation, and it was dismantled.

While some monarchs successfully marketed their love of celebration to their subjects, George had no such charm. He sunk into his love of the temporal, became grossly obese, and spent most of his reign hidden away from his people and the burdens of governance.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1053)