Johnston R.A. All Things Medieval: An Encyclopedia of the Medieval World

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Forests

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Henisch, Bridget Ann. Fast and Feast: Food in Medieval Society. University Park:

Pennsylvania State University, 1976.

Hieatt, Constance B., Brenda Hosington, and Sharon Butler. Pleyn Delit: Medieval

Cookery for Modern Cooks. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996.

Redon, Odile, Francoise Sabban, and Silvano Serventi. The Medieval Kitchen: Reci-

pes from France and Italy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.

Scully, Terence. The Art of Cookery in the Middle Ages. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell

Press, 1997.

Tannahill, Reay. Food in History. New York: Three Rivers Press, 1988.

Turner, Jack. Spices: The History of a Temptation. New York: Knopf, 2004.

Warner, Philip. The Medieval Castle: Life in a Fortress in Peace and War. New York:

Taplinger, 1971

Wheaton, Barbara Ketcham. Savoring the Past: The French Kitchen and Table from

1300 to 1789. New York: Touchstone Books, 1983.

Zaouali, Lilia. Medieval Cuisine of the Islamic World. Berkeley: University of Cali-

fornia Press, 2009.

Forests

Europe was heavily forested at the beginning of the Middle Ages. The ma-

jority of its forests were made up of broad-leaved trees that only grow in a

temperate zone. These trees grew north of the Mediterranean lands, where

summers were too hot and dry, and as far north as Denmark and south-

ern Sweden. Some broad-leaved trees grew fairly high into the foothills

of the Alps on the south-facing mountain slopes. France, Germany, Po-

land, England, the Netherlands, and Denmark were all forested with oak,

ash, beech, chestnut, and, to the north, birch. Near running water, there

were willow and poplar; on well-drained land were found maple, sycamore,

and elm.

At higher altitudes and in northern Scandinavia, there were also conifer

forests. The conifer that sheds its needles every year, the larch, grew in the

Alps. Northern Norway and Sweden had spruce forests; silver ﬁ rs and Scots

pines were the other typical trees of cold elevations.

Mediterranean forests had been diminished before the Middle Ages by

widespread goat farming, because goats eat young tree shoots. Trees that

grew well in this hot climate had thick waxy leaves, thick bark, or dense

wood. The evergreen oak, the cork oak, and holly have these traits. They

are more ﬂ ammable than northern trees, more at risk for forest ﬁ res. Cy-

prus, maritime pine, and rhododendron had similar features for the dry cli-

mate. Most forests in this region were made of shrubs such as laurel and

oleander and pines like the maritime and stone pine, whose nuts are edible.

The shrubs had thick, oily leaves and were good for perfume and season-

ing; they included rosemary, thyme, sage, and lavender. The Mediterranean

region also had ancient orchards of olive trees.

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Trees were both an asset and a problem. They were a source of lumber,

but they also covered land that could be used for farming. Broad-leaved

trees grew in better soil, so settlers usually cut them down ﬁ rst in order

to create ﬁ elds. Conifer woods grew on poor soil and were only cut for

timber.

One way peasants managed local deciduous forests for ﬁ rewood was to

cut off a tree’s branches, while leaving the trunk alone, so it would pro-

duce more limbs in the next few years. This practice is called coppicing.

Coppicing produced many small branches that were suitable for poles,

fences, and ﬁ rewood, but not for serious building. A tree stump could be

kept alive, producing shoots, for a century or more. As an alternative in a

deer park, a tree could be coppiced at a height above where a deer could

graze. This produced a much taller stump with shoots and was called pol-

larding.

Hunting in the Forest

The character of the English forest changed with the Norman conquest

of England in 1066. Norman kings considered the forest’s resources of

hunting and wood to be theirs, and they passed strict laws about forest

use. Only the king’s servants could cut wood there, and only the lord and

his friends could hunt there. Peasants were punished severely, including

death and mutilation, if they were caught poaching animals or wood. Even

fallen wood lying on the ground was kept from their use. The law was en-

forced by a warden who employed foresters, rangers, and surveyors. They

reported violations of cutting down trees to create new ﬁ elds (assarting)

and poaching. Gradually, the Norman kings began leasing some of their

many tracts of forest to barons, but the forests remained off limits to the

people who lived in and around them.

The Magna Carta of 1215 had ﬁ ve clauses that addressed these abuses

of royal power in the forests. It forced King John to give back forests he

had appropriated, as well as forests seized by his brother or father. It as-

signed a jury of knights in each county to hear forest cases. In 1217,

John’s son Henry III signed a new Charter of the Forest that permitted

aristocrats other than the king to hunt in the forests. It abolished the death

penalty for poaching. While commoners were still not supposed to hunt

in the forests, the penalties became less severe through the 13th and 14th

centuries.

The stories of Robin Hood and other outlaws ﬂ ourished in these centu-

ries. The royal forests were shrinking, and some villages and towns had been

permitted to grow inside them. Pockets of deep forest existed just off the

road in many places. Some of these original medieval forests are still in ex-

istence: Epping Forest, the New Forest, and the Forest of Dean. Sherwood

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Forest was a small forest in southern Yorkshire, and Robin Hood’s legend-

ary range included the towns and countryside north to Barnsdale. The

northern forests were all less settled than the forests in England’s Home

Counties to the south. Outlaws and highwaymen operated in many of these

thick forests.

Small forests could be enclosed, with labor and expense, so that the

game that lived in them was less likely to wander off. Enclosed forests were

called parks. Many parks were enclosed during the 13th century, since the

human population was rising and the cost of ﬁ rewood was skyrocketing.

Landowners wanted to protect their woods from being cut or hunted. The

park could be enclosed with a ditch, a fence, or a hedge. The easiest combi-

nation was a hedge at the top of a ditch so that any escaping animals had a

very long drop-off to negotiate. Hedges could also be combined with dead

branches and posts to ﬁ ll in gaps and create a solid wall. Most parks in En-

gland were less than 500 acres in extent, but they were scattered all through

the countryside and cramped the expansion of farms.

Parks were not usually connected to a manor or castle or its immediate

surrounding garden. In later times, houses were built in the parks, but, in the

Middle Ages, parks were outlying pieces of land, not developed for farming,

and were enclosed simply to preserve wood and hunting animals. Enclos-

ing a park normally blocked others from using it, but the owner could lease

rights for limited use to neighbors. Manorial park records show payments

for rights to graze pigs on acorns, to graze cattle on the grass of meadows,

and to collect and sell fallen timber as ﬁ rewood. The lords who owned these

manorial parks could use them for recreational hunting, but they also sent

professional hunters who brought back food without fanfare.

Some parks were carefully managed as deer breeding grounds and had

park keepers (called parkers) on staff. The largest parks had small lodges

for the parkers to live in. The Normans imported a breed of Mediterranean

deer, the small fallow deer, and carefully stocked their forests with them.

There are records of kings and lords sending each other small herds of deer

to start new populations. The parker was responsible for making sure the

deer had enough grass, tree leaves, or hay. Hay might be spread on feed-

ing racks to keep it out of winter snows, and sometimes park keepers built

simple sheds to shelter the deer or their food. The deer needed the least in-

terference during their fall mating and spring fawning seasons. Parkers were

to leave them alone and not attempt to collect dung. They also maintained

the boundary hedges and ditches and watched for poachers.

Lumber and Firewood

Timber for construction was felled in midsummer, fall, and winter be-

cause the wood was inferior if it was cut in early spring when the sap was

Deep in the forest, a hunting team has brought a boar to bay. The dogs’ teeth and the

men’s spears will ﬁ nally subdue the most dangerous hunting quarry. Some wild virgin

forests served as hunting lands for royalty, while other forests were tamed into parks.

The parks were controlled forests stocked with animals that the owners wished to see

and hunt. (Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Art Resource, NY)

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running. Unseasoned lumber was used for structural building; they cut and

used it immediately. Many medieval structures show signs of the beams

shrinking with time, leaving gaps between boards that were originally ﬂ ush.

Seasoned timber was more expensive since it had to be stored for a year. It

was better for ﬁ ne carpentry, such as making wooden vaults or furniture.

Oak was the ﬁ rst choice of lumber for general construction and cabinet

making. Elm and beech were second, with beech as the best choice for cut-

ting thin boards. Alder, ash, poplar, and willow were mostly used for scaf-

folding and wattle. Every kind of wood had its own properties and uses,

and many objects made of wood used three or four types. Cart wheels had

oak spokes, elm hubs, beech felloes, and ash strakes.

The largest building projects required enormous timbers from the tall-

est, oldest trees. Ships, castle fortiﬁ cations, bridges, and support beams in

cathedrals forced foresters to search for the tallest, thickest trees. By the

late Middle Ages, such trees were gone from the heartland of Europe. En-

gland began importing tall spruce trees from Norway in the 13th century.

Wood was fuel for any industry that required ﬁ res: baking, iron smelting,

glass making, and many more. Most crafts used a great deal of ﬁ re. Wood

also provided bark for the chemicals needed to tan leather.

The iron industry was especially hard on forests because raw wood was

not rich enough in carbon to raise the temperature of the ﬁ re. Wood had to

be slowly burned into charcoal ﬁ rst. Since the raw material of trees had to

be reduced to charcoal, and then the raw material of the iron ore had to be

reduced to true iron, a forge burned through forests very fast to produce

the lumps of iron that were increasingly necessary for every other industry.

In the English Forest of Dean, the regional capital of the iron industry, the

king had to outlaw any but royal forges.

The forests of Europe vanished rapidly under this pressure; one forge

could burn through over 100 oaks in a year. The price of wood rose, and it

became hard for the poor to afford wood for fuel or building. Some regions

began to put bans on forest cutting, and some began to require tree plant-

ing. The enclosure of wooded areas as managed parks helped somewhat,

but it also raised the price of materials that used to be free. Park managers

could sell fresh lumber, fallen branches, charcoal, bundles of twigs known

as faggots, and even tree bark for its tannin.

See also: Furniture, Robin Hood, Hunting, Iron.

Further Reading

Edlin, Herbert L. Trees and Man. New York: Columbia University Press, 1976.

Gimpel, Jean. The Medieval Machine: The Industrial Revolution of the Middle Ages.

New York: Penguin, 1976.

Pollard, A. J. Imagining Robin Hood. New York: Routledge, 2007.

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Rowe, Anne. Medieval Parks of Hertfordshire. Hatﬁ eld, UK: University of Hert-

fordshire Press, 2009.

Fountains. See Gardens

Fresco. See Painting

Funerals

Funeral customs are almost invariable within a time and place but vary

greatly by social class. Funerals can be great displays of wealth and power. In

medieval Europe, we do not have strong records of funeral customs in all

times and places. We see mostly aristocratic burials that lasted through the

ages and mass burials in times of crisis. We have records of funeral rites but

not often of local funeral customs. Our knowledge of medieval funerals is

patchy; for some times and places we know a lot, and for some, very little.

The Germanic tribes who invaded Europe at the beginning of the Mid-

dle Ages made funeral pyres to symbolize the dead person’s spirit ﬂ ying

upward. The Norse continued to make funeral pyres until they adopted

Christianity after 1000. Although funeral pyres did not leave behind ob-

jects for archeologists to ﬁ nd, some Anglo-Saxon and Norse literature de-

scribes these pyres in detail.

The pagan Franks, Anglo-Saxons, and Danes also buried bodies in graves

or tombs. Kings were buried in rows, with a number of grave goods. The

most opulent burials required a hole large enough to hold a ship. The ship

was ﬁ lled with weapons and supplies for the dead man’s afterlife, and then

a timber roof was constructed over it. When the corpse had been laid to

rest in state on the ship’s deck, they covered the whole with a mound of

dirt. Some graves like this were robbed, but a few have been found un-

disturbed, such as the ship burial at Sutton Hoo, England. Much of what

we know about the material culture of the pre-Christian Germanic people

comes from these rich burials. Weapons, cups, and tools found in graves

are museum objects now.

Judeo-Christian custom was to bury bodies in a tomb or grave cut from

rock or under the ground. Bodies were always washed and then wrapped

in a cloth shroud. Some cultures with access to wood used cofﬁ ns, but the

body was often removed from the cofﬁ n, which served only for transporta-

tion to the gravesite. At times, cofﬁ ns could have been household storage

chests that happened to be an appropriate size, especially in the burial of a

child. Medieval Christians did not bury bodies with grave goods, with a few

exceptions. Priests, especially at the top of the hierarchy, were sometimes

buried with their symbols of ofﬁ ce, such as crosses, chalices, or rings. Medi-

eval French peasants sometimes buried a man with a few of his tools.

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Black became the color of mourning only in the late Middle Ages. In

earlier times, white was a color of mourning; more often, there was no ofﬁ -

cial color and people had only their ordinary garments for a funeral. People

paid for their own funerals, but many died without the means for a proper

ritual. Either the church gave them a minimal burial or a wealthier benefac-

tor paid for a pauper’s funeral. Craft guilds sometimes directed the burial

of a member. The guild members formed a procession to the grave, and

some people speciﬁ ed in their will that they wanted others to participate.

The members of a religious order might be requested, for example. In the

late Middle Ages, particularly after the plague ’s devastation, people joined

burial societies that pledged to make sure the members were decently in-

terred, even in the event of another plague.

Typical Medieval Burials

Funerals in monasteries followed a set of written rules that give us some

idea of what was deemed appropriate in the time, whereas funerals for lay

people are mostly undocumented. A dying monk ﬁ rst confessed his sins to

the community and received absolution (forgiveness) and communion for

the last time while the monks chanted Psalms. Attendants watched over his

death with a cross and candles. Once dead, he was placed on sackcloth and

ashes, and the monks gathered to recite prayers and then went into the cha-

pel to say a Mass for the soul of the dead man. The body was washed and

dressed and its hands clasped, as if in prayer. During the night, monks took

turns in three watches, singing Psalms in between other prayer or Mass

hours. The body lay in the church until morning, after Mass, at which point

they buried the body in a dug grave. Most of the emphasis was not on the

body itself, but on the prayers and services to be said for the departed soul.

The burial itself was very simple.

For burials outside monasteries, the ritual must have varied much more

by region. Most regions left few or no records, and little can be determined

by excavations. Most of what we know comes from a few royal burials, a few

burials recorded in literature near the end of the Middle Ages, and some

late medieval household records and wills that set out the funeral plans of

the deceased.

The most important step began before the person had died. This was the

ritual of extreme unction, the last confession before death. Legally, a man

was dead after this ritual, so it was not performed unless the family was very

sure death was coming. In some places, if a person recovered after these last

rites, he was required to fast and go barefoot. Yet it was considered cata-

strophic to die without extreme unction, so people made great efforts to

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have a priest nearby. If a woman died in childbirth, sometimes it was per-

mitted for her to confess her sin to the midwife or relatives nearby if the

priest could not come in time.

In most cases, the person’s will was made at this time, shortly before

death. The will sometimes stipulated points about the burial, but mostly it

directed distribution of goods like animals, land, and furniture. Wills were

not required in the early Middle Ages and only became routine in the 14th

and 15th centuries.

Gifts to the poor were a large part of a person’s last will and testament.

The poor understood they were to take part in the funeral and pray for the

soul of the departed, and people believed the prayers of the poor and sick

were more effective. These bequests took many forms. A will might leave

funds to provide shoes or clothing to a dozen or more poor people or for

a home for orphans. Sometimes money went to the poor so they would at-

tend the funeral, perhaps carrying torches, so the size of the funeral was

An illustrated miniature represents the stages of a church funeral. First, the body was

wrapped in a shroud (foreground). In the back, to the right, the body has been

placed in a draped cofﬁ n. Monks and paupers (who were paid for their services) pray

over the cofﬁ n before the burial. A choir, left, sings the psalms over the body. Once

these ministrations had helped the deceased man’s spirit on its journey to heaven, the

body would be buried fairly simply, in its shroud, usually without a marker. (E&E

Image Library/StockphotoPro)

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often an indication of the person’s wealth and charitable generosity. Do-

nated clothing was given before the procession so the paupers could wear

it as a uniform for the occasion. After the funeral, the executors of the will

provided food for the attendants.

There was usually a period when the body lay, either at home or at church,

for the public to see. In the case of important men, it may have been for sev-

eral days so their deaths became publicly known and nobody could claim

they were alive. Royal corpses were in public viewing for weeks.

The more important a person, the more elaborate the funeral. The body

could lie in state at home or in church for more days, surrounded by more

candles (purchased by the deceased’s estate). The church was draped in

black by the 15th century, and the cloth was another cost. More bells were

rung; for an important person, the church bells might toll for half an hour,

and for a poor person, only a few times. Along with the ringing of church

bells, sometimes the bede was paid to go about town, ringing a bell and

asking people to pray for the departed soul. The cofﬁ n (purchased by the

deceased, if he was wealthy enough) might be covered with a decorated pall

while it was in the church. More Masses were said, and there would often

be memorial sermons and prayers on anniversaries of the death. Masses and

the services of a priest were not directly paid for and were technically free,

but, customarily, they were the result of donations. All these elements cost

money, and the cost of funerals varied widely. A monk or servant might be

buried for a few pennies and a prince for several hundred pounds. When a

guild helped with an impoverished member’s funeral, they probably chose

a modestly reasonable funeral—enough for the dignity of the guild but not

for showy display.

By the end of the Middle Ages, some records show that large meals were

served after English funerals. The meal may have been served at the church

or at the deceased’s home. A distinction was made between the poor, who

only attended out of charity, and the priests and guests of honor. The poor

were served bread and cheese, or cheaper cuts of meat, while the priests and

wealthy friends and relatives dined on meat pies and other meat dishes. In

late medieval England, those who could afford it had a memorial service

one month after the burial, and this too included a meal, a procession, gifts

to the poor, and candles.

Bodies were not usually buried with clothes, since clothes were expen-

sive and were usually left to relatives in a will. Only the wealthiest were bur-

ied with clothes; bishops were buried with their robes, croziers, and rings.

Sometimes pilgrims were buried in their pilgrim clothes and shoes, as if to

honor their traveling status in life. In Germany, the deceased were often

buried with shoes, so they would have shoes on to run to meet Christ when

they were resurrected. This may have been customary in other parts of Eu-

rope; there is little evidence.

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269

The body was laid to rest in a consecrated cemetery. It was usually by

the church and was distinguished by the rituals of blessing that set it apart

for Christian burial. Crosses marked the corners, there was a tall cross in

the center, and a bishop had blessed it with holy water during its consecra-

tion. Medieval people believed souls could not go to heaven if their bod-

ies were laid to rest in unhallowed ground. Certain groups were excluded

from proper burial in a churchyard: suicides (unless they were known to

have been insane), those who died in tournaments, those who had been

excommunicated and never repented, or those who were known to be in

chronic, public sin, such as money lending for proﬁ t. Since the conviction

of suicide also meant loss of property to the Crown, local priests and juries

tended not to rule deaths as suicides, permitting proper burial. The laws

against suicide became stricter after the Middle Ages. In spite of the rules,

most people had proper churchyard burials.

Gravediggers dug a pit for the body to be interred, and they were paid

for their services by the deceased’s estate. The custom that evolved in Eu-

rope during the Middle Ages was to orient the grave in an east-west line

and to place the deceased’s head to the west so he or she was looking to-

ward the east. This was the direction where people expected the Second

Coming of Jesus to take place, so the dead were placed in watchful waiting.

During the early Middle Ages and through the 12th century, some graves

were lined with charcoal or chalk. Some of these burials also had stones as

pillows for the deceased, and it is possible that the stones and charcoal were

signs of humble repentance.

Because the churchyard had limited space, grave sites had to be used

more than once. Bodies were not often buried with markers. Over time,

the cloth shroud and the ﬂ esh rotted, leaving only bones. After a period of

years, the cemetery would be ﬁ lled, and it would be leveled and new grave

sites would be marked out. When gravediggers found old bones, they put

them into the charnel house connected to the cemetery and church. Some

English medieval cemeteries have been reused eight or nine times, as exca-

vation can show by the apparent jumble of graves.

Christian priests were buried inside churches, under the ﬂ oor or in a

crypt in the cellar. The church was the most consecrated place, and the

bones of a priest were thought to make it holier, like saints’ relics. Princes

and kings were buried in the cathedrals and chapels they had endowed.

Kings of France were buried in the Abbey of Saint Denis, and King Henry

III began a tradition of English royal burials in Westminster Abbey.

Toward the late Middle Ages, wealthy people who had paid for a chapel

or church were often buried inside it. Memorial chapels were endowed so

that prayers for the soul of the deceased would be said in perpetuity, or at

least for some years. Some memorial chapels were side rooms in a larger

church while others were small churches on an estate, perhaps attached to